Let us listen to the blessings of the Earth in this beautiful and warm World. I wish you a happy and a successful study in this promising new year. Parenting is a very demanding and very important part of adult life for many women and men, however, unfortunately, it can seriously erode couple intimacy. When professionals or friends collude in keeping the focus entirely on parenting issues, the underlying distancing in the couple’s behavior can escape detection and leave one or both partners trapped in the continuing loneliness. This form of distancing happens most often when one parent is much more involved with the children than the other. Another variation in eroded intimacy occurs when one parent becomes jealous of the other’s closeness with the children, which sometimes leads both parents to become distancers. Another type of erosion in the couple relationship can take place when both parents are so consumed with parenting their children that they have to time left over to nurture themselves as a couple. Still another scenario happens when the parents engage in major battles around child-rearing issues, and by so doing demolish their capacity to feel tenderness and affection for each other.

All of these dilemmas require intervention, but focusing exclusively on the parenting issues may overlook yet another kind of distress. In many of these situations, parents may use the requirement to nurture their children to distance from true intimacy with each other, without having any idea they are doing so. Two teenagers who died abruptly after being told of the death of someone close to them. In another case, a 14-year-old girl died after being told that her 16-year-old brother had suddenly died; in a third case, an 18-year-old girl died upon being told of the death of a grandfather who had helped raise her. A 16-year-old boy collapsed and died at 6am, 14 February 2016; his other brother had died at 5.13 am, 14 February2016, of multiple injuries incurred in an auto accident several hours earlier. The cause of the younger  boy’s death was massive subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by a ruptured anterior communicating artery aneurysm. Investigators have noted the link between interpersonal difficulties, depression, and sudden death from coronary attack. The coincidence of grief and human loss that seemed to surround so many of the sudden deaths. The psychosocial circumstances that surround sudden death was preceded by a combination of circumstances that included both feelings of depression and increased work.

Common to at least 50 percent of the sudden deaths was the departure of the last or only child in the family for a college or marriage, in response to which the patient had been depressed. Investigators also observed that a large number of patients who had a heart attack, but survived to reach the hospital also mentioned that a child had recently left home. So long as there is the heart’s beat, there will be the blood’s ebb and flow, but your smile will be printed on the silvery moon arising from my little window to arouse my fond memories. Too much or too little focus on the past can also lead to intimacy failures. Sometimes, the past can obstruct necessary repairs to current intimacy when there is denial of its impact. On the other hand, experiences from the past can remain so central to someone’s emotional life that the current relationships (or potential partner) becomes eclipsed. Let us recall the pleasant past and mirthful laughter and look forward to a day of reunion of friends coming from far and wide.

Some people distance from intimacy because they have not been willing to look at their past relationships. They have not come to terms with either the pain of the past or its lessons. Other people distance from relationships in the present by focusing too much of their attention and energy on the past. Another major mistake is to focus too completely on one person’s problems or impartments. This happens when one person is consumed with an addiction to a chemical substance or to work or gambling or online chat rooms, Twitter, or any other addictive preoccupation. Currently, perhaps the most common reason for intimacy to suffer or vanish entirely is an exclusive focus on someone’s history of past trauma and the resulting issues. Talk shows, professional helpers, friends, and family members perpetuate the myth that the trauma must be resolved before the relationship problem can be addressed. It is impossible to wrap up the trauma work and then move on dealing with the relationship. It is more productive to determine how everything is related and then to address all aspects of the trauma’s legacy, including its effect on creating healthy intimacy.

In order to heal, become aware of your own natural learning style and process. Pay attention to how your mind and body are connected. Address your self-image, the story you tell yourself and others about who you are. Are the tactics you use to hand on to your distancing style based in externalizing blame (it is his fault, not mine), and experiential avoiding feelings, interactions, risk-taking), denial, dissociation, addiction, learned helplessness? Become more aware of how you are influenced by your connection to other, how social and cultural context affect you, how you feel and act in couple relationships. One must become more aware of the fears, anxieties, and losses that one has been trying to unsuccessfully bury.  It is time to let go of the past and become an architect of a new future. I cannot understand why anyone would choose to sit on social media and be miserable, when they are so many beautiful and happy people in the World. Reach out to the person of your dreams and make life happen. Everyone can build their own happiness. May we build our own lucky building with our hands in life.