How Much Alone Time Do You Need?

"How much alone time do you need?" It was a simple question. It turned out to be the most valuable guidance I received during my divorce.

The divorce took two years and five months of lawyers, negotiations, delays, hearings, trial, post-trial motions, and finally a divorce decree. Deciding that divorce was necessary was like realizing the house was on fire top to bottom. I wanted to grab my car keys, guitar, and run. Instead, I waded into a mire stretching so far ahead the end seemed like the rumored promised land. Two years in, needing a bigger picture and a different perspective, I consulted an astrologer-psychotherapist in LA. In the course of explaining what she found in my chart, she asked, "How much alone time do you need?"

Every time I flipped through a magazine and came across a photograph of a man or woman making a free ascent of a cliff face out west, I'd be drawn in. Something about those images spoke to my soul, transporting me into a moment of bliss. Then I'd tell myself, "Yeah, I'm never doing that." I'd turn the page, the stream of life would resume, and the message within the photograph would slip through my fingers.

I grew up with two brothers and two sisters, surrounded by family and friends. Raised Catholic, my true religion was nature. If given a choice between church or a walk in the woods, I would have chosen the walk in the woods every time. I often arrived home late for dinner having lost track of time wandering through the forests and along the creeks near home. My late arrivals caused a lot of distress at the dinner table. After college, law school, and thirty years of marriage and practicing law, I knew something was out of balance in my life but didn't know how to restore what was missing. I knew only that divorce was the first step.

During that process, I watched Millionaire Matchmaker hoping to find the secrets to a successful relationship. I read books and blogs on divorce, relationships and dating. Occasionally I'd come across a post by a divorced woman writing that she wanted a relationship with a man but felt no need for a 24/7 relationship and didn't want to be married again. Having been through marriage, child rearing and divorce, she valued the freedom and opportunities from not having a full-time relationship.

When the astrologer asked how much alone time I needed, I was separated and living in a farmhouse twenty minutes from town. Stepping outside, I'd see pastures, a pond out back and mountains to the west and north. What I didn't see was that I was already moving toward a place where I'd be free to come and go when I wanted without a partner feeling unwanted or rejected.

For me, the image of a solo ascent of a cliff face meant freedom to give all your attention and focus to that moment and activity. It is the untethered moment. No cell phone, no Facebook, just this. The thing is, when you're hanging on a cliff face, people get the solo nature of the undertaking. When what you're doing looks like everyday life, there's less appreciation for the alone moment, whether it's a walk in nature, getting coffee or spending days and evenings working on projects or playing music.

When asking how much alone time I needed, the astrologer said couples that haven't figured this out frequently end up fighting over some other thing because they need time alone. While the fight may provide them with the time they needed, the quality of that time is spoiled by the fight. Many people run, bicycle, climb mountains, kayak and do any number of activities to have alone time, even if they haven't thought about it in those terms. Saying you need to run to train for a marathon causes fewer complications than saying to a significant other you need some alone time right now.

To find peace in and outside a relationship, this time is important. For many, marriage is ideal. For me, it doesn't work. How much alone time do I need? As it turns out, I need a lot. Not as in having a workshop in the garage, a man cave in the basement, or a regular night out with the guys, but as in having my own home and being there four or five days a week.

Realizing this wasn't easy in a culture where marriage is the model for committed relationships and where the pressures to marry or cohabit are pervasive. The signs were all around me but their message was drowned out by the meme that marriage is the road to living happily ever after. It's been six years since my divorce. I thank the stars for leading me to an astrologer who asked a simple question.

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