"Healing Separation"

[Scott S]

This quote is from the "Is mine the 7 year itch too?" thread. This would have been off-topic, so...

 

[sNIP] In Dr. Bruce Fisher's "Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends," there is an appredix that discusses what he calls a "healing separation."

 

Here's a link to an excerpt. The book goes into a lot more detail.

 

http://www.bibliotherapy.com/pressrel/The%20Healing%20Separation.htm

 

 

I had read the first edition of the book while I was going through my divorce years ago, more from the angle of coping with this change in my life. I had read about this healing separation, with the view that in my case, it was medicine after the funeral, so to speak.

 

Reading some of the other threads piqued my curiouslty, though. Has anyone ever been through a "healing separation" with his/her spouse or SO? Was yours to heal a relationship that wasn't working? Or to revitalize & renew a relationship that was working?

 

It's the latter point I'm really curious about. What issues would there be in a relationship that's working, where the couple would consider separating? I'm not referring to a couple taking separate vacations (i.e. she's going to some Arizona spa whith her friends for a week, & he's going on a Canadian fishing trip or a moose hunt later in the year.), but where one or both decides they need to separate & live apart for a while.

[Moose]

I'd have to say that my wife and I experience, "Lulls", in our relationships, a lot just here recently. Things just become routine and sometimes I feel unappreciated, and I imaging that she does too.

 

All too often I feel like the only reason that I'm around is for financial support. I know that this isn't the case. But it's hard not to feel that way sometimes. My wife has a problem displaying affection. And she's not all that sexual with me. And this is very important to me.

 

I've heard on more than one occasion that she loves me, but she doesn't get that skip a beat feeling anymore.

 

Now, don't get me wrong, we work on our relationship and we are getting a lot better than what we have been. But all too often it seems we do great for a time, then it reverts back to same situation.

 

These reasons in my opinion could constitute a trial seperation just to re-evaluate how we feel towards eachother.