RULE 41

Be part of their life

I know a couple (well, I knew a couple – they’re not a couple any more) who did everything separately. They occasionally socialized together, but they also had lots of separate friends. He gave up his job to train for a new career, and the training took him away from home a couple of weekends a month. Whenever he was home, she would be away working while he looked after the kids. They hardly saw each other. He didn’t talk about his training course to her, so she didn’t really know what was going on in a large part of his life. Meanwhile he wouldn’t have anything to do with her family because he didn’t get on with them, and he didn’t have time anyway.

Well, you know what happened. She had problems with a family illness and he was no help, since he had no contact with them and didn’t really understand the ramifications. Meanwhile he was getting increasingly involved with all his friends on his new course, none of whom she had met. Inevitably there was a final straw which drove them apart. I suppose the only consolation was that they barely noticed when they split – it didn’t change much. No, that’s not fair, it was a very painful divorce but you know what I mean.

If you’re not involved in your partner’s life, what are you there for? How can you help them through problems when you don’t know the people involved, or celebrate successes when you don’t understand the background? You can’t just opt out of parts of their life because you’re not interested. In the end the course of events will opt you both out of each other’s lives entirely if you do that.

I’m not saying you have to live in each other’s pockets. Of course you can have your own interests and your own friends. In fact it’s no bad thing to have something to talk to each other about, which can be hard if you spend all your time together. But you need to have some contact with as much of each other’s lives as you can. Turn up to that office do, however ghastly you think it will be, so that next time your partner talks about colleagues, you’ll know who they are. Make sure you meet your partner’s friends from time to time at least, and that you have some involvement with their family.

Separate hobbies and interests are fine, but even if you don’t want to get involved while your partner rebuilds that car from scratch, at least be around to watch them take it out for a run the first time. If you don’t want to try your hand at breeding guinea pigs I quite understand, but at least try to learn their names, and go along to the odd guinea pig show (or whatever it is they do). You’ll both benefit so much from being a part of each other’s lives, so be there for the highs and lows even if you skip some of the bits in the middle.