Notes in Between

  In relationship conflict, we often focus on trying to change the other person's emotional state. But caring about how your partner feels is different from taking responsibility for making them feel better. Sometimes the healthier response is to take responsibility for your part, ask what your partner needs, and learn to tolerate what you cannot control.  There is a strange contradiction in many relationship conflicts: we can spend enormous amounts of energy trying to control something that is not ours to control, while neglecting the things that are. A partner is upset with us, and our attention turns toward their emotional state. We want them to calm down. We want them to understand what we meant. We want them to stop being disappointed, angry, anxious, or hurt. We search for the right explanation, the right words. We try to get the situation back to a place where everyone feels okay. Sometimes this is caring. But sometimes we are trying to manage another person's feelings ...

  We see home as somewhere we belong. But as we grow up, move between places, relationships, and identities, belonging becomes something we have to participate in creating, both within ourselves and with other people. We tend to think of belonging as something that exists outside of us. We belong to a family, a country, a community, a group of friends. We belong somewhere because there are people who know us, a place where we are expected, a language we speak without thinking, a table where someone would make room for us. And when those things disappear, belonging can disappear with them. For example, moving to another country can be very unsettling. It is not only that the streets are unfamiliar or that you have to make new friends. You may suddenly lose all the small things that used to tell you, without you having to think about it, this is where I belong . You have to work out where you fit, who you are in this new environment, and what parts of your old life you want to keep. ...