It's that last
one that's the kicker. This is where the terrain gets confusing.
So let's look
at an ideal relationship so we can more poignantly point out why yours
is all fucked up. In an ideal relationship, you scoot along merrily
having a private reality that is yours alone, a little piece of yourself
that you keep just for you. However, you are in such a good mood with
your significant other and feel so trusting and warm with them that
you share quite a few aspects of your private reality with them.
In fact, this
is a major part of the establishing a relationship process.
You share histories, tastes, preferences, reactions, feelings, ideas,
habits, thoughts, etc. that you don't normally run around sharing
with everyone else on the planet. You do this naturally unless you
are really weird and uptight. You understand that this is part of
the protocol of establishing an exclusive relationship. You know that
it's a risk sharing your private reality with someone because they
can fuck with it - which is painful because that's where you actually
live. But if things go well, they can relate to it and you have some
overlap in your private realities. If this actually happens, you are
ecstatic. You have found someone who understands you! God,
it's so fucking great. You are in heaven. You have found a soulmate.
You have found someone to share the burden of your private reality
with. You want to keep this person forever. (This also happens in
friendships by the way, as you have already noticed.)
Meanwhile, the
other person is trusting you and sharing their private reality. It's
a reciprocal process. One of the worst things that can happen is you
think someone is sharing their private reality when later you learn
- they were fucking lying! God you hate when that happens!
It's such a betrayal! You lied about your private reality you faithless
fucking bastard! I thought I could trust you. And so on.
But if things
are going well, they share with you honestly, or semi-honestly, you
both do a decent job, not a complete revelation but a fairly decent
job. And so you map out the areas where your private realities don't
match. They don't like french fries, you do. They think Britney Spears
is okay, you really can't stand her. They feel bubbly and excited
first thing in the morning, you wish everything would go away until
mid-evening. And so on.
As you are doing
this, you are also mapping out the territory of your shared relationship
reality. This is different than your public social reality - it belongs
only to the two of you. She is scared and nervous in social groups
but that revelation is part of your Shared Relationship Reality not
the public social one. She doesn't go around announcing this to everyone,
she doesn't want everyone to know. And out of consideration, neither
do you. But you are both aware of it within the relationship. Before
a party, she whines and you encourage, and then you go the party and
neither mentions it. You argue about something sexual and it's implicitly
understood this is not for public consumption and therefore out of
consideration she never reveals that you actually tried one of those
herbal penis enlargement things - a long time ago when you used
to be insecure. And so it goes.
It takes awhile,
the mapping process, but if things go well (and inevitably there will
be a few times when it doesn't), the two of you will eventually figure
out what belongs to each person separately, what belongs to the 2
of you, and what belongs to your regular social persona, both alone
and together. It's a tricky business but you can do it.
What happens
in relationship hell is that this process gets all fucked up.
Someone's inner reality changes and suddenly you don't know what it
is or where exactly reality has gone.
Let's give an
example. All of a sudden your loved one starts flinching. This
happens in relationships. Why is another FAQ. But it does. You go
to touch them and they flinch. You are in bed and reach out and they
flinch and roll over with their back to you. This hurts. The flinching
response always hurts the feelings of the flinchee. No one likes to
be flinched at. You say - what's wrong. They say - nothing. It happens
again. You say - what's wrong? Is something wrong? They say - 'no.
I'm just tired. I'm just tired tonight, all right? Don't make a big
deal out of everything.' It happens again. You say something or you
don't, but either way you are all fucked up.
What has happened
is that something has occurred in the other person's private reality
and you have no fucking idea what it is. It's not being shared and
suddenly your map is out of date. It's terrible when your map is out
of date and the other person won't let you update it. You hate
that. Now your shared reality is all fucked up. Your shared reality
has altered. Flinching has entered into it. You are both experiencing
the flinching but you can't create an agreed-upon shared reality around
it because someone is holding out on the size and shape of their inner
reality. Therefore you start hiding yours too. Private realities are
obviously no longer competely safe. Now both your private realities
are all fucked up and there you are unable to adequately interpret
the shared reality. So your private reality, in a panic, gets greedy
and starts completely taking over the shared reality. Things are
happening between the two of you but the only thing you know about
it is what's in your own head. Your social reality may stay the same,
you may not mention anything to outsiders about your fucked up shared
reality and your fucked up private reality. You don't have to. It's
still fucking you up.
This is torture.
And it throws you into major indecision mode. Are they flinching because
they hate you or are they flinching because they are still upset over
their mother's death or their stress at work or was it something you
said or maybe you don't fucking care or maybe this is normal or maybe
it isn't.
But no matter
what you do, nothing changes. You say something and still their inner
reality is theirs and you don't know what it is and yours is yours
and meanwhile the shared reality is not shared any more.
Let's say you
have started to think you have feelings for someone else. Your
inner reality has shifted. Naturally, you don't fucking want to share
this because - well suppose you don't really have feelings for someone
else and then you went and told the person you were with that you
did and fucked everything up? So you keep your private reality to
yourself and start asking yourself - well should I leave my current
relationship because maybe I have feelings for someone else or should
I stay because maybe I don't? And the answer is - how the fuck should
you know? You can't know. You are thrashing around in private reality
land and you can't fucking tell anymore what's going in shared relationship
reality land. You ask yourself - no wait, maybe things are really
good between us and I shouldn't go chasing after someone else. No
wait, I am bored and dissatisfied, maybe I should definitely leave.
Well, not definitely...because really I've got a safe sure thing here.
Except that I am unhappy and hate it. But he/she really is sweet.
So now I feel guilty. But this other person is so attractive. Is it
wrong to want to be happy? So wait, oh hell, I don't know what the
fuck to do. And on and on and on. It'll take you forever to figure
it out this way.
This is why
marriage books babble on and on and on about communication. Because,
incredibly disappointingly, communication is the basis for the shared
relationship reality that will allow you to make these kinds of decisons.
This is crushing news because you really don't want to communicate.
There are inevitably certain things in a relationship you'd really
rather not communicate about - they might hurt. And you'd prefer to
avoid that. Even if it means suffering in private reality land for
years. Because the thing about private reality is - at least it's
private. Imagine how horribly intensified it would be if it was like
- not private anymore! Yuck! That would terrible! So you avoid it.
You suffer and avoid it, but you avoid it nonetheless.
Relax. I'm
not going to make you start communicating all of a sudden. No,
I have a much better idea. I'm going to ask you to get out of your
own head - your own private reality and back into the shared reality
of the relationship - but you don't have to say a word about it if
you don't want to! That's a comforting thought.
Let's say your
Should I Get the Fuck Out of this Relationship dilemma revolves around
your perception that your boyfriend/girlfriend is really nice and
affectionate one minute and really cold and critical the next. You
are thinking to yourself - this guy/girl has issues! Do they act this
way because they like me or do they act this way because they hate
me? Are they trying to push me away or are they just insecure? Is
this their problem or is it my problem? Will they change if they get
to trust me? Or are they just inconsiderate and critical? (Very common
question by the way - the inconsistent lover. The hot and cold syndrome.
These people are very hard to leave. They get their fucking hooks
in and it hurts like hell to wriggle free. But enough about my life,
back to yours.)
So let's analyze
this common relationship dilemma in terms of Realities. From your
point of view - they are operating out of a hidden Private Reality.
They may say they are being truthful when they say they love you but
you don't believe them because their other behavior indicates that's
not true. You don't trust their depiction of their inner reality.
What the fuck is going on inside them that when you come back from
a week-long trip they say 'I guess you can come over if you want
to. I don't really see the need.' What the fuck? You've been gone
a week! They don't want to see you? What's that? Are they crazy? Are
they just fucking trying to be incredibly vicious. I don't really
see the need? What the fuck is that? Is it too much to expect
they'd want to see you if they cared for you at all? Are your expectations
out of whack or are they trying to give you a big hint? And what about
when they say 'I'm just really busy right now. It doesn't mean my
feelings have changed or anything. God, I wish you could just understand
for once. Why do we always have to get into these discussions?!' And
so on. What does that mean? You don't know. It hurts your feelings
but you don't know. You don't have a basis for interpretation because
they don't seem to be giving you access to the full extent of their
private reality.
Since you don't
have access to their private reality you are going to be overwhelmingly
tempted to make one up for them so you can have some basis for
interpretation. You are going to tell yourself something like 'I think
this is his/her way of not getting too close.' Or something like that.
Here's a tip. Don't! Don't make up a private reality for them.
Stay out of their head.
Stay out of yours
also. Turn off that little voice in your head and get very
very quiet inside. Exercise a massive discipline of will and instead
look carefully and only at what actually hapens in the shared reality
space. Do you end up going over to their place or don't you? What
actually happens? Not so much how you feel about it -but what actually
happens.
Let's say your
live-in never puts the cap back on the toothpaste tube. This irritates
the holy living fuck out of you. You say something about it. What
happens? Does the cap go back on the tube or not? Who puts it there?
Just gather the information.
Let's say you
want to spend more time with your boyfriend and he tells you he will
quit his night job so you can have some hours together. Does he quit
it or not? Do you end up spending more time together or not? When
a spending time together situation arises - how does it play out?
Who does what? What actually fucking happens?
Let's say you
have repeatedly expressed concern to your girlfriend about her spending
habits. You are actually fucking worried about this. Now look at what
actually happens. Where does the money go, how does it get there and
when? Not your impression of how much money is spent - how much really,
and when and where and by whom?
Let's say one
of you wants to have kids and the other doesn't. Does what the other
person says match up with what they do? Do they say maybe next year
- every year? Do they honestly explain their inner private reality
around kid issues? Is it believable? Do you trust it? Do you explain
yours?
Does your attempt
to express your inner reality end up having any effect on what actually
happens in the shared reality space or not? Does what you say match
up with what you do?
Look at this shit
ruthlessly. It will go counter to all your instincts but do it anyway.
The voice in your head will not want to shut up, but ignore it anyway.
The voice in your head wants to obscure the truth from you because
it is afraid the truth will hurt. Can't blame it for thinking this
way - but tough. You are in indecision fucking hell and its
muffly attempts to control the world by having your private
reality take over everything aren't doing any fucking good.
All right. Once
you have gathered your actual information by taking the unprecedented
step of looking at the actual reality of your relationship you have
a halfway decent fucking shot at not only making a decision but making
it confidently and without regrets. Shared reality fucking rules your
relationship life and once you've gotten an actual look at it, you're
going to know what to do. Strangely, given your history of dithering
but it will happen anyway.
You are going
to actually know the other person is a fucking liar and never going
to change. You are going to realize that you yourself are more than
half the problem because you've been living in your own fucking head
which bore no relationship to what the other person was going through.
You are going to realize that the only logical next step is a final
steely attempt at actual communication and you're not even going to
be afraid of it because you'll have already looked at reality. You
are going to have seen yourself make repeated attempts to share your
private reality and create a mutally happy shared reality and realize
the other person doesn't give a shit and it's never going to work.
You are going to have more boldly inquired about the other person's
private reality and gotten surprising and helpful answers. You are
going to realize the other person doesn't want to communicate and
you are going to leave. You are going to get over the trivial shit
and you are going to draw the line at the major shit. You are
going to get the fuck out of your fog and over your delusions and
you are either going to pony up and deal or you are going to let the
door slam your ass on the way out.
Either way, you
win. You hated to do it, go swimming in the icy cold waters of reality
when you could have been wrapping yourself in the cozy fog of your
own private reality but you did it. You did it and you won. You're
so great! So strong. So wise. You did the right thing and it didn't
even look hard. It was - but no one could tell, you were so decisive,
organized, and fearless. God, if only everyone was like you - relationships
would never be hard.
More deeply philosophical questions......
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