Married Singles: When a Couple Is Married, but Doesn’t Act Like It

Published November 27, 1986. This may sound like an unusual question. But it has been on my mind during the past few weeks. When is a marriage not a marriage?

It all began three weeks ago when I walked into my office. The receptionist gave me a number to call in California. It was urgent, and I was to call collect.

I dialed and a woman answered. She wanted to talk about some of her concerns. She wanted to know about the possibility of driving to Utah for marriage counseling. I said there were many marriage counselors in her area and the drive to Utah would not be necessary.

She asked if it would be possible to counsel with her periodically by phone. At first I thought she meant just with her, but no, she didn’t want personal counseling. She wanted me to talk to her and her husband at once.

I didn’t know what to say. I asked if they would both get on different phones in the same home? There was long pause and then she said, “My husband lives in Arizona.” She wanted to initiate a three-way phone conversation with me in Provo, her in California, and her husband in Arizona.

She said her husband moved to Arizona three or four years ago. He flies to California every other weekend to spend some time with her and the children. Then, on Monday morning, he leaves for another two weeks. The woman said this lifestyle was causing some major problems.

We decided three-way counseling by phone would not be very practical. But before hanging up, I had to ask her a question. Did she really still consider herself married to her frequently absent husband? There were a few restrained sobs and then she replied, “Yes, legally we still are. But we have so little in common anymore that I sometimes wonder.”

I suggested that perhaps they had separated years ago, even before he moved to Arizona. They are the extreme of what we now call “married singles.”

Married singles are people who are still legally married to each other, but are so emotionally distant they have little in common. They may even live in the same house, but still have few mutual interests or concerns. In her case, they had even decided to live apart from each other.

We talked about a few other matters, and I suggested she seek marriage counseling in her own city. But before we ended our conversation, we discussed the question I asked at the beginning of this column. “When is a marriage not a marriage?” Were she and her husband really still married?

Her husband thought they were. She was beginning to wonder. But in my own mind, there was no question. Divorce usually occurs in three distinct phases: 1. Emotional separation, 2. Physical separation, and finally 3. Legal separation.

Their marriage may have ended a long time ago. Perhaps they are just between stages 2 and 3.