Journey Towards Marriage: Separation, Mourning & Creativity by Shana Yocheved Schacter, RCSW
There are many lovely, bright, sensitive, attractive, accomplished, fun-loving, and determined men and women who have struggled for many years with the challenge of finding a spouse. This challenge crosses educational, socioeconomic and religious denominational lines and exists in this country and around the world. Psychological dynamics and social realities combine to prevent some adults in their thirties and beyond from finding and choosing husbands and wives.In fact, many of you who are reading this essay are currently engaged in this confusing and complex journey either for yourselves, your friends or members of your family. In so doing, it is essential that we all maintain our sensitivity to and understanding of the uniqueness of each woman and man, even as we try to describe and understand, in a general way, the emotional and psychological components involved in the effort of finding a spouse. I would like to offer a few thoughts that might enhance our understanding of this matter.
In the life of an older single person, disappointments mount as the hopes for this or that shidduch are dashed for one reason or another. Time passes, and many dates come and go. For some, relationships develop for a while and then eventually end. For others, there may not be many dates altogether. Every person experiencing a multiplicity of disappointments or losses must properly mourn the current losses as well as the earlier ones upon which these present losses are built. The degree to which an adult resolves the loss(es) of early significant relationships will determine how well that same adult will be able to manage the current losses and disappointments involved in dating for a protracted period of time.
Single adults with whom I work try to learn from what did or did not go as they had expected in a potential relationship. They attempt to take a candid look at the responsibility they or their partner may have had in the match not moving forward. Eventually many come to realize that unresolved previous losses significantly color their current attempts at making new bonds.
These earlier losses may also take the form of trauma in one's family of origin, such as physical and/or mental illness, divorce or death. Though one may not be aware of the connection between the losses within one's family and the business of finding a spouse, I have found that reworking earlier life's emotional difficulties enables a person to make new serious commitments.
There is yet another form of loss associated with single adults in their later years. Young men and women in their teens and twenties consciously or unconsciously develop an ideal version of the person they want to marry. The younger the individual, the more perfect their ideal is likely to be. As people mature, they realize that no human being can possibly fit their ideal.
Men and women who are dating for ten and twenty years or more sometimes find it difficult to separate from their original ideal. What they sometimes fail to realize is that it is precisely the giving up of this early ideal which will allow them to find a match that is actually better suited to them at this time in their life than their original ideal spouse might have been. It is essential for more flexibility to develop and a wider range of options to be considered.
Relinquishing one's longstanding fantasy is sometimes very difficult because it forces the individual to face the internal and external changes he or she has undergone through the years. It is clear that one must be honest with oneself about these changes, both for the individual's sake as well as for the benefit of finding an appropriate match at this stage in life. Often, however, a mythical notion of whom one wants to marry is retained as a form of resistance to feeling the inevitable discomfort associated with the separation from and mourning of this ideal.
There are no definitive answers or sure advice for people struggling to find their life partners, but I believe that addressing unresolved negative feelings and becoming aware of longstanding but outdated fantasies will go a long way to help us in our quest. Though difficult to hear while in the throes of deep upset and disappointment, the proper mourning of losses can provide opportunities to help redefine oneself and create new possibilities for connections. This effort may lead to developing a new perception of oneself, more creative forms of networking and engaging others in our search, and being open to new options. In this way, connections can replace separation, celebration can replace mourning, creativity can replace stagnation and hope can replace despair.
Shana Yocheved Schacter is a psychoanalyst in Brookline, MA and New York City.
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