The tension between what we know and what we don’t know about our partners can make it hard to appreciate just how easily misunderstandings can happen.
Technology only adds to the difficulty; we get so much information with the constant texting, emailing, social media sharing etc…that we can lose track of how much information we’re actually missing, or feel teased into wanting to know more. Seeing something in black and white (like a text on your partner’s phone) and not knowing what it means can lead to feelings of panic or at the very least a dilemma between wanting to know what you “don’t know” without wanting to pry. And knowing how easy it can be for one partner to sneak around behind the other’s back with the use of technology only compounds the issue.
Daphne and Phillip have been married for fifteen years. They met at work and began to support and confide in one another—Daphne had just lost her mom and Phillip was trapped in an unhappy marriage. It didn’t take long for things to move from a friendship to the decision to get married.
Phillip’s upbringing had been strict. His dad was an authoritarian military type of guy, very strict and controlling. Phillip had learned early on to sneak around and do things behind his dad’s back. Sometimes he even ran away from home to get away from the oppressive environment.
Daphne had grown up in a single parent home; her mom had raised her and the two of them were extremely close. Losing her mom to cancer had been crushing to Daphne.
Lately, Daphne found herself worrying that something wasn’t right. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but Phillip just seemed more distant and he was staying out later at night, sometimes not coming home from work until 10 or 11 pm. Daphne had taken to calling Phillip frequently, trying to check up whether he was out with friends or lying about being out late at work. Daphne was worried about losing Phillip unexpectedly, just as she had lost her mother. She began to worry all the time about being abandoned, alone, and about what she would do if she were to find out that Phillip was lying to her or sneaking around behind her back. The more Daphne called to check up on him though, the more Phillip withdrew and the later he stayed out. Without realizing it, he was associating his wife with his controlling dad and passively defying her.
And then there was the stuff with the phone.
Daphne had seen a message on Phillip’s phone one night. She knew it said something about “not being able to see each other anymore”, but she couldn’t read the rest. Daphne had a huge urge to go through Phillip’s phone to try to find out more, but she forced herself not to do it.
Phillip could feel the escalating tension in the relationship. He knew that Daphne was suspicious of him and he felt like he was going to be driven to do something behind her back if she wouldn’t back off from scrutinizing his every move. He had told Daphne that the text message was nothing to worry about, but she couldn’t seem to hear him. Daphne’s demand to see what was on his phone only made him feel defiant.
So often, experiences in our youth define our adult experience. It took a qualified listener to suggest that Phillip’s defensiveness when Daphne checked up on him was not because he was cheating, but because it triggered the same feeling his controlling father gave him in his youth. Phillip’s eyes grew wide. “Exactly!”
The therapist was also able to help Phillip understand where Daphne was coming from; that she wasn’t his controlling dad and that she was really afraid of losing him. Once Phillip realized that Daphne’s fears made sense and were also connected to her own history, he became less defensive and was willing to show the text message exchange to Daphne. Before that, he had felt so resentful about being “checked up on” that he had refused to show Daphne his phone.
Once Daphne saw the actual text message exchange- evidence that there was nothing illicit going on, that it was an exchange between Phillip and a younger friend who was leaving overseas for the service- Daphne calmed down and stopped calling Phillip constantly to check up on him. Phillip started coming home earlier and spending time with Daphne, which helped her feel less preoccupied with abandonment fears and more secure.
Understanding the reasons behind our partners’ behavior often clears away the misconceptions we construct based on our own fears, when all to often it has nothing to do with us. Open communication and active listening are powerful relationship tools. It’s also important to remember that what can seem all too obvious when we’re in the middle of something may actually be a situation that calls for more information!
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