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The Party’s Over: How to Stop Being Mean to the People You Love
Recently, my partner really hurt my feelings. We were standing around after a small Knomii gathering, and he was recounting a story for a laugh. He shared the details of how I suggested he go outside of the house during our gathering to try to get a better angle for some video footage. And that after trekking all the way around the house, the first thing he saw was me pointing and laughing at him as he held up the camera from outside the window. What a crappy person my wife is, I heard in my head between his words.
As he recounted the details, I found myself at first quite angry. “Those details are exaggerated,” my anger whispered in my ear. “I never pointed and laughed!” it corrected. I felt myself rearing to speak up and defend myself.
But by the time my husband reached the end of the story, one where the details painted me as uncaring and mean, I felt more deflated than anything. “Why would he share that story as a party trick?” my sadness asked. “Doesn’t he know I would never be so cruel? How could he see me like this? Doesn’t he know me?” The questions flowed out and my heart sank.
When we go for the laugh
In the end, I didn’t say anything at all. But the immediate effect was that I felt incredibly disconnected from my partner. Rather than responding directly to my emotions, I lived in the pause to ask myself what was here that triggered sadness and anger to join me.
And as I processed this for the next few hours, I realized that I do the same thing to him all the time. Why? Because squabbles with my partner seem like easy fodder to lob into conversation for a laugh. The exaggerations make a good story. We’d been doing this to each other for years.
I watch other couples do it all the time, too. They poke fun at each other for the sake of the story, but in reality they are holding up their partner to the world and saying, “Hey, look at these flaws.” The laughing ends, and the damage remains.
Don’t get me wrong, a poke here and there out of jest is often welcome. It simply felt worse around people I cared about. People whose opinions of me mattered. People who I wanted to know me as kind and caring and compassionate. The kind of person I know myself to be, and I feel like my husband should see me as.
So where do we go from here? How do we break the cycle of bad habits? How do we adjust course when a habit takes two to tango?
1. Live in the pause
Emotions are informational, not directional. If I responded in anger or even in my sadness, I would have missed out on all the other rich data available to me. So I created a little pause. I chose to be curious instead of going with my first reaction of judgment that my husband was trying to hurt me. And I realized a couple of things.
First, that I never want to be the reason that someone feels as crappy as I felt in that moment.
Next, that while I’m okay if someone pokes fun at me, there’s a difference between consensual playfulness, and airing dirty laundry and grievances with an audience.
2. See the person you know them to be
In this case, it would have been super easy to just go straight into accusing my husband of being cruel. But just like I wished he would have treated me like the kind and caring person I am, I now had the opportunity to lead by example.
In my heart of hearts, I know my husband never wants to be hurtful. The kind, gentle, loving person I know him to be is the one I wanted to speak to when I brought up my learnings. Because when we create space for people to show up authentically rather than expecting them to show up in their emotions or judgment, the invitation is sometimes accepted. But if we never invite that version of them, it will always default to the latter!
3. Take responsibility for your piece (where needed)
I’m guilty here, too. This is a co-created habit. One that came from an innocent place of not taking each other’s quirks too seriously and enjoying a giggle. But obviously, the habit had a bite.
By taking responsibility for the fact that I’m also guilty of using my partner as the butt of a joke in an unkind way, I hoped to take the pressure off of right and wrong and focus instead on how we can learn and grow.
4. State what you want
When we’re trying to break a nasty habit, it’s easier to talk about what we don’t want (the bad habit) than what we do (the healthier alternative). If in conclusion, all that I communicated to my husband was that I don’t want to use each other as the butt of a joke anymore, we’d probably end up doing it again. Our brains don’t understand don’t want.
You can think all you want that you don’t want chocolate cake on a diet, but we all know what’s going to make its way onto your plate because you’re focusing so hard on not having it.
So what do I want? Well, to speak to and about each other with kindness. Yes, to be playful and fun and light. And to know that we will bump into “ouch” moments where we mess up. But mostly to speak so kindly about each other that everyone we know really sees how much we care about each other.
5. Appreciate that relationship habits are hard to break
Why? Because it’s hard enough to break a habit when you’re the only one doing it. When we’re in a combined habit with another person, it takes both people agreeing on a goal and a new norm to make it happen.
When we pivot alone, it sometimes disorients the other, and leads to confusion and even anger. Why are you suddenly breaking pattern? What’s going on?
In my experience, it takes one person to explicitly signal, “Hey! I don’t like this! Can we change it?” And I’d rather be that person every time than stray too far from who I know myself to be. Because ultimately, I’d rather be known as “loving” than “right.” (Even though being right sometimes feels damn good!)
Who are you being?
One of the hardest things to reconcile in relationships is the person we become slowly, habitually over time. Yes, we absolutely can grow into our best selves and access that in alignment with the people we love. And they can also be the people to bring out some of our worst qualities.
As outlandish as it may sound, we often have to remember to actively choose kindness, patience, and compassion. We have to ask ourselves: who am I being here? And then, of course, who do I want to be?
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