Relationships are Like Gardens Part II: Success Requires Skills and Planning

This is part 2 of a 5-part series drawing the analogy between gardening and building good relationships. Part I talked about how knowledge is central to success in both endeavors. Here in Part II, I discuss how the acquisition of the right skills, and the development of a sound plan are important to success in gardening and close relationships.

I introduced this series with a very sad tale about how I tried once to grow cilantro and failed miserably because I didn't know how to do it. Not knowing how to do it prevented me from being able to generate a plan for when and where to plant (as it turns out, I failed on both these points) or knowing whether I had the skills to do it (I still wonder if I am capable of seeing the difference between the edible first round of leaves and the frilly, lacy, bitter leaves that the plant produces as it matures).

My cilantro fiasco (as I'm now calling it) was rooted in a lack of knowledge, but that lack of knowledge ultimately resulted in my total inability to know how to plan for planting and then tend the plant once it started to grow. These same pitfalls in relationships can cause them to fail to flourish.

Strategy: Identifying a Desired Outcome and Developing a Viable Plan to Get There

The word "strategy" can be off-putting for people in reference to their relationships. Strategy sounds like something we do when we are playing games or going to war - both of which are categorically terrible comparisons for relationship management. Curiously, when we begin what we hope is a romantic relationship, we often strategize like champs. We know what we want (to form a romantic relationship with potential-partner X) and we know how to get there (by a series of tactical moves that are part of a larger playing-hard-to-get strategy that minimizes our availability and maximizes our desirability).

Something happens, though, as we become confident in the persistence of the relationship. We stop approaching it strategically. We let the relationship, for lack of better language, "do what it's going to do". Here's the thing about relationships "doing what they are going to do" - they don't. Relationships don't do a thing. Relationships are a result of human action. If we don't behave well, our relationships won't be well.

If we want our relationships to be well, our over-arching strategy should be to take care of the relationship and each other. If caring for ourselves, our partners, and our bond is what is at the front of our minds every time (and I do mean every time) we communicate, then our tactics should match that.

Let's take a recent example from my own life. My sister and I were hanging out a couple of weeks ago. I had intended that we would hang out together with my niece, Doodle, and have dinner and catch up. She spent the first two hours of my visit working on something else and only half-listening to me during our visit. I became increasingly frustrated but said nothing to her about it until I had utterly lost my patience and felt hurt and dismissed as a result of her inattention. My hurt and anger caused me to lose sight of that big relationship objective of caring for our bond and I yelled at her to stop what she was doing.

This was a major, massive tactical fail on my part which happened because I was more concerned with expressing my annoyance with her behavior and getting her to stop rather than the bigger strategic objective of taking care of our relationship. As you can imagine, my behavior hurt and upset my sister, and we proceeded to waste the better part of the next 3 hours yelling and crying. A mildly annoying situation turned into a huge, hurtful incident because I prioritized my own emotion over the relationship. I made a bad tactical decision that I would have avoided if I adhered to my strategy of caring for us both.

If we have a good plan and commit to adhering to it, we make better choices and have better relationships (and cilantro).

Strategy Can't Work without Skill

Okay, so it's all well and good that we decide that our primary strategic objective is to care for our partners, ourselves, and our relationships and that we should devise a set of tactics that enable the meeting of that objective. The trouble is, we may not have the skills to do so.

I can assure you, that while I don't remotely have the skills to be able to grow cilantro, that I absolutely have the skills to be able to have good conflict. I simply chose not to use them in the situation with my sister that I referenced above.* But what if I didn't have the skills? What if I knew that barking wouldn't end well, but didn't know what else I could do? What if I didn't know how to express frustration and ask for us to change what we were doing without sounding angry? Would I be doomed to failure in relationships? No. Certainly not.

Skill comes from practice, but we have to practice the right things. If you have a friend who is good at the thing you want to get better at, ask if they might role-play and practice while they give you feedback. There are also people who provide relationship and communication coaching** (myself, included) who, like an athletic coach or trainer, will identify skills fundamentals that need improvement and help you to develop them. You can ask your partners to tell you how they would prefer for you to behave in a given situation. If they can alert you to the troublesome behavior and motivate you in the midst of a conversation to do a better behavior, this can help you grow as well.

Growth is the End-Game

In the case of cilantro or relationships, what we're ultimately trying to do is grow them. Our closest relationships are the most valuable things many of us have. In order to grow them, to make them closer, warmer, more stable, we need to be mindful about how we approach communicating within them. We've gotta be knowledgeable, strategic, and skilled if we intend to reap the enormous benefits of our closest bonds.

Of course, all of the knowledge, strategy, and skill in the world can't prevent the occasional pest or hassle from creeping into our relationships and cilantro beds. We'll come to that in my next post, so stay tuned for Part III.

Notes:

* Yes, dear readers, being an expert doesn't necessarily mean I always do the right thing. I'm well-educated, but I'm sure not perfect. And yes, I absolutely did apologize to my sister.

** If you're looking for a relationship coach, scrutinize credentials. There are lots of people who will sell relationship coaching services with no educational or experiential credentials that would justify their charging you for their alleged expertise. Find someone whose academic or experiential credentials are clearly identifiable, and ensure that their degrees, certifications, or experience are in an appropriate field (e.g., you don't want an MBA in Management teaching you interpersonal conflict management but they may be perfect for business communication coaching). Many certified legal mediators with specialties in family mediation may also offer coaching services.

Relationships are Like Gardens. Go on, Roll Your Eyes, then Keep Reading

Love is like a garden - feed it, tend it, and it will bloom. Blah blah blah.

Some cliche analogy isn't where this post is going. Instead, I want to share a comparison I often use to talk about the choices we make and actions we take in our relationships. Analogy is useful for teaching, and the big-picture comparison I use to talk about relationships is gardening.

To make my point that relationships are basically like tomato plants, I'm going to post a 5-part series on why building good relationships is like growing a garden. Each post will deal with one of the five following characteristics of both relationship building and gardening:

They require knowledge.

They require skills and planning to execute well.

They require ongoing tending.

They present their fair share of pests, annoyances, and hassles.

They should result in something that feeds you.

I'm going to kick off the series by addressing the first point:

Building Relationships and Growing Gardens both Require Knowledge
I tried to grow cilantro once. It was a miserable failure. I was mystified by my inability to grow cilantro because I was under the impression that growing it was about as easy as growing a wild onion (i.e., it's easy to be successful by accident). Apparently, that is not the case.

So, the question is: why did I fail? The answer is: because I didn't know what the blazes I was doing.

It's my feeling that most people attempt to manage relationships in the same way that I attempted to grow cilantro - with the misguided assumption that they are natural and they will essentially grow themselves. We come to this impression because most of us have had relationships forged for/with us for a very long time with little thought, work, or input of any sort on our parts. We form relationships with our parents, siblings, classmates, neighborhood kids, etc. We meet people, tell them things about ourselves, we like the same things, we become friends, and tah-dah - instarelationship.

That our relationships are forged for us for most of our formative years sets us up, I think, to assume that we inherently know how to form, grow, and maintain relationships. That assumption is as problematic as my assumption that I can grow cilantro because it's a plant and plants grow by themselves all the time. When I say it like that, it sounds slightly crazy that we all think we just get how to be in relationships.

Here's the truth: we have to learn how to do relationships the same way we need to learn how to grow cilantro or tomatoes. Part of learning means understanding that why an action (giving a plant too much sun, or yelling in a conflict) results in one outcome or another (plant death, or hurt and anger). I am positive that had I known the first thing about how to plant cilantro, I would have been more successful than I was. Similarly, if we want to grow relationships, we need an education about how to do so.

There are any number of ways to educate yourself. Take classes in communication or social psychology to understand what scholars have learned about relationships. Seek out relationship coaching or couples therapy to learn about how to interact with one another more fruitfully. Read a relationship blog.

Better yet, you should learn about your partner. Talk to your partner about how something they do in a conflict, for example, affects you (and vice versa). Deliberately try communicating differently to see if you get a different outcome (because whatever the outcome is, you've learned something). Talk to each other about how your experiments are going and adapt your communication to what you've learned about one another.

Whatever you learn, how ever you learn it, you should be learning it mindfully. We improve our odds of having successful relationships when we are deliberate and purposeful about learning what we need to in order to address our most important relationship concerns.

In retrospect, it occurs to me that I never googled how to grow cilantro. How easy that would have been. Instead, I embarked on an adventure armed with nothing but a desire for fresh cilantro all the time. I ended up with nothing to show for it but frustration. Be better about approaching your relationships than I was about approaching gardening. If you do, you will amass knowledge and information that will help you plan better, acquire more skills, and  have more tools in your repertoire to be able to succeed at building solid relationships.

Stay tuned for Part II. 

Lesson 3, Part II: Managing Conflict: Successful Conflict Means Everybody Wins

A while back, I wrote a post on differentiating between a conflict and a fight. Really, if you haven't read it, you ought to. It will make this post make more sense . . . and it's just a darn good lesson to learn.

Today, I wish to revisit the issue of conflict in relationships and talk about what makes for good conflict.

Remember that a conflict is a conversation between two people who have stated their needs to one another and found that their needs are incompatible. Conflict isn't a sign that the relationship is dysfunctional. In fact, it suggests that you and your partner recognize that an important function of your relationship is to meet your respective needs (our lesson on what I affectionately refer to as Glowworm Theory gets at this).

How to Have Bad Conflict
Conflict goes awry in a relationship, though, when we don't express our needs in a manner that demonstrates respect for our partners. Yes, we form relationships with the expectation that they meet our needs. But, our expectation that our relationship partner meets our needs doesn't entitle us to whatever we want, nor does it obligate our partners to give it. This sense of entitlement is often the reason that we are motivated to behave badly in conflict. We feel like our partners have to do what we ask. When they refuse, for whatever reason, we take this personally. This displeasure with our partners' refusal to meet our needs often manifests as anger or hurt.

If we feel hurt or angry enough, we might choose to demonstrate our negative emotions rather than attempting to resolve the conflict issue in a productive manner. Some things we do in destructive conflict include:

• Avoiding the issue or your partner
• Yelling or doing other things that express our negative emotions
• Acting defensive or refusing to take responsibility for unreasonable requests
• Insulting or criticizing our partner
• Being emotionally manipulative (e.g., trying to make our partners feel guilty)
• Retaliating (i.e., doing something we know will hurt our partners because they hurt us and we owe them one)
• Engaging in violent actions including threats, damaging property, or harming our partners

If we do these things in a conflict, we show our partners the worst version of ourselves. If we show our partners the worst version of who we are, it makes little sense that we we should expect our partners to give us the best of themselves.

How to Have Good Conflict
Clearly, there are plenty of things that we can do in a conflict episode that can adversely impact our relationships. There are, however, plenty of things that we can do to make sure that a conversation about what we need doesn't turn the relationship toxic. So, here's some strategy for you for how to make your conflicts work for your relationship rather than against it.

• Really think about whether the need you're asking your partner to fulfill is reasonable.
  A reasonable request is one that:
  a) you have the right to expect from your partner,
  b) that your partner has the means to give you, and
  c) that your partner is comfortable giving you.
• State your need in a manner that is respectful and consistent with the rules of the relationship.
  You can't reasonably expect your partner to do anything to meet your needs if you express your needs aggressively, passive aggressively, ambiguously, or in any manner that doesn't promote clear, honest, respectful talking about your needs.
• Identify whether the incompatibility that exists between your needs and those of your partner is real or perceived.
  This point is more easily addressed with an example: Sue has a bad day at work and comes home to her romantic partner, Bob. She asks Bob if he will sit with her on the couch and hold her while she tells him about her awful day. Bob replies by saying that he can't do that because he has a paper he has to finish for the next day. Bob perceives that he cannot both provide support to his partner and complete his work. If they let the conversation get past the initial request, though, Bob would have found out that Sue really only intended to sit and snuggle for about 15 minutes because she, too, had other things she needed to get done before bed. Surely, Bob can spare the 15 minutes. Because he can spare the 15 minutes, his need to write his paper is, in reality, not at all incompatible with Sue's need for support.
• Be open to negotiation.
  In conflicts, we generally start by stating our need and our preferred means by which that need should be met. In the example of Sue and Bob above, Sue's ideal outcome was to be snuggled while she vented about her day as soon as she got home. Bob's ideal outcome was to be able to work on his paper, uninterrupted until it was finished. When we strip away all of the preferences and extras, all Sue wanted was support and to be held, and all Bob wanted was to finish his paper before his normal bedtime. If Sue and Bob would negotiate, they could talk through what their bottom lines are - what is it that they each really mean to achieve. Negotiation allows us to separate what we really need from the preferences we have about how that need gets met. This, in turn, promotes resolution.
• Shoot for collaboration, not compromise.
  I don't know about you, but the big conflict management strategy I learned in school was compromise. Teaching compromise to children is easier, I suppose, than teaching collaboration, but it breeds a shortsightedness about how to have really great conflict. Here's the fact about compromise: it means that everybody has to give something up. The word compromise means to reach an agreement by way of mutual concession. When we begin a conflict with the frame of mind that we are going to have to give something up to get what we need, we start the episode on the defense because we want to give up as little as possible. Our partners approach the conflict the same way, and the potential for excellent outcomes to arise is diminished. If, on the other hand, we approach conflict as a collaboration, we are in a different and more productive frame of mind. Here's the fact about collaboration: everybody wins (or at least has the potential to). The talking that we do in conflict should be, more than anything else, about how we get everything we both need. When we come at a conflict with the belief that everybody can get their needs met and that we don't have to start by giving something up, we tend to be more creative about how we solve the problem. We generate better ideas, we are more open to suggestions for alternative solutions, and we are thus more likely to arrive at a solution that is good for everybody. 

Good Conflict Makes Relationships Better
The majority of students to whom I have taught conflict management have come to me with the belief that conflict does harm to a relationship. They aren't wrong. Conflict can have very detrimental effects on a relationship - if we do it wrong. If we spend more time trying to inflict hurt or protect ourselves than negotiating the conflict issue, then yes, conflict can diminish relational quality. On the other hand, good conflicts draw people together. This happens because the trust, validation, and self-esteem that come from a successful collaboration makes us feel closer to and more invested in our partner. And all of that is on top of the fact that we resolved the initial conflict issue.

So you see, when we do conflict right, we get what we need, our partners get what they need and our relationships improve. Everybody wins.

Class dismissed.

Soapbox: To Get It, Ya Gotta Give It

I've titled this post "To Get It, Ya Gotta Give It" because this is the root of so many of our missteps in the way we manage expectations for other people. We tend to approach life with an exaggerated idea of the resources we are entitled to expect from other people - time, energy, money, company, love, affection, sex, respect, etc. Unfortunately, we tend to spend a disproportionately small amount of time thinking about the extent to which we have given enough of those resources to other people to warrant our expectation that we are entitled to receive them.

Do me a favor and think back to your grade school days when one of the first life lessons we were taught was the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. When we are taught this as children, the point is that we should avoid treating each other badly if we expect others to treat us well.

As adults, it behooves us to consider this advice with a more sophisticated mindset. We should consider the Golden Rule as our own mindful establishment of parameters for how we should conduct ourselves in relationships, rather than just having the mindset that we should avoid doing unkind things to others.

Here are some things you ought to consider as you devise a strategy for doing unto others:

• Give the resources you want to receive.
• Show appreciation when you receive resources that you didn't expect or that you arguably haven't earned.
• Occasionally choose to give up resources to your partner that you feel like they haven't earned to help build a landscape of positivity and generosity in your relationship.
• Apologize for your failure to give resources that you should have . . . and then try better to provide those resources to avoid breeding resentment over unmet needs.
• Try not to suck.

Long story short: you can only expect to receive what you're willing to give. If all you're willing to give is nonsense or nothing, then you're not prepared to be in a relationship. Work on that.

*hops off soapbox*

Soapbox: "You have such potential" Isn't a Compliment

As my students and I begin another academic year, I think about the words we hear when we are feeling fresh, renewed, and motivated. Words like: excited, pride, optimism, and potential.

This word, “potential”, is the subject of this brief Soapbox post today.

My professorial colleagues and I often talk about students who “have potential”. When people who are young (like pre-pubescent young) are described as having potential, it is a compliment. It means that we see in a person raw material – talent, skill, intellect, whatever – that can be honed, cultivated, and harnessed into something possibly spectacular. To be sure, to be seen as inherently talented or gifted, is a compliment.

Unfortunately, we never reevaluate what it means to be told that we have potential as we move out of childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood. I would contend that for a 20-something year old person to be identified as having potential is not quite the compliment that it might have been a decade earlier.

Here’s the thing about potential in adulthood: by the time we’re 20 or 30ish, should have met or harnessed it by now. That we still have potential in our adulthood means we aren’t working, executing, or getting the job done.

Don’t believe me? Think about the way language changes when we talk about people of varying ages who have potential. In reference to children, we often use a big adjective to describe potential, like “enormous” or “unlimited”. As we refer to people in late adolescence or early adulthood, the modifiers associated with having potential become less big, as in, “he has such potential”. Once a person gets past their early thirties and that person still has yet to meet or unleash their potential, we start talking about potential in the past tense – “he had so much potential. If only he had [insert action never taken to meet said potential here]”.

My point: as we come to the beginning of a new academic year (or wherever you are in your own life) consider whether you’re meeting your potential. Are you actively engaged in tapping every bit of raw material you possess, or are you letting it drift increasingly far away from your grasp? Potential isn’t limitless. We do have a window in which to begin to harness it. If we wait indefinitely for exactly the right impetus or circumstance to present itself before we begin our work, the window begins to close. As more time passes, the open space in the window shrinks, and the window becomes increasingly difficult to hurl open.
 
Don’t waste whatever raw material you were gifted. Seize it. Wield it. Use it to become more excellent than you are. It seems to me that if you do, you’ll end your life with no potential whatsoever, and I do believe that’s a good thing.

Lesson 7, Part II: Orgasm, the Human Brain, and Why People Cheat

This is Part II of a two-part post on infidelity in romantic relationships. Part I was a discussion of what constitutes cheating and you can read it here.

The object of this post is to try to address the question of why people commit infidelity. It's a long one, so I've inserted headings to let you find the parts of the post you are most interested in. I hope that you find it informative and interesting in spite of its length.

Introduction

If you've ever been cheated on, you know that the first question that comes to mind upon the discovery that your partner committed an unfaithful act is "why?". We want to understand or justify an act that is widely considered to be one of the most offensive relational betrayals a person can commit. Unfortunately, receiving an explanation for their behavior from an unfaithful partner is rarely satisfying, and often it hurts more than it helps. So, allow me to provide one (of many possible) explanations for infidelity.

Before I get to the part where I explain why I think people cheat, we need to have a conversation about sex and the human brain.

The Human Brain

The human brain is awesome. It's astounding what the human brain has allowed us to innovate. We have imagined, engineered, and created everything from the pyramids to a means by which we can travel to space.  The complexity of the human brain is, of course, what differentiates us from other mammals. Not only do we possess superior intellect than our mammalian cousins, but we also have a highly developed prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain that is dedicated to uniquely human activities such impulse control and decision making. Where most animals do what they do out of instinct, human beings can reason their way into (or out of) any behavior. The prefrontal cortext, my friends, is the thing that keeps us from slapping people who have 30 items in the 20 items or less line, or from stealing an expensive but utterly spectacular pair of shoes. The prefrontal cortex is largely responsible for an orderly and organized human civilization.

Now, as excellent as the prefrontal cortex is for motivating sound judgment and self-control in human beings, sometimes it talks us out of engaging in some basic biological activities. Sometimes this is good - like when you actively decide not to pass gas in an elevator. Sometimes, this benefit is arguable - like when your brain talks you out of having sex with someone whom your body is sure will provide the genetic material for healthy and robust offspring. After all, without engaging in sexual intercourse with viable members of the opposite sex, human beings have no natural means by which to reproduce.

So here's the trouble: sometimes our animalness will tell us we ought to be getting it on with someone, but our humanness talks us out of it because doing so would violate social rules that tell us that we should control our sexual impulses. In other words, our brains are sometimes at war with our bodies.

The Amazing Orgasm

We might expect that the sophistication of the human brain would allow it to win any war it waged against the basic impulses of the body. That might be true if our bodies weren't engineered specifically to promote sexual desire and activity. Don't believe me? Well, then, it's time to talk about the Big O. Orgasms (especially males' orgasms) are essential for human reproduction. Their primary function is to release sperm in order to make them available to fertilize an egg. There is absolutely no reason that an orgasm needs to be particularly pleasurable in order to achieve this objective. Yet, it is; and extremely so. Were it not for the difficult-to-otherwise-achieve pleasure of an orgasm, people would be largely indifferent to engaging in sexual intercourse. If we take a lesson from the world's dwindling population of pandas, we know that indifference to engaging in sexual intercourse can endanger the survival of a species. That sex is delightful motivates human beings to do it, which ensures the continuation of humans on this planet. The particular pleasure associated with sex makes it sometimes difficult for the brain's prefrontal cortex to make the choice not to indulge in a sexual interaction with an available, attractive partner in spite of our commitment to exclusivity with someone else.

Okay, so we understand that biology is motivating. We also know that the human brain is designed to allow people to think about the consequences of their actions and choose to engage in an action or not depending on how we evaluate the consequences. We also know that in spite of knowing the consequences and rules, people sometimes choose to engage in rule-violating sexual contact.

Reported Explanations for Unfaithful Behavior 

So, the question is - why do some people let their bodies win out over their brains and end up cheating on their partners?

People who study infidelity have identified a number of explanations for this. I'll run down a few:
1. Sexual dissatisfaction with the primary partner (i.e, partner doesn't offer the kind of sex that you want with the frequency that you want)
2. Emotional dissatisfaction with the primary partner (i.e., the relationship isn't adequately intimate or fails to meet other non-sexual needs)
3. Boredom with the partner and the relationship (more likely the longer the relationship is)
4. Stronger orientation to rule-breaking, sensation-seeking, or other behaviors that are considered risky
5. Attitudes toward sex that promote more sexually promiscuous behavior, or negative attitudes toward monogamy

The list could go on.

At the end of the day, though, a person who cheats is confronted with the the following situation: I have made a commitment to be in an exclusive relationship with my partner, which means I cannot pursue or accept sexual contact from anyone else. BUT, I want to have sexual contact with other people. Either I honor my commitment and deal with my sexual or relational dissatisfaction OR I achieve satisfaction outside my relationship and I violate relational rules and deal with whatever consequences follow from that choice.

Basic Motivation for Infidelity: Selfishenss

After all of that, the question that motivated this post remains: why do some people make the choice to violate relational rules to meet their needs?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The particular explanations for any individual's choice to cheat are nuanced and specific to particular persons. Having said that, however, I would contend that regardless of the particulars of a person's reason to cheat, I think that the broad, overarching explanation for cheating is selfishness.

Cheating is the result of a person's refusal to relinquish the benefits of being in the primary relationship while receiving the benefits of another relationship. Often, the primary relationship provides us with a range of benefits we are unwilling to give up to pursue an extramarital fling, such as material or financial security or a partner to assist in the caring for children. Trying to maximize benefits while minimizing costs is a very normal method of decision making, but people who make the choice to cheat do so knowing that although they are receiving maximum benefits, their primary partners have enormous potential to receive negative consequences, and therein lies the selfishness.

I have also had people say that they choose to be unfaithful not to retain the benefits of the primary relationship (as there are very few), but rather they cheat to avoid the negative consequences of terminating the primary relationship. Such costly outcomes of relationship termination include a costly divorce, conflict over dividing shared possessions, potential loss of parts of a shared social network, and feelings of guilt for hurting the partner and destroying the relationship. In this case, the selfishness is rooted more in the refusal to accept the negative consequences of a more responsible and relationship-focused choice.

In either case, the unfaithful partner prioritizes his or her own positive outcomes over the rules of the relationship. Said differently: the unfaithful partner prioritizes his or her own happiness over being a respectful person who honors relational rules and commitment to a relationship. This, in my estimation, is the definition of selfishness.

Now, I realize that one might argue that selfishness and maximizing one's own positive outcomes is nothing more than a wise practice that ensures an individual's survival and high quality of life. That may well be true, but, as true as that statement may be, the fact is that happy, functioning relationships cannot survive when either partner values him or herself more than the relationship. If your aim is to be focused entirely on your self and your own positive outcomes, then close interpersonal connections are probably not for you. If, however, your aim is to participate meaningfully in the growth of close relationships with others, you must understand that a certain amount of sacrificing your own impulsive desires is necessary to make that happen.

The Take-Home Point and Some Parting Thoughts

So, at the end of the day, if you want to know why you were cheated on, the simple answer is: your partner is selfish and cares more about him or herself than about you or your relationship. Save yourself an uncomfortable interaction by accepting the reality of that statement.

If you are a person who has ever been unfaithful and you've convinced yourself that you cheated for some arguably justifiable reason, I'm sorry to have to tell you that the reality is that you were too selfish to honor the rules of your relationship. Yes, it is that simple.

I hope that this post has been illuminating for you. More than that, I hope you never have to refer to this post to understand an event in your own relationship.

Class dismissed.

Lesson 7, Part I: Is Flirting Cheating? - Defining Infidelity

When we discuss infidelity in my interpersonal communication class, there are usually three things that my students find most interesting:

1. What counts as cheating,
2. Why people cheat, and
3. Whether a relationship can survive the commission of an infidelity.

I've already talked about whether a relationship can survive an infidelity in my post about Trust, so if you're dealing with this issue, revisit that post. The other two questions are equally important, and I'd like to handle them in separate posts. So, the purpose of this Part I post on infidelity is to answer the question: what is infidelity?

Clearly defining infidelity is important because it allows us to accurately evaluate our own and our partners' behavior to determine whether or not an infidelity has been committed. Often, my students want my permission to be hurt or upset with a partner either for cheating or for unjustly accusing them of cheating. As much as my students want a clear and decisive answer to the question, "is it cheating if _______________?", I can never provide one.

This is because there isn't an exhaustive or universally agreed-upon list of what constitutes infidelity. Whether an act is considered unfaithful depends entirely on what behaviors a couple defines as cheating in their relationship. This variation in what people consider cheating is why some couples believe that flirting with the hottie at the cafe for a discount on coffee is cheating, while other couples have elaborate rules surrounding the management of an open relationship in which the act of having sex with another person is not, unto itself, an act of infidelity.

Though we can't identify a list of behaviors that are always considered unfaithful, understanding the definition of infidelity can provide us with some insight. So, infidelity can best be defined as the violation of one or more rules regarding exclusivity in the relationship. It's fairly common for couples of formally or explicitly declare that they are in an exclusive relationship, but far less frequently do couples explicate what resources they agree to get only from each other and no one else (which, after all, is the definition of "exclusive"). Generally, the declaration of exclusivity means that partners will not engage in sexual contact with people other than each other, but is often the case that a range of other behaviors may also be considered violations of exclusivity.

One of the difficulties of determining whether an act is unfaithful according to the rules of a relationship is that we often fail to discuss the rules until someone breaks a rule that they didn't know existed. Sometimes, our partners will engage in an arguably inappropriate interaction with someone we might consider a rival to our relationship, and we get upset. Our partners may not have known they were doing anything wrong. In some cases, even we didn't realize the behavior was problematic until it upset us. In highly functioning relationships, such a scenario will provide an opportunity for partners to talk to each other to clarify what behaviors are consistent with an agreement to be exclusive, and what behaviors are not. When couples respect each other, they both agree to honor the new boundary and the troublesome incident never has to repeat itself.

In couples that are less functional, however, a violation of implicit rules of exclusivity are acknowledged with some form of negative communication such as being in a bad mood or criticizing the partner, but no discussion about why the behavior was problematic. The perpetrating partner knows that his or her mate is upset, but may not realize why. This creates negativity in the relationship, but it doesn't clarify what behavior resulted in the relational distress. Because the perpetrating partner may not realize what he or she did wrong, there is a high probability that the behavior will be repeated. The repetition of the troublesome act results in an increase of hurt, anger, and resentment for the other partner. Ongoing negativity and harboring of resentment is one of the most efficient ways to affect a rapid decline in relational quality. Talking, then, about what is or isn't cheating becomes important to the maintenance of trust, and thus, satisfaction in the relationship.

So, if you're confronted with a situation in your relationship in which your partner has committed what you perceive to be unfaithful behavior, don't let it poison your relationship by refusing to openly discuss it. Yes, this can be uncomfortable. Yes, it may be construed as accusatory which may initially exacerbate the problem. But, if you are calm, reasonable, clear in communicating your thoughts, and willing to listen to your partner, you can create an opportunity for a fruitful and potentially relationship-saving conversation.

Of course, clarification of boundaries doesn't necessarily prevent unfaithful behavior, but that's a post for a different day.

Class dismissed.

Lesson 6: Trust

This is as much a lesson on relationship management as it is a Soapbox Session. It's a little longer than my average post, but trust is a big relational deal so it's worth the words (and the read).

The big idea: A relationship cannot function without trust. If you do not trust your partner, or your partner does not trust you, the possibility for the relationship to grow or bear the nurturing fruit of closeness is limited at best. A realistic view of the level of trust in your relationship must underlie your decision to escalate or persist in a relationship. If you do not realistically trust your partner, there is no point at all to being in the relationship. Period. Seriously. Read on.

To begin, we should probably define trust.

Trust is the confident expectation that your partner will not harm you. In close relationships, harm usually comes in the form of the commission of a relational betrayal. Betrayals are acts, large or small, that violate the implicit or explicit rules for conduct in a relationship. When a betrayal is committed, our confidence in the expectation that our partners will not harm us wanes. If enough betrayals of significant importance are committed, our expectation shifts away from believing our relationships are safe and moves toward a confident expectation that our partners will do us harm. This results in a relationship being characterized by a lack of trust.

Under normal relationship circumstances, occasional violations of relational rules of minor or moderate importance will happen. Usually, these relatively minor betrayals are a by-product of selfishness or thoughtlessness. Though these may be annoying, generally, these relatively minor betrayals are neither a sign of, nor do they lead to, relational disintegration. Rather, we are able to rely on the bank of relational credit that we have accrued in the relationship to draw against to cover the negative effects of a betrayal. In other words, if the betrayal is small enough, and the relationship is good enough, even after the betrayal, the overall value of the relationship is still positive. We are able to return to a confident expectation that our relationship is a safe place to be.

There are circumstances, however, during which we find it difficult or impossible to recover trust in a relationship. If a betrayal is the violation of a major relational rule (such as the commission of a sexual infidelity) or if the landscape of the relationship is generally negative, then there may not be enough positive relational credit to cover the negative effects of a betrayal. If the relationship cannot recover from the negative effects of a relational betrayal, then we end up trying to carry on a relationship with someone whom we expect will metaphorically take a hammer to our hearts every time we hand it to him or her. This, my dear friends, does not make for a happy relationship. This isn't good. It isn't productive. It serves no purpose. It has no point.

So what we know so far is that:

1. Trust is the confident expectation that our partners will not harm us.
   
   
2. Minor betrayals that happen in the context of a generally positive relationship do not typically have lasting negative effects on the trust in a relationship.
3. Major betrayals or frequent betrayals that happen in the context of an already-negative relationship undermine and can ultimately destroy trust in a relationship.
4. Relationships that lack trust are ultimately pointless to pursue.

A common question that I get from my students is whether and how trust can be recovered after a major betrayal (or a lot of smaller betrayals that have ruined the overall landscape of the relationship). 

The answer to that question is dependent on many things. Arguably, though, one of the most important factors that determines whether trust can be restored is whether we are able to forgive our partners. Forgiveness is complicated and deserves its own post. Suffice it to say, that being able to move past the betrayal and believe truly that our partners will never commit a betrayal of the same magnitude is essential to post-betrayal relational functioning. While I'm not prepared to talk about both trust and forgiveness in this post, what I do want to say regarding post-betrayal trust is this:

If you cannot forgive your partner, then terminate the relationship.

I'm going to remind everyone here that I am not a marriage therapist. I'm a scholar and teacher and relationships are my area of expertise. While my aim is generally to help my readers navigate as successfully as possible through the muddy waters of relationship stress, it is also the case that sometimes I want my readers to figure out when a relationship is past its expiration date. If you feel like you're handing your heart to your partner with the expectation of it being smashed to smithereens, it's time to cut and run. And here's why:

1. You will behave badly. Bad behavior comes in a variety of forms. You may be suspicious, snoop, engage in surveillance or following behaviors, you may perform repeated tests of your partner's devotion, you may stop being mindful of your own obligation to be kind, courteous, or respectful because you feel your partner owes you something . . . you get the idea.
2. Your bad behaviors, how ever justified you (or your partner) initially perceive them to be, will be equivalent to ongoing relational punishment.
3. While the punishment may be warranted, your partner will eventually come to feel like they have paid their relational debt to you by taking whatever punishment you see fit to dish out. The point at which your partner feels that he or she has paid their debt, your punishment will be seen as a justification for your partner's further bad behavior. After all, if we are already being punished, then why bother behaving?
4. The point: your bad behavior begets negativity, which will beget further negative behavior, and so on in a vicious cycle.

And as I said above, a lousy relationship characterized by negativity and that drains your resources and your joy is a colossal waste of emotional energy and other resources. Stop it. If you can't let go of the betrayal, then let go of the relationship. 

Class dismissed.

Soapbox: Adulthood = Acting Right

Okay, this isn't about relationships, but since I have an audience I'm going to take this opportunity to hop on my metaphorical soapbox (which, if you ask my students, is something I'm highly prone to doing) and give a screaming lesson about life.

Today's soapbox: Being an adult means acting right.

Listen, life is tough. My mom started teaching me that lesson when I was about 8 years old. Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do - like going to work instead of posting up on our couches for three days and watching marathons of Golden Girls and the Walking Dead. Sometimes we have to put up with people whom we don't like and find it difficult to deal with, but they are our bosses or co-workers or in-laws and they aren't going anywhere. Sometimes we'd really love to drop a couple hundred bucks on a shiny new whatever-the-heck instead of making a car payment. Sometimes, we are bored with our romantic partner and entertain the idea of a tryst with a hot stranger.

Get of over it. Seriously.

Being a grown up - a full-fledged adult means taking responsibility for ourselves. I will grant you, getting old and bearing the responsibility that comes with movement through life as we age isn't always awesome. And it doesn't always come with benefits and rewards commensurate with increased responsibility. But you know what? That's life. Handle your business, pay your bills, contribute to society, and treat people well. Do these things even when you can't see a good reason for it because the success of larger social structures relies on individuals' willingness to make responsible choices.

Or you know what? Don't.

Here's the catch, though. If you want to choose to shirk the responsibility of adulthood and act like an irresponsible child, that's fine. BUT, that means you have to bear the consequences of those choices. If you lose your job, get your car repossessed, or have your spouse leave you because you were self-indulgent and utterly lacking in conscience, empathy, integrity, or foresight, then so be it. But shut up because I don't want to hear you gripe about your lousy lot in life. If your bad life circumstances are directly tied to silly, stupid choices, then revel in the mess you've made for yourself. Don't ask me for a ride, don't ask me for relationship advice, and don't ask me for a loan. You did that to yourself, so figure out how to work it out.

Quit sucking and act right, for crying out loud.

*hops off soapbox*

Lesson 4: "I'm Sorry" is Not a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card

The topic of our last lesson was the fact that a fight and a conflict are not the same thing. We haven't talked yet about effective, collaborative conflict management strategies, and we will come to that. Before we approach some conflict management strategies, though, I think it is important to talk about apologies. Regardless of whether you work hard at managing your conflicts well, and regardless of whether you can separate a conflict from a fight, it is reasonable to expect that occasionally we will need to give or accept an apology in a relationship.

If you're a fan of the drama show NCIS, you'll know that the quiet-but-effective protagonist, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, has a set of rules. Among them (number 6, I think it is) is that a person should never apologize as it is a sign of weakness. In general, I think Gibbs' rules are a good idea - always carry a knife (Rule 9), never date a co-worker (Rule 12), never screw over your partner (Rule 1). These are bits of wisdom and good advice for life. The business of never apologizing, on the other hand. Well that's a whole bunch of nonsense and I'll tell you why.

An apology is not a sign of weakness. Rather, when it is sincerely given, it is an acknowledgement of responsibility for some betrayal or other wrong-doing for which another person had to bear negative consequences. Without going into a whole lot of research, we do know that the acceptance of responsibility for wrong-doing serves important relationship functions including restoring equity after a transgression has been committed, and enabling forgiveness. So, Gibbs is way wrong when he says that apology is a sign of weakness. Rather, an apology  is an overt recognition and ownership of actions that we have taken that have harmed people we care about.

Now, here's the tricky part: an apology isn't a cure-all. An apology is not just a couple of little words that can smooth over the negative consequences of a wrong relational turn. An apology really only has any hope of moving two people past a betrayal if it is a legitimate sign that we are willing to accept responsibility for our negative actions and committed to trying to avoid the same wrong-doing in the future. We often make the mistake of translating our own apologies to other people as "I'm sorry that I did something that upset you and that we got into a fight over it." Rather, the more appropriate translation of our apologies should be "I'm sorry that I made a choice that caused you hurt. I accept responsibility for my actions and I commit to us both to try my best to avoid repeating the hurtful act."

If you find yourself (or your partner) repeatedly apologizing for the same hurtful action we must confront at least one of three likely realities:

1. You (or your partner) fail to realize that there was really, truly hurt on the other end of an action.

2. You (or your partner) fail to realize that the apology is a sign of ownership and acceptance of personal responsibility. You also probably fail to realize that accepting responsibility for a wrong-doing necessitates an attempt to modify the problematic behavior.

3. You (or your partner) realize that you did something to cause hurt and that you should change hurtful actions, but you just don't care. This can be the consequence of laziness, selfishness, or relational disinvestment. The particulars of why you don't care about the consequences of your actions are less important than the fact that this attitude has almost no hope of resulting in anything except the continuation of a pattern of wrong-doing.

If your situation is either 1 or 2 above, you have some hope for remedying repeated hurt. You can talk to your partner about what an apology really means. You can talk about why the action is hurtful or otherwise negative. You can talk about possible alternatives to the problematic action that can meet your needs without hurting your partner. There is talking to be done, but there is a lot of potential here to move past a repeated conflict.

On the other hand, if scenario 3 above is more what you're looking at, it might be time to revisit whether or not the relationship is something that you should be bound to. I do believe in talking, productive conflict and relational work, but if you need to be convinced to do right by a partner, you probably have some work to do for yourself first before you try to bind yourself to someone else. (If your partner is the transgressor, you might want to revisit an earlier post here at Relationship School about knowing when to toss in the towel).

Here's the long story short: It is important to exchange apologies in a relationship. Being able and willing to honestly say to a partner that you have committed a wrong-doing can help us move past the hurtful action and into a place where we have learned and grown together as people and as partners. Apologies are not cure-alls, they aren't instant fixes, and they don't take the place of working to be better for the people we love. Don't apologize if you don't mean it - that action cheapens an apology and causes it to lose their tremendous relational value that we often take for granted. 

Class dismissed.

Lesson 3: Conflict Part I - A Fight and A Conflict Are NOT the Same Thing

One of  my favorite lessons to teach in my Interpersonal Communication class is the unit on conflict. To this day, it astounds me that a simple reframing of what a conflict is vs. what it isn't can change people's minds about how they approach a conflict interaction with their partners.

There are several academic definitions for what constitutes a conflict. For our purposes, though, I'm going to identify a conflict like this:

A conflict is a conversation in which two people who share a relationship together each speak their needs, find that their needs are incompatible with their partner's needs, and they work collaboratively to find a way to meet both their needs.

I'd like to emphasize a few important parts of this definition.

First, a conflict is a conversation. You have these all the time. You have them about the weather, and TV shows, and cosmetic products, and what's in the news and whatnot. There is no reason that a conflict has to be anymore daunting or terrifying than a conversation about anything else. (Okay, your relational investment and how important the issue is can change the tone of a conflict, but that's a lesson for a different day).

Second, a conflict allows two people to speak their needs to one another. A good relationship is one in which each partner recognizes that a relationship is an environment in which people exchange resources, and that exchange of resources is supposed to provide for each person's needs. If you read back to Lesson 2: Glowworm Theory, you'll remember that we form relationships specifically to have our needs met. A relationship cannot function well when you have needs, be they emotional, logistical, or whatever else, that are going unmet. However, you and your partner cannot expect that you will each provide for each other's needs unless you communicate them to one another.

Finally, a conflict requires collaboration. It is often the case that your needs are incompatible with those of your partner. This may be as simple a situation as your wanting to eat Chinese and your partner wanting to eat Mexican, or as serious as you want to get married where your partner is content never to be married. Regardless of the importance of the issue, the fact is, there can be no satisfactory resolution if partners are not willing to cooperate and work toward a solution that is best for both parties. We'll talk in another lesson about strategies for achieving collaborative solutions to conflict, but for the time being it's important to spend some time understanding what a conflict is, and what it isn't.

A conflict is NOT a fight. Think about any fight you've ever seen: a bar fight, a boxing match, whatever. The objective is that someone wins by way of beating the daylights out of the loser to the point that the loser is rendered incapable of further participation (or standing upright). Imagine applying that model to your relationship. If you approach a conflict as a competition in which you intend to win (i.e., achieve your needs) at your partner's expense (i.e., your partner's hurt and emotional and verbal inability to speak his or her needs to you), nothing good, beautiful or productive will come. Rather, we breed hurt, animosity and resentment. And, if you ask me, resentment is like relational Round-Up - the stuff kills relationships right down to the roots.

Here's the long story short: a conflict is a conversation. It is NOT an opportunity for you to emotionally lay your partner out. If you stop thinking about conflict as a war to be fought and won, and start thinking of it as an opportunity to collaboratively address both your needs and those of your partner, this can change the way you approach conflict episodes. The simple readjustment in your thinking can be the first step to promoting a more positive and open attitude as you communicate your needs to your partner.

Next time, we'll talk about communicative strategies for improving conflict interactions as well as a few things to avoid.

Until next time, class dismissed.

Lesson 2: Need to Belong (aka Glowworm Theory)

In 1995, a couple of really smart, interesting psychologists named Baumeister and Leary published an article entitled The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation. I had the occasion to read this article when I was a student in a social psychology class at Michigan State University. It, to this day, is probably the most influential scholarly work I have ever read in the course of my academic career. This article is the cornerstone of one of my best and favorite lectures in my Interpersonal Communication class - the Glowworm lecture.

My students have told me that this lecture helps them re-frame and reevaluate some of the relationships they have on the basis of this lecture. So, for your reading delight, I present the highlights (i.e. the Blogger's version) of that lecture.


1. The human need to belong can be considered to be sort of a metaphorical bucket that each of us fills with different people who serve, to some degree or another, our need to belong. Some of us have really small shot glass-sized buckets, others of us (myself included) have big wiskey barrel-sized buckets. The bigger a person's bucket, the more relationships we tend to work to maintain with others to see to the meeting of our need to belong.

2. Because human beings are basically all replaceable, we can think of the relationships with which we fill our buckets as Barbies and G. I. Joes. They're all basically the same, they all take up about the same amount of space, and they all service our need to belong in some small way or another. If one of them stops working to contribute to our feeling a sense of belonging, we toss it out of the bucket and find a new one to replace it.

3. Ideally, we want to invest our time in a relationship that does the work of several loose associations we have with other people. We foster relationships with people who provide for a multitude of our needs and desires, especially when they satisfy a need for affection and warmth. I liken this relationship to being a Glowworm. Glowworms are considerably larger than Barbies and G.I. Joes, and they feel vastly less replaceable than the cookie-cutter sameness of Barbies and G.I. Joes. Generally, our Glowworms take the form of best friends, and often ideally, romantic partners.

So the question now is how does this help us to understand the choices we make in our relationships?

Well, here go.

Because our buckets are fairly fixed in size, we can only fill it with a finite number of relationships. When we choose to invest ourselves in a significant relationship with a Glowworm, we don't have the space (i.e., the energy and resources) to maintain our relationships with our Glowworm and all of our Barbies and G.I. Joes. As a result of that finite amount of space, and as a result of our restricted amount of energy to expend, and because our Glowworms occupy so much space, necessarily, we choose to terminate some of our less important Barbie and G.I. Joe relationships. If you've ever noticed that when a friend of yours starts dating someone seriously that you hear from them less, it isn't because they are lazy or mean, it's because they are trying to make space in their bucket to grow a relationship that is increasingly valuable and beneficial to them (yes, more so than his or her relationship with you is).

Similarly, and often more importantly, we toss our Barbies and G.I. Joes out of our own buckets in order to make room to grow our own Glowworms. As a result, we restrict the number of people on whom we can rely for social resources while we are fostering a relationship with a Glowworm. As long as our Glowworm is in our bucket, we don't really notice the fact that we have fewer Barbies and Joes than we used to. We do, however, notice this in a big way if our relationship with our Glowworm ends. Sometimes our Glowworm jumps out, sometimes we toss them out, but the point is sometimes the Glowworm departs our bucket. What that also leaves is a huge hole in the place in our bucket where the worm (and before that, Barbies and Joes) used to be.

That sudden and very noticeable space in our bucket where there used to be a Glowworm, but there is no longer, hurts. That hurt comes from the fact that our need to belong is unmet and, if you'd read Baumeister and Leary, you'd know that that's a huge bummer. Enter the dreaded rebound. Basically, rebounds are people with whom we foster relationships that are characterized mostly by an illusion of intimacy. They fill the empty space in our buckets for a temporary time while we work to reestablish our relationships with foregone Barbies and Joes whom we tossed while the Glowworm was taking up so much space. Sometimes our rebound Glowworm is someone we've had on our proverbial "hook" because we know they want to be our Glowworms, and we take advantage of that willingness when we need a boost in our sense of belonging (humans are such scumbags sometimes).

Okay, so you know that: 1) you work to fill your bucket, 2) most relationships are basically replaceable, that 3) they are ideally replaceable with a Glowworm, and 4) when the Glowworm relationship ends, we notice a huge sense of loss and hurt that comes from an unmet need to belong which often sends us off looking for a rebound.

There is one last lesson I must teach you. That is: Beware the JabbaWorm.

Jabba the Hutt, of course, is a character from the Star Wars movies. I'm not so much interested in the story-relevant attributes of the Jabba character, rather, his physical appearance is what I'm really trying to evoke here. He's a big, fat, sloppy, sluggish, disgusting thing that takes up space and hordes resources. Sometimes, we form relationships that are a lot like that. We trick ourselves into thinking that they are a Glowworm - they look like Glowworms. They take up a lot of space, they result in our kicking extraneous Barbies and Joes from our buckets, and we expend energy and resources on them. The trouble with a JabbaWorm is that they don't give us anything. They are resource suckers. They drain us. They take up our time and energy and love and keep us from fitting relationships into our buckets that do feed us. So, beware of the JabbaWorm, and know when to kick such sloppy people out of your bucket to make room for relationships that are good uses of your time and energy.

So, that's the abridged version GlowWorm lecture. I hope that your current and past relationships make a little more sense in light of all of this information.

Class dismissed.

Daytime Tri-Cities Day 5: Keeping Your Relationship Fresh

Today's topic (and the last one for the week) was about keeping a relationship fresh and warding off boredom.

So let's suppose you've managed to meet a great person, you've dated a while, you've made a long-term commitment to each other, and the relationship has gone on . . . and on . . . and on. Inevitably, the boredom that comes with the mundane routine of everyday life sets in. You find yourself not only bored with your life, but also bored with your partner. And that, my friends, is bad news if you don't manage it well.

The thing about boredom and routine is that they are normal. I repeat: being periodically bored is a normal part of even the happiest most functional relationships. I talked in the Daytime segment today about where that boredom comes from and why it's natural. What I want to spend the blog post talking more about, though, is what to do about that boredom.

So, I present to you a few tips for reducing boredom and reintroducing excitement into our relationships:

• Date your partner. At the start of the relationship, we plan and do activities that we enjoy. We go to concerts and out to dinner. We make trips to the zoo and and go on moonlit walks. As we grow into a stable pattern in our relationship and life happens around that relationship, we tend to stop prioritizing these enjoyable activities. We feel like these small delights are luxuries that we aren't entitled to when we have the responsibility of everyday life to attend to. Let me tell you what - if your relationship is working and happy, you'll be happier while you do all the other things that life demands.
• Create a relationship bucket list. Many of us have either a mental or written list of the things that we want to do in the short time we have on this planet. I recommend making a relationship bucket list of activities that you would like to do with your partner. Decide together on things that you want and are committed to trying to do. These can be small things like going ice skating together, or bigger things like taking a luxurious vacation together that you plan and save up for. (By the way, vacations are especially good for relationships - especially your sex lives. Check out this article published by USA Today about the subject). Not only will you create a list of things that you are looking forward to doing together, but the activity of creating the list and adding to it when you come up with a new idea can also create fun in the relationship.

• Play with your partner. We often think of play as being something the children do. Happy relationships, though, are characterized by playfulness and lighthearted activity that might include having nicknames for your partner, gentle teasing, wrestling, or playing literal games like board games. In addition to breaking the routine and monotony of a relationship, Leslie Baxter, a relationship researcher, contends that play can serve other important relationship-improving functions. Having a playful atmosphere in our relationship allows us to express our feelings for each other, manage conflict in a non-confrontational way, and to develop a culture in our relationship that makes us feel special and unique as compared to other relationships (here's the citation for her article on play in Human Communication Research). 

Naturally, the best thing to do in your relationship when boredom sets in is to tell your partner that you think it's time to break your routine. Be sure to be clear that you don't blame your partner for your boredom, and invite your partner to think about ways that you can reintroduce fun and excitement in a way that you'll both enjoy. While relationships do require some work and tending to in order to thrive, they are supposed to be joyful and fulfilling. When you start to lose sight of the joy, go get it back. Have fun!

Daytime Tri-Cities Day 4: Commitment

Today's topic on Daytime was moving a relationship from dating to commitment.

I'm not typically one to point to the media for reasons that people have misinformed perceptions of how relationships are supposed to function. However, I can think of numerous examples in which men and women are stereotypically pitted against one another in a battle over commitment. Committed relationships are often (though not always) painted as the holy grail of relationships that women will chase relentlessly and twist themselves into insane people to find. Commitment for men, on the other hand, is portrayed as relational kryptonite and something that men avoid and twist themselves into emotionally aloof and romantically dysfunctional people to avoid.

My annoyance about these exaggerated portrayals of men and women in romantic relationships is not so much their inaccuracy. Rather, my malfunction with them is that they take something that is so very, very simple and make seem more difficult than juggling chainsaws.  

Here's the simple reality of all of this ridiculous commitment nonsense: Commitment is one person's plan to keep hanging out with another person. When two people are committed to each other, that means that they each plan to keep hanging out with each other.

When we think about it this way, suddenly commitment isn't something that we have to have an intense, anxiety-ridden conversation about. Rather, it's something that becomes very plain to see. If at the end of a date, your potential-partner says "I'd like to see you again. I'll give you a call in a few days to make plans". If after that, he calls in a few days to make plans and then you do those plans - well congratulations, you have commitment! 

Okay, yes, I'm oversimplifying this a bit - but just a bit. Commitment really is that simple. What is less simple is knowing what that commitment means. In other words, what we really want to know is exactly how long our potential-partner plans to continue planning to hang out with us. What we want to know even more than that, though, is whether our potential-partner's plan to keep hanging out with us also includes plans to escalate our relationship, become more emotionally intimate, choose to not date other people. Those are big questions. And we are reasonable to want the answers to them.

Before you decide to embark on a stressful, dramatic state-of-the-relationship conversation (as us academic folks like to call these talks), consider this: often without words, our partners will communicate both their level of commitment and their plans to increase the intimacy in the relationship. If they call, come by, regularly work to be a part of your every day experience, that's commitment. And from that kind of commitment comes talking and sharing and emotional closeness and intimacy.

On the flip side of obvious commitment, however, is an obvious lack of commitment. If your potential-partner is not behaving with you in a way that gives you confidence that they have the intention to see you in the future, or to move toward greater intimacy, that's also informative. In that case, you may want to have a conversation about it. My recommendation, however, is not to have a huge, dramatic talk full of demands and ultimatums. Rather, simply say "I would like to keep seeing you and hanging out with you. Do you have plans to continue seeing and hanging out with me?". If he says yes, and you have no reason not to trust him, take him at his word and carry on. If he says no or that he isn't sure, now you have a choice to make (which yesterday's blog post will help with). 

The point I'm trying to make is that figuring out whether someone is committed to us is a simple task that we frequently make needlessly complicated. When we take something simple and over-complicate it, we turn the relationship into bad, hard work and that can thwart our efforts to grow closeness with another person. Keep making plans. Keep keeping those plans. Let closeness grow from the time and talk that you share with another person. Enjoy. 

Happy Valentine's Day. :)

Daytime Tri-Cities Day 3: When to Let Go

Today's topic on Daytime was Knowing When to Let it Go.

Here's the video.

So we've met someone we're attracted to. We've been out a few times. But still, something about it doesn't feel totally right. We're having trouble figuring out whether our partner is as into us as we are into them. This results in the inevitable question: am I wise to hang on or should I just let it go?

The best advice I can give a person about when it's time to let a potential relationship go is when pursuing or participating in the relationship causes more hurt or anxiety than joy. Now, it's important for me to ask you to reframe your thinking. Many folks have been in long relationships, especially marriages up to this point in their lives. We tend to have the mentality that we should hold onto a relationship for as long as we can as hard as we can because that's what is necessary of a marriage. Let me be clear, holding on and doing the work is important BUT at the start of a relationship, if you feel like you're forcing a square peg into a round hole, cut and run.

Here's the thing. Relationships are supposed to make our lives better. We are supposed to be spending time and cultivating a relationship with someone who adds to our lives. I think that you will agree that while there is a certain excitement that comes from the chasing and hunting and playing hard to get that start most relationships, there comes a point that all of that excitement turns into anxiety and then eventually annoyance. Anxiety is not good. It is a relationship mind trick. Anxiety is easily mistaken for excitement when, in fact, it is not. It is bad and unnecessary. It doesn't make you better as a person and it doesn't add to your life. There is no point to holding on to anxiety. Cut and run.

There are books and movies that try to point out tips and tricks to help you know whether someone is into you. Does he fail to call? Does he frequently cancel his plans with you? Does he stand you up? Is he dating other people? Does he hit on your friends? Do you have to initiate all of the contact you have with him?

These are, in fact, all signs that a person isn't as invested in you and your relationship as you are. BUT, in my estimation, the best indicator of whether someone is worth holding onto is how pursuing that relationship and spending time with that person make you feel.

• If you feel valued, respected, and honored by your partner, hold onto it.
• If you happily look forward to the next time you will see or speak to your partner, hold onto it.
• If you feel that you can comfortably be yourself and that your partner will still find you attractive and enjoyable, hold onto it.

HOWEVER

• If you feel dismissed, disregarded, or unimportant to your partner, especially if you have communicated this to your partner, let it go. 
• If you compulsively check your phone or voicemail to see if your partner has contacted you because you don't know when or (worse yet) if they will contact you, let it go. 
• If you feel that you have to hide who you really are, or avoid communicating what you want, need or expect in the relationship because you fear that your partner will like you less, let it go.

Of course, there are other nuanced things to consider when you decide to stay or leave a relationship, especially as the relationship progresses, but if at the start of a relationship you don't feel confident that your partner is invested in you, that situation is highly unlikely to get better. Actually, if you stick around and pursue a disinterested partner even when the relationship doesn't make your life better, you set a precedent that communicates your consent to being dismissed, disregarded, disrespected, or made to feel unimportant by a partner. That's a bad foot to start any relationship on. 

So, as much as the idea of being alone is sometimes more awful than continuing to pursue a less than perfect relationship, always consider what such a choice says about your perception of your own value as a person. If you believe you are worth a joyful, happy relationship with someone who unabashedly and consistently communicates that you are valuable to them, don't bind yourself to anyone offering anything less.

Daytime Tri-Cities Day 2: The First Date

On Day 2 of Relationship 101 on Daytime, we talked about first date dos and don'ts. Here's the long story short: be the best version of yourself and leave your baggage at home.

Here's the video.

We put a lot of pressure on the first date. We tend to walk into a first date scenario with the belief that we are screening a person for their long-term date potential. While there's no really getting around that - we wouldn't go on a first date if we didn't think we might want to pursue a relationship with a person - the fact is that the first date isn't the right context for making that decision. Rather, a first date is just an opportunity to have a conversation with a person and figure out whether we want to see them again. That's it. Seriously.

First dates are a place for you to present a happy, well-groomed, friendly, socially-appropriate version of your naturally interesting self to a person who should be presenting a similar version of his/her naturally interesting self. Talk about what's cool about you, what you're proud of in your life, how you spend your time, the happy relationships you have cultivated with your family and friends, neat talents or hobbies or interests you have, the last book you read, your taste in music.

First dates are not the time to talk about your failed relationships, how you've been hurt, your anxieties about yourself, the anger or mistrust or resentment you have toward the opposite sex, the complexities in your life that you think will be challenges for another person to deal with in an ongoing relationship. Yes, there is a time and place and need to discuss all of that - eventually. A friendly conversation with someone you're only getting to know isn't it. We'll get to that as a relationship grows and we develop mutual trust, but we can't do that on a first date. If all you are on the first date is anxiety and complaint and baggage, a) you don't entice a person into wanting to get to know more about you and b) they have no reason to deal with your baggage; they are hauling around some of their own. 

Now, some of you may be asking: "Hey Doc Carrie, the truth is that I have baggage. I have been hurt. I have conflict with my ex-spouse on an ongoing basis. I feel like a person should know all of that going in. Aren't I lying if I don't share it?" I have one response to that:

Imagine if you met a person in a coffee shop, you swapped phone numbers, and you arranged a first date. When you arrive at the agreed upon location, you see your date in sweat pants, a very old tshirt, with hair that hasn't been carefully attended to. You would be displeased. We know that sprucing up - doing up the hair, wearing something flattering, and smelling nice - are all adornments that accentuate who we are, but strictly speaking, aren't entirely honest. Yet, we expect that a person is going to take enough care to work to present his or her best face on a first date. Being mindful of what not to talk about on a first date is no more deceptive than wearing eyeliner or cologne. 

So, as we gear up for a first date, spend some time thinking about what you like and are proud of about yourself. Bring all of that wonderfulness about who you are to the front of your mind and keep it there as you dress for, arrive at, and participate in your date. Let all of what's great about you show in the conversation and worry about the pile of metaphorical luggage waiting back for you at the house when you get home.

Valentine's Week on Daytime Tri-Cities - Day 1: Getting a Date

Every day from February 11 - 14, I will be doing a short spot on some element of dating and relationships on Daytime Tri-Cities. Each day's segment is about 4 minutes long which isn't really long enough to get into any meaty content, so I'm elaborating on each day's content a bit here.

On Monday, February 11, the topic is How Dating Has Changed . . . We Aren't in Our 20s Anymore.

Here's the video.

So the question is . . . has dating changed since most of us were in our 20s. The answer is, yes, quite a bit. 

When we were in our late teens and early 20s, we were likely in school or had friends who were going to school. We were out and about and regularly meeting people. I tell my college students, especially freshmen, that as much as college is for getting an education, it is also the greatest opportunity to meet new and different people that they will likely ever have. 

As adults in our 30s and 40s and 50s and beyond, we no longer have the repeated and abundant opportunity to meet new people at the start of every new semester. Rather, our lives are fairly routinized. We see the same people we always see at work and at church and where we volunteer or grocery shop. Then, we come home to the same people who are always at home. These might be family members or roommates or no one at all. All of that repetitive sameness of every day life creates a daunting challenge for folks dating past their middle 30s to even meet a potential date. So, we combat this by doing something new. Be somewhere different. Visit the vending machine on a different floor of your office building. Have lunch at a new restaurant. Sit in and drink your latte rather than taking it to go. If you don't expose yourself to new environments, you won't expose yourself to new people. If you've already ruled out everyone you know as a possible dating partner, you need to meet new people.

It isn't just that meeting people is different than it used to be. Technology has changed the way we date - truly. Personally, I find the business of building a relationship by text messaging to be annoying to say the least. Worse than that, though, there is an abundance of research that suggests that we develop inaccurate and idealized versions of people with whom we are building new relationships via text. We can edit texts and emails. We can think carefully about customizing our messages to our potential-partner's preferences. We become an edited, manicured, ideal, and seemingly perfect version of ourselves that our beautiful, imperfect selves could never be in reality. The discrepancy between who we seem to be via text and who we are in real life can undermine the growth of a relationship.

Technology has changed dating in another way as well: it makes our potential dating partners constantly accessible to us. Actually, it's not that we have constant access to a possible partner. Rather, we expect that we have constant access to a possible partner. We keep our mobile phones and other devices close by at all times. We get calls and texts and emails and chat messages all on the same gadget (and so do our potential dating partners), so by golly, we expect that if we call or text or email or chat that our communication will be responded to as quickly as possible. We have lost all sense of communicative boundary. Gone are the days of calling once and waiting by the one phone with the one answering machine for a call back or a message. Now, if we don't reply to an email, we send a text. If we don't get a reply to the text, we chat or send another email. Finally, after all of that, we might decide to call. The fact is, technology provides us an abundance of ways to make a nuisance of ourselves at the start of a relationship. Call. Leave voicemail. Step away from the smartphone. 

Although technology has posed new challenges for those of us who are dating after 30, it has also allowed us the opportunity to meet people we would never have run into in spite of our best attempts. Online dating allows us the unique chance to, in the span of 10 minutes, scan profiles, find one we like, send the fella an email, read his response, and immediately decide if we wish to reply or move on to someone new. On top of being able to evaluate a possible partner in less time than it takes toenail polish to dry, we have the added bonus of being able to do all of this all without the hassle of getting spruced up and ever leaving the comfort of our couches or pajama pants. The great thing about online dating is that we really do have the potential to meet folks we would never have run into without the help of a website. The trouble is . . . rather the troubles are numerous. We have to contend with a certain amount of misrepresentation. Often, people who create online dating profiles lie about personal characteristics like weight and height which increase their apparent physical attractiveness (which, as it happens, is especially true of people who are not particularly physically attractive). Although people tend to be honest about other things like income and relationship status, the fact is, online dating encourages self-misrepresentation that dating face to face allows us to avoid. Although it has its challenges, dating online isn't impossible and can be fun if you do it safely and smartly and never spend more than 2 days emailing before you get them on the phone, and never spend more than a week on the phone/online before you meet them in person. 

Clearly, this isn't an exhaustive account of how dating past 30something is different than dating at 20something, but it's a start. Finding someone to love later in life isn't impossible, it's just a new and different set of challenges we eventually learn to navigate just like we've learned to navigate so many challenges before this. The best part about dating past 30something is that it gives us a good reason to break our routine and find creative ways to spend our time. In the end, dating is about adding fullness and richness to a life we already love living. If we commit to living some of our lives out and about in our communities and we look happy and confident while doing it, we've already improved our chances of meeting someone we want to have dinner and a movie with . . . and that is something that hasn't changed a bit.