The Story That Protects Us
There is a pattern I encounter early with almost every couple work with. Sometimes it happens within the first few minutes. “He always does this. She never does that. I can't trust you anymore. You don't listen.”
What strikes me, every time, is how much work these statements are doing. They are not simply complaints. They are the architecture of a story, a fixed account of what the relationship is, who the other person is, and what is assumed can never be possible between them. And the degree to which a couple is committed to that narrative is, in my experience, very close to the degree to which they are suffering inside it.
The story, I've come to understand, is protective. If I can demonstrate to my own satisfaction that you have always been this way and will never change, I don't have to be vulnerable with you. I don't have to want something from you that you might not give. I don't have to risk the grief of reaching out and not being met.
The narrative closes the future down. And in doing so, it shields, at least temporarily, against the pain of staying open.
But here is what the story also does: it covertly erodes the possible fulfillment of the very thing the person most yearns for. Beneath the narrative, the longing is still very alive, still yearning. The part of them that made the appointment, that showed up, that sat across from their partner .. that part still believes something different might be possible.
The story was originally built to protect that part. And now it stands directly in its way.
One of the things I've noticed is that the move from generalization to specificity, from “you never” to “what I would really like in this moment is for you to look into my eyes while I'm speaking so we can better connect” is not primarily a communication skill. It is an act of presence. It requires stepping out of the narrative long enough to be actually here, in the present moment with this person, willing to want something from them again.
That is a significant ask. And the resistance to it is not stubbornness or bad faith. It is, in most cases, a survival response that made sense at some earlier point in the person’s life, possibly long before this relationship, possibly in the very earliest relationships a person had. The habit knows its own grooves.
What I try to hold for people in those moments is this: now that we are adults, we are generally better resourced than we were when these patterns were first established. We have more capacity to tolerate difficulty. We are more able to recognize that if we are hurt, we will probably recover. The wound will not be final.
And that recognition that I am not as fragile as the story says I am can sometimes create just enough room to stay open a little longer.
Rumi’s famous quote: Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there’s a field. I'll meet you there.
That’s the territory I am always trying to find a way toward with couples. Not agreement. Not the resolution of every grievance. Just increasingly greater moments of genuine contact .. two people encountering each other rather than their stories of each other.
It doesn't begin with a breakthrough. It begins with one small, specific, honest request. With the willingness to say what you actually want, rather than what you have decided you can no longer hope for.
That is the beginning.
This post is a companion to Episode 2 of Season 2 NVCLife: Couples Stuck in Story. The episode goes further into what happens when the story begins to loosen, what becomes visible in that opening, and it closes with a blessing by John O'Donohue that I've been sharing with clients for a long time.
If you and your partner find yourselves caught in similar patterns and would like support navigating them, you can learn more about working with me here.