We Were Holding Different Maps

Kamil and I discovered something about ourselves recently that explained more arguments than I would like to admit.

Sometimes he thinks he has told me something that he hasn't actually said out loud.

I don't mean that he deliberately withholds information. In his mind, the conversation happened. He thought through the plan, considered the details, decided what made sense, and somewhere in that process, the thought became so complete that it felt communicated.

Meanwhile, I am standing somewhere else entirely, trying to figure out what is happening with whatever information I actually have. So I do what I have always done. I assess the situation, make the best decision I can, and keep moving.

Eventually our paths meet again. From my perspective, I've solved a problem. From his perspective, I've changed the plan.

For a long time, we didn't realize there was a missing step between those two experiences. I would become frustrated because I felt as though I were being criticized for failing to follow instructions I had never received. He would become frustrated because something he thought had already been decided was suddenly happening differently.

We could spend an impressive amount of time arguing about what happened next without ever realizing that the disagreement had started much earlier.

We were holding different maps.

I've been thinking about how often this happens between people who know each other well. After enough years together, we accumulate an enormous amount of information about another person. We know their habits and preferences. We recognize certain expressions. We can predict what they will order at a restaurant and which stories they will tell when particular subjects come up.

That familiarity is one of the beautiful parts of loving someone for a long time. It can also make us very confident interpreters.

We stop only observing what happened and begin deciding what it meant. A look becomes irritation. A forgotten detail becomes evidence that something wasn't important. A change in plans becomes disregard. A decision made independently becomes an attempt to take control.

Sometimes our interpretation is right. We have years of experience, after all. Sometimes we're filling in missing information with an old story.

I have started noticing how quickly that happens in me. When I don't understand something, my mind wants to make it understandable. It reaches for context, previous experiences, patterns I've seen before, and whatever information is available. Within seconds, I can create a perfectly coherent explanation for why something happened.

The problem is that coherence isn't the same thing as truth.

Kamil is doing his own version of this too. In the pattern we've started recognizing, he is operating from the memory of a conversation he believes we had. I'm operating from the reality that I never heard it. By the time we realize there was information missing, both of us may already have assigned meaning to what the other person did.

Neither of us began with bad intentions. We simply weren't navigating from the same map.

That realization has made me curious about something larger in our marriage. How many times have I responded not only to what Kamil did, but to what I decided his actions meant? And how many times has he done the same with me?

After years together, there are plenty of old stories available to both of us. We know each other's tender places. We remember arguments the other person has forgotten. We recognize patterns we've worked hard to change and the ones we're still working on.

The danger, I think, is when familiarity becomes certainty.

Sometimes the person standing in front of us is doing something familiar. Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes we are responding to what happened today, and sometimes today's moment has wandered into a story that has been accumulating for years.

I'm beginning to think one of the ways a long relationship stays alive is by allowing our understanding of each other to remain unfinished.

I can know Kamil deeply and still misunderstand him. He can know me deeply and still get my intention completely wrong. We can recognize a pattern without assuming every moment belongs to it.

There is something freeing about leaving a little room for surprise.

I'm not especially good at this yet. There are still moments when I know exactly what happened and why, right up until I discover that I don't. But lately, when something doesn't make sense between us, I've been trying to remember the map.

What information am I holding? What information might he be holding? What am I assuming happened in the space between them?

Sometimes the answer is surprisingly simple. Something was never said out loud. Other times, the distance between our experiences is harder to understand.

Either way, loving someone doesn't give me perfect access to their interior world. Years together don't eliminate the distance between two human beings. Maybe intimacy isn't knowing exactly what the other person means all the time. Maybe part of intimacy is remaining interested enough to ask.

There will be more moments when Kamil and I find ourselves standing in different places wondering how the other person got there.

I'm hoping we get a little better at checking the map before deciding we already know.

A Gentle Invitation

As you move through the week ahead, I wonder...

Where might you be so certain about what someone meant that you've stopped being curious about what they actually experienced?