Unspoken Agreements

It appears to me that many people, including myself, relate to others using unspoken agreements. By happenstance, my friend ends up caring for her husband who suffers from severe alcoholism. For thirty years, she continues to try to host nice social gatherings while attempting to stop his drinking. It never works. She’s mortified by his drunken behavior, mops up untold quantities of vomit and changes unending numbers of urine-soaked sheets on their bed.  Her devotion remains deep because she knows, at heart, he’s a kind, loving man, but she never planned on such intensive caretaking.

For decades I observed my mother acting as though she was subservient to her boyfriends and husbands, saying things like, “I’m terrible with organizing anything. X manages all our affairs.” In reality, she dominated everyone with her forceful personality. A silent contract seemed to dictate her and her partners’ complicity in these contradictory dynamics.

I’ve been swept up into relationships I considered equal and respectful. In each case, a few years down the road, I discovered that, on some unconscious level, I’d agreed to do most of the unpleasant jobs, such as house repairs, cleaning and shielding my mate from stressful situations.

I watched my friend and mother stay in complicated and confusing roles for decades. Through therapy and meditation, I gained awareness of the difficult corners I’d swept myself into. I wanted clarity and change. With two different partners, I tried to infuse respectful equality into our, heretofore, unspoken unequal agreements. I initiated what I thought were reasonable discussions. No matter how rationally I presented the relevant points, the partner wouldn’t agree to help with the house repairs, clean or to defend me at times from toxic people. Very disappointing. But I understood that they preferred our old habits.  However, when they became angry at me for rocking the boat, I left those situations.

I can report improvement in two recent partnerships. With each one, I’m careful to discuss what respect and equality mean to me from the start. They always agree. The next part is the hardest. When I volunteer to do too much, to take on a major home repair by myself or do extra cleaning or jump to my partner’s defense, I pause. Instead, I suggest task-sharing. If we can communicate with mutual positive regard, we keep talking. If not, this isn’t someone I want to be around. I’m a work in progress, slowly discovering my own self-respect. Hopefully, this foundation becomes the basis for positive and transparent relationships with fewer unspoken agreements.

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