Too much togetherness

The exclusivity trap

“Too much togetherness” my grandmother used to say, nodding grimly at the young couples that she saw in the eighties and nineties (when she herself was in her eighties and nineties). She knew a little English, but what she knew she used with great effect.
Couples in her generation didn’t believe in, or perhaps didn’t have the opportunity, to do too much together. Progressively, in the last some decades, we’ve been led to believe that just about everything important that you must do and like to do, should be done with your spouse. That includes a huge range of activities, from brushing teeth to spending all leisure time together. At the physical level, there is now a horrible insistence that intimacy includes that we share a room, a bed and a loo at all times. Even when we can afford not to. Somehow this defines coupledom. And yet, like many people experience it, there is nothing compelling and cosy really about being up close and personal with the spouse’s gargles, burps, snorning, shaving, flatulence, flossing, tossing noisily in bed, wanting or not-wanting the fan/ac and so on and so overintimately forth. Why does being a couple per force mean all this stuff? I’m not talking here about creating some mysterious misty mystique around yourself night and day. Just talking about sparing each other the overacquaintance with your bodily functions.

Most couples, even those in awful, angry, bored, or banal marriages, insist on sleeping a foot away from each other and being privy to each other’s bathroom routines. Even those doing well in their marriages do it. Not because they particularly love to, but because that’s how everyone does it. Maybe in the first year or so of marriage it’s great fun to get to be around each other’s little quirks and routines, but a word of warning: it’s not a good idea at all. Not if you can afford to insert some space between each other, especially in the bathroom-toilet routine. Possibly even separate rooms. Imagine never having to discuss who left footprints in the bathroom, who left the floor wet, who didn’t put the cap on the toothpaste, who ate too many beans, whose cupboard is disgusting, who dumps jewellery where, and other such issues that seem to take up overwhelming amounts of couple time and even eat into affection and attractiveness.

So much for physical too-much-togetherness. The other area is our insistence that all our emotional and social needs be fulfilled by our partner. No wonder so many couples find each other wanting, and show up at counsellors’ clinics with a feeling that they’re mismatched. Well of course you’re mismatched if you’re insisting that your spouse and only your spouse be, besides your partner and co-parent, also: friend, philosopher, guide, punching bag, shopping buddy, gossiper, spring-cleaner, movie-watcher, agony aunt/uncle, office politics discusser, walking companion, movie watcher, food explorer, fellow trekker, bird-watcher, and so on and so unrealistically forth. In granny’s days, and perhaps just a generation ago, this simply wasn’t part of the job description of being a spouse. So the ‘we’re so different’ whine was much less heard.

Of course you’re different. Whoever defined marriage as this kind of stencil and carbon-copy match of two people, has clearly got it all mixed up. Young marriages would do much better if someone told them – hey, it’s ok, in fact it’s great, if you have different pursuits, and more importantly, different people to pursue them with. Not just the occasional boys’/girls’ night out, but a consistent investment in important and abiding friendships and family relationships from which you draw very different things. So that you can continue to get from your spouse/partner the things that originally attracted you in the first place. So that both of you can grow and intersect only in areas that you choose to. So that your marriage/partnership doesn’t boil down to lists and growing lists of what is missing, what you expected, what needs to be fixed and other such soul-sapping shoulds and shouldn’ts. Younger couples, particularly, beware. And older ones too. And even old-old ones. Despite what the movie hype and stereotype tells you, dovetailing your life with someone else’s doesn’t automatically mean giving up on friends, siblings, colleagues, interests, and in the end your individuality.
Gouri Dange
(THE WRITER IS A PRACTISING FAMILY COUNSELLOR WHO HAS A BATHROOM ALL TO HERSELF)