It’s cuffing season – “that magical time of year during the colder, winter months when people are more compelled to start relationships. It usually runs from late fall, through winter and up until the warmer days of spring and early summer.” Oddly, almost all of my significant relationships started in the frolicking days of summer. Invariably, fall is when I do some of my deeper reflecting on the complexity of relationships (among others, see my post from three years ago: Waiting: The Brutality of Adoration). Despite the perils and pitfalls, I still believe that deep relationships contribute to our well-being and build our sense of wonder and fullness. They challenge us in ways few things can. As part of this habit of reflecting, I spent one morning this past week listening to part one of Brené Brown’s three-part podcast with relationship gurus Drs. John and Julie Gottman. I’ve read some of their work before – mostly when I was having relationship challenges in my prior dating days or when I was trying to understand how good/healthy relationships work – how they look.
My parents divorced when I was young. As such, I did not have role models for how a loving couple treats each other. Worse than that, I grew up with a father who mocks relationship talk and relationship advice as fluff. I’m learning those things are important parts of my story. While he never explicitly stated so, I always got the sense (from him and society at large) that considerations of love were effeminate and pointless – relationship talk was the primary concern of tabloid covers (7 steps to a healthy love life) and is best left under the purview of women looking for husbands. That attitude is always lurking above me or behind me. Despite my deep interest in how people connect, for much of my life, I’ve had an uncomfortable relationship with things like spirituality, psychology, love, and self-help… This is a lengthy post, and the entire time I’ve been writing it, I’ve had my father’s critical voice nagging me – telling me this is nonsense. For me, because of this personal history, love (especially for a man) is a radical act, an essential act, an act of defiance against an overly rational and often toxic world. It’s probably why I’m so attracted to and influenced by the humanistic approach of Vonnegut, “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
I’ll listen to and read about these things (love and relationships), because they shape my views: validating some views and pointing out places where I might be mistaken. In part one of this interview, the Gottmans outline their basic premise: we make countless small bids for attention from our partners, and how we react to those bids can determine the chances of overall success for the relationship. Successful couples turn towards their partner’s bid for attention (86% of the time) and unsuccessful couples turn away or turn against their partner’s bids for attention (only turning towards 33% of the time). The example they give is that one partner might be looking out the window and remark, “wow, look at that blue jay.” This is a bid for attention. In that moment (assuming one is being authentic and not practicing self-deception), the other partner has one of three options: turn towards their partner’s bid, turn away from their partner’s bid, or turn against their partner’s bid. Turning towards would involve acknowledgment and participation, “oh, wow, those colors are fantastic.” Turning away would be to ignore their partner. Turning against would be to complain that they’re busy or to criticize their partner for interrupting them with something so trivial as a bird. The Gottmans have studied thousands of couples and have analyzed lots of data points. Visit their website (https://www.gottman.com/about/research/couples/) and you’ll immediately see an infographic with some surprising stats about successful and failed marriages. It’s worth checking out.
As of this writing, I have no plans to get married or engaged again (I also have no plans not to). I would like to find that person with whom I might enjoy countless sunsets – not only because it’s fulfilling and healthy, but because it seems to be a crucial part of living a deep and meaningful life. Here, I wish to caution and clarify – it’s not so much as looking for a missing piece or my other half but is more about looking for ways to expand beyond what I currently have – to learn, to share, to challenge, to see the world differently. For better or worse, this is where I am most greedy – which is sometimes misinterpreted as being unappreciative or needy. When it’s good, I can’t get enough of it.
When I consider the potential events and accomplishments I may have left in life – which if I’m being honest is only another twenty or thirty years – a committed relationship with a partner, the relationship I have with myself, and how I relate to the outside world, are the things that I suspect will sustain me through my final days (and maybe my efforts to be a poet and help others). Jobs will come and go – so will acquaintances, friends, hobbies, and geography. If I’m attentive, all of it will glow. If I’m lucky, I may get a few years of retirement to travel and do some things… but the people and relationships in which I choose to invest seem to be where the payoff will be – shinier and more rewarding than any bauble or temporary trinket. I listen to relationship podcasts with people like the Gottmans because the more time I spend on this planet, the more I become convinced that how we treat each other (strangers, family, co-workers, partners), how we make each other feel, might be the greatest accomplishment most of us will attain – might be the legacy we leave. Viewed this way, love, kindness, and compassion become things we can (and must) practice every day. We’ll seldom get them right on the first try. We’ll mess up often. There will always be room for improvement. With grace and patience, we might stand a chance.
When I read or listen to relationship advice (as a single person), it’s often with an eye towards the past. I’m frequently asking myself, when could I (could we) have done better and how. For much of my marriage, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t examine my inner thoughts or how our relationship was functioning. I just took the whole thing for granted as though it were a can opener – either it works, or it doesn’t – maybe it’s gummed up in the toothy wheel. It’s as if I was on some sort of autopilot: do yard work, take the kid to practice, fix things around the house, go to work, take a family vacation. That’s not to suggest that we didn’t have love, good times, and build memories, but I don’t think I examined it for the richness that it was or could/should have been. We followed society’s playbook: grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have kids, don’t ask the deep and uncomfortable questions because heaven forbid, they might lead to conflict – and successful, happy marriages don’t have conflict (that’s sarcasm). There was no talk about figuring out attachment styles or love languages or why she or I might behave or react the way we do. At that time in my life, I suspect, like my father, I had contempt for self-help and relationship advice. I arrogantly assumed that I knew what I was doing or that I didn’t have baggage. I lived an unexamined life. If my wife was interested in these things (the psychology of relationships), we didn’t talk about them. We were both busy with our careers and raising our daughter and meeting family obligations. We didn’t spend much time thinking about or exploring what it was we were doing together or dreaming where we might one day be going. We certainly didn’t talk about whether or not we were turning towards or against each other. I can’t speak to her experience, but I suspect we missed many opportunities to see each other differently and with greater understanding. Now, when I reflect, I begin to realize how little I knew of her experiences. I hear all the questions I could have asked. I knew almost nothing about her parent’s relationship (often a key component in adult relationships), or her childhood. We didn’t plumb those depths – we were functional, but maybe not curious (something I suspect we both learned from our childhood family dynamics).
As a small aside – the other night I went to a jazz show. It was a typical jazz show where the band plays and musicians take turns soloing. The crowd politely claps after each solo. The next song follows a similar format. Sitting there, I remembered going to a jazz show with my ex-wife. We both really enjoyed it and after the show she said to one of the musicians, “great playing.” To my ear, the compliment sounded awkward or unhip and out of place – like telling a baseball player great baseballing. I mocked her. I was half-joking but probably felt a little embarrassed and I reacted by being an asshole. Remembering this episode, I felt bad. I felt immature. I felt sorry. Here was someone making an earnest attempt to show gratitude and appreciation (for an art form that might not have been her thing), and I shit on it. A bid for attention and connection met by me turning against. Mocking others was another thing I learned from my father. Boys can be bullies. It wasn’t something I realized I did. It wasn’t something I realized I needed to unlearn. The divorce and the dating and the introspection about my past relationships opened my eyes to the many small ways we (I) can be cruel, dismissive, and unkind. The irony here is that she would sometimes call me Saint Matt – strangers and friends all seemed to like me and think I was a nice and kind person (and for the most part, I am). She, of course, saw all sides of me. The nice guy, but also the asshole. Thankfully, she didn’t hold that against me. I’ve spent the last few years trying to close the gap between the two (reminding myself to be less of an ass and be more sincere)…
For me, this turn towards relationship introspection came in a series of post-divorce revelations – a softening of attitudes and a building of curiosity. Having had only two relationships in my life, I wanted to become a student of what makes relationships work and what doesn’t. I can remember while signing some legal papers related to the house, my ex-wife mentioned the concept of love languages. She said she thinks she and I simply spoke different love languages, had different needs. She was always more ahead of me on these things – she recommended a book for me. At the time, I hadn’t given this concept much thought. Though I’d later return to the notion of love languages, in those initial months of post-divorce living, I was still brash (maybe cocky) and willing to wing it. I wasn’t doing the hard work of introspection. The first person I dated, a woman who became a good friend, seemed like a good fit intellectually. She challenged me and we would talk about mindsets and Buddhism – I learned a lot through our friendship. Another woman I dated made me curious about, and sympathetic to, her baggage (and mine) and inspired me to start writing again (some of my first new poems were for her). Yet another helped me get back into going to live shows. For these things, I am tremendously thankful.
These experiences, though I didn’t know it at the time, were all experiences in turning towards – they helped me see that being curious was a tremendous source of growth and understanding. The failures of those relationships were equally important sources of growth – I wanted to do better and I had to use the mirror they had provided. Some of those losses were devastating, others put a chip on my shoulder. With each relationship I became more aware of how people behave around me and how I behave around them – a dance that looks different each time. I became acutely aware that we elicit different things from each other and trigger different things in each other. Some people brought out my pettiness others made me generous. Some made me weak in the knees needy and other made me arrogant and dismissive. I spent the better part of two years (I think) meeting people, observing, and learning – looking in these different mirrors, trying out slightly different versions of myself. Sometimes, it felt like I was trying to figure out a formula only to be surprised by new discoveries that upset everything I thought I knew. It wasn’t until I walked away from something that I later regretted that I really began to question the purpose of all of this – that I really began to think about what it was I wanted… and perhaps most importantly that I really began to think that we all need to be a little more careful with each other, kinder to each other. I frequently turn to some basic principles expressed by Thich Nhat Hanh, “to love without knowing how to love, wounds the person we love” and “When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over.” Quite often, we can be dumb and clumsy in our love, and in our lesser moments, we can be careless, reactive, and unintentionally cruel. I study these things because I don’t want to wound the person I love.
After listening to part one of the podcast, I did some follow up reading on the Gottman Institute website where I read through a synopsis of the four horsemen: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Again, I could see and hear my father – in particular, criticism and contempt. One of the examples of contempt read, “You’re tired? Cry me a river” and I could totally hear my dad saying this. I could see him rolling his eyes and waving his hands in a “get the hell out of here” dismissive motion. It’s taken 40-some years to get comfortable with calling him out on this…. but I often worry about which of these destructive behaviors I might have picked up, learned, or become defensive from. I know I can behave defensively, and when being judgmental, I can let complaint slip into criticism. When feeling defensive or shamed, I can turn to mocking or stonewalling. I try to be more aware of it now. In doing so, I’m increasingly uncomfortable when I see it on display in others. It’s one of the things that makes me uncomfortable when my parents visit. I watch my stepmom make bids for attention and see my father ignore or turn against. It’s not unusual to hear him say, “what the hell’s wrong with you” to people he is supposed to care about. And it’s not just between them, criticism and contempt is the primary friction between my father and me. I know how frustrated and dismissive I feel when either one of them interrupts me or ask me for something. In turn, my behavior/reaction makes me feel selfish – sends me back to the shed where I tell myself I can and should do better.
A few days later, I listened to part two of the podcast. It was one of those rare moments when I felt this sense of, “yes, this is exactly it. This is how I once felt and how I want to love going forward.” At times, the Gottmans validated some of the things I mention above (much of which was sketched out before I listened to part two). They talked about how easy it is for people to grow numb towards each other – to not see each other. One study they cited indicated that married, professional couples raising children spend less than 10% of an average evening in the same room and talk to each other an average of 35 minutes per week – most of which is about logistics and the “to-do” list. This hit home. Career, kids, and obligations leave little time for love of oneself or of one’s partner. Many marriages fail in the empty nest part of life.
Even more relatable for me was how they talked about the ways people can care for each other, the ways they can show curiosity and attention and (again) turn towards each other. At one point, the interviewer, Brené Brown, talks about the vulnerability required to be honest with each other and ask for more – as though it might be a game of chicken. Who will go first in saying “I really like you. I know we could keep doing this for another thirty years, but I think we could have more.” For me, this was precisely how I felt when I got engaged a few years ago. I always wanted more – not because there was a deficit, but because what we had was so intoxicating. Unfortunately, I think it made my partner feel inadequate in meeting my needs. In that relationship, we spent a lot of time together. Our challenge wasn’t one of trying to rebuild and repair. We weren’t trying to move from only talking a few minutes a week to ten or more minutes a day. We were trying to figure out how to not consume each other, how to not set our wings ablaze, how to dampen the fires of wanting to spend every minute together. For her, that intensity felt suffocating and unsustainable – and it would have been, I just wasn’t ready to dial it back yet.
We were deeply curious about each other and our conversations flowed with ease. At another part in the interview the Gottmans talk about the depth of curiosity and interest couples can share by moving away from logistics and asking deep questions of each other – a genuine interest in this “what’s on your mind and what’s in your heart, and why?” type of questioning. In order to do this with sincerity, we have to be willing to move away from selfishness – we have to set aside our fearful question “how does this impact me?” I’ve struggled with this in relationships. I will always regret an argument that started out as curiosity and ended in selfishness. She, my partner, shared that she had hoped to publish a book of poetry – that’s what she wanted as her legacy. That was how she “would leave her mark on the world.” She didn’t know that the years my wife spent pursuing her PhD took a toll on our marriage. She didn’t know that my father always talked about leaving one’s mark on the world – to the extent that I often felt inadequate because by his measuring stick, I wasn’t making my mark on the world (nobody would be as accomplished as he was or wanted us to be). Those words in that order were a trigger neither my partner nor I were aware of. Most of my life experience up until that point taught me that when people go after what they want, the people who love them get left behind. Selfishly, I started to worry, how does this impact me? All I could see was her pursuing her dreams while I waited for her or was left behind. In the moment, we didn’t have the language or experience to talk about this with nuance, much less approach it with sympathetic curiosity. Why is that important to you as a legacy? Why does my pursuing this scare you? As the Gottmans put it, “you have to learn and be learned, see and be seen.”
To our credit, she and I had many moments in which we seemed enthralled by each other’s depths. Where we struggled is where the Gottmans suggest most couples struggle: articulating and understanding each other’s needs and boundaries. These can be choppy waters, even for professionals like the Gottmans. Early in the second part of the interview, they share an experience they had with a couple’s therapist. In that experience, their therapist, who seemed to favor John, suggested that John doesn’t have to meet Julie’s needs – he can say no. The therapist suggested that relationships are about setting boundaries. John’s response was to recoil from that a bit. He didn’t want to set boundaries that his wife can’t or shouldn’t cross. To them, relationships aren’t about boxing each other in, but should be about respectful negotiations and mutual growth.
But here, in the land and culture of rugged individualism and take-no-prisoner cowboy capitalism, having needs is a source of shame and a source of weakness. As children and young adults, we are told and taught that we need to be independent and self-sufficient… to go after what we want, sometimes at all costs. Even in a lot of relationship talk, there is this notion that we need to be a whole self, as though anything less is a form of co-dependence.
As I learned, for this particular ex, co-dependence was a trigger… and in hindsight, I wish we had been introduced to the concept of effective dependency. As strongly independent people in a culture that values the go-it-alone journey, it’s no surprise that we, Americans especially, struggle to articulate our needs. It seems that we play the conversations in our head way more frequently than we ever verbalize them to our partners, and suddenly it’s as if “I’ve been telling you my needs forever, and you refuse to listen. You must not love me or care, because if you did, you would have done something about it.”
I remember a time in couples therapy when we were struggling with this notion of independent needs – specifically, needing space. She needed more of it and I was struggling to give it or understand it (space wasn’t something I needed). I liked spending every day with her and I began to see deviations from that as a crack in our relationship, as a form of withdraw. She needed to move more slowly and sometimes take a break. Quite often, I would ask, what does that look like? And she would say just half an hour every day. To me, that seemed easy… but the challenge was for us to figure out the logistics (she wanted to be able to take it without having to communicate that to me). I needed her to help me understand what she needed, when she needed it, and why – though my asking was usually ham-handed and passive-aggressive: “fine – if you need time, you steer for a while. Tell me when and where and I’ll make it work. But also consider my schedule. I plan dinners in advance. I plan my lunch around what my dinner plans will be. I need some advance notice.” Our therapist, who I think was genuinely trying to help us navigate this, suggested that for an entire week, my partner would get to do whatever she liked. We would see each other as often or as little as she wanted – though she would have to be considerate of my time. We agreed to take the week off from seeing each other. By Tuesday of that week, perhaps feeling pressure or genuine absence, my partner wanted to go back to seeing each other every day. Clearly, we needed practice at this. Unfortunately, the outcome for holding people accountable for needs we struggle to articulate (and we were both guilty of this) is resentment, depression, anger, and judgment.
I’ve been thinking of reaching out to that therapist to thank her for her efforts (and also because I’ve been thinking of therapy). In looking for her email address, I came across an email she had sent just after the relationship ended:
This might not have to be the end, but sometimes when enough space isn’t created in a relationship, for the person who needs it, separation is often the only way to feel free. The question is not whether or not there is love and caring between you. There absolutely is. The question is, is it possible for you to let go and create space for B to be totally free so that the relationship is something she can breathe and relax in. There are other questions for her, to be fair! But I will work with her on those.
That was a hard ask, because by then we had entered into the withdraw/chase cycle and were stuck in our own worlds of confirmation bias. You’re not giving me space, that just proves you’re incapable of giving me what I need. You’re not coming around, that just proves you’re incapable of ever staying. Compassion and understanding might have charted a different course.
All of this seems and sounds dire – like we’re constantly stepping on the booby traps of love – blindfolded and walking around in a field of upturned rakes. But listening to the Gottmans and reflecting, I heard and saw a lot of “hell yes” in my past relationships (particularly my engagement). Again, I can’t speak for her, but I felt like we were good at showing appreciation, making contact, and expressing a desire to understand each other (building a love map of their world) – things that the Gottmans say are essential for success.
It wasn’t until I dated a few very warm and affection women that I realized how important closeness and physical touch were to me. Touch is considered one of the love languages, and studies have shown that touch is essential for most of us. It lowers stress, anxiety, and depression…. The oxytocin release from closeness has been shown to make us more trusting, more giving, and more cooperative. There’s a funny scene in A Day at the Races in which the female character, Flo, says, “I want to be near you. I want you to hold me. Oh! Hold me closer! Closer! Closer!” and as they embrace, Groucho Marx as Dr. Hackenbush replies, “If I hold you any closer, I’ll be in back of you!” In my best relationships, we both seemed to want that type of closeness as though if we weren’t careful, we might pass through each other. In those moments, which in good relationships were frequent, we both showed genuine affection towards each other – quite often doing little things like holding hands or finding ways to make contact. It’s difficult to fake that type of affection and it’s difficult to deny the high that’s felt when it’s sincere. In my experience, it’s as if you can’t help but to show it. Unfortunately, I’ve avoided that type of closeness for the past three years and I sometimes worry that it’s impacting my personality in negative ways. That not having it is making me less trusting, more cynical, and grumpy.
As they talked about the concept of an inner world (love maps), Brené Brown said, “to be invited in is incredible, but also in a couple, to knock on the door and want to see it is such a turning toward moment.” Dr. Julie Gottman responded by articulating that in this space of curiosity we’re saying and hopefully they’re hearing, “I love you so much that I want to know you every minute. I want to know who you are. I want to know how history has changed you.” Again, I found myself saying, hell yes! In my better moments, this level of curiosity was there – this almost insatiable desire to understand the battles that rage in another, to see deeper, to learn and grow through another. And sometimes it was reciprocated. I can remember getting a Christmas or Valentines or just because card in which my partner wrote something to the effect of, “I like that I could learn something new about you every day.” This level of mutual curiosity seems like a foundational piece for anyone hoping for longevity.
The interview concludes with the Gottmans saying “there is no shelf life on love” and connecting is about “overcoming the inertia of being solitary.” I’ve given this shelf life concept a lot of thought over the past few years, and I tend to agree. Unconditional doesn’t fade easily because it’s not based on being reciprocated. As best as I can tell, things end when, for one or both parties, the effort seems too great or the noise gets too loud. I had a friend who suggested (by example of her relationship) that good relationships don’t have fights. The Gottmans and countless other therapists strongly disagree. They know that fights happen and suggest solving what is solvable and avoiding the four horseman. If anything, it seems that coming out the other side of those arguments with a better understanding of and appreciation for (another type of turning towards) your partner is the thing that builds strong bonds and predicts long-term success. It’s no small feat to have someone commit to saying I’m curious enough about you and us and why we keep circling certain drains to want to figure this out. Of course, that requires both parties to be committed to this process “delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.”
If I’m interested in learning how to “get this right” and in reflecting on past successes and failures, it’s because I’m forever fascinated with stories and truth and inner worlds – the ones we tell ourselves and others. I recently came across a quote that may be an appropriate place to end:
To love someone is to put yourself in their place, we say, which is to put ourself in their story, or figure out how to tell yourself their story. Which means that a place is a story, and stories are geography, and empathy is first of all an act of imagination, a storyteller’s art, and then a way of traveling from here to there.
-Rebecca Solnit
And if we’re not, as Ram Das suggests, “walking each other home,” then we’re often trying to figure out how to travel from here to there.