Therapy in Austin TXHow Do I Know if My Partner is Really My Best- Alex Barnette

We can all be a little too quick to judge ourselves and others when something isn’t working the way we want it to. The belief that we’re all doing the best that we can is a helpful reminder that we are all human and trying our hardest. We especially need this reminder when we find ourselves getting highly critical or impatient with change. The reality is none of us have it all figured out, and we all have a lot to learn. Relationships suffer when we get on our high horse! This mantra can be very helpful in treating yourself and others with compassion. 

Try practicing for a minute. Close your eyes and try to recall the last time you felt very judgmental. See if you can picture what was happening, and the people involved. You might picture yourself, a coworker, a distant friend that always posts ignorant statuses on Facebook, or your partner. Narrow the scene down to one person and notice how you feel as you focus on this person. Then hold the image of this person in your mind and repeat the phrase “we’re all doing the best we can” a few times. Remind yourself that you can hold someone accountable for their actions at the same time as you practice compassion. Did you notice any shift?

When you say “we’re all doing the best that we can” what does that mean for you in the context of your practice?

As a therapist, operating from the belief that we’re all doing the best we can means that when I see a client stuck, I truly believe the solution isn’t as simple as it might seem. Instead of getting impatient and critical, I make an effort to get curious and compassionate.

In a relationship there are two sides of this:

1. I am doing the best I can
2. You are doing the best you can

A belief in both requires a certain level of trust and appropriate boundaries. One sign of a healthy relationship is the ability to mutually accept influence. Your partner can see things you can’t, and this can be very helpful in keeping both of you accountable. Your partner might be the first one to notice when you are falling behind. For example, your partner will notice when you’ve stopped making the bed, picking up the dishes, exercising regularly, etc.

Just like in therapy, with the right amount of influence, you and your partner are a collaborative team. With too much influence, your partner becomes the parent and inevitably the expert and scapegoat. What I mean is if you stop answering to yourself and only answer to your partner or someone else in your life to tell you what you are capable of, you start to lose agency. When this happens, couples start to adopt a parent-child or rescuer-victim dynamic instead of operating as two equal partners.

Your partner (or coworker, parent, sibling, etc.) is not responsible for you doing the best that you can or defining what that looks like for you. You are! The opposite is also true. You are not responsible for any other adult’s actions or inactions. It’s not up to you how hard your partner works. To act as if this is your decision shows a lack of respect and trust in his or her abilities.

If you’re thinking, “but my partner really isn’t doing the best he can, he doesn’t even seem to care”. You might be right, so let’s talk about that instead. What’s going on that something so important to you is seemingly irrelevant to your partner? In situations where one partner doesn’t hold him or herself accountable and doesn’t accept influence, it becomes important to know your bottom line. Glennon Doyle (most known for her memoir Love Warrior) says if you have to choose between your soul and your marriage, save your soul. However, before you throw the towel in, you might consider going to therapy. Therapy is a great place to define boundaries, create clarity, and help couples work through impasses.

Ok so it’s my job to hold myself accountable. What should I do if thinking about my “best” gives me anxiety?

Lean in! Anxiety is a message and it’s not always the one we think. When we feel anxious, the story we tell ourselves is usually some version of “I can’t handle this”. You can, and you are. Anxiety mostly stems from the anticipation that something bad will happen. Fear makes us come alive and act but anxiety keeps us alert and consequently keeps us stuck if misinterpreted. If you can lean into that anxiety instead of looking for a distraction or numbing yourself to it, you will understand more about what the anxiety is trying to tell you.

Anxiety tends to be a catch-all term. I encourage clients to get more specific–are you nervous? Excited? Scared? Eager? Alert? Restless? Apprehensive? Worried? Stressed? Defensive? All of these feelings can carry a different meaning.

Clients also find relief in knowing anxiety doesn’t have to be something you solve, it can be something you manage. In therapy, I often tell clients (especially couples) “If you do nothing else for this session, just manage your discomfort as we sort through this”. A lot of times, the anxiety created by doing your best is a fear of failure or rejection. Doing your best takes courage. You are taking a risk and allowing yourself to care. This can be very vulnerable, but the discomfort that arises is necessary for growth.

Do we have to choose improvement or personal growth? It sounds uncomfortable? What is the alternative? Stagnation? Decline?

My belief is that we live in a dynamic and constantly evolving world which means we can’t stay stagnant even if we wanted to. In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years Donald Miller references his friend’s thesis paper on the physical maturation of the human body, aimed at understanding if our physical bodies say anything about our philosophical reality. To research this, Marcos (an art student at Reed College in Portland) carefully weighed each of his limbs, inspected his hands under a microscope, and photographed himself with different styles of facial hair every day for a year. I think this experiment stuck with me because it seems so simple and–mostly–odd but also because it makes what I am suggesting concrete.

What Marcos discovered was:

Our bodies were designed to change, and it isn’t possible to be stagnant. He showed [Miller] a slide of himself at the beginning of the year and of the new lines on his face that had deepened since. He said our interaction with each other, with the outside world, and with intangible elements such as time made us different every season. His conclusion was that the human body displayed physical evidence that we are not the same person we were when we were kids or even a season before. He said we think we are the same person, but we aren’t. People get stuck, thinking, they are one kind of person, but they aren’t. The human body essentially recreates itself every six months*. Nearly every cell of hair and skin and bone dies and another is directed to its former place.

There is some debate on how long this takes (I’ve always heard 7 years), but the point remains the same. If this is on the individual level, think about the movement on a systemic level! I’m always a little fascinated that weeks/months can feel the same and that ruts exist (and trust me, I know they do) when so much is different every day. Again, we can’t keep ourselves or our environment exactly the same (stagnant) even if we wanted to!

The hard part is being able to recognize the difference between growth and decline. They can feel very similar and equally uncomfortable. Every growth spurt or transition I’ve gone through has been equal parts invigorating and exhausting. Change is almost always uncomfortable, but as this experiment explains, we are built to grow and evolve. Sometimes a temporary decline is a part of growth and sometimes what feels like a decline is actually growth. You get to decide how you label your experience, and therapy is a great place to explore this.

What can therapy offer me that will help me keep reinventing what my best looks like?

Without a gage for what it looks like when you’re doing your best, you might find yourself caught in a cycle of self-criticism. You might also find that you are overly critical of those around you.

Therapy humanizes and often normalizes what you are going through and gives words you do not have to describe the story you are living. You are not the patient, not the martyr, and not the victim (anymore). You are human. You are capable, and you are doing the best you can with what you know. You might need additional tools and guidance, and it is ok to ask for that.

Feel free to learn more about the variety of therapy I offer at the links below or contact me directly with any questions:

• Individual Counseling
• Couples Counseling
• Divorce Counseling