Are you still with your partner but you no longer feel anything?; find out if she is grieving during your relationship

Five years of relationship, a wedding in sight, and the opinion of his family, were the sufficient reasons for him to Abigail not end their courtship. Although in her mind she was already declaring a silent end to what began as a love story, she preferred to cling to the idea that it was just a bad time that would pass. “One begins a relationship with many desires, with many dreams, with goals together, and to form a family because that is the achievable goal to start a new phase as a family,” the 26-year-old girl manifests to this newspaper; but after three years of their relationship, all that slowly fizzled out.

At that time, he was not very clear about his feelings, but he knew that affection was not the same, that details were difficult, that there was a lack of concern on the part of both of them, sensations that were not verbalized from the beginning. “I cried a lot… and looked for absurd things that had nothing to do with it, when in reality I didn’t want to face what was happening in the relationship…”, remember her.

When everything began to turn into discussions, the qualifiers arrived. “I clearly remember that once in a discussion I told him that he was not the right person for me (…) I thought: it doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to be with him anyway.”

He began to carry all this discomfort alone, “I was very quiet and acted as if nothing was happening to me,” he recalls. “I didn’t talk about it with the people closest to me, out of shame, because she felt she was going to be judged, etc. And that limits you to make better decisions or to act, either to end a relationship or to continue moving forward, and that is when one begins to experience that duel”.

A duel, this was exactly what Abigail was experiencing within their relationship. A duel is experienced when a person or pet is lost. When it comes to a relationship, it is normal to go through this process once the emotional connection has been terminated. But, what happens if she is still involved with her current partner, and feels that the relationship is over but decides to continue?

Living a duel during the relationship is what the therapist also Galo Salazar This is known as an “emotional divorce”, since they are already emotionally separated. “You live knowing that the other is no longer interested in the relationship, you are out of habit and silence reigns in that relationship. It’s terrible because that means that the routine has expired in that relationship, if you don’t decide to end it or to talk”.

Abigail remembers that within that duel she began to hold resentments towards her partner and towards herself, for things that she no longer liked about him or simply because they were no longer compatible. “Within you you are leaving that person aside and leaving yourself aside”, says.

During emotional grief or divorce, sexual desire disappears, relationships with friends and the environment may be restricted, and the mourner may stop being as communicative as he was before. “When you come home and you only talk about work and you don’t talk about your relationship, there are silences, they just don’t talk. The details that were there at the beginning no longer exist, they no longer hold hands, there is no longer that visual contact. That grain of things added together becomes an affective desert ”, explains the professional.

In the case of Abigail, she knew how to hide her pain very well in the middle of the preparations for her wedding, the same one that was canceled due to a unhappiness by your partner months after getting married. “It was an experience from which I did learn a lot, but I would not have liked to spend it.” But at the same time he felt a kind of relief, it was the perfect reason to end it all. “I better said that this happened because in the end if it wasn’t him, it was me who could have been unfaithful… I got to the point of having that thought.”

At this point in the infidelity, her partner’s family advised her to continue with the relationship as they assured her that she would get over it over time, since it happens in “all couples”.

Salazar mentions that normalizing mourning within a relationship could also be due to behaviors acquired in the family. “Many women have stayed with the example that our parents have left us. Those mothers who, knowing that their father is with someone, continue with the relationship, or that there is nothing, or that it is a relationship in which we are together for our children and perhaps the children emulate that, considering it normal in a relationship.

Following this pattern, Abigail and her boyfriend tried to resume their relationship, but in the end they realized that they were only letting themselves be carried away by what others dictated to them, and although they forgave each other, they admitted that it was best not to continue with something that I had no north. At her young age, Abigail felt that she had wasted her time.

couples therapy

Galo Salazar, who specializes in couples therapy, points out that a love relationship or marriage can be saved as long as there is a willing heart. “Therapy is only if both of you are willing to row on the same side, and once you are willing, you must recognize where you have failed and begin to take charge of this.” indicates the professional, who adds that one of the main bases is to communicate all the inconveniences. “If I don’t verbalize what I feel, the other person won’t find out.”says.

In therapy you can decide whether to continue the relationship or end it. “Imagine growing old with someone you don’t love, that would be terrible.” holds.

You don’t have to wait to experience a decline in the relationship to visit a professional, everyone can do it to detect things in time. “Today it is important that all people attend therapy. In one way or another, they sometimes need to talk to someone, to guide, to help the person realize how their life is.

Interview with clinical psychologist Paz Carrión

She is from Cuenca, she is 33 years old and she specializes in couples therapy, with a master’s degree in psychoanalysis. For 11 years she has been dedicated to this profession. She has a physical office and also treats her patients online @elretodelos3meses.

In an interview with EL UNIVERSO, the psychologist answers a series of frequently asked questions regarding this topic:

Are women more likely to carry this duel during the relationship?

A lot of machismo is still ingrained in our society. For years, men leave a relationship and immediately enter another. Apparently they do not allow themselves to experience any of their emotions, now over the years they have changed, they attend therapy more than years ago that was unthinkable. Men also experience mourning but in a different way and that is a product of culture and how they were formed, where they were not allowed to talk about their problems, or cry, or get sensitive.

They seek refuge in alcohol, dating or getting involved in other love relationships. But then they suffer the consequences of not having closed a previous bond that is reflected when they continue in contact with their ex-partner or not allowing themselves to be emotionally open in the new relationship, among others.

Women, on the other hand, live this emotional duel when the relationship is going on. Normally they turn to the psychologist when they are ‘ready’ for the separation. You see a lot in therapy women who come in and say ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I already signed the divorce or I already separated and I should be devastated but I don’t feel like that’. The feeling that these patients actually feel is ‘out of place or paralyzed’.

This is because they have experienced grief during the relationship and their partners did not realize that they felt bad or that they fell into a routine. Women, due to their psychological profiles or their predominance of emotions, do understand it and say goodbye. of this relationship long before.

How harmful can it be to be in a relationship where there is nothing anymore?

This affects all areas of your life. When you are bad with your partner, it leads you to be bad at work, in your personal relationships, with your motherhood or fatherhood. Living your relationship in mourning can be super harmful because Without realizing it, you are gradually becoming depressed. In the end, it is assumed that you have a partner to receive love, affection, accompaniment, care and protection. So when you’re in a dead relationship but the bond is still active, it can be extremely painful, because indifference kills. This can affect your own essence, there are those who have stopped laughing, little by little they are changing their way of being because they continue in relationships where there is nothing and they pretend that they are.

Can experiencing grief in a relationship affect the cognitive and affective part later?

Yes, because this leaves its traces. When you want to start another relationship, sometimes what you experienced in the last one marks you and you no longer have the same trust with your partners, you protect yourself more, you take care of your heart and in the long run that can make you put up a wall that does not allow you to relate totally emotionally.

Why do you think people prefer to stay in this relationship, grieve, suffer, and once it’s over, retire in peace?

I think it’s out of fear of the sudden changes that leaving a relationship entails. When you’re in a long-term relationship, you build a lot of things around it. From a social system, you have friends in common, sometimes there is work in common, children in common. People hate change and that’s why they don’t end up breaking the relationship and staying there for a while. When you finish stifling all your positive feelings towards your partner, it’s a little easier to divorce or separate when there aren’t as many feelings involved anymore.

I would say that this happens a lot in women, it is difficult for them not to be there anymore, to set those limits or they have to organize themselves in many other situations to be able to separate. (YO)