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By Karen Rose Molenda, M.A., LMFT 
Restructuring the Present
Now that you have dedicated yourself to reflecting on the past and have resurrected some of those early memories and feelings, it is so important, even in this time of grave indecision and emotional turmoil, to look closely and carefully at your partner’s strengths. It is so easy yet so damaging to focus on a limited piece of your partner’s character that seems to be causing difficulty in your marriage. It is human nature to want to ignore any facts that may contaminate or dilute one’s desired outcome. It is so natural to want to come to a decision and therefore to select only those facts that will contribute to a quick and emphatic conclusion. There is always the temptation to eliminate as quickly as possible the stress inherent in decision making as well as to bypass the grief that often follows by making rapid determinations in order to put it behind and get on with life. I beg that you don’t make this mistake. Take as much time as you need to make this important and irreversible decision.
Discipline yourself to carefully identify and reflect on your partner’s strengths--those things that gained your respect, your gratitude, and at times, your envy throughout the years of your marriage. You will receive in turn a feeling of balance, a lessening of stress, and will have removed some more of those layers that cover the love in your heart. On Valentines Day, 1997, J. T. Demartini wrote in our local newspaper, “I have yet to meet a couple whose relationship doesn’t have its own balance, and its own perfection. The more we count the blessings of our mate and our relationship, the more gratitude we have and the more our heart opens to the healing power of unconditional love” (p. E-3).
After many years of marriage, the issue of trust within your relationship may need to be addressed by revisiting some of the more painful experiences in your marriage. I am sure that trust has been compromised in some way by things you have done as well as things done to you by your partner. Feelings of loss, guilt, rejection, abandonment, betrayal, and bitterness accompany trust issues, and work on these issues and the feelings they evoke may need to be done in individual or in couple’s therapy. Your feelings, whether they be of betrayer or betrayed, need to be touched and the pain worked through. Time has to pass to allow both partners to reclaim their faith or their credibility, to repent or forgive. The crucial ingredient, however, to the successful return of trust to a relationship can only be gifted by the wronged partner--only they can make the decision to forgive and to move on--to determine whether the transgression was fatal enough to outweigh all of the positive elements of a long-term marriage, and then to make the sacrificial decision that never again will it serve as a detriment to the relationship.
Your marriage may be suffering from a lack of belief by you and/or your partner in the permanence of your relationship. That is perhaps the most important dialogue the two of you will ever have and a most necessary conversation before entering into an individuating marriage. There will be no discussion requiring more total openness and honesty, nor more attentive listening, than this one. Self disclosure by both you and your partner must be encouraged no matter the cost to the egos involved. Frank and honest discussions need to take place by the midlife couple committing to a new beginning. I discovered in one of my personal journals the following brief passage supporting this: “I was dying from a lack of words ... not from a lack of love.”
Now that your children are growing into greater independence or leaving the home entirely, you have the opportunity to explore those triangular relationships that may have served to interfere with the level of intimacy you desired from your partner. In attempting to get your needs met within a family, it is natural that you would seek out those you feel would empathize and identify with your beliefs and behaviors. Unfortunately, these relationships often form triangles with a third person, often a child or a member of the extended family, and at times with work, sports, computers, or television, and serve as a distraction from your adult partner. You need to explore the place of your children within your relationship and if you find it necessary, restore them to their place as children by relinquishing your role of playmate and reclaiming your role as spouse. This time of life offers a wonderful opportunity to once more focus on your partner and to address difficulties in intimacy that may have been mounting as the years passed by. It offers you the time to reevaluate your current comfort levels and differences as they relate to intimacy and to examine your own communication issues. Are perhaps avoidance, poor listening skills, and interrupting keeping your partner away from you and engaged in other people or hobbies?
Having the children out of the house offers a wonderful opportunity to restore and rejuvenate fun and leisure time with your spouse. Share the memories of those things that brought pleasure to you as a couple, evaluate their current potential in your relationship, build a list of new interests, and purposefully strategize times and events that you will do together. Include memories, lots of communication, and the rediscovery of your sexual selves as you reacquaint yourself with the playful child within. This can offer one of the most rewarding avenues for building intimacy and reestablishing close attachments. About the Author...
Karen Rose Molenda is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in San Diego, California. She specializes in couple's relationship issues including pre-marital, marital, and divorce counseling. Her emphasis is on marital satisfaction, communication, sexual difficulties, infidelity, trust issues, and depression resulting from relationship issues. Karen graduated with a Masters of Art Degree (with an emphasis on Depth Psychology) from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpenteria, California. Last Update: 8/20/2009
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