Relationships

Unlike the fish that doesn’t know it’s in water, most people recognize that they are in relationship to others. What may vary — and vary considerably — is the degree to which they can differentiate the water from themselves: the dynamics of the relationship from their own interpretation of it. How clearly they can see themselves, or the other person, in whatever is going on — as opposed to simply assuming that their understanding and feelings about it constitute the full picture. Often, that “truth” (my understanding and feelings about our relationship) is like water to the fish. It isn’t questioned — just accepted.

When something isn’t working in a relationship, the natural tendency is to locate the problem outside oneself. The difficult colleague. The uncommunicative partner. The team that doesn’t perform. These are often real — other people’s behavior is real, and its effects are real. Taking time to examine our own part in a relationship dynamic by no means suggests the other party doesn’t have a role to play, perhaps at times even an outsized one. That reality does not change the fact that each of us carries templates that govern much of how we relate to others. These templates are often deep, established early, and largely invisible to us. We have a sense of what we’re comfortable with and what we’re not, what we consider normal and what crosses a line — and we tend to assume those norms are more universal than they are. People are, often surprisingly, unable to see from another’s perspective. Not because they aren’t intelligent, but because the blind spots are baked in.

What tends to be missing is the idea that there is something that can change — either in oneself, or in the process between oneself and the other. You may or may not be able to influence the other person to change whatever they are doing. However, the one variable in any relationship that a person actually has access to — is themselves: their own reactions, assumptions, habitual moves. Understanding that variable more clearly is often the most direct and impactful route to changing what isn’t working. To repeat, this is not the same as acknowledging the reality that the other person may not be doing something that they themselves cannot or will not change — or that the only possible change is ending the relationship or dynamic.

Rather, what I’m suggesting is that, to the extent one does have leverage over one’s own moves — one’s speech, actions, and choices — it may help to recognize that one’s own patterns have a way of showing up across different relationship and different contexts. When that becomes recognizable — when someone is finally ready to be curious about their own contribution — that is usually when the most consequential change becomes possible.

See also: personal development coaching.