Care and attention, the fundamentals to keep relationships alive, are absent from many marriages that survive anyway

• The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work

I’ve killed every garden I’ve neglected, which is all of them: bring me a struggling houseplant and watch it die. But bring me a struggling marriage and I will sometimes encourage it back to life. Other times, when the conditions are right, by which I mean when something is wrong, I will kill it. Intentionally. Or, in more professional language, I will advise it to end. Not every plant gets to flower. Not every marriage should be saved.

I have come to realise that care and attention, the fundamentals that keep both plants and relationships alive, are absent from many marriages that survive anyway. I call them cactus marriages: alive, but I couldn’t tell you how.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading…