Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 19, 1993 TAG: 9301190130
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HARRY WESSEL KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
MANY MARRIAGE COUNSELORS DON'T AGREE WITH LONG-TERM SEPARATIONS
You don't have to be an unhappy royal couple to choose separation over divorce, but the idea of a long-term, open-ended separation doesn't sit well with most counselors, psychologists and others who work with troubled marriages."Open-ended separation is unreal. It creates too many difficulties," said Gery Woltering, an Orlando, Fla., marriage and family therapist. Couples who have separated should either be working to get back together or preparing for divorce so they can get on with their lives. Otherwise, Woltering said, separation "is a port in the storm. It's usually a coward's way to divorce."
Woltering and other experts were asked about separation and divorce last month, when Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, and his wife, Princess Diana, announced they were separating but had no plans to divorce. They'll share parenting duties for their boys, aged 10 and 8, and make occasional appearances together.
Long-term separations occur when couples reach the same conclusion Charles and Di did: They have too much to lose by divorcing. For non-royals on this side of the Atlantic what's at stake is typically money, property or children, or all three.
"Usually people separate for six months to a year, then divorce. But I've seen long-term separations in maybe 5 percent of my cases," said Glenda Short, an Orlando licensed clinical social worker who works with many troubled couples. "I've seen some who've been separated 25 years and are still married, and they like it."
Abbe Barclay, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Winter Park, Fla., also has seen some long-term separations. "As long as the positives of staying married outweigh the negatives for both partners, it continues.
"I can't honestly say these people are happy, but that's a decision they've made."
The decision takes on more significance when children are involved, said Barclay and other therapists. If the marriage has failed it's usually better to have a clean break so the children can work through the necessary grieving process.
When circumstances make a long-term separation necessary for a couple with children, the guiding parenting principles should be the same as for divorced parents with shared custody, Barclay said:
"Refrain from criticizing the other parent. Be specific about the parenting relationships. Keep the child's routine stable, with limits, structure and consistency in force. Share with the child the good parts of the marriage. And tell the child the reasons for the separation in a way that's understandable, realizing the story may need to be told and retold."
Trial separations do have their place, experts say. "It's so hard to know how much someone means to you without being physically separated," said William Player, a Winter Park psychologist who counsels many couples with marital difficulties. Acknowledging that most separations lead to divorce, Player said separations can also save marriages.
Player cited the scenario of a woman who goes directly from a sheltered family life into a "hyperdependent" marriage with a domineering husband. As she begins to develop some independence, "it may be necessary to pull away from her partner temporarily to establish a separate identity. When she comes back to him she can have more leverage. She's in the marriage not because she has to be, but because she chooses to be. That might get the husband who took her for granted to work harder at the marriage."
But if a couple is going to separate with the idea of bailing out their marriage, there should be clear rules in place.
Johanna Jordan, a marriage and family therapist with the Greenhouse Family Counseling Center in Orlando, said she urges separating couples to work out specific agreements: How often they'll talk on the phone, who they'll tell about the separation, whether they'll go out with others, "and all the nuts-and-bolts stuff, like does the husband take the blue towels?"
If rules are followed and there's a clear goal in mind, separation can help a couple get back together, but Jordan reiterated, "only if they're working on something. Open-ended separation doesn't make a lot of sense."
Nevertheless, most therapists hesitate to condemn open-ended separations too harshly. After all, said Player, the Winter Park psychologist, "I'd bet there are a lot of couples who have separated without one of them moving out, or even without one of them moving out of the bedroom.
"I find so often that couples stay together in a loveless marriage for the benefit of their children. They've reached an unspoken agreement to sacrifice their personal happiness because working together with their children is so enriching. I'm afraid to judge that."