Chapter 28: The Need For Air

Healthy love is not the cancelling of the self.

Neither is it separation.

The human heart needs two things at once:

closeness

and space.

A person cannot love if they are no longer themselves.

And a person cannot remain themselves if they are always alone.

Many couples do not fall apart because love is gone,

but because one feels the air is being taken from them,

or else feels they are losing the other

into separate worlds.

This is not failure.

It is human.

Personal space within love is not a luxury.

It is a condition for its life.

When there is no space, love suffocates.

When there is too much space, love scatters.

The hardest part of love is not a large feeling.

It is a delicate balance.

A real scene.

Not loud.

Gentle, and therefore dangerous.

She loves togetherness.

To talk.

To share.

To tell.

To draw near through words,

through time together,

through the feeling of two.

He loves her.

But part of his life is built in quiet.

In time alone.

In one hour where he builds something,

or ten minutes of music,

or reading an article,

where his mind returns to breathing.

When she feels him move away from her,

something in her grows tense.

A confusion rises:

if he needs time alone,

perhaps I am not enough.

And when he feels she wants constant closeness,

he moves away even more.

A confusion rises in him too:

if I need a moment to myself,

perhaps I am disappointing her.

And so the relationship begins to dance a strange dance.

The more she comes near, the more he steps back.

The more he steps back, the more she is frightened and comes nearer.

Both begin to feel unsafe,

not because love is absent,

but because space is.

They do not want distance.

But neither do they want to be swallowed.

This is the first truth of the chapter.

A good relationship is not built on maximum time together,

but on time that is wanted,

not feared,

not used as proof,

not demanded as reassurance.

Personal space is not a crack in the relationship.

It is the place where each person can remain whole.

And when each receives a little mental air,

they return to the relationship full,

not as someone begging to be rescued.

Written by Enoch Segal. Published by The Celestial Guide.