When you love someone, you generally want to spend a lot of time with them on a regular basis. That said, the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” can become reality quite quickly when you’re breathing the same air all day, every day.
Relationships in which both parties want to be in each other’s company day and night tend to get suffocating or fizzle out pretty quickly, whereas those who share a direction but have regular time apart are more likely to stand the test of time.
Here are 8 ways that a shared purpose or direction is more sustainable (and enjoyable) than being joined at the hip.
1. Shared goals create a framework to build upon.
When you choose to share a life with a person, one of the foundational blocks you likely build upon is a shared goal that you’d both like to attain.
For example, one couple might share the desire to raise a large family, another might want to run a business together, while another couple might love to buy land to create an animal and wildlife sanctuary. Of course, the goal might simply be to create a happy life together, however that unfolds.
Having a project, goal, or simply direction that the two of you feel strongly about gives you a shared purpose to work towards as a dedicated team. Rather than get distracted by goals that move counter to each other, both your life purposes are aligned.
It’s that much easier to ‘vibe’ together as you are both getting excited and feel personal accomplishment in tandem with your loved one.
It can also hit a primal nerve when you feel in your bones you’re doing good work and getting somewhere in life with a solid, reliable person, and that does nothing but good for your relationship.
2. It gives you the opportunity to work in your own way, using your individual strengths.
In any group, there will be individuals who contribute different strengths to the project. One might be an excellent leader and manager, for example, whilst another has a meticulous eye for detail and loves to color-code spreadsheets.
Similarly, in relationships, one partner may work best in the early morning or late evening, while the other is most energetic at midday.
When you and your partner share a direction that you work on together, you can play to your individual strengths to move it forwards. You don’t need to be joined at the hip to get this done, which may result in frustration or getting in each other’s way. Instead, you use the time, energy, and resources that allow you to thrive best, on your own terms.
3. It gives you new ways to communicate.
As you’re working on this shared direction, you’re undoubtedly experiencing a lot of interesting things.
Maybe you’re overcoming personal challenges or learning new skills, or the process is inspiring new things that you’d like to incorporate into the pursuit. This potentially gives you a lot of interesting new things to talk about with your partner.
If you’ve been together through the entire endeavor, however, you probably will have been in each other’s faces all the time, and as such, don’t have much to discuss.
Furthermore, you may not have had the opportunity for much personal growth, so you keep rehashing the same old stories (or the same arguments) in the only way you’ve ever known how to communicate.
In contrast, by coming together over an evening meal or after-dinner coffee, you can share all the great things you’ve discovered or experienced, with the new ways you’ve learned how to express yourself.
This opens up new avenues of communication and can strengthen your relationship exponentially.
4. Two approaches can achieve more than a single one can.
When two people who love each other and who also share mutual values work on a shared direction together, they have a huge advantage over those who work alone.
This is because their combined perspectives can help them see and analyze more than one person can do individually.
Furthermore, they may have different methods of approaching problems, and different creative solutions to the challenges they’ll come across in the endeavor.
Canadian-Armenian power couple Atom Egoyan and Arsinée Khanjian are a good example of this. He’s a film director, and she’s an actress, producer, and political activist, and the two of them have worked on numerous projects together, including the critically acclaimed film The Sweet Hereafter and Ararat.
He’s a homebody, and she travels extensively, but they always return to center via their shared passion for social justice and filmmaking. That’s the mortar that keeps them together: in addition to loving each other deeply, they’re committed to their shared vision.
And whatever your shared direction in life, the same principles can be applied.
5. People need time to themselves.
Even in the healthiest of relationships, people need time alone with their own thoughts. When you’re together with your partner 24/7, familiarity can breed not only contempt, but resentment at not having enough downtime to pursue your own interests without interruption or distraction.
When you and your partner know that you’re dedicated to a shared goal, you can work on it on your own schedule (and in your own space) instead of having to work on it together all the time.
Sure, you can still come together to work on a few things — especially if teamwork is required or beneficial — and then retreat to your individual spaces to do your part on your own.
6. Caduceus energy keeps love alive.
The Caduceus is an ancient Greek symbol in which a pair of snakes intertwine around a central pillar. They represent opposing forces that come together in harmony.
In a marriage or long-term partnership, the two people involved are independent, autonomous individuals who choose to share a life together. The key to their matrimonial harmony, however, is in pulling away from each other before interweaving once again.
When you have a shared direction with your partner, the two of you can go your separate ways and do your own thing, and then weave together again to share what you’ve learned and experienced.
From there, you can pool knowledge and resources to build upon what you’re working on together, whether that’s simply building a life together or any other shared goal.
I saw perfect examples of this when I was working in permaculture farming: one of the couples I worked with travelled separately to learn new techniques in places like Turkey, Costa Rica, Sweden, and Australia, and then eagerly shared them with each other to put into practice back home. It was beautiful to witness.
7. There is always a foundation to return to.
Some of the strongest partnerships around are those that are based on a shared foundational goal.
For example, a couple may have gotten together with the shared intention of raising a family, building a home on property they keep expanding, and cultivating generational wealth with a family business.
Now that they’re older and their children have grown, they refocus on this shared goal.
The work they’re doing may be different, but the shared goal is still there.
For example, maybe now they’re overseeing the family business rather than being immersed on ground level, are helping to raise the grandchildren, are making high-return investments, and securing their legacy.
They still aren’t together all the time, but they are always working as a devoted team on their foundational goal.
8. Endless togetherness burns through goodwill.
Did you know that 1 in 4 divorces happen in people who are over the age of 50?
Retirees are the ones who get divorced most often, often because they end up dealing with immense friction from being in each other’s faces 24/7.
Instead of having time to themselves like they used to, they’re constantly in each other’s pockets, intruding on each other’s time, and driving each other quite mad.
This shows us that people need to have the opportunity to miss one another. When you never have time apart, you forget what it feels like to yearn for your partner’s company.
This is why it’s so important to divide and conquer: have a shared direction, do your own part towards it, then come together to discuss and plan the next steps.
Do this repeatedly, and you’ll never tire of each other’s company — instead, you’ll look forward to it and will celebrate each other accordingly.
Final thoughts…
In his book The Prophet, author Khalil Gibran encouraged couples to live and work well together, but not smother one another by being constantly together.
Those with a fair amount of life experience know that being in each other’s pockets all the time can lead to resentment and contempt, rather than bolstering lasting love.
Those whose relationships stay strong until their final days are those who work well as an independent working partnership, rather than codependent people perpetually joined at the hip.
Try this approach, and see how your relationship flourishes as a result.
I’ll leave you with Khalil Gibran’s beautiful and profound words, in case you’re not familiar with them:
Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
