A split tale of two cities

It is always disheartening to see a favourite celeb couple split, and even more heartbreaking when you get to know their reasons. Whether it’s Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie splitting up or Farhan Akhtar and his wife, Adhuna Akhtar ending their marriage of 15 years, it’s sad. We don’t always know the reason for a celeb break-up but recently FRIENDS actress Jennifer Aniston split with her husband, Justin Theroux for a reason that raised many eyebrows — the couple couldn’t choose what city to live in! Aniston wanted to be in Los Angeles while Theroux wanted to live in New York. Long distance is always hard on relationships, but splitting up seems an extreme step! Experts and actors speak about the lows of a distant relationship.

Manisha Agrwal, a city-based sociologist thinks that, “A lack of understanding between partners and other issues, lead to break-ups rather than just wanting to live in another city. If a couple really want to work things out, they will somehow make it happen rather than using distance as an excuse, though, long distance relationships tend to work out lesser than the ones where you stay in the same city. The amount of energy and time one wastes on planning to see the significant other can be spent in spending more time when they’re based in the same city. Many people don’t want to make so much effort after a while.”

As a marriage counsellor and psychotherapist, Aparna Samuel Balasundaram thinks, “To make any relationship work, it takes time and being deliberate, and in a long term relationship there are added layers of complication, which means we have to work ever harder and more purposefully as otherwise the distance will eventually create an unbridgeable gap! In my practice as a relationship and marriage therapist, working with such long distance relationships, some of the main challenges are that partners end up feeling even more alone, than when they were single! This is because they are now committed to each other but are not able to be there in real time, they obviously  are not in the dating game or the single and ready to mingle mind space so that limits the things they can do, and who they can hang out with.”

Actress Samyukhta Hedge feels that everyone has their personal lives, and that should be given space and respect. “I would be the last one to comment on Aniston’s relationship but I feel whatever they do is their own business. Everyone has their own struggles in life; we cannot know exactly what led to their split. All we should do is respect their decision and give them space.”