When I was in my late 20s and early 30s, I taught an introduction to philosophy class at a community college. One of my students was in her early 40s and back in school because she was going through a divorce and needed to reorient herself. One day, in a class discussion about dialogue and argument structures, she said wistfully, “It’s never about the pork chops.”
Even though I had no idea why she and her husband were getting divorced, and my divorce was still years away, I knew exactly what she was talking about. Our marital arguments over pork chops, the right way to load the dishwasher, and (in a more current context) Google Calendar errors are often more about the unspoken than the spoken. In fact, no one gets divorced over burnt pork chops; these things are proxies for deeper issues.
For this reason, sometimes when I try to describe an argument with my current partner, I can’t remember the details or the reason. Instead, I remember the form of the argument, the strategies each of us used to either “win” or end the argument, and the feelings I had during it. Again, the details are easily forgotten because they don’t really matter. Yesterday, for example, we got into an argument that was supposedly about me trying to give them an adapter when they asked for an extension cord.
When we started couples therapy about a year ago to figure out why we kept having the same arguments, we took the traditional route of talk therapy. We sat together week after week and laid out where there was friction in our relationship and what triggers from our respective pasts were exacerbating those arguments. This initial work was very helpful in understanding our dynamics and their underlying cause. However, we all know that while self-awareness is an important first step, it is not enough on its own to create change. If it were, we wouldn’t need New Year’s resolutions—we’d all already be sticking to our budget and exercising several times a week.
When our couples therapist went on vacation, he suggested we see a therapist who offers a special form of relationship therapy: Imago. Imago therapy was developed in the 1980s. The word “imago” means “image” in Latin and is the therapy’s namesake because the founders believed that we are all motivated by our unconscious images of familial love that we internalized as children. In other words, when we argue with our spouse over pork chops, we bring the burden of our childhood wounds into the discussion.
The theory behind Imago is less important here than the actual practical implementation. Imago therapists lead the couple through pre-written dialogues with set “stems” that each person fills out in turn. There is a sender and a receiver, and the individuals in the couple take turns taking on each role. In the case of the burnt pork chop, for example, the sender may receive prompts like this:
- – I would like to tell you one thing about our conflict:
- – My thoughts on this are…
- – The feelings I have about this are…
- – This reminds me of my past, when…
In this format, the receiver listens to all of their partner’s thoughts and feelings and then reflects what is said using phrases like these:
- I heard you say…
- This makes sense to me because …
When I first heard about this practice, I was skeptical. I have an almost knee-jerk reaction to scripts or to someone telling me how to do something. This shouldn’t be a surprise, because you don’t become a sex writer by following all the rules. But I’m also pretty open to trying things out, regardless of my initial reservations.
In practice, my ADHD mind works fast, and I found it almost painful to be on the receiving end – especially when I had to wait my turn to speak – and suppress my urge to interrupt them with my own thoughts and feelings. It reminded me of my time in elementary school when my teacher would tell me to put my hands down because I’d already talked, and I’d have to sit on my hands to fight my own impulses.
But then a funny thing happened. While practice doesn’t make perfect (at least so far), it certainly makes things better. When I learn to wait my turn and listen to my partner (or at least make it a goal to do so) before offering my own point of view, the dynamic changes in a way that allows us to get to the deeper issues behind the argument. If the underlying argument is about not feeling heard or noticed, defending the reason I thought the adapter was an extension cord is a waste of time and energy. It doesn’t help reach the feelings lurking just beneath the surface.
And because these dialogues always follow the same structure and the receiver always has to explain to the sender why what they are saying makes sense, it has helped me to understand my partner’s point of view. I had an aha moment during one of our sessions when our therapist casually said of both of our perspectives, “What you are both saying makes sense because we all make sense.”
This certainly shouldn’t have been the first time I considered that maybe all of my partner’s feelings and views, even those I disagree with, make sense based on his or her own internal logic, history, and values. But humans are weird creatures, quicker to defend their own views than to try to understand those of others. Of course, what she says is true, we all make sense in our own context. Learning to shift focus from my context to my partner’s and live in it for a while before returning to my own was the most useful thing I learned from this exercise.
