Mark Young,
a counseling professor at Gonzaga University, did research around what makes
couples “healthy” and “happy”. He found that
there were key themes in the healthy couples he interviewed. These themes were security, perceptions,
expectations and interactions. However,
there seemed to be the most emphasis on perceptions.
Ones
perception of the relationship informs and influences the expectations of the
relationship. The expectations of the relationship influence how one interacts
in the relationship. Interactions then confirm the perception. Or the
interactions may reject the perception, but couples may discount the
interaction to maintain the perception. The perception needs to change when the
interaction disconfirms the perception, but that is an uncomfortable process.
Think of
this example, a wife calls her husband the 10 minute father, meaning she
perceives that he only spends 10 minutes a day interacting with the children.
She wants him to stop being so involved with work and become more involved with
the children. The wife was given a challenge to time how long her husband
actually interacts with the children for a week. Much to her surprise she found
he was actually spending hours a day, and many hours on the weekend, with the
children. Actual reality was contradicting
her perceptions of reality.
The wife
now has a choice, maintain the perception and be dissatisfied with her
husband’s contribution, or she could change her perception and realize that her
husband is contributing to the family. If she changed her perception, she would
expect her husband to be with the children a couple hours a week, and the
interactions between her husband and the children could change for better, thus
confirming her new perception. This could also impact her relationship with her
husband and with her children.
Now this
isn’t to say that perceptions are the end all and be all of relationships. The
wife’s perception of a 10 minute husband could have been true. This would then
mean an intervention would have been needed at the interaction point, so that the
husband would start spending more time with the family.
This logic
of perceptions informing expectations, and expectations influencing
interactions, and interactions confirming perceptions can be applied to our
relationship with ourselves, with our children, with coworkers, and so on.
If we
perceive ourselves as worthless, we will most likely behave in a way that meets
our expectations. If we believe our kids are lazy, we will set a low
expectation for them. Note that we tend to only look for interactions that
confirm our perceptions. We don’t like change, so we don’t usually look for
evidence to counter our perceptions.
Let us
start developing healthy perceptions of our relationships, and become ever more
aware of how our perceptions skew the reality of our relationships with others.
