Feast or Famine: When Your Relationship Only Looks Good from the Outside

A wise mentor once told me, "you get no nourishment from an empty plate; no matter how beautifully the table is set." In our relationships, especially the ones that last a long time, we must be careful to avoid the mistake of setting a table beautiful to the eye, yet in barren in its content.

We've all seen the scenario, a "happy couple" - always together, mutually supportive, with a house or cars or pets or property break up to our shock and dismay. Suddenly the private anguish becomes public knowledge. We learn there wasn't any sex for years, or one partner was cold to the other in ways other than intimacy, or that there was an affair, or an addiction problem, or money fights or family issues. All at once the "perfect couple" image disintegrates in front of our eyes and were are left seeing the reality of a relationship in disrepair. Overnight the fairy tale is a nightmare. How can that happen?

It happens when couples feast at the empty table. It happens when the love, time, intimacy, honesty or equality of respect in a relationship disappears and all that's left is the shell. It happens when a couple dresses up and puts a smile on to "go out", but lives in a hurricane of frowns and distance at home. It happens when a couple holds hands at a reception, but sleep in separate rooms feeling distant and unloved. It happens when the decoration is overstressed and the dinner left half-baked.

To keep this from happening, it's important that a couple's communication involve a gentle honesty. If you see yourself "mugging for the cameras" in public but fighting for attention in private, its time to sit down and have a discussion. Communicate the truth of what you see. Don't blame each other, but state the concern with earnest care. (I.e. don't say "You haven't been open to sex in months!" but say "we haven't been intimate for a long time and I miss it." All issues can be addressed, understood and worked with. It's a matter of willingness and the presence of hope.