For better or worse: When talking turns the wrong way
I’ve been holding onto this for so long. Never feeling like I could say a word. It just feels so good to finally tell you this. I feel so much lighter.”
“I’m glad you do; that’s great. But now I feel like shit.”
How is it that in a partnership, two people can walk away from one conversation feeling so utterly different on the spectrum of connection and shame? Vulnerability and sharing our feelings is supposed to connect us, I mean, therapists (such as myself) push transparency like the new drug that’ll take you places you’ve never been. So how is it then that sharing something so vulnerable, so change-making for one person can take their partner into a shame spiral for days?
For starters, it’s our natural quest for connection that pulls us, like a magnet, toward our partners. While the pull feels the same with the same goal in mind, the way we move toward one another looks very different. We want the same thing - connection, love, belonging, comfort, security - we just go about it in an entirely different way. And oftentimes, it’s that difference, that gap between where we start and where we meet, that can really write the script for whether or not we keep moving toward one another.
The way we talk, our tone, the inflection in our voice, our body language, all influence the messages and the story we try to tell to one another. What we don’t take into consideration is what our partner is hearing from the other, often opposite end. When two people come to the table to talk together, most often what one person says and the other person hears are two very different things. This is based on a lot of things. Our personal experiences, our levels of confidence, but most of all, our willingness to stand in discomfort and for how long. Shame and guilt have a ton to do with it because if there’s even the slightest feeling of shame or guilt, which really are two different things, then we run the risk of the message getting lost, and staying lost for our partner.
While our personal experiences and self-narrative histories have everything to do with it, in the present moment it’s what we’re hearing combined with our self talk that’s going to determine what we walk away with. While one person can end up in the conversation feeling amazing, lighter, and more empowered having just practiced a serious exercise in vulnerability, the other, typically the person on the receiving end of that conversation can walk away in shame or guilt, lessening their chances of wanting to do that again after feeling so incredibly uncomfortable.
One complete over-generalization and explanation for the differences is that men are less likely than women to address topics related to shame. And when they do, it’s usually in their own heads, not in front of a live audience. Women on the other hand, are more likely to be the external processors, wanting to talk things through, often needing to tell a story more than once to find another way around or through it. Men rely on their own decision-making and problem-solving abilities, while women typically invite other collaborators into their narratives. Afterall, the best-selling book Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus and a few other best-selling books written by John Gray thereafter speak to the masses of heterosexual couples that feel akin to the gender identities. While I see many of these gender identities play out in my office working as a couples therapist, what I can say is it’s less about gender and more about shame-resiliency and shame discomfort. How long you can, excuse my phrase here, “sit in the shit,” really determines the messages you’re receiving and therefore how well you can connect with your partner. To go even a little further and a little more specific, how long you can “sit in your own shit,” is ever-so-important in a partnership.
I would never advocate for self-loathing or martyrdom, nor would I ever support just taking it from someone else. Those things are connection-blockers every time and don’t lead to self-growth anyway. What I’m talking about here, is being willing to sit in the discomfort of whatever truth has been shared with you, long enough to really be able to hear your partner out.
We are truly mirrors for one another. We show up and inevitably are shown, usually by our partners, parts of ourselves we think we hide well. These things, be it issues around parenting, purpose, perfectionism and the like, typically evoke a shame response in us. But believe it or not, that wasn’t the goal of our partner. Our partners don’t set out to make us feel like shit. We can do that on our own with the stories we create and with our hot-potato reactions to shame.
When we’re in shame, it’s incredibly difficult, if not impossible to hear anything, let alone our partner sharing something meaningful and change-making to them. What we think is happening, is that someone’s trying to make us feel bad, feel guilty, feel like shit. What we fail to think through (because we can’t in the moment if we’re overcome by emotion) and what we can’t fathom to comprehend is that what they’re saying isn’t about us, it’s about them. But when our shame response is so incredibly reactive like a wild game of hot potato, the second we feel it we also feel the need to get rid of it. This toss looks like anything we need to do to stop the pain of what we feel. We’ll scream, cry, throw around accusations, do whatever we need to do to push it out. But when we’re doing this, we’re not hearing anything but our own shame stories and this couldn’t be further from the goal your partner set out in bringing up the topic, starting a conversation or doing some kind of emotional sharing with you.
Being able to admit when you’ve done something that caused hurt to someone, when you can sit in that feeling of discomfort even for just the slightest amount of time, you allow empathy in. You open up a space for perspective, and you get closer to filling the role of a partner and not just another person. The next time you find yourself in a space of discomfort, fight against the urge to go inward and instead keep your focus and attention on the person sitting across the table from you. Instead of starting the narrative that sounds like you’re building your defense against the dark arts, get out of your head, out of your story, and instead ask yourself “what does my partner need from me right now.” If your answer sounds like, “he/she needs me to feel bad,” try again. One safe assumption is connection. Your partner is looking to connect with you. Stay in the space where you can connect with him or her, long enough to find perspective and empathy. Remember, you are your partner’s partner.
