How close does a relationship need (m)?
Just now we were both totally in love. But suddenly my new friend is so distanced and speaks of a casual relationship. Do I just need patience now?
If you want a strong bond, you better forget the man, that will not work. One should take the other already seriously in his statements. Even if it hurts, because such a rejection is always a blow to the ego. But maybe it's because the nice new friend is just not capable of relationship.
What does that mean - not related? This man has just conquered me with all the rules of art and pinches now?
Could be good that he does not see through it so exactly. Some people have great difficulties with closeness - perhaps because they have not been well treated in a past relationship. Often, the trigger for the fears lingers much further back: Anyone who has had bad experiences with their parents as a child will probably carry this around with them for a lifetime. "Having a relationship phobia or running after her is a guarantee of unhappiness," says psychotherapist Stefanie Stahl.
So, if you had a difficult childhood, are you forever single?
No, the genes and the stage of life we are in are also determining how close we get to other people. This is completely normal. It can be complicated when we could not be sure as a little child of mother's or father's love. Anyone who has experienced such a thing for years as a child is afraid of having to bend too much in a love relationship in order to get affection. The self-confidence is cracked.
Can attachment fears be identified immediately? Maybe I have some myself?
Typical of people with attachment fears is that they are the ones who want to determine proximity and distance in a relationship. You want to decide when and how often you see each other. When things get too tight for them, such people simply flee: they sit in the office until late in the evening, plunge into hobbies with eagerness or keep having affairs. Or complain about every apartment in question, even if they say they want to contract with the partner.
How much distance is normal in a relationship?
As much as you and your partner need. Everything is fine if you are basically related to each other, if you take responsibility for each other. "Reliability" is what bond expert Stahl calls the most important keyword. You have to be able to negotiate things together and then be sure that the other sticks to it. If the radio contact often simply breaks off - then you should be alert.
Holding on to a relationship, even though the wishes are very different, sounds like love. But if you still can not get away from it?
"Partners often find the size of their loss anxiety an indication of the size of their love," says Stefanie Stahl. It's like a drug: that you can never be sure of the other, is also exciting. Most of us have already experienced such relationship dramas. It is important to understand the mechanisms in which such love must be trapped. Then you can step aside and become a lot more independent from the partner. Very important: do not immerse yourself constantly in long, grueling conversations in the depths of the fear of relationship. It is his problem.
Can one learn to get involved in closeness?
Yes. But you have to first be aware of the problem and make it clear that the man is not the tyrannical father of that time, the girlfriend is not the negative mother from childhood. Most importantly, you no longer have the role of the helpless child, who must be afraid of too high expectations.
When I'm with a man, I tend to lose myself. I bring my favorite blouse to the secondhand shop because he does not like them, go on a walking holiday, although I find that really boring, and hardly see my girlfriends anymore.
Since we can learn a lot from the men: They do not start right away with yoga, just because the new girlfriend can sit for hours in the lotus position. And the beer with the pals they certainly do not cancel the weekly plan, just because you are here now. Your lover has come to know and desire you as an independent person. And it should stay that way.
In my last relationship, my partner almost crushed me with his need for closeness, although we understood each other well: does one get out of such dynamics at all?
We all know this: If one wishes to be closer in the relationship than the other, he easily falls into the role of the inferior, who desperately fights for more affection and thus more felt love.The other suddenly has a position of power, he experiences the loved one as weak and helpless, and at some point he no longer knows whether he still loves him at all. Often, there is only one thing to do: first go at a distance, even if it is difficult. If two people can not basically reconcile their need for closeness and distance, that is a real pleasure killer and ultimately also the end of the relationship. "You should regularly ask yourself in a relationship whether the own proximity account is balanced," says Stefan Brandt, a couple therapist from Hamburg (www.diepaartherapeuten.de).
Can feelings be recorded in a sober balance of debits and debts?
It is important to be clear about your own desires and longings and to ask yourself if the other person has paid enough or even too much for a close account: Am I satisfied with how it is? Do we spend enough time together? Does enough new sex happen? If you have a lousy account, you should talk without being reproachful, listening to others, negotiating. For couples who communicate well with each other, many proximity-distance issues eventually settle on their own.
And if love is dulled by too much habit?
Of course, the constant spatial proximity can become a trap: when you do everything together, but have no real exchange with each other. If one iron the laundry and the other in the next room writes the shopping list, then this is not a spent couple time together! And when the daily household tasks in the long-awaited vacation then suddenly disappear, can open up a great void. Only couples who have exercise in allowing each other time off can enjoy a vacation together.
Sex is better, too, if you're not sitting so close together?
"Depends on what sex you want," says Paartherapeut Stefan Brandt. Of course, the one-night stand with a stranger can be an exciting experience. But in the end, sex in a good partnership is likely to be more intense in the end, and thus more satisfying - as long as it does not degenerate into the regularly scheduled gymnastics routine. The chances of coveting each other on and on are the greatest, when in a partnership the scraps are flying and conflicts are openly dispelled. Let's just say you're a stranger in some ways!
Does closeness not arise, above all, when one tries to understand one another very precisely?
Sometimes it's more about being with ourselves and not exploring the other. David Schnarch, one of the leading couples therapists in the US, sees the key to happy relationships being that we relate and focus much more on ourselves - including sex. We have to find a so-called "self-assured intimacy", that is, to open ourselves without expecting the partner to go along with it at the same time. Murmur a few treats in his ear, connect his eyes, run his hands. Instead of thinking about whether he thinks it's good, just think of yourself during sex. Schnarch calls people who can do that well, "differentiated" or "securely bound" personalities. Simplified, one could also say: Harmony addiction makes no good sex - and no happy partnership.
Sometimes I have the feeling that kissing is closer than sex?
Many people actually find the exchange of kisses particularly intimate: in the mouth we have a lot of nerve receptors, we smell and taste the other very directly. Sex can sometimes serve only the instinctual gratification, intense kissing always has something to do with desire. That's what people mean. When kissing the tongue you can not think of another.
There are also other forms of intimacy: Is it okay that I'm in the bathroom - and please pee - prefer to be alone?
For some people, this kind of physical closeness is totally commonplace and normal, others just find it unsexy. It tends to be more attractive to keep a few small secrets. There are men who do not know the real hair color of their girlfriend at all - and find that perfectly fine. So, in doubt, once too much: bathroom door too.
Does the relationship stay more exciting if you do not contract?
Most studies in Germany deal with partnerships that live together in a household, but recently there are also some studies on so-called LAT relationships. LAT is called Living Apart Together, coined the term of the Dutch journalist Michel Berkiel. And he comes to the conclusion: Couples who consciously do not live together, not only have more frequent, but also better sex. They argue less, logically: There are, of course, not so many everyday tricks in such partnerships. But these relationships are also more unstable. It is easier to split up when everyone still has their own home, their own social environment.
And what about long-distance relationships?
Statistically speaking, they are just as stable as other relationships, as the Berlin personality psychologist Fanny Jimenez has just stated during her doctoral thesis. About nine percent of all couples currently have a long-distance relationship in Germany. The distance, however, often brings with it a roller-coaster of emotions: the exciting moments of reunion, the intense being together and the longing alternate with feelings of loneliness and the doubt as to how everything should continue.
At the moment I have a lot of stress in the job. Can I expect my partner to keep listening and catching me or will I annoy him with my problems?
You can cry out as much as you want, that's something a relationship has to endure. But there are limits: If the partner signals that it is getting too much for him, that he feels overwhelmed with his problems, then there should also be a break. You must be able to accept that he may rate your concerns and needs differently than you. If it goes to the basics, the conversation with a coach or a therapist is always more appropriate than that with the loved one.
My friend chooses CDU, I'm more left. How important is it that we have similar worldviews?
That you have similar views in some respects is important, but does not necessarily mean that you choose the same party. It's more about other questions: how do we keep faith? How important are material things? What do we expect from life? "The same and like to join", the old adage still applies to the psychologist Stefanie Stahl. In her opinion, it is above all important that personality types fit together. When an extroverted, creative, gut-hearted person encounters one who is quieter, likes to do tasks with precision and meticulousness, and only trusts his mind, then at first glance, this may be attractive to both. But it also takes a lot of communication and tolerance to build bridges between the two partners that can have a relationship.
I could even imagine to start my own business with him ... Does so much togetherness have a relationship?
When building a business together, "you face similar problems as when you start a family," says Stefan Brandt. And that's what many couples end up with. However, one should not lose sight of the private relationship level, he advises: this includes asking oneself again and again what else is outside the company for common interests - and to cultivate this privacy unconditionally. This also means agreeing clearly when it is allowed to talk about company matters at home. And when is the end.
So you always have to draw boundaries to make proximity possible? Is not that paradoxical?
In a partnership, you should plan the other one's thoughts and pay attention to them - but remain your own individual. We can learn a great deal from the partners in long-distance relationships: addressing problems the same way, creating beautiful everyday rituals, surprising others, letting go of them, and then looking forward to them all the more. Be aware: distance can be tolerated as an adult. Because the crazy thing is: It makes real proximity possible.
Book tips:
Stefanie Stahl: "To recognize and cope with bondage fears", Ellert & Richter, 272 pp., 14.95 euros Heike Barnitzke: "To see you again and again, this is how long-distance relationships succeed", Humboldt, 160 pp., 8.90 euros
