Love without absence to make the heart grow fonder

With the number of divorces in Wuhan soaring after restrictions were lifted, Christine Manby talks with Vanya Silverten about what might help in relationships that have been bruised by the lockdown

As the lockdown lifted in Wuhan and citizens emerged blinking into the “new normal”, there was one group of professionals who reported a swift bounce back from economic stagnation: the lawyers. Divorce lawyers, to be precise. It seemed that all those weeks in isolation proved the old adage that “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, while the 24/7 presence of a loved one most definitely doesn’t. In April, the Wuhan Marriage and Family Committee reported a doubling of the divorce rate from its pre-Covid-19 level. Will the divorce figures in the UK for 2020 reflect a similar experience?

Vanya Silverten is an Australian intuitive energy healer and teacher, whose mission is to help individuals “transform all aspects of their lives”, with a special focus on love. She understands only too well what it’s like to find oneself on the brink of divorce. In her new book, Sacred Revolution: A Woman’s Path to Love, Power and Sensual Enlightenment, she describes the moment she decided to tell her husband that she wanted to end their marriage.

“It was late, and we were in bed together. I was about to speak, when I felt what seemed like an angel tap me on the shoulder and whisper, ‘You can’t go to bed without him making love to you.’ I thought, well, that’s right... I deserve to be made love to by a man one more time.

“As we made love, I felt the divine universe buzzing around me ... I looked into my husband’s eyes and made a silent prayer: ‘I feel our relationship has ended. I don’t know what to do for you anymore, but I give you all of this light so that you can be free to be who you need to be.’ ... It bounced into him, lit him up, then came back into me, joining our spirits together. Not only did I not end my marriage that night, it turned out that this was the moment I became pregnant with our beautiful baby girl.”

I first spoke to Silverten in the week before lockdown. Six weeks later, we spoke again. I wondered whether a month and a half of round-the-clock proximity to her husband had dimmed the “light” that persuaded her to stay in her marriage six years ago. On Skype, Silverten looked unscathed by the crisis that had turned marital homes all over the world into barely open prisons. With her easy smile, she’s the human incarnation of the word “sunny”, but Silverten quickly admitted that the early weeks of lockdown had been a challenge. “You could look at coronavirus as nature’s revenge. We’ve been forced to slow down. When it first happened, I was in shock. For the first couple of weeks, I just couldn’t get my head around it. But then I felt a shift. This is a moment of change and it doesn’t have to be negative. I refocused on the household, my home, my child and my relationship.”

Silverten’s relationship weathered the storm. While her invocation of the “divine universe” might seem like so much “woo woo” to those who aren’t that way inclined, she also has some very practical advice, born of her own past experience, for relationships that have been bruised by lockdown. She’s under no illusion that every relationship that’s suffered from enforced proximity can be fixed, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. “It’s possible that, post-lockdown, parting may be the right move. For a relationship to survive and thrive, both halves of the couple need to want it to happen,” she explained.

“Consent and intimacy go hand in hand; one cannot exist without the other. In order to open yourself and get more connected with your partner, you must choose to. And in order for your partner to get more connected to you, he or she must also choose to… You are never obligated to submit to the needs of another.”

If you are ready to work on your relationship, Silverten offers a free online course that might just help. She suggests that there are four vital keys to returning a relationship back to love.

Just spend ten minutes a day holding one another, without talking, without even really trying to communicate at all. Just holding one another

Vanya Silverten

The first is communication, but it’s not just about getting your own point across: “Communication also involves being able to listen to your partner and requires that you are able to hear all that they say – not just what you want to hear.”

The second is letting the other person be who they are. Our beliefs regarding what a relationship should look like come from all sorts of influences – parental, societal and past relationships. Silverten advises: “An evolved relationship allows each partner to be who they truly are. Love comes from freedom, and so you must give your partner the freedom to express their truth. Maybe one partner wants to go on vacations by themselves.”

Doesn’t everyone after lockdown?

“Maybe the other partner needs to dye their hair green to feel empowered.”

Green hair is certainly a side-effect of having no access to hairdressers.

“The more you allow your partner to be free to live their truth, the more they will allow you to live yours,” she says.

The third of Silverten’s keys is tactile affection. “If you have been arguing or fighting or are lost for the right words, then tactile displays of affection are an excellent reminder to return both partners to love so resolution can take place.” To achieve this, Silverten suggests, “making time to be affectionate for at least 30 minutes a day will increase both parties’ ability to be more compatible with each other. There will be more kindness, more care with words, and often cuddles can lead to more passionate activities.”

Finally, Silverten advocates reflection. “Pause and take time to assess the true dynamics being played out. You’ll be able to work out if it’s your stuff you are projecting on to your partner or your partner’s stuff. Maybe you simply need some space.”

If you can take time apart, that may be the answer. In her book, Silverten describes how she briefly separated from her husband when their daughter was three, but continued to see him. “We went on some dates. We laughed, we kissed, we made love, and before I knew it we were back together in a completely new relationship. We returned to the purity of love that had always existed between us.”

So a little bit of absence could be all you need. If you have to remain under the same roof – unlike Neil Gaiman, who flew 11,000 miles from New Zealand to the Isle of Skye during lockdown to get some space from his wife – Silverten’s final piece of advice is remarkably simple: “Just spend ten minutes a day holding one another, without talking, without even really trying to communicate at all. Just holding one another.”

You don’t have to say anything. It costs nothing and you can get it over and done with in the time it takes for your tea to be cool enough to drink. But it might just work – and there’s science to back it up. In 2014, a joint study of 404 healthy adults by scientists at Carnegie-Mellon University, the University of Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh found that the perceived support that comes from receiving a hug was protective against the common cold – another coronavirus. So a daily hug seems worth a try before you join the socially-distanced queue at your nearest lawyer’s office.

It turns out that the two months in lockdown wasn’t all bad news for the couples of Wuhan. While divorce lawyer Ding Yan told the Global Times that just after lockdown lifted she received more than twice as many calls as usual regarding divorce, she also noted that some of the couples whose divorces were already under way when lockdown began have decided to stay together.