sunday life: in which i learn how to fix a relationship breakdown
This week I play relationship games
I’ve just found a word to describe one of the most spleen-tearing, devastatingly destructive relationship scenarios a soul can ever face. If you’re old enough to read this, you’ve no doubt been there. You’ve stood opposite someone you love, mired in a fight (about wet towels on the floor?) that’s lasted all night.
It’s Sunday afternoon and you haven’t slept or left the house and you’ve forgotten what you’re fighting about. Both of you so desperately want the other to give in, but neither can move, paralysed by a need to see a sign of love from the other. If you compromise first you feel you lose. If you don’t, you sink deeper into the stalemate.
You’re in anguish, screaming through tears. You’re due at the neighbours for dinner. But there you are, staring at each other across the boggy, battle-scared Flanders Fields of your disconnect. And you couldn’t be further from peace.
Oh, I’ve been there. And I hope I’m never drafted to another war like it again.
Anyway, the word, from the Yaghan language is mamihlapinatapai, which translates as, “looking at each other hoping the other will offer to do something that both parties desire to have done but are unwilling to do themselves”. Ha! Perfect! The Guinness Book of Records lists it as the most succinct word in any language, and it’s regarded as one of the hardest to translate. Go figure.
I learned this week that this particular relationship scenario is of some interest to game theorists, mathematicians dedicated to solving sticky human quandaries with tactics used in everyday games like cards and chess. Game theory seems to have had a spike in popularity lately, possibly due to it being 60 years since John Nash, as immortalized in the film A Beautiful Mind, devised his Noble Prize-winning theory the Nash Equilibrium (a point in a relationship from which neither party can escape independently without landing in a worse situation). And so it was that I shared a peppermint tea with Australian-born game theory writer Len Fisher, author of Rock, Paper, Scissors, who explained to me strategies for negotiating through the grimmest of relationship stalemates. So I’m never drafted again.
Fisher, a delightfully exuberant physicist known for calculating the best way to dunk a biscuit explains that most breakdowns are a result of a lack of communication. Not in the psychobabble sense. But literally. A lot of relationship stalemates are described, aptly, by game theorists as examples of The Prisoner’s Dilemma. The gist of which: two partners in crime are being interrogated in separate cells. They’d agreed prior to plead not guilty; doing so gets them off on a lesser charge and two years in jail. But they’re told separately that if they rat on their partner, they’ll go free; their partner will get 10 years. If they both rat, they get four years each. The dilemma they each face is that if they don’t rat, and trust their partner and their pact, they’re vulnerable (to ten years behind bars). Which takes a lot of faith. And sacrifice. Of course, if they could communicate, they’d be fine. The challenge, says Fisher, is to always find a way to communicate. To reinstall equilibrium.
Love is the same – it’s about sacrificing self-interest and having faith the other will do the same for the sake of the third party, the partnership. The problem is, so many of us these days have been burnt by doing so in the past, unlike in our grandparent’s day when they entered the pact naively – younger, with less battle scars. So throwing our hearts into the unknown and prioritising cooperation is riskier now. But, says Fisher, if we can find a way to communicate – to step outside the cell walls – then we can reinstate the pact safely and not get fooled by the prosecutors’ tricks.
But what if we’re communicating, but not getting anywhere? Fisher says game theory proves the best solution – wait for it – is to go first and leap anyway. Astonishing! But why does this work? Because, to use game-speak, it demonstrates credible commitment, which instills trust, which eventually reinstalls equilibrium.
I’m reminded of a radio interview I heard a while back with some oldies where the wife said the secret to their 60-year marriage was that she always let her husband win arguments. The point was, her husband said he always let her win.
The question I have…how many of you are good at going first…caving in…softening….putting the relationship before your ego? Me, I’m not so good!
Hi Sarah,
Wow, this was amazing timing for me. This is exactly what i’m going through right now.
I’m 31 years old, and have had 5 long term relationships, and as each one progressed and fell apart, I became less faithful and trusting, and now I have to actively stop myself from looking for evidence that i shouldn’t be trusting my current partner.
Very destructive… what’s the old saying? A self-fulfilling prophecy?
I’m working on this pattern as we speak. I have just come back from a two day deep meditation course, and I fully intend to keep meditating regularly in order to pull my mind out of the past, or from a fantasy based feared future, and start living in the now, and in the relationship for what it truly is… something worth taking a leap of faith on.
Thank you for this blog. Whilst these are things we need to work on within ourselves, it is still very comforting to know I am not alone in these fear-based issues.
xx
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I have felt that moment, absolutely – the looking at one another desperately needing a sign of love. And I think I’m quite good at caving, at softening and I can keenly remember the release that comes (for both people) as soon as I’ve done it. It’s like masks have been lifted and we remember we are people who know each other very well and hold the other’s heart in our heart. Suddenly it doesn’t feel risky to trust them anymore?
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“needing a sign of love”…we all respond and soften to this, don’t we! Nice comment Hannah. Thank you
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wow, i thought it was just my relationship that this happened to? ha! Love how your posts reveal the universal happenings —- what goes on behind closed doors is pretty similar and our needs are all the same.
Must admit I have become jiggy with bowing down and showing signs of love first, usually can put ego to the side for the good of the third party.
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My partner and I both think that we are “always” the one giving in… funny, isn’t it? Perhaps because it is so painful to admit defeat, but accepting somebody else’s admission is completely unmemorable.
Nevertheless, I think that both parties knowing when to put ego aside and just cave in, so to say, is one of the secrets to a peaceful, balanced relationship. And I find that once I let go, I realise that whatever I was holding onto really doesn’t matter, when the alternative is love.
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What a fantastic post – fascinating. Game theory itself is fascinating but I had never really thought of it in terms of human relationships as such.
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I think that I’m the one that most often always caves in when my partner and i have arguments as he is a damn good at arguing! The problem is though, is that I think its slowly chipping away at my self worth and I dont feel as strong as I once did. I’m not sure how the wife in the 60 year strong relationship has managed to always let her husband win in arguments without it chipping away at her but good on her!
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[...] Sarah Wilson, Sunday Life: In Which I Learn How to Fix a Relationship Breakdown [...]
A great article Sarah!!
I’ve studied game theory and enjoy its many applications in life (and am a fan of John Nash), with one of those applications aptly described above. My partner often pulls me up for doing things tit-for-tat not realising that it is a credible strategy when understanding what the best action may be given an associated payoff. Another strategy is what is known as the Grim Reaper – when no one gives in.
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Lovely. Thank you.
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What a great read, not just the article but all the comments that followed. It’s great that you have opened up the honest communication channels here Sarah by being the one to go first. Ironic isn’t it
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Thankyou Sarah, I really enjoy your posts about relationships (and their challenges). I unfortunately need to admit I too am not so good at caving in,softening, putting the relationship before ego…possbily because it clashes with the strong, independent woman persona I cling too! I am 30 and I can relate a lot to what Rosie was written, thanks for sharing x
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I feel I was raised in a family situation where to say sorry was to admit embarassing defeat. I’m now trying to re-work my thought process as that was/is such a toxic frame of mind.
My partner and I often don’t reach a point where we ‘cave’ into the other’s viewpoint. Instead we acknowledge the feelings a topic or situation has stirred and try to feel genuine empathy toward each other as we have both felt that same *emotion* at some point before, just not necessarily *about* the same things.
‘Caving’ however, only feels that way for a moment. You soon feel much more like you’ve ‘won’ for being the one to put the relationship back on the path of recovery sooner than later. When my partner gives in to me, I can’t help but quietly admire him for having the strength to allow us to move on.
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I just dug a bit deeper on Psychology Today. Great article!
Thank you for sharing.
Many times it is all about communication and being the first one to extend the “olive branch”.
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What is really, really hard is when equilibrium is not reinstated when you give and you give and you communicate and communicate. What is even more hard? When you have done this for a year and still you are waiting.
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The crux of your writing whilst appearing reasonable in the beginning, did not really settle very well with me personally after some time. Someplace throughout the sentences you actually managed to make me a believer but just for a short while. I nevertheless have a problem with your leaps in logic and you might do well to help fill in all those gaps. If you actually can accomplish that, I could definitely be impressed.
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