What is The Third Space?
The Third Space encompasses the experience of realizing a marriage still works, but no longer works for you.
It includes the period before a decision through the time after, when the life has changed but has not yet settled.
While this work is rooted in marriage, it describes a pattern that can appear anywhere a life continues outwardly while something inward has shifted.
The Third Space has its own developing lexicon of terms to describe experiences encountered during this transition.
From the Lexicon
authority weighting
Authority weighting refers to the degree of decision-weight given to another person’s perspective, approval, disappointment, moral judgment, expertise, or anticipated reaction during internal evaluation.
From the Lexicon
The Third Space
The Third Space is the interval between inner recognition and response.
From the Lexicon
inner deadness
Inner deadness describes the erosion of inner aliveness in an otherwise functioning life.
From the Lexicon
ghost future
Ghost future refers to the imagined future once regarded as inevitable, but that will not happen due to a life change.
From the Lexicon
identity grief
Identity grief describes the mourning of a self-story that no longer fits.
From the Lexicon
moral inheritance
Moral inheritance refers to inherited beliefs about marriage, endurance, sacrifice, virtue, etc.
From the Lexicon
The Script
The Script is the culturally supplied storyline for how a life is supposed to unfold.
From the Lexicon
moral accounting
Moral accounting refers to the internal checklist used to determine whether one has "earned" the right to behave authentically.
From the Lexicon
discounted truth
A discounted truth is something you know clearly but don’t treat as enough to act on.
From the Lexicon
self-erasure
Self-erasure describes the gradual shrinking of self to preserve harmony.
A Welcome Note
Life continues, and from the outside, it looks the same.
There is often nothing to point to, nothing obviously wrong. But something inside has shifted and does not go back to where it was.
The Third Space names the period before a decision through the aftermath—the time when you begin to live what you know.
This work does not tell you what to do.
It gives structure and dignity to the experience of knowing, and to what it takes to stay intact as things change.