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As a therapist, here’s why I sometimes advise couples to end their marriage | Nicholas Purcell
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
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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
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According to The Guardian’s source item, As a therapist, here’s why I sometimes advise couples to end their marriage | Nicholas Purcell, 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
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Primary source: As a therapist, here’s why I sometimes advise couples to end their marriage | Nicholas Purcell via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.
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- As a therapist, here’s why I sometimes advise couples to end their marriage | Nicholas PurcellThe Guardian - 2026-08-30T15:00:02+00:00
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