How Did We Get Here?

By: Maria Dover, LMFT

I remember working with a couple in our university’s family therapy clinic while I was a graduate student. During one session, the wife looked at me and asked, “How did we get here?”

It was a valid question.

They had been married for more than 20 years. Together, they had raised children, navigated career changes, moved homes, grieved the loss of loved ones, and managed the stress of everyday life. There had been no infidelity, deception, or abuse. They could not point to a single event that had brought them to therapy, yet their marriage no longer felt the way it once had.

How did this man and woman—who at one point could not imagine life without each other—now struggle to sit close together on the loveseat in the therapy room? What had happened to the way they used to talk, share, and turn to one another for emotional support? Why were they perfectly content spending time apart when working together had become far more difficult than either of them remembered?

One afternoon, I sat with my supervisor and asked the same question: What was the thing that had gone wrong in this marriage?

He introduced me to the concept of benign neglect.

Unlike emotional abuse, which involves acts of commission such as yelling, controlling behavior, or manipulation, benign neglect is an act of omission. It is characterized by what doesn’t happen: the comfort that is never offered, the questions that are never asked, and the emotional attunement that gradually fades away.

Most often, benign neglect is not intentional. It grows out of busyness, stress, exhaustion, or the false assumption that love will continue to thrive without maintenance. In romantic relationships, if we are not actively pursuing one another, we are often slowly distancing ourselves from one another. One day, we may find ourselves asking, “How did we get here?”

I remember discussing this concept with the couple during our next session. The wife nodded in agreement and said, “He used to give me a kiss every day before leaving for work. One morning we were rushing around, and he ran out the door without kissing me. The next morning, maybe there were other things going on, but it happened again. Then suddenly, he just stopped kissing me before leaving each day.”

There was nothing dramatic about it. No major conflict. No defining moment.

Yet as he stopped pursuing her in that small way, distance began to grow between them.

In the years since my training, I have seen countless examples of benign neglect in the couples I work with. Sometimes it is subtle; other times it is painfully obvious. Many couples wonder why they feel so emotionally and physically distant from one another. While it is easy to point to infidelity, dishonesty, or conflict as the cause of marital distress, those events are often preceded by something quieter: a slow and gradual drifting apart.

When pursuit disappears, distance grows.

As that distance increases, couples can begin to believe they are too far apart to ever find their way back to each other. But emotional connection can be rebuilt. Intentional pursuit has the power to turn two people who have been facing away from one another and help them begin moving toward each other again.

It takes time. It takes intentionality. It requires asking questions such as, “How do you feel loved by me?” and “What does it look like for me to pursue you?”

Just as benign neglect is built through acts of omission, emotional connectedness is built through purposeful acts of pursuit.

We all want to be wanted. We want to be chosen. We want to feel loved. When our partner intentionally moves toward us in these ways, it softens us. It creates space not only to receive love, but to return it.

The couple who once asked, “How did we get here?” can eventually find themselves saying, “We know how to get where we want to be.”