Reactions in Relationships - Silver Linings in COVID-19

Last week, on our way to therapy, Emily attempted to make a request of me. A friend of hers has been lonely as of late and she was asking me if I would be willing to spend time with them without Emily being there as well.

Many things happened very quickly.

I began internally composing a flow chart of the ways this could play out and the consequences of each path.

I’m pretty sure I’m a “no.”

I can say “yes.” Okay, what am I agreeing to? Under what circumstances would I enjoy myself the most? Under what conditions would they? If I drive to them I might feel resentful. If they drive to me I’ll likely feel guilty. Something in between us might min-max this. What would we do when together? I don’t want to do the thing that was suggested. Can I say “no” to it without proposing an alternative?

Can I say “no” to the whole thing? I don’t feel like I can. If I do then I’ll probably have to defend and explain every reason why I said, “no.” Do I want to put the effort into doing that?

I can say, “no” to this. I am clearly not a “hell yes.”

The internal navigation was a lot more than just this. Emily, who is highly attuned to me, knew something bigger than the question was going on. She tried to ask me what was happening, what I was believing, and what I was thinking.

I did say that I didn’t want to do the request. Quickly after, I went down my list of beliefs of how it would have to happen, what might be more acceptable, and so on and so on; lots of rationalizing, lots of strategy, lots of defensiveness.

Each time she asked I felt further and further backed into a corner from which saying “no” was more and more unacceptable.

She then tried a different strategy where she asked me how we could go about having a conversation about setting up the conditions where we could have a collaborative conversation. Just wanting to talk about how we could collaborate, not specifically to collaborate on anything, just to get me to open up at all.

I was so far gone that every time she asked to collaborate I was hearing, “can we collaborate on a way for you to say “yes” to my initial request?” Even though she was making an honest effort to reach me, I was automatically slotting her questions into means that affirmed my narratives.

And, man, did I have narratives.

We went into therapy freshly after I boiled over and shouted something like, “I said, ‘no’ and I want that to be enough! I don’t want to do this!” It wasn’t until a half hour into therapy where Emily was explaining her side of things to Greg that I realized that I hadn’t interpreted her intention at attempting to collaborate correctly. We used the rest of the time to talk about what we both do under stress. We also discussed the pain we experience when we don’t feel like we can connect with each other (spoiler: very scared).

Her innocuous question raised something in me faster than I could catch it. Stories ran about how I couldn’t say “no” to this without consequences. Shame flared up when I heard myself telling myself that I’d be a bad person to leave this lonely person alone. I imposed limitations on what I could do with this person and I couldn’t fathom a way for us both to be a “hell yes” even though, in hindsight, there clearly could be several.

Perhaps most importantly, I was autocompleting Emily’s questions, stories and intentions in ways that fed my victim narrative in this situation. These patterns must have served me at some point in my life. I’m fortunate enough to be with someone right now where these do not apply.

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Pivoting slightly, the world is a different place right now than it was a few weeks back. COVID-19 is moving across the globe and folks all over are being encouraged to self-isolate and avoid going outside at all costs.

I’m increasingly feeling myself go out of whack where my formerly-taken-for-granted self-regulatory, hobbies are no longer available. This has led me to being more and more grateful for my relationship with Emily and for the fact that we live together. We may be farther away from others than usual and we’re still in this together.

Clearly I have my own reactionary tendencies. If Emily and I hadn’t been working on our relationship for years this blow up would likely have ended badly with at least one of us no longer showing up as fully with the other.

A silver lining of COVID could be that we all take time to bolster our current or future partnerships, learn new things to strengthen them, and find ways to integrate our shadows to become more complete persons. We’ll likely be spending more time than usual with our significant others. Ideally we’ll exit this time of isolation more connected and compassionate instead of more spun up and frustrated.

Consider reading my favorite book on relationships: How to Be an Adult in Relationships (on the nose title, I know)

Go deep on Non-Violent Communication with this 9 hour training course on YouTube done by Marshall himself.

Take a real swing at doing Real Talk or any other relationship hygiene process.

Just because we’re currently physically farther apart doesn’t mean we can’t learn how to be closer together.

Get lots of sleep. Eat fruits and veggies while taking a walk in the sun. Find opportunities everywhere you can.