By Dr. Jené Verchick in Los Angeles
I see some version of this couple all the time. I will call them Rachel and David, married 22 years. Nothing was wrong, they said. They never fought. The kids were doing well. The house ran like a clock. Their friends thought of them as the solid couple.
Then Rachel said the sentence I hear more than any other in long marriages. “We’re a great team. I just miss him.”
I have a name for this. I call it Teammates, Not Soulmates. It is the marriage where two people run the house, the kids and the calendar well together, and are good friends, but are no longer lovers and no longer emotionally close. Great team. Good friends. Not lovers.
People sometimes call it roommate syndrome. I prefer teammates, because these couples are not strangers. They are an excellent team. They just stopped reaching for each other somewhere along the way, and nobody decided it.
In my 26+ years of working with couples, I have met many of them. I also have a lot of hope for them.
Jewish tradition gives us a lovely ideal for the home: shalom bayit, peace in the home. It is a beautiful goal, and Rachel and David had achieved it. Their home was peaceful. But peace and closeness are not the same thing. A quiet, well-run home can still be a lonely one. Shalom bayit asks us to stop the fighting. It does not promise that the warmth will take care of itself.
Many Jewish couples have a line from the Song of Songs engraved inside their wedding rings: “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li.” I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. It is worth noticing who that verse describes. It is not two people splitting the carpool. It is two people who delight in each other.
When Rachel and David married, those words were easy. Twenty-two years later, the ring was still on, but most of their texts were about the plumber and the soccer schedule. They were still each other’s. They had just forgotten to be each other’s beloved.
I find this hopeful, not sad. Couples who feel like roommates usually do not need a new partner. They need to find the one they already chose. The friendship and trust they built as teammates is a strong base to build on.
So where do you start? Not with a big trip. Most teammate couples need one honest conversation about what they miss. Say it kindly and plainly. “I love the life we built. I miss feeling close to you.” That sentence opens far more doors than a complaint ever will.
Then look at the week you already have. Our tradition built a weekly pause right into the calendar. Shabbat is often filled with guests, meals and getting everyone to the table. That is a gift. But it can also be the one evening a week that holds a little time just for the two of you. A walk after dinner. A cup of tea once the kids are in bed. Twenty minutes where nobody mentions the schedule.
Rachel and David tried this. The first few weeks felt awkward, they told me. They did not know what to talk about when it was not logistics. So, they started with old stories. How they met. The terrible apartment from their first year. The trip where everything went wrong.
A few months later, Rachel said something that stayed with me. “I forgot he was funny.”
That is what a long marriage that has gone quiet often needs. Not to be fixed, but to be remembered.
If you and your partner are a great team, be proud of it. That is real and it is hard to build. And if you miss something more, you are not asking too much. You are asking for what the words in your ring already promised.
*
Dr. Jené Verchick is a licensed psychologist with 26+ years working with couples. Learn more about her work as a couples therapist in San Diego.