Your Ex Just Might Be Right
24
"What do I do that most annoys you?"
I wanted to bolt before my mom could answer my question.
While I waited for her answer, I forgot why I even had asked. I had listened to an interview with organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich, who has studied self-awareness. One way to increase your self-awareness is to host what Eurich calls a "dinner of truth." Invite a trusted loved one out for food and ask him or her what I asked my mom.
And, oh, it is terrifying.
My eyes were probably closed, my heart probably pounding while I waited to find out what I do that bothers people.
"You can be mean," my mom said.
My heart sank.
Her feedback surprised me. I expected "you eat too much of my food" or "you text me too late at night." Her feedback also didn't surprise me, because I know quite well how mean I can be. But by asking the question, I learned how it affected her and I had a chance to work on it.
As uncomfortable as it is to ask for feedback, I think there's another kind of feedback that's as uncomfortable, if not worse—feedback you didn't solicit.
We get it all the time, in public, at work, in relationships. And most of us respond to it defensively.
Another driver honks at you and you honk back. Or the boss says you dropped the ball and you rebut with an excuse. Your significant other tells you why your relationship should end and you don't want that, so you respond by saying, "You're wrong!"
And you know what? Sometimes, the people who offer feedback when we haven't asked for it are wrong. A lot of them are only trying to recruit us. They need to see other people do what they've done so they can feel good about their choices. That's the friend who has moved in with each of his girlfriends who says you're unwise for not moving in with yours.
Others act like they want to protect you but what they really want is for you to protect them—from the discomfort they feel when they witness people doing something they wouldn't. This is the mother who'd never meet someone online, who says her daughter is foolish for planning a date with a man she met on CatholicMatch.
But sometimes, the people who offer feedback when we haven't asked for it are right.
And your ex-significant other just might be one of them.
We've probably all gotten useless feedback from people we've dated, like from the dude who called me childish for practicing chastity or the Protestant guy who said I shouldn't be Catholic. But some of the feedback we get from the people we date is useful. And often, we can tell how useful it is by whether it comes from multiple people.
When one of his exes says he is too impulsive but none of the other women he's dated thinks so, that one woman's feedback might be a fluke. But if every woman he's dated says he's too impulsive, it would be worthwhile for him to consider this: Maybe it's true.
There are lots of reasons feedback might be unreliable from one person who tells you you're too controlling, or that your hobbies get more access to you than your loved ones do, or that you're a workaholic.
That person's expectations of you may be unreasonable. He might be recreating the dynamic he learned during his traumatic childhood. She might be projecting what she dislikes in herself onto you.
But if most of the people you've dated have described you a specific way, there is also a reason for that: They might be right. And in case no one else has yet, I am going to ask you: Are they?
Or is it a coincidence that every person you've dated has called you out for something you still swear you don't do?
We are free, of course, to deny that we are what others say we are.
But if everybody you've dated says "you are," now's a good time to admit that you might be.
Maybe you are emotionally distant. Or you do avoid conflict. Or you don't consider other people's preferences. And maybe it is doing damage in your dating relationships.
While you defensively could insist forever that it's false, you also could just discern whether it's true.
Pay attention for patterns, for problems that have popped up in all your relationships. Plan some dinners of truth with people you trust and see if their feedback aligns with what the people you've dated have said about you. Pray for the grace to see in yourself what you haven't seen yet, for your relationships to do what author Timothy Keller says they're designed in part to do: confront you with yourself.
And yeah, maybe you'll learn that all the people you've dated were wrong. Or maybe you won't. Maybe instead you'll learn that just because you weren't aware of something doesn't mean it wasn't true, that how real a thing is doesn't depend on whether you're paying attention to it.
And maybe you'll learn that what you contributed to the demise of your past relationships—whatever unhealthy habit or role—doesn't have to be true about you forever.
But if you never admit that it's true and it actually is, it's going to cost you more relationships. And worse—it'll be true about you for good.
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