Bedsits for arguing couples
Lynda Finn
Much more thought could and should be given to the fact that people split up on many occasions because they simply do not have their own space. Women find that what should be their leisure hours are spent mending or ironing until they fall into bed, when they are expected to indulge in all kinds of jollifications by the chap who has no doubt snoozed in front of the TV after eating the tea his wife prepared, cooked and cleared away! OK, so people get sick of the sight of each other and often say 'if I could just get away for a while' or 'I need to get away from the pressure for a time.' If this could be admitted early on in the deterioration of a relationship, a total breakdown could be avoided and the core of the plan is as follows:
'Where it is possible to allow the man to role-play the woman's typical day (and vice versa) it should be part of marriage guidance that such things should be tried'
That where it is possible to allow the man to role-play the woman's typical day (and vice versa) it should be part of marriage guidance that such things should be tried. Therapy could entail swapping roles for as long as it is practical to do so. Each would then get a good idea of the pressures on the other person which they may not have realised existed. Perhaps Dad could take a week off work and 'play Mother' whilst Mum went off each morning to do some form of community work which would give her pleasure - helping at school, reading to old people, painting, bumming around on a bike, anything at all just so long as she was out of the home environment and could not help or hinder Dad as he learned. Clearly it would be too difficult to ask her to do paid work like her husband's just for that short time, but if the wife already works then it is more necessary than ever that she should be relieved of the strain. Most sole dads say, too late, 'I never knew how hard my wife worked at home.' Few men see what difficulty women have in the home.
'I suggested that we might separate but not split up, that he should move into one of the nice bedsits in the area and continue to maintain daily contact with the children and give us both time to stop feeling resentful towards each other'
When my husband and I were going through a very bad patch in 1981, I suggested that we might separate but not split up, that he should move into one of the nice bedsits in the area and continue to maintain daily contact with the children and give us both time to stop feeling resentful towards each other. His macho image of himself would not allow this, although it did allow us eventually to break up and lose all contact! Eventually I could stand it no longer and walked out. My idea might have saved us for many years longer and it was only when we had been apart for six months that my husband said 'Let's try that idea you suggested years ago.' By that time I had had enough and did not want to go back to him.
Look how many people gaze back on their courting days with affection and wonder what went wrong. More often than not it's their own natures which changed due to not having the skills to stay married, not having the breathing space they had when they were courting - a bolt hole to run to when they had had a row and needed time to miss the partner again once the anger clouds had blown away. To reproduce, as far as possible, these courting days, in effect means giving each partner their own bolt hole again where the first resentment can be worked through before it is joined by another.
Lynda Finn, 71 Triangle Road, Massy, Auckland 8, New Zealand.
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