From Disconnection to Connection

I, very reasonably, thought we should go on date nights. She heard an invitation for me to complain about all the ways she had let me down, which, weirdly, didn’t sound like an awesome time to her. That led her to procrastinate. The procrastination proved to me that my biggest fears were valid - I just wasn’t that important to her.
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In the dark days of our marriage, we missed each other a lot. I would argue and plead for what I thought I/we needed, and my wife would hear criticisms and guilt and argue back. We would talk about the specific thing in front of us and completely miss the meaning (and the big emotions that went with the meaning) that each of us attached.
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There are a million things to fight about when you are married. Throw in some young kids, don’t sleep enough, work a bunch, and you have a recipe for a proper tangle. Every unhappy marriage gets there in its own way, but one of the first steps for us on the path to better was to ‘Simplify. Simplify.’

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We knew we loved each other and wanted to be together, but the disagreements on the details were a swamp. We spent a lot of exhausting time in that swamp.
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Something clicked for us when a therapist told us our relationship was either in a state of connection or disconnection. We suddenly had a simple concept for a shared goal. We both wanted to be connected.

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Our alignment on that frame opened up so much.

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I didn’t want to be disconnected; she didn’t want to be disconnected. Disconnection was now a problem we could agree on.
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Fixing it put us on the same team, on the same page with the goal. Figuring it out required exploring together—a place of humility instead of righteousness and blame.

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We got interested in the things that caused disconnection from each other. We talked about what disconnection felt like and what it brought up for us (spoiler: lots of childhood shit).
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Eventually, our clear shared goal made it safer to ask, “You feel a little distant. Do you want to talk about it?” Or point out moments that felt disconnected, allowing the other person to slow down and address it before it got difficult.
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We’ve been in this pursuit of connectedness for a few years now. Like anything you intentionally practice, we’re getting better at it. This doesn’t mean perfect, but the difference between mostly disconnected and mostly connected is the difference between mostly lonely and mostly joyful. It’s profound. It impacts every part of our lives and our family.
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Plus, pursuing connectedness is fun. Once the framework is clear, it’s playing a game you like with someone you love. And it sure beats being stuck in the swamp.

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