I was shocked. This guy was giving me the missing key, the key to why some people’s marriages get better and some people’s don’t. Why hadn’t I thought of this? One simple, not so easy, but simple, nevertheless, solution.
I was telling him, “Think about it. Think about how your wife would feel when you say those things to her.” And he said, “I usually don’t think about things like that.”
“Yes, I hear you. You don’t usually think about people’s feelings and how they would react to things. I get that. But you want things better in your marriage, so I’m asking you to think about it.”
“Well, what am I supposed to think about?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. “You’ve told me it hurts her feelings and I don’t see why it would. What else should I think about?”
Now, I was puzzled. He is obviously not one of those people who loses sleep at night worrying about what other people think of him or his deeds. He doesn’t lose sleep at night saying to himself, “If I had done this, then maybe they would have done that.”
He doesn’t wonder what will happen going forward, either; he doesn’t toss different scenarios around in his mind at 3 AM thinking that what he really needs to do is X. Or maybe it should be Y. Or maybe Z. He doesn’t worry.
Well, that’s good, right? Not to be a worrier?
Well, sure, but…
There are extremes of everything. Worrying about the future when it’s basically out of your control is a foolish expense of psychic energy. Worrying in general is not useful.
But thinking is. I mean some thinking. Spending a minute trying to imagine your wife’s reaction to something you say before you say it so that you won’t hurt her feelings seems like a good use of a minute to me.
(You probably know I don’t like labels, but if it is helpful, this is probably a good part of the Narcissism picture.)
So I tried one more time. “I’m sorry I gave away the ‘answer,’” I said to him. “I shouldn’t have told you that her feelings would be hurt. You are married 30 years. You would or should know by now what hurts her feelings even if you don’t quite get why it does.
“I should have just asked you to reflect on how she would feel. Now, I’m asking you, now that I gave away the answer, I’m asking you a much easier question. Just reflect on the fact that I’m telling you her feelings would be hurt and see if you can see whether I’m right.”
“But,” he said, pulling the blinders from in front of my eyes, “I don’t reflect.”
For once, I was at a loss for words. No one had ever come out and told me that. No one had admitted it to me. This guy was so innocent of the world of worrying about others’ thoughts and reactions that he had no problem admitting it.
I’m not blaming him, either. It’s not his fault if no one ever said to him as a child, when he beat his little brother to a pulp for taking his toys, “How do you think Jake feels?”
When he beat up Jake; Jake complained to their mother. But all mom said was, “Boys, leave me alone. Can’t you place nicely? Don’t you see how busy I am?”
So Jake, the little brother, felt glad, after the fact, that he took the toy because that served his brother right. He refused to give it back and he learned to fight better, too.
And my buddy was left to grow up clueless that many, many people on this planet actually do worry about other people’s feelings. He certainly had no clue why he should do it himself, let alone how to do it.
Yet there is no way to live in a world of other people without reflection. None. Zero. Zippo. Nada.
And you can’t save your marriage without it, either. A real marriage, obviously, is supposed to have intimacy. How do you have that when you aren’t concerned about how your partner thinks or feels?
So I thanked this guy because in one fell swoop he handed me the key to saving the most difficult marriages. Suddenly, all the confusion lifted and I could understand why I would give a small percent of people homework and exercises and all kinds of things to think about, to notice, and to do, and they would come back week after week unchanged and unaffected by the experience.
Reflection is the gateway to compassion. Unless we can imagine ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we can’t develop compassion. But that is not even enough because many “toughies” out there could imagine themselves being told the things that hurt someone else and say that the very same thing would not hurt them.
So real reflection is not putting just yourself in someone else’s shoes but in getting inside their head. And heart. It is not, “How would you feel if someone did that/said that to you?” but “Knowing that other person very well, how do you suppose they feel when such-and-such happens to them?”
One way I’ve done this is to ask people to take out a pair of shoes of the other person and suggest they imagine putting their feet into it. If the husband is doing the imagining, he will immediately say, “I can’t. They’re too small.” The wife will say, “They’re too big; I can’t walk around in them.”
That’s good. Then I tell them that to do this right, they have to imagine being their spouse. That is, not to complain that they can’t fit into their partner’s shoes but to be their partner so that they shoes DO fit.
That is not easy. The key to success here is checking. After doing the best you can with imagining, say, “This is what I think you would feel. Am I right?”
This step is difficult because it opens you up to being wrong. And you probably will be wrong the first four hundred times you try it if you’ve never been a reflective sort of person.
Please don’t give up.
Spouses, please don’t lose patience, either. This is a learning curve and your partner needs a chance to make mistakes just as she/he would at tennis, piano, painting, or math. Whatever people haven’t done before requires time and trouble. And lots of patience for both people.
Reflection is that process of turning over in your mind how things could go if I were to say “this” instead of “that”; or how someone was affected because I did say “that” instead of “this.” It’s a matter of knowing the other person well enough to get close to the right answer. It’s done before you take action so as to prevent hurt feelings or after you’ve taken action so you can figure out whether you need to apologize.
In a way, reflection is both a kindred spirit to worry and quite it’s opposite.
Reflection is like worry because it focuses on the other person’s feelings. It’s unlike worry because it’s all about figuring out how to take action. Best of all, reflection – and checking – is the means to get to know someone. That’s the essence of what marriage – and all social relationships – are about.