Play time or marriage time?

I believe the cricket team of a particular country has suggested they want a psychologist on their team. The reason? Most of them are undergoing a turbulent marriage, because of the team members not spending enough time with their spouses, who are obviously feeling the disconnect. One member who has been married barely married for six months, has had a message from his wife saying she is unable to cope with the disconnection and would like to separate.
There are various questions that hit me as I read this. How is a psychologist going to reduce the distances between the couples I wonder? There can be only two people in the marriage; what is the psychologist going to do? Of course she can teach the nuances of the crucial elements in a marriage: the need to feel connected, feeling capable, having the feeling that you count in the marriage and have the courage to stay on in the relationship and make it work. And if any of these “C” is missing then the identification is successful; but after that what happens? Do you think any of the players would, say cut down on the trips he undertakes around the world cut down on the time he spends away from home, simply because one or more of the C is missing? How is he going to make the Connect come about, how is going to make the Count happen? So, is the need for a psychologist in the team to make the team players not get disturbed by the dissonance in their family life so that they can play better and enhance the cricket craze I wonder, or is it a genuine need for their emotional well-being and concern for their personal life? On part of the spouse, any one is going to feel the absence of their partners for such extended period of time, more so when they are newly married Would it have been too much to ask from this player to put aside or cut down on the playtime and spend more time enhancing their marriage, so that her basic need of Connect and Count is fulfilled? Or is the argument that she knew he was a player when he got married, so she walked into it with her eyes open? I really don’t know. Matters of the heart are not ruled by rational of knowledge.
Not that the separation is any better if the marriage is older, but again that depends on the kind of bond they have developed over the years. If both of them have not developed this connect, but have simply been habituated to staying with each other, the separation may result in mild anxiety but both of them would manage to survive the separation, and may even at times enjoy the distance! The point here is then, how important is the quality of the marriage to either one of them. The emotional content and quotient is the benchmark of the success of the relationship.
The bottom line then, is that marriages last not because of proximity or physical appearances that get them best couple awards. Marriages survive because basically both the partners want it to happen, want it to survive the turbulence of a whole lot of external factors. But the creation of the marriage bubble is in the hands of the partners, and partners alone. What the team needs is not a psychologist or a marriage counselor; they need the understanding and the existence of the four crucial Cs: Identification of the same, and then working on developing the missing elements and making sure they continue to be there.
Mohana Narayanan
March 26th, 2011