Even if you pick the right person (or at least a really good person) for a partner, it’s very easy for things to get ugly.
All relationships will develop some recurring dynamics. Some of those dynamics will be bad because they develop resentment or anger in you or your partner.
It’s as important to recognize and nurture the good dynamics as it is to notice and find ways to deal with the bad ones.
It’s very common that these negative dynamics happen at a time and place where they can’t be easily dealt with, like in the middle of a shopping trip, or while driving through tough traffic or while you’re on a phone call or pressed for a work deadline.
Then, the situation passes and you forget all about it until it happens again but this time, you (or your partner) is upset about it this time AND upset about it last time.
The sad part, is that you probably don’t even realize the negative effect your behavior or comment had on your partner or they may not realize the negative effect they’ve had on you until they (or you) are so upset that instead of a rational conversation, you (or they) explode irrationally emotionally.
You (or they) come off as some kind of easily dismissed crazy person even though there are real grievances that should be addressed to make the relationship better.
In Difficult Conversations, the author talks about this problem and how important it is to recognize when something bothers you before you get emotional about it so that you can have a calm discussion about it instead of an emotionally charged one.
In How to Stay in Love, the author has a strategy he calls, “Hit Send Now”:
If your partner does something during the day that bothers you even a little, within a couple of hours—or minutes—write him or her and e0mail or text about it. Don’t censor yourself. Don’t obsessively read and reread the email or text. And then, against all your instincts as a human being who, like most human beings has a people-pleasing streak, just press Send.
The idea is that by ignoring or overthinking this thing it will fester into a long term problem that never gets dealt with and grows into something larger that damages the relationship.
While I’m not in agreement with him that this is the way to do it, I agree with the goal which is to make sure that negative dynamics don’t continue on unchecked.
A lot of the time, the things that hurt or otherwise upset us are silly, petty or embarrassing. But they will cause damage to our relationships if we don’t do something about them. And sometimes all we need to do is tell our partner so they know why we’re acting so weird.
At least that way, there is a possibility to do something about it.
500 Days of Summer is one of the best examples of this. They have a horrible dynamic of Tom trying to get Summer to conform to his idea of what their relationship should look like instead of accepting it for what it is.
By constantly pushing her to verbally commit, she feels the need to assert her independence even more which drives them apart.
This bad relationship dynamic never gets resolved because Tom thinks he deserves commitment and doesn’t understand that Summer isn’t satisfied with him because he’s not making anything of himself.
He already had her attention but he was so focused on what he thought he was entitled to that he totally missed the very clear messages that she sends him.
I’ve often been in Summer’s position where I’m dating a girl who has a lot of things going for her, but doesn’t want to put effort to develop or change herself in the ways that would really make me want to keep her forever. And I’ve seen that with clients too.
Typically, the message in modern media is that women are perfect and we should accept them for who they are and if they’re not perfect, they’re actually just not the right girl for us.
I call bullshit.
Both men and women should be striving to better themselves. As Jim Rohn said:
How many pounds overweight should you be?
Instead of listening to the messages she was sending, he was focused on pushing her to commit in a way that she wasn’t willing to for the person he was. That pressure, pushed her away and led to the end of the relationship.
Summer calls Tom to be better, but he doesn’t respond to the call until it’s too late and Summer is gone.
