“Chris” (not his real name) was stunned when his wife asked for a divorce. They had seldom fought, and he thought everything was fine. At first he was full of anger and blame, but looking back on their years together, Chris began to notice a pattern.

He noticed that his wife had certain habits that he chronically overreacted to in their relationship. However, he knew that if he got upset and brought these things up to his wife, they would argue and it would escalate. So, he just retreated into himself, rather than trying to calmly talk things out. He had always thought it was noble to “keep the peace.”

In retrospect, however, Chris could see that each time he retreated into himself with his hurt, he was just one millimeter more distant from his spouse (and one degree colder). Over the years, those millimeters and degrees added up, until the couple became so distant and chilly that the flame died. This was one of those divorces where family and friends were shocked, saying, “How could this be? After all, they never fought…”

The problem is not arguing. It’s “Distancing.”

The goal of this article is to point out a behavior pattern we think of as harmless, but it leads to the death of relationships. This is crucial because we do it every day, several times a day. Distancing is the single largest killer of marriage and families. But it happens so slowly that one can’t spot it unless trained to watch for it.

At the root of distancing is “Emotional Fusion,” or unresolved emotional attachment between a spouse and his own parent when the spouse was a child. One thing that separates mammals from most other animals is the nurturing behavior of the mammalian mother, and the emotional attachment the infant feels towards its mother. Sometimes a mother may be over-nurturing, which leads the infant to become over-dependent on his mother’s care. At first this “magnetic field” of emotional attraction feels good to both parties. But it may become so strong that, as the child grows up, he feels smothered by it, as if he cannot be an independent self but remain close to his parents at the same time. He develops an “allergy” to that which he craves most—emotional attachment to his parents. The irony is that the teenager who rebels most against his parents is in fact the most fused to them—so emotionally “stuck” to them that he cannot bear to be around them.

For example, is one of your siblings or friends cut off from his parents? I’m willing to bet that when he was a child, his mother saw him as special or different in some way, such that an intense bond developed between mother and child (the bond can be positive or negative). Ironically, the mother may say, “I don’t understand why Johnny never calls or visits anymore. We were so close when he was a boy, and he was such an affectionate child…”

Unfortunately, a young adult may distance from his parents, only to duplicate that same emotional over-attachment with his own future spouse and children. Freud described this tendency as “transference.” The intensity of this fusion makes intimacy volatile. Spouses are highly sensitized to each other. One is quick to overreact or get defensive, and what started out as a conversation escalates into an unpleasant argument. When they can no longer “hear” what the other is saying, they instinctively choose to fight or flee. Human beings are still animals. If marital conflict is the “fight” aspect of our fight-or-flight instinct, then distancing is the “flight” aspect.

Divorce is an extreme example of distancing. But aside from legal divorce, there are many subtle ways that we commit “emotional divorce” from spouses every day. We avoid emotional topics that make one or both parties uncomfortable. We avoid making important decisions because we know that discussing them is likely to end in an argument. We avoid sharing our thoughts, feelings or dreams with our spouse, because it may make us vulnerable to attack or ridicule. We retreat into TV, working overtime, alcohol or an extra-marital affair. Distancing is a silent killer because each avoidance of one’s spouse is a move away from her, one millimeter at a time. It’s hard to notice how far a couple has grown apart until some crisis knocks aside their chronic denial.

So, what are we to do? Awareness is the first step. One has to notice one’s tendency to distance before one can reduce it. Also, the better the quality of contact with one’s own parents, the less likely one is to distance from others in relationships. Quality of contact does not mean “duty visits” where one discusses the weather. It means sharing what’s really going on in one’s life, and teasing out what’s really going on in the parents’ lives as well. This is not easy work. But the rewards will have a ripple effect through one’s marriage, children, and friendships.

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