Personal Space In The Family

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Personal space in the family. I have already written a lot on the topic of "personal space", "personal freedom in the family", "mutual accountability and transparency of life", "freedom to communicate with other people in marriage." My thesis is extremely simple: “The family is a single social organism, which exists on the basis of mutual - love, respect and responsibility. Spouses should live in unison, transparently and trustingly, coordinating and synchronizing their behavior and outlook on life so that it does not harm the family, and minimizes jealousy and mutual resentment. ♦ If we consider such opportunities as personal space: to go wherever you want; communicate with whoever you want (including correspondence on social networks); meet whoever you want; flirt with whoever you want; spend money where and how much you want; to live where you want (i.e. separately), to carry out the activity you want (professional, creative, business, crime, etc.); to have any addictions you want (drugs, gambling addiction, alcoholism), then this is definitely not a family! For such a format of life without mutual obligations, it is better not to have a marriage, but just to meet! ".

I have substantiated my position in detail many times. He pointed out that personal space, by the very logic of life, leads sooner or later:

♦ First, to the formation of sympathy for other people, the appearance of the feeling that this is "the only person who understands me and I feel good with him / her."

♦ Theft of funds from the family, spending on another person and his projects.

♦ To the emergence of mistrust and jealousy in the family, deterioration of relations with the existing family half.

♦ To the emergence of an intimate attraction to another person, then betrayal.

♦ To a double life, conflicts in the family, in the long term to divorce.

♦ To severe psychological blows, if the person to whom the attachment has arisen did not reciprocate, abandoned or cheated.

♦ Tragedies of children, if they were in a family in crisis.

Life practice clearly shows:

"Life in the mode of" personal space "for a husband or wife -

it is creating conditions for alienation, conflict, betrayal and divorce."

However, to this day I regularly read on various forums how wonderful it is to have a personal space, and it is absolutely not dangerous for the family. As a psychologist with almost thirty years of experience, I consider this position not only naive, but risky! Therefore, I want to help those husbands and wives who are trying to dissuade their “family halves” striving for freedom in time, but cannot find clear and simple arguments, examples and analogies for dialogue. Now I want to give an analogy that clearly shows the danger of personal space in the family. I call it Business Partners.

So: “The family is a unit of society, it is an organization. In terms of the characteristics of its structure, it is closest to a business organization where a husband and wife are partners - founders of a common company (family). They are equal in their rights and obligations: they each have a 50% share and a basic agreement (in the registry office) that they only conduct business together, without the participation of third parties, and do not participate in other people's projects.

Accordingly, initially they both have a very high degree of responsibility for the current state of affairs and the future of the company. This is how they differ from simply hired workers in business structures or state / municipal organizations. An ordinary employee, after the end of the working day, does not have a headache for the situation in the organization. It is important for him to avoid personal responsibility, and everything else is indifferent to him. A businessman is directly interested in the preservation and development of his project: he is always worried about his business. He is responsible not only during working hours, but also in the evening, at night, on weekends and holidays, on vacation and in the hospital. His motivation is the strongest. Moreover, his main responsibility is not so much to other people as to himself and the business partner who has trusted him (in this case, the family).

Imagine now that two equal business partners do not conduct their business with equal zeal. The first of them (# 1) goes all out, doing his best to develop the business. But the second (No. 2) periodically finds the opportunity to leave work and engage (secretly or openly) in the implementation of another business project. Moreover, with a completely different business partner; and even using funds (equipment, money, other resources, etc.) received in business with the first partner, obtained through the efforts of partner # 1.

The question is:

• - Will this behavior of partner # 2 like partner # 1?
• - Will partner # 1 have a grudge against partner # 2?
• - Will partner # 1 still be interested in developing the business as much as possible, knowing well that part of the earned profit will go to the development of those projects where he does not have a share; for the enrichment of third parties alien to him?
• - Will the relationship between partner # 2 and a third party (partner in another business) be gradually strengthened, especially if the cooperation is successful, or seems (maybe even temporarily) more successful than the business with partner # 1?
• - Will partner # 2 remain highly motivated to develop business with partner # 1, to overcome some difficult periods with him? Will he still be an effective manager and owner in the project with partner # 1?
• - Will partner # 1 not be tempted to find himself / herself some other partner, except for partner # 2?

As a practice of personal, family and business psychology, it is obvious to me: this behavior of partner # 2 is dangerous and destructive not only for the trust in the couple, but for their joint project as a whole! But the so-called "personal space in marriage" and "personal freedom in marriage" are exactly the same! And more often than not, it's also damaging to the family! After all, "personal space" is nothing more than the creation of special comfortable conditions in order to break the existing attachment and replace it with attachment to another person.

Personal space, in the form of freedom of activity, movement, communication, income and expenses in the absence of reporting -

it is always the way to new relationships with people of the opposite sex.

Where communication with members of the opposite sex

has no limiter - to sympathy, love and sex, just one step.

In the presence of a current marriage, this means treason and divorce.

It is important not to harbor illusions and clearly understand:

Choosing a different path and lifestyle -

always, at the same time, the choice of another life partner!

Which, more often than not, will become a sex partner.

Personal space is almost always:

• - Entering a new social circle, where new values of life will be imposed. Which may conflict with the values of the existing partner;
• - The emergence of psychological dependence on a specific person from a new circle of communication. After that, dependence on a mobile phone begins, running away with it to the toilet and hiding the fact of correspondence from the husband / wife.
• - Irritation with the partner (husband / wife) who is trying to stop the process of the destruction of the family.
• - Conflicts over a variety of reasons, under which a decrease in mutual respect and sexual attraction will be hidden.
• - The emergence of complete alienation and the desire to live apart, under the pretext that you need to "understand yourself", "be alone", "take a break from each other", "find new goals and meanings."
• - During the time of being apart, the active development of alternative relations, after which - a divorce, the collapse of everything achieved, the tears of children, the joy of envious people.

My practice of working as a family psychologist shows the following:

4 options for the development of events in families with "personal space":

Option 1. If one of the spouses (partner # 2), demanding "personal space" for himself, will offer the same standard of behavior to partner # 1, and he / she accepts this offer, a competition will simply begin in the family - whoever falls in love with a third party earlier will change and their families will leave.

Option 2. If the proposal of partner # 2 is not accepted by the correct partner # 1, but at the same time partner # 1 will not oppose anything to this, he / she will simply be a passive observer of how his / her marriage collapses.

Option 3. If the proposal of partner # 2 is not accepted by the correct partner # 1, and at the same time partner # 1 is struggling with the "personal space" of partner # 2, their relationship may come to a tough conflict and divorce. Formally, there will be any reason, but everything will be due to freedom.

Option 4. If the proposal of partner # 2 is not accepted by the correct partner # 1, and at the same time partner # 1 will struggle with the “personal space” of partner # 2, even in the event of a conflict, there is still the possibility of their reconciliation and the refusal of partner # 2 from the wrong line behavior.

You can see for yourself how dangerous the “personal space” model is and how little chances of maintaining a marriage where one of the couple seeks to get out of the regime of mutual

accountability and transparency of life (plans of the day, social circle, spending, etc.). And I will explain why this is so. Let me remind you:

The principle of "personal freedom in the family" sounds like this: do not meddle with me; do not teach;

do not indicate; don't touch my smartphone; do not ask where I am or where I am from;

don't touch my money; do not bother me to live as I want.

This scheme is very familiar to everyone: Exactly according to it, using the "right to personal space", boys and girls aged 16-18, in conflicts, knock out from their parents the right to lead private and intimate life.

Personal space at 16-18 years old, this is a person's growing up.

Personal space at the age of 30-50 is a fall into childhood.

After all, then, when adult boys and girls are already thirty or forty or fifty years old, the essence of the matter does not change:

The right to "personal space" and "freedom in the family" -

technical condition for choosing another partner for sex

and / or (usually, this is due to) a cardinal change in your life.

Those who have the wisdom and courage to admit this, and who still have enough love and respect for their existing marriage partner, will be able to abandon risky experiments in their marriage in time, preserve it and even improve it. Those men and women, where wisdom, courage, love and respect were already scarce, will face conflicts, betrayal, divorce. And also the whole set of risks when creating a new family, psychological stresses of children and a close circle of relatives and friends, sarcastic laughter of ill-wishers and envious people behind their backs. That is life.

Actually, that's all. Let those who are confronted with the desire of their husbands or wives for "personal space" take arguments from this article for discussion. And those who are fighting for their personal space, let them think about the internal motives of their behavior.

If those striving for personal freedom in marriage begin to call the one who is trying to stop them "house tyrants" (and they are almost always called that), let them remember their childhood, or the experience of their own parenting.

Children are always unhappy with what parents are holding back

their personal freedom and do not allow them to live by their own rules.

But only because of this standard of parenting behavior

our children get a chance to live to adulthood, become parents yourself and tell your moms and dads

thank you so much!" for their "parental tyranny."

That's in families, everything is the same. When a husband or wife is trying to reason with his soul mate, who demands "personal freedom" in time, it means that they simply want not to let her / him break about the reality of life where millions of destinies have already broken; try not to allow the mistakes that others make. Children don't understand this. Smart adults can still understand this and put their sexuality, which is torn to the side, like March cats and cats, back into the norms of correct family behavior. Not as tasty as a carbonated drink, but healthy as fish oil.

Actually, that's all. Hope it was helpful to you. It only remains to add that when a husband or wife begins to declare "personal space", it's time to independently find and eliminate mistakes in the family structure and relationship model.