The stories we tell…

A very wise friend recently asked me for a ‘tip of the day’ for long-term coupling success (despite the fact she’s been married to her husband twice as long as I’ve been married to mine. Hat tip to them!) I shared with her some of my recent learnings that I try to keep top of mind both with my clients and with my own spouse. But true to form, it was this same wise friend who ended up sharing the ‘tip’ that stuck with me throughout the evening.

“You know how we all have a story to tell about our spouse, right?” (Like, He’s an overgrown kid. or, According to her, I can’t do anything right.) “I think about that a lot… and it should probably be a good story, right?”

My friend is onto something here. We all tell ourselves stories. It’s how we make sense of the world, and our experience within it. And here’s the thing: the stories we tell ourselves shape our identity, reality, and actions. But stories almost never match our experiences 100% of the time. In other words (and ‘therapy speak’,) there are “unique outcomes” when the usual story is contradicted. And when we start to pay attention to those alternative moments, we have an opportunity to re-author a new, preferred story that highlights strengths and resilience, rather than getting stuck in a “problem saturated narrative.”

For example, the spouse of the person who is perceived as ‘an overgrown kid’ almost certainly has behaved as an adult during some very significant moments. What was that about? Where did the ‘overgrown kid’ go? Rather than immaturity, could it be that this is a preferred way of staying playful or hopeful when things feel heavy? Or a coping strategy learned from growing up in a strict household? Or a bid for connection when feeling emotional distance? This reframe encourages thinking about the behavior as value-driven, and not pathological.  Those values might be creativity, spontaneity, or joy. Which sounds a lot different than an ‘overgrown kid.’ Furthermore, the playful spouse and the responsible partner don’t have to be opposites; they can be integrated identities, which is a more compassionate story for the spouse, and may help her remember why she also loves that playful part of him.

Are you stuck in a problem-saturated story about your partner? If you’ve been together for a while, it’s easy to fall into shorthand stories about each other. But the truth is, every relationship holds many stories. In couples counseling, re-authoring these stories is one of the most powerful ways to shift blame and frustration toward empathy and connection.

So, if you catch yourself thinking, “He’s always like this,” or “She never understands,” pause and ask: is that the only story I can tell, or is there another one that deserves to be told, too?