What Happens When We Can’t Connect

One of my favorite subjects to write about is connection with other people. Over this last weekend, I finished another parenting seminar, and my mind is full of questions and conversations I just had with people. One of the things that often comes up is connection. As a parent, one of the most important things we want is a relationship with our children, and we want that connection to remain unbroken. As I meet people in the seminars or counseling, it becomes apparent that many people lost their connection to either one or both of their parents at some critical stage. When any person at any age loses the connection, the result is loneliness. Often people who have trouble connecting emotionally to others can trace their difficulty back to their childhood. In marriage, they will struggle with creating and maintaining an emotional connection with their spouse. Their husband or wife will complain that they are distant and detached. The disconnected person will long for connection but not know how to find it. Often, they will look for connection in finding an emotional attachment to someone other than their spouse. Of course, it will not endure, and any satisfaction will be short-lived. Others will look toward an illicit affair and the fulfillment of sexual intimacy with someone other than their spouse, who most often is very much like them. After the short-lived relationship, they both feel empty because the affair could not produce what they wanted.

They long for connection, and they do not know how to find it. Couples who struggle with finding and maintaining an emotional connection need help. Seeing a counselor on a weekly basis and being willing to learn about the problem and face it squarely is the best solution for many couples. There is no way to magically find connection for someone who does not know how to connect. They have to first understand this is what they need in their life. Secondly, they have to commit to pursuing it. Thirdly, they have to be willing to invest in faithfulness and commitment in the relationship. At first, it will just be like planting seeds, but if they are willing to wait for the fruit, it will arrive.

God made the most intimate relationship on earth, and he placed it within the confines of marriage. If we are willing to live within the confines of love and fidelity, we will enjoy the fruits of emotional and physical intimacy. We find it by keeping our promises. We see it by showing kindness; we find it by loving each other. We find it by apologizing and forgiving each other. We find it by living out our days in our family. If you have a connection with your wife, husband, and children, thank God for it and fight to keep it. If you do not, fight for it until you have it. It is what we all want more than anything in this life.