Can One Divorce Over Tango? AKA My Wife Doesn’t Want To Dance With Me
Watching a tango couple dance is an experience. The way they float across the dance floor is hypnotizing, and the chemistry is always overflowing.
It’s just impossible to dance the tango without having a connection!
But sadly, while the tango can bring couples together, it’s also been known to tear them apart.
If you’re unfortunately one of these couples, you may wonder, can you divorce over tango?
Not all tango couples are couples in real life, but many couples that learn to dance together often grow closer and develop a real connection.
It’s not just the dance that brings them together but also the communication between them.
However, if a real-life couple explores tango together and finds different paces, it can be difficult to continue dancing together. Let’s talk about tango and relationships from the perspective of two lovers: the leader and the follower.
Tango and Relationships
Many people say that before you get married, you should try tango.
It makes sense because many characteristics in the dance are similar to those in real-life relationships.
Two people have individual responsibilities and styles but become one when they dance. Like in a marriage, they must be willing to compromise and find a balance.
In our article “RELATIONSHIPS AND TANGO – HOW TANGO HELPS TO STRENGTHEN OR ABANDON RELATIONSHIP,” we discussed how the dance could bring couples together or tear them apart. In tango, a couple should:
Communicate, Even Non-Verbally
A tango couple must understand each other’s movements and needs, even if nobody speaks.
The couple must be willing to move together and adapt to any changes. When applied to marriage, this responsibility could mean communicating non-verbally and understanding each other’s feelings without using words.
Trust Each Other
In tango, the leader must trust their follower completely, and the follower must do the same.
Without trust, there’ll be no communication and connection, and the dance will not feel like tango.
In a marriage, trust also holds a significant role. Without it, the relationship will not last long.
Spend Time Together
Just like marriage, tango requires time and effort.
The couple must repeat steps to ensure the dance looks perfect. The more you practice together, the more you sync with each other. The same can be said for the relationship: couples must spend time together and work on their commitments.
Learn Each Other
Lastly, tango couples must learn each other. What is tango for you, and what is it for your partner? What about your style?
Being aware of your differences and understanding each other is vital. When you learn each other, you also learn from each other.
Tango and Divorce
When we say tango is just like relationships and marriage, we also mean it includes the ugly parts. According to Branka Vuleta of Legaljobs,
in real life, a divorce happens somewhere in the country roughly every 36 seconds.
And according to Wilkinson and Finkbeiner, the profession with the highest divorce rate is dancers.
The top reasons couples divorce in real life are the following:
Lack of commitment 73%
Argue too much 56%
Infidelity 55%
Married too young 46%
Unrealistic expectations 45%
Lack of equality in the relationship 44%
Lack of preparation for marriage 41%
Domestic Violence or Abuse 25%
Let us focus on the following divorce reasons:
Lack of Commitment
In tango, a couple must be committed to the dance. If they’re not, it’ll show in their movements.
Commitment is completely owning and embracing the connection with your partner. It’s also owning the dance and how you and your partner make it. Without commitment, there will be no tango.
Unrealistic Expectations
Couples in tango and real life may have unrealistic expectations of one another.
They must indeed be able to adapt, but sometimes even the best dancers can’t make the steps look perfect. These unrealistic expectations might come from getting married too early, also leading to too much arguing.
Lack of Equality in the Relationship
In a heterosexual marriage, there’s the husband and wife. In tango coupling, there’s the leader and follower.
When one partner takes control and puts the other in an uncomfortable position, it’s not tango.
This is also true for real-life marriages.
Married couples who are also tango couples may go through these roadblocks on and off the dancefloor. But should a divorce happen in both relationships? In tango, what does divorce look like?
Leading and Following: Which Is More Difficult?
In any relationship between two people, there are always two perspectives.
In tango, a leader will always have a different approach than the follower and vice versa.
Like in marriage, both partners may see the relationship differently, forgetting that neither is better.
In the article “Why leading is not more difficult than following,” Joy in Motion, tango is shown from two points of view:
“When it comes to dancing skills, we tend to focus on the big four: vocabulary, musicality, improvisation, and floorcraft. But we often think of these skills in leader’s terms, ignoring the different but equally challenging skills that following requires.”
A leader is responsible for their follower’s safety. On the other hand, the follower relies on the leader to inform her of where they’re going and ensures that she completely surrenders to their connection and follows his lead.
It means that both partners should be in harmony, understanding each other’s perspectives as they navigate the dance.
In “Learning to lead is easier if you know how to follow tango” by Argentine Tango teacher and cultural anthropologist Elizabeth Wartluft, the two roles become equally important.
Leaders knowing how to be a follower become better leaders, while followers who understand the lead become better followers.
Now, how do the two roles clash and result in a tango divorce?
The Challenge in Leading
If you’re the husband in real life and the leader in tango, it’s undeniably challenging. In Search of Tango’s “The Gender Roles in Tango” explains that your responsibilities on the dance floor include the following:
Providing Direction. Wherever you want to go, it’s your job to show the way.
“Choreographing” the Dance. You must be creative and firm in making your decisions in dancing.
Supporting Your Follower. You plot the dance, but you also must support your follower as she executes it.
Leading Your Follower. You must give her the right cues. Signal the direction of the next move and ensure she understands what you want to do.
Making Her Shine. Without an excellent leader, a follower can’t shine. Allow her to show her personality and express herself through the dance.
Protecting Her. As the leader, you must protect your partner from potential accidents. Lead her safely into and out of the dance.
Pampering Her. You must be mindful and pay attention to her feelings. Let her know that she is loved and appreciated.
It’s (usually) very difficult for the leaders at the beginning. You must learn many things, including the structure of the dance, musicality, how to communicate and lead, navigate the dance floor, and treat your follower. Don’t forget about the tango codes, too, and the secrets of the dance!
As a husband, you might think it’s easy to be on top of your responsibilities as a tango leader if your follower is your wife. It can be true, but if you don’t see the dance from your follower or wife’s perspective, a tango divorce peeks at the door.
The Journey in Following
It’s hard to be a leader, but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s easy to be a follower. In the same article, the responsibilities of a follower include the following:
Surrendering Completely. A follower must completely surrender to the leader and trust that he’ll guide her safely.
Following the Lead. Wherever the leader goes, the follower must go, too, even without verbal communication.
Being Light and Agile. Followers must move lightly and gracefully, ensuring they’re agile enough to follow leads.
Dancing to the Music. A follower mustn’t dance to the steps but to the music.
Complimenting Him. A follower mustn’t forget to compliment her leader, supporting him as he supports her.
Beautifying His Choreography. A follower must add her own flavor and make the dance look even more beautiful.
What’s difficult for wives and followers is very mental.
They must give up their need for leadership and control. However, step-wise, following can be easier than leading. Women are usually more body aware and better coordinated, so they can quickly adapt their bodies to the dance.
Within a couple of lessons, the follower can go out and dance. The more she goes out, the more she dances with advanced leaders, the faster she progresses, and she leaves her beloved original partner behind.
Women try to help, or so they think. They try to teach the men and show them what to do. But it doesn’t work. They mean well, but they need to comprehend that the man at the initial stage has much more to worry about than the aesthetics of the movement.
Building a house is different than decorating it. That’s why we divide those responsibilities.
The following, the release of control, brings unexpected freedom that, once found, is hard to give up. Dancers want more of it. Because within that release, one can find a higher level of control. And freedom of creation.
How Can Tango Couples Tango Forever?
Simply put, yes, you can divorce over tango.
But you don’t have to divorce over tango and in real life. Many phenomenal tango couples have graced the stages and dance floors of tango for decades. Nobody knows whether they were a couple in real life, but many eventually “broke up.”
Sometimes, no matter how phenomenal a tango couple is, the music doesn’t play forever for them.
It can be heartbreaking for a husband and a leader when your wife doesn’t want to be your follower, but the key to the longevity of a tango couple is letting go.
Letting your partner go or setting them free is where true trust and a genuine relationship begin.
It can mean more than anything else when it comes to tango.
Letting each other be free in tango means letting go of your wife as a follower.
Let her progress according to her own will and find the leader she needs, even if it’s not you. At the same time, she must let you, the husband and leader, progress at your own speed.
The husband will catch up and pass the wife at some point, but it may take months, and it’s different for everyone. For now, agree to have the first and last tanda for each other. Or maybe the one in the middle. Or perhaps the Vals. Give freedom for the rest of the night, so both grow in and out of the partnership.
But before you decide on what to do with your tango relationship, it’s crucial to talk things over. Discuss and explain your points of view. Bare your hearts and tell each other what the tango means to you. Talk about your fears and hopes. If you can’t talk, well, maybe it was never meant to be. You’re just holding onto something that had fallen apart a long time ago.
Communicating about your tango journey requires patience, understanding, and compromise.
Listen to yourself and your partner. And hopefully, they will listen to you as well. Only then can you decide how to continue tangoing together or say goodbye and go your separate ways. All of this can take time, but it’ll be worth it.
Love in Tango: It’s Really Just Like Love In Real Life
“In my classes I emphasize that the first priority is your partner. For both the leader and the follower. That means that you are not dancing on your own, you are dancing with another human being with a soul, feelings and a body. That person cannot just be an instrument for you to dance and enjoy yourself.”
It’s a beautiful way of expressing the love that tango gives and asks for. But like in real-life relationships and marriages, sometimes, two people just can’t go on together.
The good thing is that you don’t really need a divorce in real life, too. But you can always use what you learn in tango to make your real-life relationships better.
Your wife doesn’t want to dance with you? It happens! And the only way to make it through is to let go. Grow at your own pace until you can grow together again. That’s just how tango goes!