Do You Like the Drama in Your Relationship?

Do you like the drama in your relationship?

Let me tell you about the drama I used to sew in my marriage.

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.

 

We all think of drama differently

One night, about 10 years into our marriage, David and I went to our favorite Mexican restaurant, Jose Muldoon’s. We ordered our entrées, then, as I took the second sip on my margarita, I brought up the trouble we were having.

Actually, I can’t remember the specific thing now (and my inability to remember the specific thing will be important in a moment). It might have been that I wanted David to help more with cleaning the bathrooms, or it might have been that he had plans to rock climb that weekend and I wanted him to stay home with our kids. I honestly can’t remember the specific.

But what I do remember is that, as soon as I said the thing about the bathroom or the rock climbing, he uncharacteristically put down his beer, looked me straight in the eye with an annoyance I’d never seen before and he said, “Why do you always do this?”

“Do what?” I asked. I was so mystified. My calm husband had never looked at me like this before. I wasn’t used to him sounding so agitated.

“You always pick a fight. Here we are, going out for a nice dinner, and, instead of enjoying the time, you want us to argue.”

I was stunned.

I had a very different take on my bathroom or rock-climbing comment. I thought I was connecting. I thought I was bringing up that topic so that we could solve an issue that was coming between us.

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.

I didn’t know I was picking a fight. I thought I was gluing us together.

Isn’t it fascinating how different our perceptions were?

Hollywood trains us to believe what I believed: 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.

Are you like my husband who feels like I’m always picking a fight and that I don’t know how to just have a sweet evening chatting?

 

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

Let me tell you about the difference between David and my homes.

My father was a larger-than-life character. I remember playing Monopoly with him as a little girl. He let me make horrible trades with him like I’d offer him The Electric Company in trade for his Boardwalk monopoly. He’d do the trade and he had this glorious huge laugh.

Of course, I’d wallop him in the game, and before long he was out of money. But my dad never played by the rules, so he’d just say, “The Bank is going out of business, and having a sale as a result.” Then he’d hand each of us $500, which allowed the game to continue.

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. “Here she is, folks the young redhead, steps up to the basket, dribbling several times to find her rhythm. She shoots! It hits the rim and bounces away. She’s left an opening for our star shooter…” and on it would go. Life with my father was always exciting.

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. Many are the times he’d ask me “If God is all powerful, why does God allow earthquakes? Or poverty?”

He wanted to have deep discussions about Big Ideas, and he had a flair for the dramatic…always setting up a circumstance that was highly emotionally charged, and my tasks was to solve the injustice.

I have tons of memories with my father and they’re all charged with an electric current that lights up a room.

Occasionally, though, all that dramatic flair could turn toxic. And here I’ll stop talking about my dad and talk about myself.

 

What stories do you tell yourself?

My dad taught me to think in stories and problems to solve, and I’m grateful for that, but there was a little sidecar that came with that gift: I developed a penchant to make a black and white story out of everything.

I saw the evil actor. I saw the heroine. I cast everyone in a role of good or evil.

That got me into trouble when I felt put upon cleaning bathrooms or when I felt lonely when David would leave to go climbing. I told myself stories about how beleaguered I was: I was Cinderella scrubbing floors, while David was free to cater to his whims. Or I was the neglected and abandoned waif, while David was free to wander the countryside at will.

I told myself stories.

I cast each of us—David and myself—as good or evil. I treated my life like a Hollywood script. Sometimes, while I chewed on these stories, I could even imagine the music in the background swelling to alert everyone about how I was the victim, and David the monster.

Not helpful. To say the least.

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, and he doesn’t have stories about the Monopoly bank going out of business, but when he describes his childhood, there is a sunny expression that takes over his face.

“What made you so happy as a child?” I ask him. Or I’ll wonder, “How did you know your mom loved you?”

“She was always there,” my husband says simply. “Every wrestling match. Every time we had a concert, a play, or a performance, she was there.” My husband is the eldest of six children, and his mom made each kid feel seen.

It’s very undramatic when he says it. But his mother’s presence and her love are embedded in his DNA. He knows his worth. He loves unconditionally, because he experienced love as Pure Presence. Quiet and consistent, love was the foundation upon which he built his self-esteem.

 

Love and drama are not the same

The drama of my father was a beacon of light when it was shining on me, but it left a dark shadow over me when his beacon was focused elsewhere, especially on one of my siblings. We vied for his attention.

This is tricky for me to talk about, because I want you to understand how much my father overcame. He was a kid of The Great Depression and he was hungry growing up. He lived for a time in an orphanage because his father left his mother and there was simply no money to support 3 young kids.

People of that generation didn’t grow up with Oprah on television every afternoon helping us learn how to talk through conflict, or how to ask cleanly for what we need.

I am in the luxurious position of getting to employ how my father taught me to ponder the Big Questions of philosophy and now I get to bring that pondering to emotional regulation and healthy communication.

I just needed to get past the good/evil or the black/white depictions of people and situations.

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.

Love can be going to Jose Muldoon’s and sipping a margarita while munching on chips and telling each other all the mundane news of the day.

 

The “boring stuff” AND the big moments both create intimacy

I’ve talked to many people who’ve lost a sweetheart due to death (and sometimes even divorce) and those people tell me the things they miss most. Here’s a secret, Friends, it’s the really boring stuff from every day.

“I miss hearing his electric toothbrush while I crawl into bed before him,” or “I miss seeing his coat on the back of the dining room chair.”

Companionship is under-rated. Drama is over rated. At least this is my life lesson.

But I know my husband would tell you a different story. While he hated the way I talked fiery at Jose Muldoon’s, he has learned to appreciate the dramatic way I lean into everything: with intention and volition.

My husband would tell you how, over the years he has learned to lean into conflict in a way that used to terrify him. And he would say he loves the intimacy we have BECAUSE we deal with the conflicts. He feels more awake to the little things around him.

My husband would tell you that the conflicts we’ve had over the years—about cleaning bathrooms, or how to spend a Saturday—have helped him live more intentionally. He thinks about how he can show his love with his actions. He engages in life more deeply because he’s lived so many years with me.

How does drama impact your love? Your relationship? Do you love more like my father with grand gestures and Big Conversations? Or do you love more like my husband’s mother with the steadiness of a wooden spoon and her perpetual presence?

Where are the dramatic moments adding to your love and life? Where do those same dramatic tendencies cast a shadow?

Where is your love taken for granted because you’re so consistent? How is that a good thing? Where do you want to be more mindful or deliberate?