Writings

from Talk To Me Like I’m Someone You Love
1. Where the idea came from...
2. How easy it is to have a rupture...and maybe easier than you th ink to repair it.
3. A little instruction and a little good advice

2. How easy it is to have a rupture...and maybe easier than you think to repair it.

Lets start with a question. If being in a warm intimate space with a loved one is so desirable, feels so good, and is often the experience declared to be, arguably, the most wonderful feature of human existence, why is it that so often even a very small thing can disrupt the good feeling between a couple and make it so hard to get back to it? Why is it that a minor disagreement, let alone a full-scale fight, can be so hard to repair? Why is it that sometimes, your partner can genuinely say “I’m sorry,” and you can hear the words, know he or she feels badly, and still not feel as relaxed or safe with them as you did before, say, they interpreted a lost sales receipt as saying something “significant” about your lack of responsibility… or before you made a smartass remark that you thought was so witty it wouldn’t have left you partner feeling small and devalued—but it did…. before you were questioned about something—almost anything--with “that tone” in your partner’s voice.
Think of all the times you and a partner were happily anticipating a special evening, and by the time you got in the car and were heading for the restaurant, it was already less-than-relaxed between you. Consider Laura and Michael, who had been looking forward to going out to a 9th anniversary dinner:
“We were supposed to have a special evening together, Michael, just the two of us—and you had to go run and answer your cell phone. (pleadingly) It’s our anniversary….”
“Laura, we have the whole evening ahead of us. You know I want to be with you. I made the reservation weeks ago. (mild irritation in his voice) Why do you have to focus on one little thing and ruin everything? “

“I’ve ruined everything? I’m only telling you how I feel If the plan is to be close tonight, do you think you could listen to how I feel? If you really cared about our evening you never would have picked up the phone in the first place.”

“Why don’t you ask me why I picked up the phone—that might show caring about someone’s feelings other than your own. Laura, you know how precarious things are between Terry and me at the office. Why can’t you trust that I picked up the phone for a good reason?”

“But it’s always a good reason. Why can’t you simply appreciate how much it bothers me that we never seem to have time together without an interruption. It feels like you would rather win a point with Terry than just be with me.”

“Now I’m irritated. Stop with the analysis, Laura. If you weren’t so insecure, you could allow me taking one brief call without falling apart. “
“Oh, really? If you weren’t so insecure, you could hear the phone ring and not have to check whether your world was falling apart…”

Do couples therapists make house calls? How does a simple moment get so complicated? How could a well-intentioned romantic evening turn sour so fast? Why can’t Laura stop pushing? Why can’t Michael just see that she’s hurt? Why are they so hell-bent on proving how insensitive the other is? Why is this downward spiral so hard to stop?

The answers to these questions are addressed in great detail throughout Talk To Me LIke I’m Someone You Love, but for the abbreviated website version, I’ll just say this:
Notice that when Laura initially registers upset that he took the call, Michael didn’t immediately respond, “Honey, I can totally see why you might have worried I was going to get all tied up with work on our anniversary—and you would have every reason in the world to be upset with me if I did that.” This would have gotten everything back on track, not to mention establishing Michael as the most conscious male of the decade! Why? Because he would have given Laura what all of our wounded parts, and many of our healthy parts crave—the experience we often didn’t get enough of in childhood, the experience of feeling felt by a loved one. If Laura had had enough of feeling felt when she was younger, she would have had the self-worth to experience the minor interruption by Michael as an annoyance, not a catastrophe. She might have acknowledged her annoyance playfully by saying something like, “Okay, Buster, you can take the call, but for every minute on the phone you have to massage me for two minutes!” The annoyance is registered, and the energy stays friendly.

Furthermore, ruptures between couples often get superficial healing because apologies and acknowledgments are offered, often times sincerely (“You are right…I shouldn’t have picked up the phone”). But they don’t hit the mark. They don’t leave an upset partner feeling felt, conveying a message that their being upset makes sense to the other. Often this has to do with Partner A acknowledging the impact of his or her behavior on Partner B, something far more meaningful than just acknowledging that the behavior itself was unwise.

Though this is just the tip of the iceberg theory-wise, let’s move on to the practicum. Let’s go back to our anniversary couple, Laura and Michael and revisit them and their parting shots:

“But it’s always a good reason. Why can’t you simply appreciate how much it bothers me when we never seem to have time together without an interruption. It feels like you would rather win a point with Terry than just be with me.”

“Now I’m irritated. Stop with the analysis, Laura. If you weren’t so insecure, you could tolerate me taking one brief call without falling apart. “

“Oh, really? If you weren’t so insecure, you could hear the phone ring and not have to check whether your world was falling apart…”

Now imagine that one of our defensive duo happens to have a copy of Talk To Me Like I’m Someone You Love, goes to page 22, and kindly holds up that page to the other: “This feels awful. Can we start again and really listen to each other?”

Imagine the sniping ceasing and the defensiveness gone. Perhaps, the couple smile at each other a bit sheepishly, but their affection is real. Imagine the conversation resuming about their evening out, only this time with an infusion of tenderness and care.

Where only minutes before, Laura and Michael seemed headed for an achingly familiar downward spiral, we now hear things like, “Thank you, sweetie” and “I felt horrible thinking we had almost blown our evening” and “I melted when you held up that page.” We might even hear, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening,” “I’m so sorry I gave you a hard time.” Wordlessly the couple beam to each other, “I like it when we remember that we like each other.”

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