Many women feel guilty for wanting an hour alone. The reality is different. When a woman can choose time for herself, it actually strengthens the relationship. And the next time a partner wants time alone, that time can make them feel closer, not further away.
-- Many women carry a quiet guilt. They want an hour to themselves. Then a voice inside asks what kind of wife wants to get away from her own home. So the hour never happens. Or it happens, and the guilt comes along with her.
That guilt is common. A Psychology Today article on couples noted that many women do not feel as entitled to free time as men do, and may feel guilty when they take it. A Rutgers University survey of 288 mothers found the same pull. Only about 1 in 10 mothers of young children expected the gift of free time. Almost three times as many said they wanted it.
Dr. Kerry O'Reilly is a psychoanalyst, a certified EMDR therapist and a certified Imago therapist. She sees the cost of that guilt clearly. "Without time for herself, resentments build up," she says. "A woman's mind never gets a break for quiet and calm, and every human being needs that."
The research points the same way. Here are five reasons time alone can make a relationship better, not worse.
1. Quiet calms the body and the mind
Researchers at the University of Rochester ran a set of studies on what happens when people spend time alone. Being alone lowered strong feelings, both the anxious kind and the excited kind. When people chose to be alone, it led to rest and lower stress.
Calm is something a woman can carry back into her home with her.
2. Real rest is not the same as "free time"
Not every free hour is restful. A study from Ohio State University found that men felt less pressured when they had more free time. Women with more free time did not feel any less rushed. The researcher explained that for mothers, free time is often too mixed up with caring for others to feel like a true break.
A Harvard study by Allison Daminger helps explain why. Running a home carries a hidden mental to-do list. It means noticing what is needed, finding options, making decisions and checking that things got done. In the couples she studied, women carried more of this list, especially the noticing and the checking. The list does not switch off just because a woman sits down.
Time that is truly her own, away from the list, is a different kind of rest.
3. Less hostility, more warmth
Psychologist Eunae Cho of the State University of New York at Albany followed 80 couples. Both partners worked full time, and each couple had at least one child at home. Each night for 10 nights, the wives wrote down their time off and how relaxed they felt. The husbands wrote down how hostile their wives had been toward them.
It did not matter what the women did with the time. Any time for themselves left them happier and more relaxed. And by the husbands' own reports, when the wives were more relaxed, they were less hostile. Dr. Cho shared these findings at a research conference.
4. She gets back in touch with who she is
A University of Reading study followed 178 adults aged 35 and older for up to three weeks. On days with more time alone, people felt more free to choose and to be themselves.
The study also found something important. Time alone went along with loneliness when people did not choose it. But those bad effects shrank or went away when the time alone was their own choice.
This is not about pulling away from a partner. It is about choosing a little quiet so a woman can come back as herself, not as a worn-out version of herself.
5. A need said out loud leaves less room for resentment
John and Julie Gottman have studied couples for decades. They found that people often drop hints about what they need instead of asking. When the hints are missed, disappointment and resentment creep in, because no partner can read minds.
Psychologist Dana Jack named something she called self-silencing. It is what happens when a woman keeps her feelings down to protect a relationship. She looks agreeable on the outside, while inside, her feelings grow angry and resentful. More than thirty years of studies link self-silencing to depression in women.
Asking for an hour alone is a small way of saying a need out loud, instead of swallowing it.
What Dr. O'Reilly sees in her work
"In the 20 years I have been working with women, I have noticed something," she says. "Time for herself does not mean an hour alone while her child is sleeping. It means getting out of the house and doing something that brings her joy. That helps bring back her enthusiasm for life, and her attitude toward her partner becomes more positive."
"The very act of being able to choose time alone, without shame or punishment, makes women feel closer to their partners," she says. "Compare that with couples who spend all their time together when one of them is more of an introvert and needs personal time. That can be damaging, especially when the partner calls them selfish for wanting time alone."
Taking time is not leaving
The guilt says that a good wife does not need time away. The research says something different. Chosen quiet goes along with less stress, more warmth at home and a stronger sense of self.
A woman who asks for time to herself is not a bad wife. She is looking after the person her relationship depends on.
For some women, the guilt about wanting time alone sits beside a worry that never quite switches off. The Rochester studies found that time alone lowered anxious feelings. A good first step is seeing how much worry she is carrying. The free anxiety assessment from Women Need Connection is a place to start.
Take the free anxiety assessment: womenneedconnection.com/anxiety-assessment-c
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Name: Dr. Kerry O’Reilly
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Organization: Women Need Connection
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Source: PressCable
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