The Book of Love Isn't Always Easy to Read

"The most changeable aspects of [a] couple's situation, in our view, are in each partner's actions and interpretations of the other's actions. We call this changing the 'doing' and the 'viewing' of the couple's problem." Patricia O'Hanlon Hudson and William Hudson O'Hanlon, Rewriting Love Stories.  

Most people who've been in long-term relationships have settled into at least some patterns that seem frustratingly familiar and frustratingly unchangeable. 

Sometimes we're aware of how we reinforce these patterns, and sometimes not. Often, we interpret the intentions behind a partner's actions (or failure to act), characterizing them in general terms ("stingy," "thoughtless," etc.), and otherwise casting blame - unwilling to acknowledge our own faults for fear our words will be used as ammunition.

So, instead of thinking of your primary relationship as a battlefield, think of it as a book you're trying to understand. The Book of Love has four key sections:  

Part I: The Love Story. In the beginning, we're all reading a love story. We're enthralled, infatuated, paying attention only to the obvious text, seeing only what we want to see, feeling emotionally and mentally alive. We love this book and recommend it to everyone!

Part II: Identifying the Characters. Gradually, we figure out who's doing what in our story, the roles and expectations, and suppressing ourselves somewhat for fear of upsetting/losing our partner. We begin to wonder if our story is what we thought it was going to be.

Part III: The Plot Thickens. We all long to be truly known and show all of ourselves, warts and all. We begin to read and be read "between the lines." When we don't like the way the story is going, our options are to:

• see everyone but the partner as attractive;
• try to make the partner what s/he "should be" through anger, disapproval, or withdrawal;
• refuse to deal with the difficulties (and later repeat the pattern with someone else);
• see this part of the story as an opportunity to pay conscious attention to our patterns and grow beyond them (see Part IV).

Part IV: The Love Story Re-Written. We can be good editors of our own stories. This happens when we shift attention away from how we and our partner "should" be and toward who each of us really is. Some suggestions from Bill O'Hanlon:

1. Acknowledge/validate each person's feelings and point of view. Be specific, give examples, vs. blaming. No need to judge here, just try to understand. Reflect back what you've heard.
2. Move the discussion from complaints about the past to what you would like to have happen.
3. Use "videotalk" ("Imagine it's the future. When I'm showing love what, exactly, am I doing? What, exactly, am I saying?")
4. Agree to what each of you will do that's different, and DO it, with a sense of humor, please.

Soul-Mates

Friends interested in each other at the soul level do not simply look at each other's lives and listen to each other's intentions and explanations. They look together at this third thing that is the soul, and in that mutual gaze they find and sustain their friendship. Thomas Moore.

All enduring relationships are friendships, whether pals, spouses, or other life partners. With truly mutual affection, we listen and are listened to; we know the other and are known.

Sometimes we're blocked from true mutuality, however, by automatic responses that are personality-bound. Some partners may resist giving up control, for example. Others may jump to judgment, suppress their own needs, feel competitive over their partner's successes, dream unrealistically of a more ideal relationship, have difficulty sharing their emotions or trusting others, avoid deep conversations, or give in too quickly to their partner's preferences. 

These and many other personality attributes, while they can bring complementary gifts to a relationship, also have the potential to exaggerate each partner's down side. 

With a couple I've coached, Barb is a highly relational person in partnership with Joe, who's more independent, more focused on thoughts than feelings. What felt like a complementary strength in the beginning had become a source of criticism:

Barb: "You never tell me you love me."

Joe: "It doesn't feel natural to me. You know I love you. Why do I have to say it?"

Barb: "I've lost a lot of weight and have new clothes, but you never tell me how good I look."

Joe: "Well, you can see that in a mirror. Why do you need to hear that from me?"

When Barb and Joe began to examine their relationship as a system, focusing on what Moore refers to as a "mutual gaze," they noticed how, when Barb pushed Joe to share his feelings, that only led him to withdraw. They agreed to two practices that began to change their automatic responses.

First, Barb agreed to pull back some so Joe had space to enter the pool of emotions, one toe at a time. This gradually reduced his fear of drowning in feelings. She and I also explored her sense of self to develop more intrinsic awareness of her attractiveness as a person (not tied to her outward appearance or compliments). 

Second, Joe had a private session with me where we invented some playful ways to interrupt his pattern of shy withdrawal from emotions. To him, saying "You look great in that outfit" seemed superficial, especially because he'd loved Barb equally before and after her weight loss.

Joe does spend a lot of time in his head and has a terrific, Far Side kind of humor. So I knew I had his interest when we played with ways to exaggerate comments to Barb:

"My darling, you are the goddess of the universe!"
"My beauty, you are the oil paint on the canvas of my life!"
"You look so stunning in that outfit; it makes me want to sing!"

No, Joe didn't actually say those things to Barb (though she would have been good-natured about it because they were focused on mutual development). But creating those outrageously inauthentic phrases made him laugh, and then a simple "I love you" or "You look nice tonight" began to seem easy.

This is what's meant by soul-mates.

Alter the Interaction, Not the Other Person

How often when you're having relationship problems, do you focus on how "touchy," "unreliable," "critical" etc. the other person is? Operating from that premise, you may have unwittingly attempted solutions that continued or even exaggerated the perceived problem.

Let's say someone who is operating from Enneagram point One sees her spouse (at point Nine) as not hands-on enough in their family business–she thinks he gives employees too much leeway.

She questions her husband frequently and in detail.

As a consequence, he doesn't tell her about what he does that's hands-on because he thinks She'll just nit-pick anyway.

This confirms her belief that he isn't paying enough attention to details, which leads her to follow up more frequently.

He responds by retreating even more, leading her to check in even more, and so on.

In contrast, you can reframe a situation as an interaction problem. A fundamental premise of this approach is that problems in relationships persist only if maintained by both people–not only the one identified as having the problem:

• Problems that occur between people are situational difficulties–both are doing something to maintain the problem. 
• It's normal and appropriate to resist attempts by another to "fix" us; such so-called resistance can become a source of energy with positive potential.
• It may seem paradoxical, but going with the other person's energy is much more likely to make a difference than lecturing, advising, or scolding.

You can shift focus from what's wrong with the other person to how you both contribute to a self-fulfilling problem. To do this requires two critical skills: 

1. Focus on observable behaviors in the interaction (vs. only the behavior of the other person).
2. Do something to alter the interaction (as opposed to trying to change the other person).

Ideally, both partners in the interaction would talk about the self-fulfilling pattern and decide together how they can interrupt it and do something different. Sometimes, though, one of the partners isn't willing to do this. In this case, it's still possible for one of them to break the cycle.

Paradoxically, changes we seek in other people are more likely to occur if we first accept those people as they are. A particularly interesting application of this concept relies on the paradox of going with a behavior in order to change it. 

Following this premise, the person above could reframe the negative connotation of "not being hands-on enough" and frame the same goals in positive terms, with something like this: "I like the idea of being able to trust our employees to do their jobs well. Let's figure out an approach that gives them more autonomy and doesn't require our checking in on them."


(For a full description of this approach see The Paradoxical Approach to Problem Solving)