関係 炉心溶融: Are you a battler or a bolter?

If your love life starts to 落ちる apart, you can take flight or fight to make things work out. Writer Victoria Wilde takes her cue from high-profile couples to 調査する her own 選択s

By VICTORIA WILDE

Updated: 17:24 BST, 3 April 2009

'I just don’t believe it,’ said my closest friend, Catherine, shaking her 長，率いる and reaching for the ワイン.

This was last month, when I finally （機の）カム clean and 自白するd to her the extent of my 結婚の／夫婦の problems.?

Was she amazed that my hitherto 近づく-perfect ten-year marriage was in trouble? Not 正確に／まさに (there had been hints on my part).

What surprised her was that, given how bad it had got, I was still in the 関係, plugging away, rather than on her doorstep, 追跡するing children and スーツケースs.

Given my past form, Catherine could imagine me putting up with a bad 関係 for, oh let’s see, a 週末? But for longer? No way.

歴史的に, I am not a battler. I do not fight for a 関係. I am a bolter.

I run away at the first 調印する of trouble ? and who would know that better than my best friend of 25 years?

In our 選び出す／独身 days and, God 許す me, in our married days, too, she has sat 一連の会議、交渉／完成する many a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する listening to me 勧める friends to 削減（する） and run. To my bolter mind, it was simple. Either the man （機の）カム after you begging for another chance (almost certainly), or he didn’t (problem solved).

But to the amazement of us both, this smug bolter has turned into a bemused, bewildered battler. Not even a bolter runs away easily from a 関係 that has until recently made her ? and her children ? very happy.

My partner, on the other 手渡す ? also a bolter in previous 関係s ? is playing true to form. He has not 現実に left the family home (bolter behaviour par excellence). He 断言するs he has not had an 事件／事情／状勢 (積極的な bolting). But for six months he has 完全に 孤立した from me 肉体的に and emotionally; he wants to be ‘friends’ (a masterstroke of passive-積極的な bolting).

There is nothing ‘friendly’ about it. Where we were once very affectionate, we now sleep in the same bed but don’t touch. Where once we laughed at everything, we struggle to talk politely.

He loves me, he says, but not in the way he used to. Our home, which used to be 十分な of laughter, teasing and fun with our two young sons (老年の eight and five), has now become 静かな, sombre.

I am living day by day ? on bad days, hour by hour. He is there ? but not there. It is hell.

The battlers

Victoria Beckham has stuck to David through 厚い and thin (certainly thin, anyway): his fluctuating fortunes on the pitch, his いっそう少なく than heroic 歓迎会 in LA, even his dalliance with Rebecca Loos.

Cheryl Cole gave her marriage another go にもかかわらず husband Ashley’s infidelity just over a year ago. But after his 最新の ‘遭遇（する）’ earlier this month, who knows?

Jo 支持を得ようと努めるd supported 激しく揺する 星／主役にする Ronnie through drink, 麻薬s and a string of 事件／事情／状勢s during their 23-year marriage, and only gave up on him when he 辞退するd to stop seeing 20-year-old Ekaterina Ivanova.

Madonna struggled for eight years to perfect that lady of the manor 役割 ーするために keep Guy happy and 持つ／拘留する her family together, before finally 発表するing their 離婚 last autumn.

いつかs I see myself as a literal battler, encased in a rusty old 控訴 of armour that 原因（となる）s me to つまずく through my day, struggling with the simplest 仕事.

戦う／戦いing leaches my energy and keeps me 除去するd from those I love. ‘除去するd’ because it has stopped me 存在 honest with them.

Until recently (aforementioned 開会／開廷／会期 with Catherine), I have not felt able to expose my lovely husband to the 非難 of others, not when he is 戦う／戦いing his own demons of 怒り／怒る, 不景気 and 犯罪. (Yes, indeed: your basic midlife 危機.)

存在 a battler has kept me silent, and it has kept me alone, over the past 哀れな six months. Why? Because on my good days, I know that he’s 価値（がある） loving and…what if? What if he comes out of this and loves me again? 否定? 絶対.

But, as it turns out, 否定 is not a bad 戦略. It gives you time ? and time, it turns out, is a 広大な／多数の／重要な help when 危機 攻撃する，衝突するs a 関係.

Victoria Beckham worked 否定 very 井戸／弁護士席. Psychologist Susan Quilliam believes that all unhappy couples reach a ‘crunch point’ when there’s an 事件／事情／状勢, or when one person 収容する／認めるs they no longer love or want sex with their partner.

When Victoria Beckham 設立する out about Rebecca Loos, she donned her Louboutin stilettos and strode bravely through her 失望.

But Susan Quilliam 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うs that there had to be a bit more going on with the Beckhams than simple 否定. ‘At the crunch point,’ she says, ‘if the 拒絶するd person stays 安定した, and listens carefully to what the unhappy one has to say, the one who seemingly wants out can 伸び（る） 視野 and realise that they want the 関係 after all.’

I am reminded of Zo? Ball’s husband, Norman Cook, who remained 確固たる in 直面する of her 井戸／弁護士席-publicised infidelity. She stayed with him and now 収容する／認めるs to 存在 a cake-baking, happily married ‘Stepford wife’ (her words). Cook’s stoicism turned their 関係 around. She, too, is a bolter transformed into a battler.

So in this club, there is Zo?, me… and Madge!

At last, Madonna and I have something in ありふれた. True, I would have preferred the wealth, the houses or the thighs, but it appears that what we 株 is an ability to keep hoping that a 関係 will work out, 権利 up to the end.

Who knew that this former uber-bolter would have shown such sticking 力／強力にする in her now 消滅した／死んだ marriage to Guy Ritchie? And such 否定! It has since 現れるd that she hoped, until days before the 離婚 告示, that she and Ritchie could work it out ? にもかかわらず no sex for 18 months and an atmosphere so 有毒な that they couldn’t 耐える to be in the same room. It was he who decided to c all in the lawyers.

Why did the multimillionaire feminist icon, with no need for a husband to give her 財政上の 安全, turn from bolter to battler?

For the same 推論する／理由s that all of us do, I imagine ? you remember the good times (in my 事例／患者, not so long ago, when I slept every night wrapped in his 武器 and was told daily how gorgeous I was).

I 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う that Madonna and I 株 that wistfulness, and also a 深い 恐れる of 失敗. Unlike Madonna, I’ve never craved world 支配, but my one ambition was to have a happy love life.

Like Madonna, I was really 感謝する to think that at least I’d got that bit 権利. And it’s very shaming to 収容する／認める we messed up. We both got complacent and were busy, busy, busy. Admittedly, she was busy with her world 小旅行する and 収入 $1.5 million a night, and I was busy with the school run, but still…

Madge 行方不明になるd Ritchie’s tipping point and was 恐らく shocked and distraught when the end （機の）カム. I was too busy finding a good plumber to 選ぶ up on 調印するs such as an escalation of 批評 and a general gloominess of spirits.

In typical male style, my partner didn’t 株 the true depth of his 不景気 until it was very serious and, in his 注目する，もくろむs, the 関係 had failed.

How long can I continue in 否定?? Not for ever. If bolters can turn into battlers, the 逆転する is true: battlers may 結局 bolt if their partner does not change 視野.

Meg Ryan has finally 認める that her much publicised 事件／事情／状勢 with Russell Crowe was a reaction to the serial infidelity of her then-husband Dennis Quaid. Meg is open about her collusion in putting up with it. ‘I was in that marriage for a very long time,’ she says.

The 戦略 of letting things 嘘（をつく） didn’t work in her 事例／患者, but it’s 一般に a good one, says Relate therapist Paula Hall. ‘Emotion often clouds the 決定／判定勝ち（する）-making 過程,’ she says. ‘In a シナリオ where one person loves and one doesn’t, we often feel 圧倒するd by 不確定 and driven into bolting ? but the 重要な thing for both parties is not to make 決定／判定勝ち（する）s in a hurry. Give it time.’

But what if time and 否定 do not work? Should I ask him to leave? Take a 一時的な break? Would ‘space’ help? (It did for singer Cheryl Cole when she chucked out husband Ashley に引き続いて his infidelity.)

‘It depends,’ says Paula Hall. ‘いつかs, if one partner doesn’t want the 関係, then a clean break is best for both parties.’

In other words, pretend-bolting ‘to teach him a lesson’ isn’t 価値（がある） trying. It could be the high-危険 戦略 that finally finishes us. And battlers should leave high 危険 to the bolters.

One difference, 明らかに, between bolters and battlers is that bolters are better ふさわしい to high-危険 戦略s such as leaving, because they have cushioned themselves by 身を引くing and not letting softer feelings get in the way.

On the other 手渡す, battlers are still craving 関係: if they 身を引く and the 関係 ends, they are 直面するing a lifetime of 悔いる as they 非難する themselves for 始めるing the 分裂（する）.

The bolters

Ulrika Jonsson, at 41, is already on her third husband. No 調印する of her bolting again, but it’s only been a year…
?

Ivana Trump? has clocked up four husbands since 1971, and has also written a guide to 離婚. She should know.

?

Drew Barrymore managed five weeks with her first husband and under a year with her second.

?

Emilia Fox recently とじ込み／提出するd for 離婚 from actor Jared Harris, whom friends 述べる as ‘difficult’. Too difficult, it seems.

So, no raising the 火刑／賭けるs for me. Anyway, I don’t think I can bolt until there is no hope. I assume that, when children are 伴う／関わるd, 戦う／戦いing is good and bolting is bad. Which is why, I guess, both of us are hanging on to our 関係 by our fingernails.

Another 推論する／理由 not to bolt is that there is no 保証（人） that either of us would be happier. When a group of men and women who had 報告（する）／憶測d 存在 ‘very unhappy’ in their marriages were traced five years later, nearly 80 per cent of those who had stayed together said their marriages were now ‘happy’, 反して those who had 分裂（する） up were, on the whole, still not happy. Even those who had 離婚d and remarried were no happier on 普通の／平均（する） than those who’d stayed in their 初めの marriage.

There is also 証拠 that men 悔いる splitting up more than women do ? I guess that when a marriage 攻撃する，衝突するs problems, the practical male brain just wants to 削減（する） and run, but 負かす／撃墜する the line he finds that the grass is most emphatically not greener.

But what seems （疑いを）晴らす is that even if we do come through this, I can’t have my old 関係 支援する.

専門家s agree that once a 関係 攻撃する，衝突するs serious problems, it has to be renegotiated if it’s to work again. Which is difficult when you can’t get your partner to talk to you.

We have always had a very 言葉の 関係 ? chatting endlessly, 審議ing, giggling, planning. The hardest thing has been his 不本意 to talk to me. Our an ger has been so corrosive that we just can’t communicate. But I have finally broken him 負かす／撃墜する and 主張するd we talk more, because 専門家s agree that talking is 必須の.

US 関係s coach Penny Tupy 令状s on her website (rejoicing in the 指名する saveyourmarriagecentral.com): ‘Men typically 否定する a strong need for conversation. And yet it is 安全な to say that without conversation many of men’s intimate needs go unmet.

'Women whose husbands are having 事件／事情／状勢s tell me that their husbands are wildly in love with women who spend time talking to and listening to them… It is the good feelings 生成するd by those needs 存在 met in conversation ? 賞賛, 尊敬（する）・点, attention, a sense of importance ? that lead to the next step, that of physical intimacy.’

So I’ve been listening respectfully. I’ve 受託するd (and it took time) that it’s not all his fault. I should have listened better and 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がるd more that the past few years have been difficult for him (work, health, life in general). I could have been more supportive.

Last night, after another emotionally wrought heart-to-heart, he raised my hopes by agreeing that he will go to couples counselling with me…but then dashed them a second later by 説 he is ‘not open to the idea’ that it will do any good.

I feel like telling him to stuff it. What on earth is the point if he is so 始める，決める against me and values our 関係 so little?

Afterwards, I retired to bed and lay 星／主役にするing at the 天井 thinking, ‘He says one thing, but means another. Has he always been mad and I just never noticed?’ (I 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う that all people in my position have felt like this.)

As he entered our bedroom he let out a theatrical sigh. But when he saw my mutinous 直面する, he did have the grace to mutter, ‘I’m sighing because the radiator in the bathroom is 漏れるing again.’

I started to laugh and we lay in bed and talked light-heartedly about that evening’s conversation. He held my 手渡す for the first time in months.

And so I climb 支援する on the roller coaster. This once-proud bolter is now a hapless battler, and will seemingly put up with 事実上 anything in the hope that our love can 生き残る his 欠如（する） of 利益／興味 in ‘us’.?

All you bolters out there, I agree with you: I am a wimp. I 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う it is only those of you (hey, Madonna!) who have ever turned yourselves into battlers who will know how I （機の）カム to this.

Either way, please wish me luck as I Google ‘couples counsellor’. Still in 否定. Still travelling hopefully.

Learn from your opposite

Psychologist Susan Quilliam believes that some 関係 problems can be solved if we learn from each other:

• Should our writer, Victoria, bolt or 戦う／戦い on? 追加する your comments below