Family Ties That Bind. Dr. Ronald W. Richardson

      1. Come Closer — Not Too Close

      Each of us needs closeness (togetherness) on one hand and distance (separateness) on the other. We need affiliation, support, security, love, and approval; and independence, autonomy, freedom, and self-direction.

      These apparently opposite needs stay with us throughout life, changing in their intensity depending on the environment and our stage of life.

      As infants, we are totally dependent and desire nothing but constant attention from parents. Around the age of two, we begin risking some separateness from our parents, but we don’t want them out of sight. We get anxious if they are gone for any period of time or if we think we have no access to them. As we grow older and become more secure in our belief that our parents will be available when we really need them, we can tolerate increasingly longer periods of separation.

      Eventually at adolescence, we demand separateness. We believe we are more or less capable of an independent life, but even then we continue to be dependent in many ways. This dilemma is part of the pain and confusion of adolescence. In young adulthood, we set off on our own, physically leaving the family. After a period of time, we meet someone and begin a new struggle with our needs for closeness and distance with that person.

      Use the following exercise to determine how you have become closer or more distant in your relationships.

       YOUR EMOTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

      Draw a diagram, using circles for females and squares for males, of your family of origin when you were ten years old. Include each family member and yourself. Place them either close or distant to each other depending on what you think the emotional relationships were at the time. Here is an example:

      Try doing a similar diagram for when you were ages 3, 6, 14, and 18. Do you notice any change in positions over the years? What do you think was the impact of these changes?

      Draw a diagram of your present relationship with your family of origin.

      Now draw a diagram of your current family of spouse or partner and children, if any. If you are single, draw what you think your family would look like. Do you see any similarities in these family diagrams?

      We are usually attracted to people who have the same needs for closeness or distance that we do. Of all the people who are available as potential partners, we inevitably manage to find one with a nearly identical comfort zone on the thermostat of closeness/distance. This doesn’t mean, however, that we act the same or express the same needs. That would make things too easy. It usually looks as though one person wants more closeness and the other more distance. A says to B, “Talk to me more,” and B says to A, “Leave me alone.” But what is really going on is that each person is helping to keep the balance by playing the role of either a pursuer or a distancer. If one of them changes roles, the other usually changes, too, to keep the family mobile in balance. For example, if the pursuer starts distancing, at some point the distancer will get anxious and start pursuing.

      Couples often go to a marriage counselor with exactly this problem. Most often it is the woman who complains about the coolness of her husband, while he complains about her clinging. But if she begins to be less needy and more independent, he often starts becoming more dependent on her. He might not admit his need of her, but will start saying that she is too selfish or is neglecting the kids, for example.

      People in all kinds of relationships tend to be either pursuers or distancers most of the time, but everyone is capable of playing both roles. Traditionally, women have been the pursuers in emotional closeness and men have been the pursuers in sexual closeness. The pursuers have trouble being themselves without a close intimate relationship. They are people who need people and they are basically motivated by fear of abandonment.

      Distancers have trouble being themselves when they are close; they tend to feel suffocated. They are the people who want to “do it my way,” and they are basically motivated by fear of engulfment.

      In better functioning relationships, the partners are able to be both ways in a number of situations; they can identify and express their needs for both closeness and distance.

       QUESTIONS

      1. Who were the pursuers in your family of origin? Who were the distancers?

      2. In what situations was your mother the pursuer? The distancer? In what situations was your father the pursuer? The distancer? What about your brothers and sisters?

      3. To what extent was it okay for you to be either emotionally distant or close in your family? Was it acceptable for you to alternate in your needs or was there an expectation to be only one way? If so, what did you do?

      4. Who would become most anxious if you wanted closeness or distance? How did you act if someone wanted either of these from you?

      5. Which role have you adopted in current intimate relationships? Does your role vary depending on who the relationship is with or depending on the issue? How does the other person react to your pursuit or your distancing?

      Couples sometimes stay together and fight over the issue of closeness/distance every year of their relationship. While one continually demands more closeness and the other demands more distance, neither recognizes that they are both helping to maintain their comfort level, which was established in their separate families of origin. A couple like this may end up getting divorced and then later marry someone else, believing that the new mate is just what they really wanted and is totally different from the former mate. Invariably they again choose someone with the same comfort level. The whole drama will be replayed a second time, though perhaps with different content and perhaps with other roles. What they fight over may be different, and the former pursuer may become the distancer, but the basic pattern stays the same.

      People can change their level of comfort on the closeness/distance scale. They can move up or down on it a few degrees, but they still work at finding a balance in their relationship at their new level.

      2. Appearances Are Deceiving

      One of the tricky things about closeness and distance is that most outwardly independent people are only pseudo-independent. They use distance as a way of controlling their fears about closeness. They may have tremendous needs for closeness, but have become afraid of it, so they distance instead.

      The person who has no apparent need for closeness will choose for a partner someone who insists on togetherness. This partner represents the other side of the person’s own ambivalence about closeness and distance. The two of them will, in fact, have the same comfort level. However, the relationship will be turbulent because of their different ways of handling their needs for closeness or distance. They will fight over their emotional thermostat the way some people fight over the furnace thermostat setting. One turns it up and the other comes by and turns it down; neither is happy about the other person’s actions, but they manage to keep the temperature at a fairly constant level midway between their extremes.

      The paradox of this is that even those who openly admit their need for togetherness are not usually capable of intimacy. True intimacy means having an accepting, open relationship with someone who is different from us. People who need constant closeness and togetherness have trouble accepting that others are not the same as them. They have trouble thinking of themselves separately. They talk about what “we think” and how “we feel” rather than what “I” think or feel. They insist: “We think about each other before we think about ourselves.” They talk about sacrificing for others and not being selfish. They espouse the values of love and compassion for others but often use those things in a manipulative way. They feel responsible for the happiness of others, and if someone is not happy ask, “What have I done wrong?” They also blame others for their own unhappiness.

      Those who use distancing as a way of keeping the balance talk about lack of support, caring, or consideration from the pursuer who is nagging