English
EspañolSome people give it all to their family, except time and space. Do not arrive home exhausted and empty. Save the best parts of you for your home life.
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“Many of the respondents pointed to the problems families face in raising children. In many cases, parents come home exhausted, not wanting to talk, and many families no longer even share a common meal. Distractions abound, including an addiction to television”. (The Joy of Love, n.50)
Commentary
A constant in the experience of family therapy is that conflicts, disagreements, lack of communication, disunity, and other disorders do not fall from the sky without warning. They are a long-standing process. We neglect coexistence and communication at home, while at the same time, we demand from our relatives a rapid and miraculous cure for our burdens, stress, loneliness, tiredness, and frustrations. If we do not sow coexistence and its necessary space and time, we cannot harvest companionship, confidence, trust, and fluid communication.
I had a patient who told me of the following annoyance and disappointment. His 18 –year-old son, a freshman in The University, had a girlfriend with whom he spent most of his time and was hardly ever at home. His father summoned him to discuss the matter. Reluctantly, the boy went. The father started with: “I hear you have a girlfriend…you are too young, inexperienced, you are going to suffer… Why don´t you tell me about it?” Answer: “Why don´t I tell you? … What´s wrong with you, dad? … In the last few years, we have never talked about my things…You are always busy, your work, your friends, your hobbies…And now, I am expected to tell a stranger about my intimate life?” The father, faced with this attitude and reproach, stood up and, very offended, “greased” the communication with his son with these unfortunate words: “Aren´t you an ungrateful…that lives at my expense. You´ll come back to me when you crash and need money…”. The father´s reaction was a death blow to the nape of the neck regarding his son´s trust and confidence.
What to say in these frequent situations? On occasion, we believe we give everything to our family -spouses, children…- because we spend our lives working for them; however, we have been stingy with our time for too long. Trust, ascendancy, and intimate confidence between parents and children -and between spouses- is not improvised; it is sown over time with consistency and patience by living with those you love and setting aside time and space for them. Do not fool yourself; giving them that time and space is actually giving yourself to them, perhaps the best part of yourself as a loving spouse and parent. Trust is a habit. Not a fleeting and unusual act.
