A relationship at an end, but neither partner wants to call it quits
A relationship at an end, but neither partner wants to call it quits: The psychology of a dead marriage
A relationship at an end, but neither partner wants to call it quits: The psychology of a dead marriage
DESCRIPTION: Many marriages have long since become hollow, and yet neither partner calls it quits. With Freud and Lorenzer’s ‘lame compromise’: why staying together is a joint effort, and what the advice ‘Leave or work on your relationship’ overlooks.
The marriage that nobody ends
Some marriages have been dead for years and yet are never ended. Both partners know it, neither speaks of it, and those around them describe the couple as stable. Staying together is a joint effort: it keeps at bay something that would be worse for both of them than their unhappiness. Freud described this pattern in 1924; Alfred Lorenzer calls the underlying form a ‘lazy compromise’.
A relationship at an end, but neither partner calls it quits
In a marital row, there is negotiation, threats, suffering and sometimes one walks out. A dead marriage proceeds quietly. They share a home, a diary and holidays, discuss appointments and the children, sleep side by side or in separate rooms, and haven’t said anything of substance to one another for years. When asked why they stay together, the answers include ‘for the sake of the children’, ‘we’ve grown apart’, ‘that’s just how it is after twenty years’. These are descriptions of an arrangement that nobody questions. The loneliness that arises from it has a name of its own: marital loneliness.
The puzzle is that both partners suffer, yet neither changes the situation.
Why neither ends it: the wrong question about courage
The usual interpretation of staying together is cowardice. Anyone who doesn’t draw a line under it is supposedly lacking the courage to separate. This question assumes a decision that someone is putting off. In a dead marriage, this decision is missing because both partners have long since decided, without realising it: to live a life in which nothing changes anymore.
A more fruitful question is what makes this arrangement possible. A marriage without intimacy shields against closeness. A marriage without arguments shields against the anger both partners feel towards each other. A marriage in which neither makes any demands shields against every unnamed desire. What is kept at bay differs from couple to couple, and no outsider can put a name to it. The only certainty is that this tranquillity comes at a cost and spares them something.
Staying Together as an Achievement
Staying together is an achievement on the part of both partners. It consists of maintaining a shared defence mechanism, day after day, without either of them realising it. This involves effort: topics are avoided, conversations peter out at the same point, physical contact ceases, and conflicts are postponed. Anyone who sees a dead marriage as idleness overlooks just how much effort it demands. A related dynamic is described in the text on ‘mankeeping’.
The unhappiness remains bearable because it is predictable. It has fixed times and fixed scenarios. The alternative – ending the marriage or truly changing it – would unleash the unpredictable: anger, grief, shame, and even desire.
Freud had already recognised this pattern
In *The Economic Problem of Masochism* (1924), Freud describes patients whose neurosis resists every attempt at treatment and disappears when they ‘… find themselves in the misery of an unhappy marriage’, lose their fortune or fall seriously ill. One form of suffering has then been replaced by another, and Freud concludes from this: ‘the only thing that mattered was being able to maintain a certain measure of suffering.’
For Freud, the unhappy marriage serves as an example of one form of suffering replacing another. It can serve as a place where a person can house their measure of unhappiness. In the dead marriage, this measure is maintained jointly.
Lorenzer’s half-baked compromise
Alfred Lorenzer gives this pattern a form. In his theory, a symptom arises when a desire comes into conflict with social demands and loses its connection to language. Lorenzer calls this ‘desymbolisation’. The experience is not forgotten; it remains physically and scenically effective (König et al. 2020, 43). The impulse nevertheless prevails, albeit in a mutilated form: ‘Instead of the satisfaction of the original impulse, substitute satisfaction occurs in forms that are socially permissible’ (Lorenzer 1981a, 111, quoted in König et al. 2020, 56).
This substitute satisfaction involves a linguistic template, an empty word that justifies and glosses over it. The subject thereby deceives themselves (König et al. 2020, 96). The symptom and the linguistic template give rise to the unity that Lorenzer calls the ‘lousy compromise’: ‘In the case of the symptom, the unity is a lousy compromise that makes the symptom socially tolerable and reasonably bearable for the individual’ (Lorenzer 1981a, 113, quoted in König et al. 2020, 96).
Lorenzer is referring here to the symptom. One possible interpretation of this text is that the dead marriage is such a construct. This interpretation seems plausible because the characteristics fit. The arrangement is socially accepted, as marriage is regarded as an institution deserving of protection. It makes the unhappiness tolerable and reasonably bearable. And it comes with templates that explain it.
The linguistic templates of marriage
Phrases such as ‘for the children’s sake’, ‘we’ve grown apart’ and ‘it’s not that bad’ are examples of these clichés. They sound reasonable and cannot be refuted. This is precisely where their function lies: they describe the situation in such a way that nobody has to change anything. The phrase ‘we’ve grown apart’ transforms an event in which both parties were involved into a process that happened of its own accord.
This ties in with Lorenzer’s description of the cliché as a desymbolised form of interaction: behaviour without awareness that takes hold ‘behind the individual’s back’ and follows a compulsion to repeat (König et al. 2020, 44). The scene at the dinner table, where nobody says a word, has been repeating itself for years. Both know the routine, and neither knows its meaning.
The body keeps up
What finds no expression in language remains physically effective. In such marriages, the body can speak: the back, the stomach, sleep, the head. Psychosomatics calls this somatisation; medicine classifies persistent complaints without a sufficient physical cause as somatoform disorders. A symptom does not imply an intention. Back pain does not prove a hidden intention to separate, and no physical symptom is a secret decision to end the marriage. It says nothing about the marriage as long as no one is aware of the context in which it occurs.
The body captures the state that language cannot express. A dead marriage has no template for these complaints, and so their meaning remains unnamed.
Leave or work on your relationship
Self-help literature offers two pieces of advice. One is: Leave. The unhappiness is proof enough; staying would be a betrayal of oneself. The post ‘Overcoming a Break-up’ deals with how to come to terms with a break-up. The other is: Work on the relationship. With ‘ ’ couples’ counselling, communication exercises and weekend seminars, what seems lost can be salvaged. Both commands view the dead marriage as a problem to be solved by a decision. Lists of signs of a broken relationship reflect the same perspective.
In this line of reasoning, both fail to recognise the function of the standstill. Those who advise walking away strip away the framework of the defence mechanism without asking what it is defending against. The label ‘avoider’, which is so readily applied, puts an end to any reflection. Those who advise working on the relationship provide another linguistic template – ‘communication problem’ – and the dead marriage gratefully embraces it. It explains the unhappiness without touching the heart of the matter. Both pieces of advice are correct as far as the distress is concerned, and both misunderstand the purpose of the arrangement.
The marriage that neither of them ends is a solution they have both found. It costs a great deal and delivers something. Anyone who sees it merely as a failure has seen the cost but overlooked the benefit.
The most important points in brief
· A dead marriage persists when staying together sustains a shared defence mechanism. The unhappiness remains predictable, and the unpredictable is kept at bay.
· In 1924, Freud described how one form of suffering can be replaced by another, including the misery of an unhappy marriage: what mattered was maintaining a certain degree of suffering.
· Lorenzer calls the unity of symptom and linguistic template the ‘lazy compromise’: socially tolerable and reasonably bearable. Applying this to marriage is an interpretation.
· Phrases such as ‘for the sake of the children’ and ‘we’ve grown apart’ function as linguistic templates: they justify the arrangement.
· Physical ailments may form part of the picture and do not prove any hidden intention to separate.
· The advice ‘Leave’ and ‘Work on your relationship’ both fail to fulfil the function of a standstill.
Sources
· Freud, S. (1924): The Economic Problem of Masochism. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 10, 121–133. Text version: textlog.de
· König, H.-D., König, J., Lohl, J. et al. (2020): An Introduction to Alfred Lorenzer. Psychoanalysis, Socialisation Theory and Deep Hermeneutics. Stuttgart: UTB.
· Lorenzer, A. (1981a): The Council of Accountants. The Destruction of Sensuality. A Critique of Religion. Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. Quoted in König et al. (2020).
Related
DESCRIPTION: Many marriages have long since become hollow, and yet neither partner calls it quits. With Freud and Lorenzer’s ‘lame compromise’: why staying together is a joint effort, and what the advice ‘Leave or work on your relationship’ overlooks.
The marriage that nobody ends
Some marriages have been dead for years and yet are never ended. Both partners know it, neither speaks of it, and those around them describe the couple as stable. Staying together is a joint effort: it keeps at bay something that would be worse for both of them than their unhappiness. Freud described this pattern in 1924; Alfred Lorenzer calls the underlying form a ‘lazy compromise’.
A relationship at an end, but neither partner calls it quits
In a marital row, there is negotiation, threats, suffering and sometimes one walks out. A dead marriage proceeds quietly. They share a home, a diary and holidays, discuss appointments and the children, sleep side by side or in separate rooms, and haven’t said anything of substance to one another for years. When asked why they stay together, the answers include ‘for the sake of the children’, ‘we’ve grown apart’, ‘that’s just how it is after twenty years’. These are descriptions of an arrangement that nobody questions. The loneliness that arises from it has a name of its own: marital loneliness.
The puzzle is that both partners suffer, yet neither changes the situation.
Why neither ends it: the wrong question about courage
The usual interpretation of staying together is cowardice. Anyone who doesn’t draw a line under it is supposedly lacking the courage to separate. This question assumes a decision that someone is putting off. In a dead marriage, this decision is missing because both partners have long since decided, without realising it: to live a life in which nothing changes anymore.
A more fruitful question is what makes this arrangement possible. A marriage without intimacy shields against closeness. A marriage without arguments shields against the anger both partners feel towards each other. A marriage in which neither makes any demands shields against every unnamed desire. What is kept at bay differs from couple to couple, and no outsider can put a name to it. The only certainty is that this tranquillity comes at a cost and spares them something.
Staying Together as an Achievement
Staying together is an achievement on the part of both partners. It consists of maintaining a shared defence mechanism, day after day, without either of them realising it. This involves effort: topics are avoided, conversations peter out at the same point, physical contact ceases, and conflicts are postponed. Anyone who sees a dead marriage as idleness overlooks just how much effort it demands. A related dynamic is described in the text on ‘mankeeping’.
The unhappiness remains bearable because it is predictable. It has fixed times and fixed scenarios. The alternative – ending the marriage or truly changing it – would unleash the unpredictable: anger, grief, shame, and even desire.
Freud had already recognised this pattern
In *The Economic Problem of Masochism* (1924), Freud describes patients whose neurosis resists every attempt at treatment and disappears when they ‘… find themselves in the misery of an unhappy marriage’, lose their fortune or fall seriously ill. One form of suffering has then been replaced by another, and Freud concludes from this: ‘the only thing that mattered was being able to maintain a certain measure of suffering.’
For Freud, the unhappy marriage serves as an example of one form of suffering replacing another. It can serve as a place where a person can house their measure of unhappiness. In the dead marriage, this measure is maintained jointly.
Lorenzer’s half-baked compromise
Alfred Lorenzer gives this pattern a form. In his theory, a symptom arises when a desire comes into conflict with social demands and loses its connection to language. Lorenzer calls this ‘desymbolisation’. The experience is not forgotten; it remains physically and scenically effective (König et al. 2020, 43). The impulse nevertheless prevails, albeit in a mutilated form: ‘Instead of the satisfaction of the original impulse, substitute satisfaction occurs in forms that are socially permissible’ (Lorenzer 1981a, 111, quoted in König et al. 2020, 56).
This substitute satisfaction involves a linguistic template, an empty word that justifies and glosses over it. The subject thereby deceives themselves (König et al. 2020, 96). The symptom and the linguistic template give rise to the unity that Lorenzer calls the ‘lousy compromise’: ‘In the case of the symptom, the unity is a lousy compromise that makes the symptom socially tolerable and reasonably bearable for the individual’ (Lorenzer 1981a, 113, quoted in König et al. 2020, 96).
Lorenzer is referring here to the symptom. One possible interpretation of this text is that the dead marriage is such a construct. This interpretation seems plausible because the characteristics fit. The arrangement is socially accepted, as marriage is regarded as an institution deserving of protection. It makes the unhappiness tolerable and reasonably bearable. And it comes with templates that explain it.
The linguistic templates of marriage
Phrases such as ‘for the children’s sake’, ‘we’ve grown apart’ and ‘it’s not that bad’ are examples of these clichés. They sound reasonable and cannot be refuted. This is precisely where their function lies: they describe the situation in such a way that nobody has to change anything. The phrase ‘we’ve grown apart’ transforms an event in which both parties were involved into a process that happened of its own accord.
This ties in with Lorenzer’s description of the cliché as a desymbolised form of interaction: behaviour without awareness that takes hold ‘behind the individual’s back’ and follows a compulsion to repeat (König et al. 2020, 44). The scene at the dinner table, where nobody says a word, has been repeating itself for years. Both know the routine, and neither knows its meaning.
The body keeps up
What finds no expression in language remains physically effective. In such marriages, the body can speak: the back, the stomach, sleep, the head. Psychosomatics calls this somatisation; medicine classifies persistent complaints without a sufficient physical cause as somatoform disorders. A symptom does not imply an intention. Back pain does not prove a hidden intention to separate, and no physical symptom is a secret decision to end the marriage. It says nothing about the marriage as long as no one is aware of the context in which it occurs.
The body captures the state that language cannot express. A dead marriage has no template for these complaints, and so their meaning remains unnamed.
Leave or work on your relationship
Self-help literature offers two pieces of advice. One is: Leave. The unhappiness is proof enough; staying would be a betrayal of oneself. The post ‘Overcoming a Break-up’ deals with how to come to terms with a break-up. The other is: Work on the relationship. With ‘ ’ couples’ counselling, communication exercises and weekend seminars, what seems lost can be salvaged. Both commands view the dead marriage as a problem to be solved by a decision. Lists of signs of a broken relationship reflect the same perspective.
In this line of reasoning, both fail to recognise the function of the standstill. Those who advise walking away strip away the framework of the defence mechanism without asking what it is defending against. The label ‘avoider’, which is so readily applied, puts an end to any reflection. Those who advise working on the relationship provide another linguistic template – ‘communication problem’ – and the dead marriage gratefully embraces it. It explains the unhappiness without touching the heart of the matter. Both pieces of advice are correct as far as the distress is concerned, and both misunderstand the purpose of the arrangement.
The marriage that neither of them ends is a solution they have both found. It costs a great deal and delivers something. Anyone who sees it merely as a failure has seen the cost but overlooked the benefit.
The most important points in brief
· A dead marriage persists when staying together sustains a shared defence mechanism. The unhappiness remains predictable, and the unpredictable is kept at bay.
· In 1924, Freud described how one form of suffering can be replaced by another, including the misery of an unhappy marriage: what mattered was maintaining a certain degree of suffering.
· Lorenzer calls the unity of symptom and linguistic template the ‘lazy compromise’: socially tolerable and reasonably bearable. Applying this to marriage is an interpretation.
· Phrases such as ‘for the sake of the children’ and ‘we’ve grown apart’ function as linguistic templates: they justify the arrangement.
· Physical ailments may form part of the picture and do not prove any hidden intention to separate.
· The advice ‘Leave’ and ‘Work on your relationship’ both fail to fulfil the function of a standstill.
Sources
· Freud, S. (1924): The Economic Problem of Masochism. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 10, 121–133. Text version: textlog.de
· König, H.-D., König, J., Lohl, J. et al. (2020): An Introduction to Alfred Lorenzer. Psychoanalysis, Socialisation Theory and Deep Hermeneutics. Stuttgart: UTB.
· Lorenzer, A. (1981a): The Council of Accountants. The Destruction of Sensuality. A Critique of Religion. Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. Quoted in König et al. (2020).
Related
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Möchten Sie informiert werden, wenn ich einen neuen Blogbeitrag veröffentliche? Tragen Sie sich gern hier ein.
Klicken Sie auf „Kostenlos abonnieren“, wenn Sie meine Datenschutzerklärung gelesen und akzeptiert haben. Ihre Einwilligung können Sie jederzeit widerrufen.