Are you old enough to remember when that Beatles song came out?
Even if you aren’t, I bet you are humming it now. The power of sensory association is quite amazing. We can’t remember what we had for breakfast, but we can remember all the words of the songs of our youth.
February is heart month. Candy, flowers, jewellery, and teddy bears appear everywhere, as reliably as the snow and ice. Advice columnists pull out their best relationship tips, and as a life coach, I am no different. The best time to talk with people about something is when they are thinking about it, right?
One of my favourite relationship concepts is the Manual.
The Manual is that unwritten script we have in our minds for the behaviour of other people. As long as they follow that script, we are happy in our relationship – but when they don’t, we become resentful and unhappy.
Living with the Manual would be tricky enough if our partners in this relationship even knew that we have a script for them. But we set them up for failure by expecting them to read our minds – if he really loved me, he would know what I want for my birthday. If she really cared about me, she would stay home instead of going out with her friends. Does that look familiar?
We have all sorts of expectations which we have never articulated, and we become angry at our loved ones because they don’t seem to be aware of them. Of course, if they were aware of them, they might still choose not to follow our script – after all, we cannot control the behaviour of other adults. But at least they would have a chance to comply.
The first step towards resolving this kind of unhappiness is to be aware of the Manual – are we expecting our loved ones to follow the script in our minds? Unless you have psychics in the family, you will agree that that is not very fair.
The next step is to communicate those expectations – if you want your family to get you a birthday cake and flowers, tell them that. If you feel like your loved one is spending too much time with other people, express that loneliness.
It can be an awkward and difficult conversation, but if you can be calm and clear about your own feelings, and not make assumptions about what others know about them, the outcome can be a much better relationship, and isn’t that what we all want?
