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.