Aline, 46, and Benjamin, 41, have been a couple for 12 years. Their meeting took place on a video game forum. At the time, the duo actually shared the same passion. But since they have lived together, routine has set in.
Aline clearly noticed that everyday life almost stifled their relationship: “We started living together after 9 months of relationship and, the first two years, it was magical between us. We were impatiently waiting to finish work to find each other. When we were together, we did series or video game marathons. We spent every spare minute we had with each other and we never got bored. But that has changed. I took on responsibilities at work and Benjamin changed positions. We had less free time. And when we had it, we were too tired or too stressed to really manage to decompress. Benjamin started going for a run to clear his head and it was something he did alone. From year to year, we ended up having parallel lives. To share less, to talk less. We weren't unhappy and we didn't argue, but we didn't take advantage either. And when we had time to spend together, we didn't know what to do. We no longer shared anything. »
When boredom sets in
Aline confesses that she was sometimes bored with her partner: “I sometimes had to find something to do or a friend to see so as not to stay at home with him. On vacation, I squeezed in as many activities as possible. Obviously, our sex life suffered. We no longer knew how to be natural with each other. It was as if he had become a stranger. I didn't know how to react and didn't know what to suggest. We continued to watch series together but more out of habit and to pass the time. We stopped playing together. I think we were pretending to be adults and we got fooled. We forgot what we really loved and why we loved each other. It was because a friend found herself single overnight that I told myself we had to do something. I didn't want to be in his place. I made an appointment with a psychotherapist I found on the internet.
I understood that silence could also be toxic
Benjamin is not convinced by his partner's approach: “I followed her because it was important to her but I didn't see the point in going to talk to someone. I didn't know what I could say at all. Besides, the day before the first meeting I slept very badly because I was going over in my head everything I could say or rather the fact that I didn't know what to say at all. For me, we had no problem with Aline. We see problem couples around us. These are people who talk badly to each other or who argue with each other all the time. We never argue. We don't talk badly to each other.
But, with the therapist, I understood that silence could also be toxic. In truth, when I had something to say because I didn't like it, I preferred to keep quiet, telling myself that it wasn't a big deal. It ended up affecting my morale too. We were going badly without me realizing it and it was making me feel bad without me realizing it. Aline was right to take such a step. She was always smarter than me about these things. And she had courage too. Because it takes it to tell others that things need to change. »
For Benjamin, it all starts in the image he has of the couple: “For me, it was natural to be a little bored in my relationship. I didn't imagine that you had to be active, want to do things and organize them so that the couple remained healthy and everyone was happy. I watched my parents live side by side for decades and never complain about their relationship. They did their separate things and watched TV together in the evenings. Nobody questioned anything. Although I think we deserve a little better than that, I found myself doing the exact same things as an adult. In my unconscious, in a couple we are bored. Even though I am lucky enough to be in a relationship with a great person with whom we share a lot of things. »
We stop pretending to be adults
They are happy again: “The psychologist allows us to give ourselves permission to have fun again. We don't have children so we don't have a lot of constraints when we're not at work. It allowed us to organize our favorite moments: spending hours in front of the TV in our pajamas while snacking on anything. We are organizing series marathons again. We took out the console. In fact, we stop pretending to be adults the way we imagine adults should be. Just because we're in our forties doesn't mean we have to have boring lives. And now we're having fun. We do exactly what we want to do and with the person with whom we want to share it all. I started loving my wife again. Because that's how I love her the most: when she's having the time of her life. »