As we turn to our own interviewed couples, we find disengaged couples like Sally and Max, who seem more comfortable when talking about “I” than “we.” There was always hesitancy and question mark in their voices when talking about and for themselves as a couple. They felt that they have very little in common, other than both being Tauruses, and are surprised that they are still together after three and a half years, having been “attached” on and off for the previous 15 years. Both teachers in their early sixties, Sally and Max have been very cautious about making a commitment over the years in part because Max lost his first wife to cancer and wants to avoid ever going through that pain again.
In trying to play it safe, Max dated many women for a long period of time, though he always returned to Sally as his stable relationship. Sally found this complex dance quite confusing and paradoxical, for within a year after they started dating Max told her that he wanted a “deep and meaningful relationship without any commitment” and within four years “he told me that he loved me and then went out with other women.” Instead of insisting on a showdown, Sally started dating other men, all the while insisting that the person she really loved was Max. Of course, at the times when they started getting closer, he again started to pull away, and the dance began again.
Even in making a firmer commitment to Sally, Max uses a shopping metaphor that seems quite disengaged: you pick something out that you like at the store and ask them to hold it while you check around for a while. Then you look at other stores, but keep coming back to the first store because “you know that that is what you really want.” But, something keeps you from buying it, and there is always that suspicion that there is something better somewhere. So Max distinguished between “when he knew” that they were a couple, which was early on, and “when he was sure” that they were a couple, which occurred much later.
Actually, Max was “sure” that they were a couple when Sally finally gave up on him after 15 years of waiting and went to another country to work. While she was gone, Max had no desire to date other women. He finally followed Sally and asked her to come back and marry him. She waited six months to answer in the affirmative (giving him back a bit of his own medicine) and only after he went to get her a second time and proposed again. This ended the “dance.” Sally indicated, however, that she was never sure that they were a couple until the marriage ceremony when she finally was able to build some boundaries around their highly disengaged relationship. Max and Sally are a distinctive couple in many ways. Yet, in other way they exemplify traditional sex-role values and expectations. Max, the male, tries to keep disengaged, while Sally, the female, seeks out commitment. Sally’s overall description of their relationship could stand as a motto for virtually all disengaged couples: “It was always fuzzy.”
