Luigui Bleand: What You Thought Was Missing

MILAN, ITALY — Sometimes what we think we lack is not absent: it is far away, or we have stopped looking at it. And some people only realise it after trading what they had for what they imagined. What follows is a story that could happen to anyone, told in the first person.

We had a stable relationship. I cared about her and we were good, even though fate kept us far apart: me in one country, her in another. Quietly, I began holding myself back. I stopped buying things for myself, treating myself, trying something new. I did it out of love, to make her happy.

She felt something was missing and decided to leave and have an adventure: to meet someone new, to start a romance. Then I told her: “I wish you the best of luck, but you go your way and I’ll go mine.” And I meant it. After we parted, I went back to living my own life: treating myself, trying something new. Not so she would see it, or to prove anything. I was simply myself again.

Months went by. What she felt was missing slowly faded, and she saw that nothing was as she had imagined. She wanted to come back. I answered calmly: “As I told you at the start, I wish you the best of luck, but you go your way and I’ll go mine.” There was no slammed door, only consistency. This is not a story of good and bad people, but of something very human, and not only in couples: it happens with a job, a city or a friend we leave for something that shone brighter. And I was left with a question: what was missing – an absence, or an image?

First I wanted to understand her decision without blaming her. In 2003, in Personal Relationships, the psychologists Benjamin Le and Christopher Agnew, of Purdue University, pooled 52 studies, with 11,582 people, on what sustains commitment, not only to a partner but to friends, a job or a sport. Satisfaction was most closely linked to commitment (r = 0.68). Those who saw better alternatives tended to feel less committed (r = −0.48), and the more people had invested, the more committed they felt (r = 0.46). Together the three factors explained 61% of the differences in commitment between people. They also note the alternative is not always another person: sometimes it is being single. These are correlations, mostly from questionnaires, with no long-distance samples. Commitment predicted who stayed and who left (r = 0.47; 12 studies, 1,720 people), though the authors say most of it remains unexplained: pressure from friends and family and changing circumstances count too.

Then I thought about distance. In 2007, in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Laura Stafford and Andy Merolla, of Ohio State University, compared long-distance dating couples with those living close by. Those far apart showed more idealisation: seeing the other as better than they are, romantic love, reminiscing about the relationship and believing you agree. They were more stable while apart, but tended to break up once they lived close by: longer gaps between visits and extreme idealisation during the separation predicted instability on reunion. In 2006, in the same journal, Stafford, Merolla and Castle found a third of reunited couples broke up within three months. The published abstracts do not describe the sample. These are associations, not causes, and concern idealising the distant partner, not someone new. I take it as a clue, not a certainty: what we imagine from afar gets tested up close.

Another question remained: whether stable means dimmed. In 2009, in Review of General Psychology, Bianca Acevedo and Arthur Aron, of Stony Brook University, pooled 25 studies. Romantic love without obsession was linked to satisfaction almost equally in short relationships (r = 0.55; 13 samples, 3,256 people) and long ones (r = 0.56; 7 samples, 1,419). Obsession, barely: 0.08 in short ones and −0.02 in long ones. Among 156 married couples on Long Island, together 8.84 years on average, 42 of 312 people (13%) gave the top score to every romantic-love question, even allowing for the wish to look good; for obsession, only 6 (2%). That 13% is a minority; these are correlations in dating and married couples, not long-distance ones; and the authors warn of a possible bias towards happy couples and Western values. That the spark of something new is not always what was missing is my thought, not the study’s. But it leaves me with an idea: stable does not mean empty.

I still needed to understand my part. In 2005, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Emily Impett, Shelly Gable and Letitia Anne Peplau followed 153 UCLA undergraduates in relationships for two weeks; each evening they noted whether they had given something up for their partner, and why. They did so on almost half the days. When they did it to make their partner happy or express love, they felt better that day and the relationship went better; when they did it to avoid conflict or to keep the other from losing interest, the opposite happened. A month later, for each extra point on those avoidance motives, the odds of having broken up were more than two and a half times higher. These were students who saw their partners almost daily, not long-distance couples, and what they gave up was small; there were only 18 break-ups and the study shows associations, not causes. I had held back out of love. The study does not say giving out of love makes the other person stay, and here it was not enough. But I wonder if that is what allows you to let go without resentment. And giving should not mean disappearing.

I am not telling this story to blame anyone. Feeling that something is missing is human; so is going out to find it, and wanting to come back. I think distance fills what we cannot see with imagination and dulls what we have close by, and something new, while new, looks a lot like what we were looking for. In this story, I gave without making a fuss, and when it was time to let go, I let go without resentment. My final answer was not a punishment; it was staying consistent with what I said from the start. Some doors do not slam shut: they begin to close on the day someone decides to walk through another. Over time I have learned to accept what is not in my hands and to look after what is: my time, my peace and what makes me happy.

We are all free to choose, but every choice is also a farewell: what you leave behind carries on and does not always wait for you. Before you trade what you have for what you imagine, look at it closely and talk about what you feel is missing; sometimes it is not an absence, but distance, tiredness or something never said. If you give, give out of love, not fear, and without losing yourself. If you are the one who stays, close the door in peace: truly wishing someone luck is also letting go. And if you know someone who wants to go back through a door already closed, stand by them without saying “I told you so”. Thank God for what you have while you have it. Time puts each thing in its place, little by little. Live every step of the process.