You may be thinking, stories, like fairy tales? Like fairy tales and tales of action and adventure, the stories that you tell yourself each day to create meaning out of your partner’s behaviors are just that, stories. Whether you are a few months into a new relationship or have been together with your partner for several decades, I am guessing that you notice your partner’s behavior in some way. You may have even chuckled just now thinking, how could I not? In this post I want to bring awareness to the way that you make meaning about your partner’s behavior and how this can have a significant impact on your feelings and interactions with them.
Here’s an example, let’s say your partner is running late to meet you for dinner. When you consider this scenario do you notice any messages or stories you attach to their behavior? Do you think to yourself “my partner is running late, they must care more about work than being here with me”? Or maybe you think, “my partner is running late, they must have had a stressful day”.
The stories or underlying meaning that you attach to your partner’s behavior, whether you believe they must care more about work or have had a stressful day, impact how you feel and thus, respond to them. If your story is that your partner does not respect your time or care as much about you because they are running late, you may respond to them by becoming passive aggressive, critical, or withdraw from them as a result. If the story you hold is that they must have had a stressful day, you may respond very differently by asking how their day was and offering support. The only difference between these two responses is the story that you are telling yourself about your partner’s behavior.
Why does identifying the stories you hold matter? When you are able to identify your stories as they happen, you can do two things. You can check in with yourself about where the story comes from. Maybe your partner is late a lot and gets stuck at work often or maybe your partner is rarely late, but the assumption you hold when people are late is that they value their time more than yours.
Next, you can communicate your story to your partner. Let’s use the same example above, your partner reaches out to tell you that they are running late to meet you. Your stomach tenses and you feel disappointed and the story you may be telling yourself is that your partner’s work is more important than you are. To communicate your story, you may choose to say to your partner, “When you are running late, the story I tell myself is that your work is more important than our time together and I feel sad.”
By bringing awareness to your stories and communicating them, you not only create the opportunity to connect with your partner around what you are feeling, you also change the way you respond to and feel about your stories as a result. Just like the author of your favorite childhood story, you have the ability to write the ending of the stories you tell yourself.
A Moment to Reflect:
Think back to a recent time you’ve noticed something about your partner’s behavior and consider what story you may have told yourself about what they were doing. Did this story impact how you felt? Did it impact how you responded to them?