Families that live close to each other are happiest, have less cancer and less disease. This was one of the interesting points raised in ‘This is Your Brain on Joy – A Revolutionary Program for Balancing Mood, Restoring Brain Health, and Nurturing Spiritual Growth.’
And yes, I did get Mick to take the Amen Brain Scan Checklist last night. He found it interesting. His came out pretty much as I expected, with perhaps only a couple of answers differing from what I might have expected. But yes, it was different to mine, especially in certain areas. The ones to do with fear and worry. He thought it would be fun to try it out on all the family next time we all get together.
So, families that live closer are happier. I can understand that, but the proviso is that you have supportive and loving relatives. It’s not helpful if you have relatives who interfere in your marriage or try and tell you what you should be doing in your life. Neither is it helpful to live near family who put you down and bring emotional strain on relationships. Then distance might be a good thing. Only you and your spouse can decide how close you should live to family. Of course sometimes it is forced upon us by work, spouse’s work situation or finance situation that leaves us little choice about where we live.
We are two and a half hours away from our family and I wish there was some way we were closer. However, we are in regular contact with them through phone and email and we get together whenever we can, often somewhere half way between us. To us that was one of great advantages of moving. Two and a half hours is way better than four hours away from family, which it had been previosuly.
When Mick and I first married one of the hardest things for me was being so far away from my mother , which was all the family I had back then before Mick. I’m not sure whether the book meant extended family or only those closest to us. I’m not counting extended family in my view, only immediate family.
It is certainly a subject that needs to be discussed before marriage as to where you will live and how close to family. It might need to be re-evaluated again at later stages in marriage as children arrive or circumstances change.
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