What is the attachment style in this couple? One Agapanthus bloom is more developed and they are different colours. What happens in human couples when there is difference of ideas, of fortune, of status, income, education or health? It can be hard to handle difference, and certainly unfairness, within a couple. But secure attachment is not about always being on the same page but about how a couple cope when they aren’t. Difference between partners works when there is curiosity and the will to carry on getting to know the other. When there is too much sameness then there is no space across which we can connect The poet Thom Gunn put it better when he described the fate of Philemon and Baucis - a married couple, turned into intertwining trees by the gods. We hear how in becoming enmeshed, they lost the vigour that had kept their exchanges ‘salty’
They found, with loves balancing equally,
Full peace of mind. They put unease behind them
A long time back, a long time back forgot
How each woke separate through the pale grey night,
A long time back forgot the days when each
—Riding the other’s nervous exuberance—
Knew the slow thrill of learning how to love
What, gradually revealed, becomes itself,
Expands, unsheathes, as the keen rays explore:
Invented in the continuous revelation.They have drifted into a perpetual nap,
The peace of trees that all night whisper nothings.Philemon and Baucis by Thom Gunn#poetry #ThomGunn #agapanthus #flowers #gardening #development
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