Relationships and experts and not helping at all...

So let me introduce you to a newly established couple. We'll call them Jono and Clare. When they first met, Jono wasn't all that keen on Clare. Not because there was anything particularly wrong with Clare, but she just didn't meet his criteria for what his perfect match looked like. Fast forward a whole week (well actually, probably only a couple of hours), and Clare's ability to make Jono laugh made her a whole lot more attractive than she initially appeared.  In fact, he was a bit smitten.

Clare was into Jono from the word go. And once Jono got up to speed in the attraction stakes, both of them thought that those who had set them up (let's call them 'the experts') had done a great job.  "Maybe the experts know me better than I know myself!" they exclaimed.  And right about now, your alarm bells should be ringing like crazy - especially if your name is Jono or Clare.

[It is time for a cautionary piece in square brackets: If you're following the latest series of Married at First Sight (#9married),  some of the details here might sound remarkably familiar 😜.  If that's the case, I'm hoping that you'll find what follows to be an interesting and possibly different perspective on what this show can offer us. Loads of people struggle in relationships - here's a chance to learn, and grow and create new experiences. (Except for the fact that's not how #9married really works) 😱.   And, if you're not into the show, but you're in a relationship, would like to be in a relationship, or have ever been in a relationship, then you still might find enough in the following paragraphs to keep reading. Either way, please let me know what you think at the end 😏].  Anyway, back to the point of this blog.

Much is made of Clare and Jono's physical attraction (or immediate repulsion on Jono's part) as a deciding factor on (a) whether they are a good couple (b) whether they should stay together or will last the distance and (c) whether the experts have done a good job. In my view we could add (d) whether in fact what these experts are doing is actually helping people who are trying to find long
and lasting relationships.

The truth is, you could find your partner as sexy as a calendar full of half dressed firemen (or the appropriate male equivalent), but if you haven't got a grip on yourself and how you operate in relationships, then it's all going to go south very quickly (and not in the sexy south kind of way).

So...Clare and Jono.  As another sort of relationship expert (like one where we actually work with the couples to help them find their way through the quagmire)(I know, radical idea right 😁), it was pretty clear to me that they were going to run into problems from the minute that Clare needed to use her humour to manage difficult intimate moments.  And that was made even more clear by the fact that she needed to use that MO a lot.  In fact it's become a bit obvious that Clare's emotional responsiveness swings between finding things funny and therefore making fun of either herself or Jono (and usually Jono) or misinterpreting his responses to mean he is launching some sort of attack against her.

Without any judgment intended whatsoever, Jono is pretty simple.  There is not a hidden agenda in his messages, he's just saying it as he sees it or feels it.  The unfortunate piece is that his honest response seems to trigger something in Clare that leaves her feeling either let down or judged by Jono.  It doesn't seem though, as if Clare has a good handle on how that whole dynamic works - suffice to say though, it has her coming across as a bit cray cray at best.

Side bar: one of the most important things for us to understand when we are in relationship is what it is our partner does or says that provokes an unhelpful response in us (and vice versa), what would actually help us to have a new or different experience, and how we go about asking for that new or different experience and/or give it.  Sounds pretty simple eh? Well no.  Not at all.  That's why we even need blogs like this (or therapy or both)!!!!

So how exactly does a lack of personal awareness and self regulation play out? Well, take for example, the honeymoon.  There is a theory doing the rounds of reality television that in order to increase attraction (or more broadly, to get human beings to bond and really show up) you should submit yourself and your loved one to adrenalin charged experiences to have you connect.  So, perhaps with this in mind, Jono and Clare took off on a canoe ride through crocodile infested waters.  The net result was, to put it as it was, Jono was shitting himself. He clearly articulated his terror of all things croc, he didn't try and cover it up or gloss over it. He was struggling and he let Clare know. (Vote Jono for a man in touch with and able to articulate his feelings 😀).

Now for some of us, seeing our partners in an emotionally vulnerable state is sufficient to generate a sense of sympathy at least.  We might ask them if they want to cancel the canoe trip.  We might sit and try and understand what is happening and what they need in order to deal with it.  We might be willing to work with our partner to offer a new experience of themselves and being in relationship - by not making their emotional issue all about us. Or we might, as Clare chose, laugh at them and call them a bitch and make him sleep in a t shirt with a croc on the front.  And then continue to raise the subject in the days after as if it had all been a huge joke and one that Jono should be able to just laugh along with. She took her response from the 'Get Over It' School of Fear Management. As if fear is that easy to get over (as Shane Warne so poignantly demonstrated recently on #ImACelebrityAU).

The problem here, as Clare might have you believe, was not that Jono needed to grow up and stop overreacting over any issue that upsets him.  The problem was that for some reason, clearly unknown to Clare (or if she did know about it, she was unable to manage it well),  she was uncomfortable with Jono's emotional expression and clearly wanted him to stop.

And then there was the conversation over what might have been too many wines - unfortunately Clare managed to take offence at Jono's conversation about his view on the importance of looking after oneself physically.  By talking about his commitment to his gym regime, and in a way that at this stage makes sense only to Clare, she decided that Jono was saying that she was fat (trigger music from a time long ago and far way where Clare's body image started to be a problem for her).  Now in a nod to the cray cray, Clare wasn't as obvious about her (mis)interpretation as she might have been, and she instead turned it into a conversation about how she couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't let herself go a bit when she has children (which at this stage is a very maybe future and therefore fictitious event). Understandably confused by what was going on and why Clare had become so agitated, Jono took his turn to become agitated and angry over what he perceived to be an unfair attacking from Clare.  From that point on, the conversation between them became about Clare trying to prove that Jono's emotional responses (aka anger and frustration in his confusion about what had gone wrong) needed to be altered.  And further more, if he didn't change his behaviour then that just proved that she was 32 and better than him.

(Yes, it's hard to understand. Why? Because neither party is actually talking about the same experience. Even though it might seem like it.)

Clearly trying to have this sort of conversation, where Jono felt like he was being told he was wrong for something he actually wasn't trying to say was never going to be a successful strategy for Clare and an even more confused and angry Jono. The answer? He moved out. Not unreasonably.

And here is where I have to intervene and lodge a complaint on behalf of Jono and Clare.  I understand that, apart from the early meetings where the experts looked in their wardrobes and asked them questions and had them smell each other's t shirts (?????), the experts were not involved in helping the couples to work through the difficulties that emerged for them as the relationships proceeded.  (And let's be honest, these are issues that were ALWAYS going to emerge regardless of any other criteria they use for matching the players). What is really clear from an educated outsiders perspective, is that what both Clare and Jono could use, at this point, is someone who can help them understand what the hell is going on, and how to work through it.

It is completely understandable that for some reason, Clare has an issue with anger in her relationships - or more particularly, her partner being angry. (Yes, the irony of Clare's own anger in this regard is not overlooked). What is not clear is what those reasons are, what Clare had decided to do about those reasons, and how she has coped (or not) with whatever those issues were.  The fact that she was single coming into the show probably has very little to do with the stories she might tell herself about her attractiveness based on her weight.  It is much more likely that what is happening is that she is unable to emotionally connect to her partners because she has these no go zones in her own emotional states and the states of others.  Clare deserves some empathy around whatever these issues are, and she needs to develop some insight for herself so that she has some more workable management strategies at her disposal.

All of us have a history of relationships. That history started from our very first relationship - with our parents and particularly our mothers -  at least initially.  In order to really get a handle on how we respond in relationships, what is healthy and unhealthy about us in that respect, what works and doesn't work, what choices we could make that might work better, we have  to take a good look at our relationship skills and dynamics. And from there, learn how to do it differently.

So unless Jono is a miracle worker of sorts, it is highly unlikely that he is going to be able to help her through these issues in the eight week season of the show.  And it's a bit unfair to expect (especially on the part of the experts) that he might.  And then it will be really unfair to say the relationship ended because of any one person's fault in particular (because if I look into my crystal ball, that will be the likely outcome without any intervention).

Jono too has his own issues going on and in some respects, Clare is probably right - he does need to generate greater resilience and to choose whether every situation that he finds difficult is worthy of receiving the Jono stamp of disapproval in exactly the same way.  But if we're not going to work with Clare's difficulties, we're not going to deal with Jono's either.

So let's draw a few threads together.  I'm sure that you've all heard of (or been *gulp*) people who've felt that in order to feel 'whole' and 'complete', their only strategy is to get themselves all coupled up and that will be the answer to everything.  The truth is, as a teacher of mine once said, it's only in relationship that we know ourselves. So you can have absolutely everything going for you as a singleton.  But when you do finally find that special someone, you need to be seriously prepared for all of your relationship shit to come to the foreground.  And this is regardless of how sexy you find them.

The only way you can guarantee success in relationships is to work on knowing yourself better than you attest to knowing 'them'.  I'm not entirely sure that any of the couples could really say that knowing themselves and having a degree of personal mastery is their number one skill.  They are very well equipped to talk about what went wrong in their previous relationships, but not really about how that impacts upon their communication and relationship styles in the here and now,  right down to how they can completely misread and misinterpret relational situations they are in.  (And if I was one of the experts, currently batting off a 25% success average, I'd be busting my gut to try and increase those numbers by actually bloody helping the poor punters increase their own odds).

P.S. Don't even get me started on how on earth a newly established couple where one runs their own business in Sydney and the other is a farmer in regional Victoria stand a chance.  Talk about intentional sabotage!!! In fact yes let's! Let's talk about intentional and unconscious sabotage. Come back soon to get on top of that little juicy morsel. Until next time!!!!