Therapy Lines for Wounded Couples

Noted psychiatrist/author, Dr. M. Scott Peck, describes marriage as "walking the tightrope." He speaks of the common tension between "togetherness" and "separateness" in marriage in his own psychotherapy work with wounded couples. To assist further treatment of broken marriages, Dr. Peck would hand partners a copy of Kahlil Gibran's immortal lines:

"But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of heaven dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your
souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same
loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of
you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they
quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each
other's shadow."