The first part of this post described how we make movies in our heads starring the people we love and how our movie scenes are destined to become more negative over time, irrespective of actual behavior. This post describes how our internal movies control the way we regard loved ones and the way they regard us.
Guy Flicks
If the role he writes for his partner in his internal movies is sympathetic and supportive, he will expose his deepest vulnerabilities to her, which he must do if he wants more intimacy. He will understand if she is too busy or distracted to be focused on sympathy whenever he seeks it. If he casts her as accepting, he will overlook occasional rejections in the rush of daily routine. He will sense opportunities for closeness and benefit from them.
If he writes her role as moody, controlling, or rejecting, he is likely to be emotionally withholding, disengaging, and focused on his own preferences, desires, and emotional states.
Chick Flicks
If she casts him as a friendly, caring, generous, successful, and creative, she will believe in him and focus on building their future. She will be less judgmental about the momentary lapses of a creative person who tends to live in his head. She will complement his "big picture" mentality with her natural strength - attention to detail. If she sees him as desiring closeness, she will feel flattered and strive to be more open to his gestures of affection and more sympathetic to his self-disclosures.
If she casts him as self-centered, she will be less likely to confide in him and apt to manipulate him, due to her low expectation of fair or caring responses from him. If she casts him as self-pitying, she will not accept his offers of love.
Always in Character
The negatively-biased illusion of certainty in our internal movies is bound to grow stronger, due to a largely unconscious process of character identification.
Social contagion is a powerful force by which attitudes, emotions, and behavioral impulses are imparted subliminally. In social interactions, for instance, we tend to identify with the characterizations that other people make of us. If someone thinks you are critical, you are likely to find something to criticize about that person. If you live with someone who believes you are lazy, you won't be terribly motivated to mow the lawn.
So it is unsurprising that, in response to her husband's internal movie, the woman described above has become more controlling, unreasonable, and angry and that, in response to her internal movie, he has become more selfish, passive-aggressive, irresponsible, etc. Like good actors with strong directors, they each play the role the other has created. Their solutions are reduced to:
"I'll stop being irritable when you stop being selfish."
"I'll stop being selfish when you stop being irritable."
Action won't Change before Characterization
As long as their negative characterizations of each other persist, couples have little hope of improving their relationships. If they go along with the other's requests for behavior change, they will view it as merely placating an unfair partner to move the plot of the movie along. I have never seen a case where changes in behavior alone changed the negative internal movies that govern the couple's interactions.
In the next post, we'll explore how to edit the movies in your head for more benign, realistic, and compassionate characterizations.
