There are many ways that people strive to conceptualize their relationships and that of others around them. It is hard to apply a framework to something so complex, so what is being offered in this blog post is not a full framework but rather a device to use to help side-step being defensive, reduce co-dependency, and increase your commitment to your personal values while in the context of a relationship.
While having relationships throughout our lives it is possible for many people to begin overvaluing the views of others as it relates to their own value or success. Even if this is not the case, in close relationships, the way our partner thinks and feels becomes a very poignant element in our lives. It is here that things become confused and messy for folks who try to reconcile their feelings and that of their partner. This is the area in which DBT promotes the use of interpersonal skills. It was in the teaching and coaching of these skills that my experience as a mental health provider taught me something that I have been passing along ever since; that is despite being called “interpersonal skills” and often involving other people, being interpersonally effective and skilled is, first and foremost, for you, not for the other people. This is true in both your closest relationships as well as your 2-sentence interaction with a stranger on the street. If your goal is to be an effective person in relation to other persons, then your interpersonal skills belong to you and are for you.
In the context of a close and/or romantic relationship, this idea also can help build a viewpoint that can reduce emotional reactivity and increase your conscious commitment to your values. Consider the following thought experiment:
Instead of seeing yourself as a part of a couple or seeing the relationship as a separate thing that requires attention, consider yourself in a personal force field. The term “force field” here is to represent a state in which you can receive input from your surroundings but are otherwise unaffected by it. Inside this force field is just you along with your thoughts, your feelings, your values, your goals, and everything else that is most important to you. While in this mental state, one’s relationship then boils down to receiving input from your partner outside the force field and then consulting with your values regarding how you want you to respond. You take in their input, and trust that they take in yours. Their input can include their thoughts on where to eat dinner all the way to their most fearful secrets and everything in between. It is at this point that you take in their input as information into your force field, then process it among your values and feelings in your uninterrupted state. From here, your goal is to conclude what your values want you to do in response to this information and offer that input back to your partner. The thing that makes this a relationship is that each of your values, on their own, include your partner’s happiness and peace of mind being ranked near the top of your list and operating yourself accordingly.
This device is one way you may be able to separate yourself from the “noise” of a given situation and allow what is most important to you (a.k.a. your values or your wisdom) to be the only thing informing you of what to do next. If the “noise” or our emotional urges inform us of what to do next, we tend to miss the target… a lot.
If you feel like you may need help understanding your feelings or if you are just struggling in your relationships, feel free to reach out and make an appointment.