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I will never forget the woman in my practice who got very angry at her husband when he started pitching in more around the house—cleaning up after dinner, picking up after the kids, stopping at the grocery store occasionally to replenish needed supplies.
Because arguments about spouses not doing their fair share abound in practice, I felt as if I had landed on Mars. “Weird,” I thought. But I managed to access my inner professional by simply showing curiosity and asking, “What story are you telling yourself about why he is doubling his efforts to help out?”
She replied, “It makes me think that he feels I’m incompetent and that he can do it better than me. I think it’s his job to support our family, and mine is to be responsible for all things related to our home.”
I turned to her husband and asked, “Have you been doing these things because you’re concerned that your wife can’t do a good job?” and he appeared as astonished as I had been initially. “No, not at all,” he said. “I think you are an unbelievable homemaker,” he told her. “I just see how much you do, and I’ve been feeling like I’m not doing enough! I appreciate how hard you work for our family.”
So, the story she was telling herself was that her husband’s upping his game at home felt like a criticism, a demonstration of his lack of faith in her abilities to get the job done. Furthermore, since she believed her fabricated story, she had been very annoyed at him, which stymied her husband. He felt hurt, misunderstood, and eventually was angry in return.
We all do this.
Something happens, and our brains immediately attempt to make sense of what happened—we instantly ascribe meaning to the event. We silently hypothesize why something occurred, or what motivates people to behave as they do. And here’s the bad news. Much of the time, the stories we tell ourselves about why others behave the way they do are negative.
Here’s the problem with our negative stories: We believe them. And then hard feelings become inevitable. On both sides.
But I’ve noticed something else.
When we are getting along with our spouses and feeling close and connected, if something happens that in the past might have sparked conflict, the stories we tell ourselves about those occurrences are markedly different. We give our spouses the benefit of the doubt. We let the small stuff slide.
For instance, imagine two spouses who have been feeling really good about each other—they’ve been having great conversations, regular sex, agreement on parenting issues, and a good work/home life balance. One of the husband’s pet peeves over the course of their marriage has been his wife’s tendency to be late when they need to go somewhere together. They have fought about this a great deal.
However, coming off of a period of relative peace and harmony, her being 20 minutes late to meet friends for dinner had him thinking, “She had a lot to do today. I understand why it was hard for her to walk out the door on time.”
In short, what often determines the lens we wear when observing others’ behavior is the love we have in our love banks. Knowing this is important because it is yet another reminder about the importance of prioritizing our relationships.
Proponents of cognitive therapy believe that how we think influences how we feel. True? Absolutely. But it also works the other way around. How we feel—loved, heard, appreciated, connected, cherished—affects what we think, how we evaluate the world around us.
So, where does this leave us? Here are some actionable steps you can take to ensure the stories inside your head are helpful rather than hurtful:
- Deposit acts of love into your love bank. Feeling close will provide a powerful positive lens.
- Once you realize that your “diagnoses” of others’ motivations are simply made-up stories, don’t assume; ask. Say, “The story I’m telling myself about why you did that last night is _____. Is that correct?”
- Then listen with an open mind. Try to take your spouse’s perspective at face value. As perceptive as you might be, mind-reading is best left to magicians.
- Finally, that little voice inside your head isn’t always right. If you’re inclined to argue, instead of arguing with your spouse, argue with that voice that often assumes the worst.
