Hide n' Go Seek: What Happen's When Couples Play Hide Only...

Imagine for a moment that you are talking to your spouse or partner.

And while you’re doing that, I want you to imagine that the essence of your communication (not the words), is an almost imperceptible beam of light. 

You know like the spectrum of colors you see when sunlight passes through a prism. 

Got that?

It would look something like this:

You  ------------------------------------ Them

This -----> --------------------------    is the beam.

Now, let’s suppose this line of communication is also composed of the truth of things. You know, if you were having a conversation over dinner and just talking. 

The communication would flow freely. 

And then while in this conversation your partner asks about your trip to the mall or sporting goods store or whatever and asked, “Did you find what you were looking for?” 

When your partner asks you this question your mind instantly goes to the exact moment you were signing the receipt for you new purse or golf club, and you felt you went overboard financially. 

You cringed because you felt you overspent and immediately thought:

“Probably best I don’t tell Mike.”

You’ve had a cringe moment, yes?

So, for a billionth of a second while you ponder your reply to your husband Mike, that beam of light between the two of you shortens just a tad.  

You pull back or withhold relating that teeny tiny moment at the cashier. 

You -------------------------------       Them.

See?

You pull back or shorten that communication line.

So, now this free-flowing communication line is momentarily interrupted. 

And it’s almost imperceptible. 

When you signed the receipt, you were in your head thinking, “Mike might go ballistic if he knew.” 

Best you not say and just live and let live, right?

Ummmmm...that’s not exactly the Final Jeopardy answer. 

Back to the ranch…

Now here’s the thing many couples miss.

They’re each withholding or carrying around this idea about how expensive the purse was or the golf club was.

They’re carrying around this last tiny bit of communication because...well... 

...because each person thinks it might be dangerous to say. 

We are funny creatures we are. 

Sometimes you can feel so guilty about the purchase that you don’t use the purse or the golf club for some time. 

But see it isn’t what you did at the store. 

Sure, you overspent. Okay. 

But when you are asked about your afternoon excursion and you withheld it or didn’t say, your communication line shortens just a tad with your partner, see?

You ----------------------------        Them.

And you know this too because sometimes you will perceive this tiny tremor in the force when you ask them, right?

You actually perceive this shortening or not completely communicated idea from your partner.

It’s like your Spidey-sense picks up what was not said.

Exactly. 

If you’re on your game you perceive this tiny hiccup in their reply back. It is infinitesimally small, but it’s there. 

So, Mike asks Linda this question and it goes like this:

Mike: “You get what you were looking for on your trip to the mall babe?”

Mike -----------------------> Linda

And when Linda looks at her “signing the receipt” moment, she pulls back just a tad.

Mike                ------------------- Linda

And in that tiny space above she nervously holds back:

“...yes, and OMG the purse was $759.00.”

And here’s the thing.

There’s no law you have to say everything. 

It’s the fact that YOU withheld this like you were hiding something.

And the fact is you were!

See?

By you withholding this tiny part you in truth create a tiny vacuum.

You know, like when you’re at home and you walk down the hallway towards the living room to ask your husband a question. 

He’s watching sports on TV and as you walk into the living room, he quickly closes his laptop like you just caught him with his hands in the cookie jar. 

He looks up at you like nothing just happen and says, 

“Hey babe, what’s up?” 

That moment right there is the shortening of the communication line and thus creating a vacuum. 

Linda may or may not take that “laptop” moment up. 

But Mike has just created one of these. 

Mike ——————           Linda 

See?

Sometimes you don’t always say all so there’s this tiny space that feels like the need for your partner to ask further. 

Okay, so in the dinner conversation you smile and laugh about finding a great purse or new golf club and it’s “all good.” 

And really, to be fair, it’s not the end of the world.

But...when you KNOW you have overspent and it’s collided with the mores or agreements of your relationship, it sets you up for leaving that part out of the story of your day. 

If you bought a $759.00 Gucci purse and told your girlfriend it wouldn’t necessarily register on the Richter Scale. 

There’s no overspent clause with your co-worker Meg.

Now, if Meg asks you “What did your husband say?” you will feel that instantaneous feeling you had at the cashier and reply, “I didn’t tell him.”

Meg on her end is thinking,

 “Wooooooooeeeee!” 

Right?

Now let’s flip the script and Linda asks Mike about his trip to the sporting goods store.

“Just curious honey, how much was your new golf club?” 

Linda  -------------------------> Mike

Mike now has to tell the truth or if he feels Linda will blow a gasket, he might fudge a bit. 

And just for example purposes, let’s say Mike fudges. 

Mike: “Geez. Let’s see...I bought some golf balls too and a glove. It was a few hundred bucks.” 

Linda nods and lets the “few hundred bucks” slide. 

The “few hundred bucks” was $867.00 smackaroos. 

Fudging still shortens the comm line. 

Linda            ----------------------- Mike

And see Mike knows this too. 

We all have fudged thinking that a fudged communication would work. 

It’s pure daffiness. 

We’re all a daffy lot we are. 

Freeze Frame: 

So now, what has happened to this free flowing “Wasn’t that an awesome movie we watched last night?” dinner conversation?

It now looks like this:

You       ---------------------        Them.

Hmmmmm.

There is now this space between you and them. 

And the communication line got shorter.

Now, let’s have Mike and Linda live a lot more life and move down the road a year or so. 

And then every so often there’s another one of these tiny infractions, transgressions, secrets or what have you.

Eventually this communication line or beam of light will almost not exist.

You             ---              Them.

See?

Because look, when you do something in concert or together with your partner, your efforts and energies are a product of two. 

If you are single you can sit and home and get drunk and that’s that. 

If you are in a relationship and you stop for a drink on the way home and seriously flirt with the bartender, that’s a whole different gig.

In truth when there is a continuous withholding of communication or things you’d rather not say, the communication line disappears.

You would then have no space between you.

It would look like this:

YouThem

Ever hear this expression, “We were butting heads?”

Yes, you will “butt heads” because there is no more space between You and Them. 

There is no communication line.

What’s left is now no space.

What do you think happens when you’re in a heated argument and one or both of you need to get some space?

Now, for the sake of communicating this so you can visualize this better, let’s substitute the idea of a plastic straw in place of the beam of light. 

You with me?

If you shortened a plastic straw down to as small as you could, you know you just crushed it, you would have this small tiny mass that looked like someone stomped on a straw. 

Get the picture?

And if your communication with your partner over a period of time were these moments where your “straw” was scrunched up into a mass because you withheld your comm, then what’s in that space is all that scrunched up mass.

And when the collection of these tiny little masses of undelivered communication exceeds the space it occupies, it...ummm..well it explodes. 

Like cramming everything in your coat closet and it comes falling down on top of your head.

Like in, “butting heads.” 

So, when couples get down the road a bit and they seem to be butting heads a bit more, then I know that this has happened:

You          -----------         Them 

YouThem

And the crazy thing is that when there is no space between you and your partner that beam of light or communication line goes out. 

So of course, then Mike has a lot of scrunched up black “beams” or masses, about Linda. 

And Linda has a whole lotta packed up black beams about Mike.

Now you may think this is Sci-Fi or whatever, but I assure you that it is not. 

The language to describe this is difficult because these things that happen between you and another are mostly invisible. 

But you often feel them like someone hit you with a hammer. 

Tell me you’ve never felt an "anger beam" or some kind of “mean vibe” from your partner?

“Mike just glared at me. Swear to god I felt like he wanted to reach over and choke me.”

“I thought Linda wanted to literally scratch my eyes out.”

However, you want to describe it, it is junior to the fact that you felt it. 

And why in the hell is your relationship in a place where there is little or no space between you, you're butting heads, and feeling the Wrath of Khan?

You, Communication & Responsibility

Let’s roll the video tape back on Mike and Linda.

Let’s split the screen so you see Mike shopping for his golf club and Linda for her purse.

And we stop the video right at the moment they both have their respective “receipt moment.”

Got that? 

In other words, you freeze frame it right when both signed that receipt and imagine if they had one of those “idea bubbles” over their heads you would also see what they thought.

So, you are seeing Mike and Linda both have this moment and think the other will blow a gasket or whatever if they each tell all.

Now just look at that. 

Look at whatever you just imagined in your mind with Mike and Linda and this exact moment.

From that moment forward they are going to go more out of communication. 

See?

From that moment forward there’s a decision while driving home about what to say or not say. Maybe an imaginary conversation in their heads about how it will go. How to skirt around it like Mike did or not say at all like Linda.

Now seeing it like this, like an observer you might think, “Yes, this is completely crazy.” You might at the same time think to yourself, “Well, I can see why Mike would do what he did,” or “I can totally identify with Linda.”

If you can see this you will also see your own “receipt moments.”

And the reason why these tiny moments don’t cause too much commotion in the beginning is because they both have committed the same transgression against the other. 

A being tends to not want to see or confront in another what he or she has done themselves. 

They each disregard it as it doesn’t register on their Relationship Richter Scale. 

But these tiny vacuums have an eerie way of showing up in the physical universe. Mike forgets that he put his golf club purchase on his AMEX and Linda does QuickBooks for his business. 

Rut ro. 

Linda is doing the books and she comes across the $867.00 for the golf club and extras.

She now has a different kind of of receipt moment. 

She has a WTF moment? 

Linda’s idea of a “few hundred dollars” is not nearly the same as Mike’s and this AMEX entry is now registering in Linda’s world as a 6.0. 

Freeze Frame. 

So, now what happens at tonight’s dinner conversation when Mike comes home from work?

We are most likely going to observe this:

YouThem. 

And...oh...for sure there’s a sequel. 

Butting Heads II: Nine Inch Nails 

If you saw the craziness of how the original “receipt moment” morphed into the above, you will see that no matter how small or innocuous that first receipt moment was, when it’s withheld, it grows like a tumor. 

It’s about to blow up at Mike & Linda’s dinner conversation. 

And if you can confront “everyone has done this” sequence above and you are honest with yourself, you will most likely be able to recall your own past argument or blow up. 

Listen: The game we played as a kid is called Hide-and-Go-Seek.

It was not called Hide.

Whether it’s hiding from your sister when you were seven or hiding your shoe or golf receipts when you are 37... 

...seek is connected to hide. 

It will show up “mysteriously” in some Quick book ledger, Nordstrom receipt you “threw in the trash, or blue dress from a White House intern. 

Seek is a beast. 

She's got a spiritual umbilical cord attached to Hide. 

They’re like Siamese Twins. Once Hide goes and does his or her thing, Seek is right there attached at the hip. Even if Seek closes her eyes. 

Even if Seek “looks the other way.” 

Seek will open her eyes. 

Seek will find Hide. She will. 

And honestly it is this piece of nuttiness, this piece of craziness, that we think that the omitted or dropped out communication won’t register. That it won’t show up somewhere. 

Listen: Seek is everything you and I grew up with about telling the truth. 

We grew up with: “This is the moment of truth.”

Mike and Linda and everyone on this planet have had our “receipt moments.”

They are a moment of truth. 

How you manage your moments with your partner will predict the intimacy, longevity, and sustainability of your relationship. 

Because what happens at dinner tonight with Mike and Linda was a match that was lit weeks earlier when their own personal integrity defined their moment of truth. 

And the dinner conversation?

I’ve witnessed them first hand with my clients. 

They both morph into finger pointing high schoolers when it’s their own fingerprint that lit the match. 

The Way Out: The Willingness to Assume Responsibility 

Responsibility begins first with one’s willingness.

See, if you leave something out of your communication that you know you’re trying to hide, then you are responsible for that. Pretty simple.

Lots of things are left unsaid and life goes on that’s pretty simple too.

But where life gets complicated? It is where there is a QuickBooks entry or a receipt found in the bedroom trash that then becomes a new match that ignites tempers.

You have now left the land of simple. 

Throw a match on a barbecue and watch all those coals ignite. 

Now try to un-light all those coals with the same amount of effort as striking that match. 

You cannot do it. 

What took literally seconds for both Mike and Linda to do at the cashier has now spun a web that unless they own up to it, gets stickier and stickier. 

But there is a way out. 

It starts first with your willingness to assume responsibility.

Just that.

Are you willing to take responsibility for that moment?

See, Mike and Linda both knew at their “receipt moment” what they were doing. They were at full responsibility every step of the way.

They were willing to spend the money and then were willing to withhold that too. 

As a kid you knowingly put that pilfered chocolate-chip cookie into your pocket and when your Mother asked you what was in your pocket you willingly said “Nothing.”

Until she asked you to show her your hands.

Rut ro.

That’s that eerie part. 

I told you.

Seek is a beast. 

And honestly? Seek is your best friend.

She’s that part of you that wants you to seek to live with the truth.

Unfortunately, this is where many couples fall down. 

I mean look at this: 

What do you think couples in counseling are confronting? 

The things not said or withheld or hidden. 

The reason why many couples continue to argue or things get worse no matter how much they say, “We’ve talked about it till we’re blue in the face” is because they’re always talking about the wrong thing. 

Always. 

That’s where I come in. 

I get individuals and couples to talk about the very things they have have so cleverly omitted. 

Because until one decides to let Seek play nice with Hide, one or both of you will try to outsmart or try to be more clever than Seek.

And you will think you can outsmart her. 

Nah.

Seek is a beast.

She already Knows.

She will show up at dinner tonight with Mike and Linda.

And if you’re willing to take responsibility for lighting that match then you will come out fine.

And if you’re not?

Trust me. 

Seek is attached at the hip. 

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