Separate vacation
Couples therapist reveals
Separate Vacation: Is It Really That Bad?
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Is love the answer to all questions? Not quite. It also provides quite a few. Psychologist and couples therapist Oskar Holzberg answers them all.
Is something wrong if we prefer to go on vacation separately? In the positive case it is a vacation from each other. It's negative when we evade how little connects us.
When do we have no relationships?
A love relationship lives from the fact that we keep connecting with each other. That we communicate with one another and respond to what moves each of us and what is important to each of us. It's fulfilling. Sometimes it's easy. But it is also often challenging. And sometimes it's really exhausting. For this reason alone, everyone needs their own space, their own life, in which the partner does not appear at all or only to a very limited extent. To relax and to find yourself again.
In our free time we free ourselves from our working selves. In our vacations we shed everyday life. Sometimes, like in Carnival, we even take a vacation from ourselves. But when are we relational?
Symbiotic couples like to do everything together and feel little longing to have vacation from the other. Very isolated couples, on the other hand, have a great longing for their independence. Intuitively, however, many are irritated when such a couple travels separately, because in most lifestyles, vacations are the days and weeks when a couple could have plenty of time for each other.
Who are we without the other?
Oskar Holzberg, 67, has been advising couples in his Hamburg practice for over 20 years and has been married for over 30 years. His current book is called "Neue Schlüsselsätze der Liebe" (240 pages, 11 euros, DuMont).
© Ilona Habben
On the other hand, holidays are also the opportunity to finally pursue what inspires us. And if we are very different as a couple – then we actually have more vacation in a vacation that is spent separately. We don't have to constantly compromise and lead arguments because only one of us likes to slam down black slopes for days or doze off on the beach for twelve hours. Partners are often not the same adventurous, equally keen to move, equally interested and active. It's not a problem between the office chair and the stove, but a vacation together can easily become a relationship test. Different needs quickly become apparent, differences can be clearly experienced.
The world we share, what makes us go through life together, is only part of a partnership. The other part is what separates us. Who we are when we are without the other. That is why I often meet individually with the partners in couples therapy to experience how different they might be.
Many couples spend more time separately from each other anyway – because one of the partners is on business trips, with friends on a bike tour, with friends in the holiday home. Most of them also go on vacation together. If a couple does not go on vacation together, the partners are either very independent. Or else: You avoid having to experience how little you can do in direct contact with one another. And also how little they can deal with what separates them in their relationship.
Being able to find a bond with oneself in the security of a relationship keeps a relationship alive. It does not matter whether we can create this free space in vacations we spent together or through vacations we spent separately. What remains decisive is how connected we remain through what separates us.
"Couple adox" is the new podcast with Oskar Holzberg and his wife Claudia. You speak openly about topics that keep challenging relationships. Funny, exciting and insightful! I.a. on AudioNow.
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