Modern family - how does it differ from the traditional family model? What are the features of its functioning? Where are the hidden pitfalls in relationships? What is the secret of “family happiness” in the modern model of marital relationships? Increasingly, in my psychotherapeutic practice, I come across the fact that people have ceased to feel satisfied with the quality of their family life. They talk about boredom, lack of meaning in relationships, loneliness in the family, lack of mutual understanding and respect from a partner. It is difficult to imagine that such questions worried our great-grandparents 60-80 years ago. And indeed, quite recently, just a couple of generations ago, the family was created for the most part for the purpose of procreation, preserving and increasing capital, regulating and controlling sexual life, individuality was subordinated to family values ​​and rules. Today, such functions have been lost by the family. Modern couples expect other “dividends” from a family union - mutual understanding, support, revealing the inner potential of partners, respect for their individuality. Individuality. This is perhaps the key concept that distinguishes the modern family from the traditional model! Our society is becoming individualistic, and corresponding demands are being made on the family - it must support and respect the individuality of partners, while maintaining its integrity as a system or union. A modern family poses a difficult task for partners - how to be “together”, to be “connected to each other”, while preserving themselves, their values, their “self”? This task in itself is dichotomous and requires partners to have a high level of emotional maturity, awareness, and willingness to compromise. It is at this stage that the biggest difficulties begin! Preserving the individuality of each partner requires accepting the fact that we are all different, each of us has our own “pictures of the world”, our own expectations, ideas; we bring into the family completely different family scenarios that we inherited from our parental way of life. The problem is that most couples view these differences as extremely damaging to the relationship and are certainly not seen as opportunities for growth! Differences cause great anxiety, are seen as a risk to the relationship, and then the struggle begins over whose reality will win, by whose rules will we live? Relationships run the risk of becoming competitive, discrimination appears in them, and in the conditions of a struggle for power in a couple, there is no longer any need to talk about individuality and its development, the main task becomes to survive, preserve oneself and, if possible, establish one’s own rules of the game in the family field. Isn't it quite similar to the pictures we draw for ourselves when we decide to get married? There are several ways in which a couple seeks to get rid of “differences” in the family: “I am you, and you are me “, “we are so close that no words are needed” - a way in which my desires become your desires and vice versa, in which interpersonal boundaries in a couple are erased, where the “merger” of partners is so great that any possibility of otherness is killed in the bud. Warm and quiet. Dull and stuffy. Relationships do not develop, they stagnate, and most often such couples are destroyed because one of the partners becomes unbearably cramped and uncomfortable, because there is nothing left of individuality( ;Distancing is a wonderful way to preserve your individuality and not let your partner get close to you , the fear of absorption is so great that there is no chance for intimacy, empathy, warmth and mutual understanding. Such relationships cannot develop for the simple reason that development requires contact, contact, movement towards each other, in such a couple the partners usually feel lonely; “I know how it should be” or trying to make others like myself is the most famous and favorite way of dealing with differences. Unfortunately, in practice it means decoupling..