147: The Seductive (and Toxic) Power of Drama in Relationships

Do you like the drama in your relationship?

Hollywood trains us to believe that intimacy lives in the heart of conflict. All those Hollywood stories are about some huge obstacle and the music swells when they…finally…come together.

But there is no swelling soundtrack that underscores our lives. And navigating obstacles is hard! And most of us don’t have great skills to navigate those challenges, so we just make a mess.

Today, we talk about how drama impacts your relationship.

1. You’ll hear about how big questions and grand gestures can light up your life and the shadow that it also might cast on your relationship
2. I’ll tell you a story from my marriage that helped me understand how my husband and I think about drama differently
3. And you’ll hear about the consistent, ever-present, but not very sexy or dramatic, style of loving that might also lead to your happily ever after

Is your love LOUD? or quiet?

I love a surprise, so I’ve been known to write a love note on the bathroom mirror with lipstick, or hide a picnic basket in the park for my husband and I to just come across, “Oh look! A picnic with a bottle of wine”

That part of my dramatic flair is fun to live with. I make things memorable. But it’s not always so fun.

In this episode, I tell you about a time when my husband and I were out at our favorite Mexican restaurant, and I discovered that we don’t think about drama and intimacy in the same way.

Here is the difference between us that showed up that night

• Until that night, the best way I knew how to feel intimacy was on the other side of solving a problem. For me intimacy lived in the resolution after a conflict.
• David is different. He finds intimacy by relaxing together. Chatting about what makes us happy. He is conflict avoidant.

Isn’t it fascinating how different our perceptions were?

Your understanding of how relationship dynamics work was largely formed by the home in which you grew up

My father was a larger-than-life character. If we were playing a basketball game of PIG or HORSE outside, my dad was the voice of the then famous sports caster, Howard Cosell, and it was always an Olympic match.

My dad’s flair for the dramatic wasn’t reserved to games however. He was a philosopher, and he liked to have conversations to solve the problems of the world. I have tons of memories with my father and they’re all charged with an electric current that lights up a room.

In contrast, my husband doesn’t have many specific memories of his childhood. He can’t recount each time his parent narrated a basketball game, but when he describes his childhood, there is a sunny expression that takes over his face.

I remember one of the first times I visited David’s home. His mother was making bread and she was stirring the batter with a big wooden spoon. I knew in that moment I wanted to have a wooden spoon like hers. She quietly and consistently fed her family homemade bread and love over the decades. And she raised a boy who would one day challenge my thoughts about what love looks like.

Love doesn’t have to conquer the issues of the world every day. Love doesn’t have to be LOUD.

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