Knowing and Not Knowing in Intimate Relationships 9781107421394, 9781107041325

Citation preview

more information - www.cambridge.org/9781107041325

KNOWI N G AN D N OT KN OW I N G I N I N T I M AT E R E L AT I O N S H I P S

In the extensive literature on couples and intimacy, little has been written about knowing and not knowing as people experience and understand them. Based on intensive interviews with 37 adults, this book shows that knowing and not knowing are central to couple relationships. They are entangled in love, sexual attraction, trust, commitment, caring, empathy, decision-making, conflict, and many other aspects of couple life. Often, the entanglement is paradoxical. For example, many interviewees revealed that they hungered to be known and yet kept secrets from their partner. Many described working hard at knowing their partner well, and yet there were also things about their partner and their partner’s past that they wanted not to know. This book’s qualitative, phenomenological approach builds on, and adds to the largely quantitative social psychological, communications and family field literature to offer a new and accessible insight into the experience of intimacy. p a u l c . r o s e n b l a t t is Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota. e l i z a b e t h wi e l i n g is Associate Professor in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota.

K N OW I N G A N D N OT K N OW I N G I N I N T I MAT E REL AT IONSH IP S PAUL C. RO SENBL AT T AND ELIZ ABETH W IELING

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107041325  c Paul C. Rosenblatt and Elizabeth Wieling 2013

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed in the United Kingdom by CPI Group Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Rosenblatt, Paul C. Knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships / Paul C. Rosenblatt and Elizabeth Wieling. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-107-04132-5 (hardback) 1. Intimacy (Psychology) 2. Interpersonal relations. 3. Couples – Psychology. I. Wieling, Elizabeth. II. Title. bf575.i5r646 2013 158.2 4 – dc23 2013013108 isbn 978-1-107-04132-5 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Acknowledgments 1

page viii

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy What are knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships? Why intimate knowing and not knowing are so important Knowing the other well does not guarantee an easy relationship Trust as foundation for knowing The cultural context of this work How we did the research

2 How couples build knowledge of one another Trying to know the other Getting to know one another at the start of the relationship Practical reasons for knowing and being known in ongoing couples Knowing and being known as intimacy Curiosity, being nosy, prying, snooping Wanting to be known Truth as a value Spending considerable time together Confrontation Being able to see behind the fac¸ade Feeling safe Good listening Getting to higher levels of knowing and being known Conclusion

3 How well do you know each other? about 90% Not much is held back The 10% that is not known Experts on each other Doubts and limits in knowing How do you know how well you know the other? Conclusion

v

1 2 6 9 9 12 14 29 29 30 39 42 43 46 48 50 51 52 53 54 55 57 58 58 59 61 63 67 73

vi

Contents

4

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction to something not yet revealed Concerns when the relationship is relatively new Concerns with partner knowing about one’s past relationships Concerns about money Concerns about the other’s reactions to one’s health issues Concerns about disagreeing Concerns about the other’s reactions to one’s failures Concerns about the other’s reaction to one’s emotional pain Concerns about hurting the partner’s feelings Concerns about the partner having contact with one’s family Concerns about causing family (not just couple) conflict Overcoming concerns about the partner knowing something Making sense of people’s concerns about disclosing to a partner

5 What people cannot or would rather not know There is too much to know Curiosity limits Inability to grasp partner realities Not always wanting to know the truth Information exchange when a relationship is not doing well Conclusion

6 Processes in being a judicious nondiscloser “Need to know” decision process Selectivity processes Following cultural rules about what to tell and not tell Summary

7 Discovery of lies and secrets Discovery processes After discovery of a big secret or lie, then what? Big lies and secrets that are not discovered may also have costs Good lies and secrets Is the truth as clear as it seems in many of the interviews?

8 Gender differences in intimate knowing Women conceptualizing men The intimacy dance Do women know men better than men know women or themselves? He’s okay Making sense of the apparent gender differences

9 Family of origin Openness versus closedness in family of origin

74 76 77 81 82 83 84 85 88 89 90 90 91 93 93 94 96 100 102 104 106 106 110 115 117 118 119 123 127 128 131 133 133 139 141 143 146 152 153

Contents But it’s not that simple Family of origin abuse may show up in the couple relationship Conclusion

10 Is it good to know and be known extremely well? Sometimes knowing and being known too well might be a problem Often knowing and being known well seems valuable Interviewees generally vote for knowing and being known well For people who want advice about their own intimate relationship

11 Phenomenology of knowing and not knowing, being known and not known What a phenomenological approach adds Essence of lived experience concerning knowing and not knowing Nature of knowing and not knowing, being known and not known Knowing, not knowing, and relationship quality A systems view of knowing and not knowing Knowing, not knowing, and relationship survival Knowing and not knowing are linked to other aspects of intimacy Knowing, not knowing, and culture

Appendix – Interview guide References Index

vii 156 158 160 161 161 165 170 171 173 173 173 176 179 179 181 183 183 185 189 196

Acknowledgments

During our work on this project many people provided stimulating anecdotes, theoretical perspectives, suggestions about related scholarly literature, interest, and encouragement. In fact there were so many people who did that that we hesitate to list those who we can remember, because we know there are others equally deserving of acknowledgment who we cannot remember. However, we do want to give a special thanks to Peter Rober for stimulating and helpful comments. We also want to thank four people who at the time were students and who volunteered to transcribe some of our interviews, Linda Freeman, Erica Kanewischer, Samantha Zaid, and Stacey Lillebo. Most of all we thank the 37 study participants who shared many of their most intimate thoughts and experiences with us.

viii

c h a p ter o n e

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

The topic of knowing and not knowing has been neglected in research on intimacy in couple relationships. Although the couples research literature is rich in material on attraction, love, sex, commitment, decision making, emotionality, and much else, there is little on knowing and not knowing. What do partners know and not know about one another? What does a person not want to know about a partner? What does a person not want a partner to know about her or him? What are their strategies for knowing and not knowing, being known and not known? What is done with the personal secrets, the matters that they would be ashamed for their partner to know, the past that could make the partner uncomfortable? In some scholarly definitions of intimate relationships, knowing is neglected. In others it is a tacit underlay to what is explicitly included. For example, if acceptance is included in a definition of intimacy, there might be an assumption that acceptance is based on things known about the other, or if mutual understanding is included in a definition of intimacy, there seems to be an assumption that mutual understanding cannot be achieved without the two partners knowing each other well in some regards (for example, Gable & Reis, 2001). Although “knowing” is far from universally included in scholarly definitions of intimate relationships, it is part of some (e.g., Berscheid & Regan, 2005, pp. 225–6; Brehm et al., 2002, p. 4; Chelune, Robison, & Kommor, 1984; Clark & Reis, 1988; Duck, 1994; Harvey & Omarzu, 1999, ch. 3; Harvey & Weber, 2002, p. 101; Hatfield, 1984; Prager, 1995, 1999; Sharabany, 1994; Simmel, 1950, pp. 126–7). We think of knowing in an intimate relationship as partly a matter of what goes on in each partner separately – the extent to which each of the partners is more or less curious, aware, invested in remembering, and able to remember with regard to the other and the extent to which each partner wants to disclose and be known. We also think of knowing in an intimate relationship as a property of the relationship, partly because knowing and being known (or not knowing and not being known) require a certain 1

2

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

amount of teamwork. Also, knowing and being known are couple matters because two partners together work out their patterns of interacting, their interaction priorities, their relationship rules, their accountability to each other about what to remember about what has been disclosed in the relationship, and their culture of being a couple. Imagine, for example, one couple who together have worked out an ongoing pattern of sharing a great deal of their inner life, their past, and their daily experience and another couple who only spends a few minutes each day interacting with each other and rarely talks about the past, their inner feelings, or their experiences of the day. Thus, what we focus on in this book is partly a matter of individual thought and experience but also a matter of what goes on between partners as they travel through life as a couple. But then knowing and being known can happen without couple coordination or even partner cooperation. That is, a partner can be known in important ways without wanting to be known, without intending to self disclose, or without even knowing that certain aspects of her or his self are available to be known and are known by the partner.

What are knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships? We think of intimate knowing as not a simple matter of seeking, giving, and acquiring concrete, unchanging facts, because there is not a fixed inner self or even, we think, a fixed past. Instead, people have inner selves and pasts that are different from situation to situation and are constantly being created and altered through interactions with others and through new experiences. That means that each partner, as knower and person to be known, often change what she or he makes of the past, what memories are accessible, what aspects of the past are put together with what other aspects of the past, what aspects of the past are worth paying attention to or are important to know, what contexts are salient when thinking about a certain aspect of the past, and what language they use to think about or talk about the past. An additional complication is that there is little time to be known or to know compared to the vast amount of what there is that could be known. A person may feel that her or his life or the partner’s life is simple, but in our view there is never enough time to say it all, to ask about it all, to see and hear it all, and to think it all. So we believe that knowing and being known are always partial, selective, and limited. An intimate partner can be the world’s expert on a person, knowing more than anyone else does about the person’s past, habits, preferences, family and friends,

What are knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships?

3

work life, thoughts, plans, dreams, health, and much more. A partner can know a person well enough to be quite accurate at predicting what the person will do in many situations. But even the world’s expert on a person may be poorly informed. Some people are relatively closed and private. The “expert” may not have learned much because of being rather incurious, rather inattentive, selectively curious, not remembering much, or not remembering accurately. The other is often in situations where the “expert” is not present to observe. And there is always the challenge of there being more that could be known. Knowing another requires the courage to know what may be uncomfortable to know about the other. As one interviewee said: A lot of intimacy I guess for me is being able to tap into each other’s internal life, and not being afraid of that internal life, which I think a lot of people might be a little afraid of, because your internal life can be pretty messy and conflicted. [18] (we use numbers to identify each of our 37 interviewees, with each interviewee referred to by the same number throughout this book).

But then the issue of knowing and not knowing may often not be about quantity but about whether crucially important specifics are known. One could know millions of details about a partner but still not know something big that is hidden by the partner. In fact, there are in this book stories of relationship-changing surprises when, after years of seeming to know a partner well, something that has been hidden is revealed that radically changes a person’s perception of the partner. We think there are often exchange processes as partners get to know one another, so what one reveals may motivate the other to reveal more, may make it safer for the other to reveal more, and may build up an environment of trust for knowability. The illustration that follows is what one man said when talking about his church community, but he made it clear that the general idea applied to his knowing and not knowing in relationship to his wife (“that person that you’ve hurt the most”). I picked up almost an overdose of shame and guilt, [and] I saw realities in the church that weren’t consistent. So I knew that I wasn’t that much different than anybody else, but I kind of use the analogy of undressing. Nobody’s undressing in front of each other, so you kind of keep everything real close to the vest, and you keep all your personal life as hidden as you can. But then all of a sudden, somebody can’t . . . They get caught in an affair . . . Then everybody knows about it. And so for me, I started identifying that this was gonna be kind of a struggle, and I thought that the way that we could work it out is to try to share things with each other, undress, break down some of the

4

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy barriers, because I learned that there aren’t these super-religious people that are better than everybody else. They’re just better at hiding things. They’re not better at living, and so for me it was to develop, what I wanted to be able to do was say, “Here’s who I am? Do you want to be in a relationship with me? This is exactly who I am.” So to me, intimacy is knowing the best and the worst of somebody and still being there . . . But then the potential I think to be known, if you could then make progress of being known by that person that you’ve hurt the most, then I think the potential for intimacy is much greater. [16]

An intimate relationship may generally be one with a great deal of knowing, but as the research reported in this book shows, there are always areas of not knowing. One or both partners may need or want to have areas that are not revealed. Possibly some of what is not revealed might have great potential for long term negative impact on feelings and the relationship. For example, a person might fear that if a certain secret were revealed to the partner, the partner might be extremely upset or even leave the relationship. Similarly, a person may stay away from knowing about areas of the other’s life that she or he suspects would be uncomfortable to know or could even make the relationship unsustainable. But then much of what is not revealed and hence not known by the partner is likely to be of minimal importance. It may, for example, be uninteresting material or material of minimal relevance to what counts for the couple in their shared daily life – for example, one of them sharpened a pencil this morning or one of them sees a squirrel in a nearby tree. A relationship may do quite well for many years with certain potentially important matters never being revealed. In fact, we interviewed people who had potentially explosive secrets or relatively broad areas of not knowing in their relationship, and the partners were still together and seemingly happy with each other. A relationship may also continue and perhaps even do well when explosive secrets are revealed. At the extreme, one woman talked about uncovering many areas in which her husband had lied to her, including his age, his previous marriages, extramarital relationships during his previous marriages and apparently during his marriage to her, and even his parents’ names. Although it was hard for the woman when she discovered another of her husband’s deceptions, she remained committed to the life she had with him. As she said: I think I’ve died so many times. Not only did he lie to me when we were dating, but also he cheated so many times . . . [But] I think I’ve got a hold of myself and accepted that maybe this is my life. [30]

What are knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships?

5

She said that he loved her and she loved him, and they were planning to live out their lives together. What one knows about a partner arises in large part from contact, the ordinary processes of intertwined lives, curiosity, paying attention, and understanding. But, as the following quote indicates, insecurity can also drive knowing. Perhaps the bottom line of knowing for the woman quoted below was the answer to the question: “Does he still love me?” It seems that I have a short memory for this, because I’ll need to be reminded that I think that I’ve learned these things over and over again, but I keep remembering or relearning . . . that . . . it’s okay . . . that we have differences and that we are a really great couple. We really love each other, and we are very committed to each other. We have a whole lot in common and it’s a wonderful journey to be on. But sometimes I get hung up on trying to find solutions or whatever, and have to have those deeper conversations before I just kind of realize that everything’s okay, that there isn’t some sort of crisis. And I think a lot of it has to do with insecurity or build up of fear that maybe our relationship isn’t strong, or just not knowing what’s going on inside of him. [37]

Quotes throughout this book reveal the diversity and complexity of interviewee thought about what knowing and not knowing are. Part of it is that people have their own standards and ideas about knowing and not knowing, so someone could say that she or he knows the other very well, but an observer or the other might be struck about how little the person knows. Similarly someone might say her partner is a stranger to her, but an observer could be impressed by how much she knows about her partner. Then too a person might say that the partner knows her or him very well but also seem to contradict that by saying that the partner does not know something very important about her or him. To illustrate, one woman said that she and her husband knew each other very well, but she had a long and intense extramarital affair early in their marriage, and as far as she was aware, her husband never knew about it. In this book we try to work with our own general ideas of what knowing and not knowing are, and also to respect the ideas of the people we interviewed. So with the woman who had the long term affair, we can say that by our standards there are important ways that her husband does not know her but also that by her standards he knows her well. To conclude this introductory discussion of our understanding of knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships, it is important to say that “not knowing” is not simple to define or understand. In “not knowing” one may suspect or know a lot. And if one does not know the other in

6

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

some area of potential importance that might be much more about one’s ability to know than it is about the other’s lack of transparency. Imagine, for example, being partnered with a mathematician whose life is dominated by math problems one cannot understand, or imagine someone who will not let herself know that her husband cheats at card games.

Why intimate knowing and not knowing are so important We think intimate knowing and not knowing are central to couple life. If a relationship falls apart it seems to us that often it is what is known or not known (or at least what one or both partners believe is known or not known) that constitutes the grounds for the relationship breakup. In fact, the words many interviewees said about relationships that had ended in break-up were about knowing and not knowing. For example, when the woman quoted immediately below was married to a man who did not seem interested in revealing important information about himself to her, she did not have a sense of closeness with him and the comfort that goes with closeness. She wanted to know him and to be known by him, and because that was not there in ways that were important to her, the relationship ended. What I think really undid my [first] marriage . . . was just the inability to be close, to be engaged . . . You’re going to have hardship no matter who you choose . . . and that sense of being really close to someone else is so comforting. [09]

Another woman who talked about the end of a long term romantic and sexual relationship saw the seeds of the ending of the relationship partly in her male partner being very closed about his life. It felt like he wasn’t trusting, and it felt like he was not sharing a lot, and I think I held that against him. [29]

In fact, many interviewees (though by no means all) said it was important to them to know and be known in their primary close relationship. I would say every relationship I had a need to know and be known. [25] When I think about our future together and kind of looking back on our life I hope that after however many years that’s the one thing he can say when I’m not here is that he did know me. [33] I think we all pray to know and be known. [03]

Why intimate knowing and not knowing are so important

7

People can find it too threatening to know certain things about a partner, so they might not let themselves know them (Rubin, 1983, p. 21). And since two partners differ in thousands of ways, it is not surprising that in some couples one partner valued knowing more than the other. Someone who values knowing a great deal and is partnered with someone who values knowing less might continue to live with the difference but still find the difference frustrating. p: How much do you value having a partner you can know well, and how much do you value having a partner who knows you well? s: I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately (laughs), because [compared to] the woman I’m currently seeing . . . I want to talk about everything. I’ve always wanted to do that, but . . . I find that I’m frustrated when she doesn’t ask questions when she’ll ask about my day . . . I know she really cares. But she doesn’t really dive in much deeper than that. And it’s frustrating (chuckles). So I think I value it very much. [34] [In quotes that give interview dialogue, L stands for Liz Wieling, P for Paul Rosenblatt, and S for the person being interviewed.]

Some interviewees talked about arguments and fights connected to not knowing enough. For example, a woman in a long term lesbian relationship talked about squabbles that arose when her partner did not feel known by her. Thus, rather than thinking of conflicts as always arising from disagreement, they can be seen at least some of the time to arise from being not well enough known by the partner. l: Do you think [she] feels known by you? s: Yeah. I think she does. I think there are moments when she doesn’t, and I think those moments probably are [the] roots of fights or struggles. [27]

Another reason why knowing seems to us to be important in intimacy is that it is linked to trust (cf. Murray & Holmes, 2011) and willingness to confide in the partner. Here, for example, is a quote from a woman who linked knowing in her relationship with her boyfriend with the ability to confide in one another: Emotionally . . . we confide in one another a lot. And I feel like I could tell him any secret I might have, and he would be someone I could trust . . . We were friends . . . and we got to know each other really well before we dated, and so that built trust from the very beginning, and so my trust that I have in him has been very long standing, and it’s not going to easily break . . . I gave it a lot of time, too, in the beginning, and getting to know him and feeling comfortable with him. [01]

8

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

Another indicator of the link of knowing with trust and willingness to confide is that in a relationship with someone who one can trust and confide in, one can let down one’s masks and defenses. The man quoted immediately below talked about how important it was to him that he could let his masks down and reveal his insecurities to his wife. I feel like I can be me [with her] and everywhere else in my life I feel like there’s some part of me that I either can’t reveal or I have to pretend isn’t really there, or use some sense of false something in order to mask the fact that at my core I’m afraid of everything. And I’m insecure as all get out . . . She knows that, and she’s always been okay with that. And would actually rather have me just be that, and acknowledge it, then try to be what I thought I needed to be. [14]

Many other people we interviewed were like him in that knowing was not simply a thing in itself but was linked for them with acceptance and emotional closeness. For example, the woman quoted immediately below treasured the conversations she had with her boyfriend, conversations where feelings could safely be revealed. Those are always wonderful conversations, like some of my favorite times being with him, or when we have a long enough conversation to get to the heart of our feelings. That’s not an everyday kind of conversation, but when we do, a lot of it is just understanding and accepting and is not about trying to fix or do anything. [37]

And here is another example of the link of knowing and acceptance in a couple relationship. l: Why [him]? [S chuckles] What is it that keeps you two together? s: I think we both feel we have a deep understanding and acceptance of who the other person is. [15]

From another perspective, being known by another, one can come to know oneself better, and quite possibly accept oneself more. That is, in A knowing B, B may come to know herself or himself better. There are many ways that this can come about. In the quote that follows it is that her partner helped the interviewee to know what it felt like inside herself to love (another and quite possibly the self ) and to enjoy and appreciate life. In some ways [he] has made me more human, more in touch with feelings, emotions, and life in general. Prior to [him], I was pretty keyed up on achievement, goals, affection, striving, winning. That was my life. I’m . . . very competitive, father and mother that very much encouraged achievement at all costs. My therapist would say . . . “Did they ever praise

Trust as foundation for knowing

9

you for being a nice person? Or being giving? Or loving? Or?” (croaky, quiet voice:) No, no . . . (back to normal voice:) We never hugged. We never said, “I love you.” It was all achievement, and we’re all very high achievers. So I look at somebody like [him], and he really basically opened up my heart, because prior to that, (whispering) it was pretty locked in here, kind of very tight. (Back to normal voice:) . . . I get very emotional about it, because . . . all of that . . . whole internal life just kind of opened up. And I realize now that, I always knew it, but now I feel truly what’s important in life . . . So that’s what he gave to me. [18]

Knowing the other well does not guarantee an easy relationship We do not want to idealize knowing as though all it brings is happiness and light. What one knows can be painful, upsetting, irritating, alarming, offensive, disgusting, or otherwise difficult. And knowing does not, as in the quote immediately below, mean that it is easy to deal with the interpersonal differences one comes to know or the things that one knows the other person does and does not do that are challenging for one. p: Do you worry about his health? s: Yeah, I do . . . He doesn’t take care of himself at all . . . He has high cholesterol . . . and he’s supposed to really cut out fried food and eat healthier, salads and whole wheat and all that. He’s not doing it. He says, “Well, it’s my body.” I said, “Well, you better buy that long term care insurance then, because honestly I don’t wanna have to have everything I’ve worked for prior to our marriage go to support you in a nursing home because you’re not taking care of yourself.” p: Do you think he eats fried food in private? s: Och! Yeah. He told me. Oh, yeah. “Stopped for doughnuts.” [12]

Knowing the other well can be boring. Knowing does not necessarily solve any problems, but may instead create problems. Knowing can even push one to end the relationship. Hence, many interviewees talked about the ways that they or their partner limited what was revealed to the other (a matter discussed throughout this book, but particularly in Chapter 7).

Trust as foundation for knowing Trust is arguably foundational to relationships that do well (Simpson, 2007). Presumably one key to that is that trust is foundational to knowing based on believing things the partner says. Trust is also foundational to disclosing personal matters to one another. That is, it is easier to reveal oneself to the other if one trusts that the other will understand what one

10

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

reveals and accept it and one. Not only is that our thinking, but some of the interviewees also talked about trust as foundational to knowing in that way. There is a trust, of course, when you live with someone and let down the wall . . . that you might keep up out in public. Of course there’s an opportunity for someone to be critical about that and try and make you feel ashamed or guilty . . . It is kind of a trust when you open yourself up to somebody . . . It’s . . . like a gift. It’s like, “This is who I am in all my humanity. And, oh, my God. Sometimes I fart in bed.” . . . They might make a joke out of it, rather than make you feel bad for doing it . . . It’s more like a gift. It’s like, “Yeah, I can see you do . . . not so attractive things, and it really doesn’t change how I feel about you.” [05]

Related to that, as will be shown throughout this book, it seems that in many couples there is something of a shared obligation to be responsible in knowing each other well. The responsibility is partly to get things right, that is, to remember well much of what the partner communicated and to know it rather accurately by the standards of the partner. The responsibility is also to treat what one knows with appropriate confidentiality; that is, to be careful how, when, and whether things known about the partner are transmitted to others. There also seems to be something of a responsibility to respect most if not all of what one knows about the other, as opposed to sneering at it, mocking it, being critical of it, or otherwise treating the knowledge, and the other, in a way that diminishes. And if a partner cannot be trusted to be a responsible recipient of knowledge, then what? Some interviewees told stories of self-censorship, of closing themselves off to a partner in general or in certain areas, because they could not trust the partner with certain information. s: The first time [I went back to using cocaine] was probably . . . two and a half years before the relationship ended. So we were still communicating, but now we’re fighting all the time. So it went from like really good to all the fighting, till we just don’t want to talk, ‘cause I don’t want to fight. And the way she reacted when I came home crying, ‘cause I hadn’t done cocaine in years. [But] one night I went out and I did it. And I told her immediately, and she screamed and yelled. It was nothing but anger. There was no empathy . . . I (laughing) was wanting to be, I guess, comforted. And I don’t think I ever really got that. So I stopped trusting. p: And when you stopped trusting, then you told her less (s: Oh, yeah), ‘cause you didn’t want to get (s: closed off ), you didn’t want to get that stuff from her. s: Right. [34]

Trust as foundation for knowing

11

Even at the very beginning of a relationship the other can respond to a self-disclosure in a way that makes one reluctant to share in the future. That is part of the story in the quote that follows, but another part of the story that is very interesting, though the quote does not speak to it, is that although it was established early in the relationship that the woman could not trust the man with much self-disclosure, she still married him. I found out he had been very heavy in high school . . . He was showing me old pictures, and he was telling me about this. And how he wanted to be in this [school activity], and he had to lose weight, and how his brothers used to really tease him for being fat, and . . . I was touched. I felt like he was really sharing his intimate things, and how he felt really bad, and he was laying on his bed, and at some point he was just talking about this, and then kind of put his head down. And I think I started saying something like, “Wow, that must have been really hard to be made fun of or ridiculed like that by your brothers.” And his body started shaking a little bit, and I thought he was crying. And so I was like, really, like you know, and then he comes, and he was laughing . . . at me. And then I was like, “You’re laughing?” He’s (imitating a kind of arrogant male voice): “It’s not that big a deal. It’s so stupid . . . ” And I said, “I can’t believe you’re laughing at me . . . See if I ever tell you anything.” And seriously, I think, from that point on I didn’t trust him to be intimate emotionally with him because he would have made fun of me. [02]

By contrast, there were accounts of relationships with a high level of selfdisclosure because there was a high level of trust. I told him everything from my grades to (chuckling) like money to relationships with my family, ‘cause I thought I could trust him, and he was the one person that I trusted . . . And I told him he was my best friend, too, so I told him everything. [32] This marriage is totally different because we’re kind to each other, and because of that we trust each other, and we’re at the age in our lives where we accept all the flaws and foibles . . . in each other. So there’s no need for us to put a mask on and pretend we’re something other than what we are . . . For me there’s always . . . parts that are filled with shame, that I’ve hidden from people. An addiction to chocolate. I’ve dealt with weight for so many years, and it creates such a feeling of shame, and he’s the first person that I’m able to say, “I feel really ashamed that I can’t get a grip on this; I can’t seem to deal with it.” [12]

As another sign of the importance of trust as a foundation for knowing, some people talked about working to restore trust in a relationship that had fallen to a low level of information sharing because trust had been

12

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

undermined. They wanted to restore trust in part to be more open with each other. But restoring trust is not simple. You have to earn trust, and we both lied to each other. I probably lied to her more than she’s lied to me . . . Because her memory is longer than mine and holds on to things, I have to work harder at the trust issues . . . I’m not very highly motivated to bring up things that I might have lied about if it’s gonna come up later on in a fight . . . and be used against me. So we’re kinda figuring that out, because I’ll ask her if something’s wrong, and she’ll say, “Nothing’s wrong,” and there is something wrong. Well, that’s a lie, and so we’re trying to figure out a way to, even if it causes pain, to be more up front and more honest. [16]

As is implied in what interviewee [16] said, trust is not necessarily a constant in a couple relationship (Gottman, 2011). Thus, at any given moment and with any given topic trust may be great or it may be much less.

The cultural context of this work In carrying out this research and writing about it, our language, our culture(s) and interviewee language and culture(s) have inevitably trapped us in the sense of framing what we write in this book with the language and assumptions of these culture(s) (cf. Baxter, 2011). One trap is that we focus on couples in intimate partnership as though that is the only place or the most important place where intimate knowing occurs or should occur. Another trap is that by focusing on intimate partnerships we are in some sense going along with and supporting the pressures in most people’s lives in our culture(s) that say that ideally people should partner. We think the pressure for partnering from the mass media, parents, peers, literature, film, popular music, and elsewhere can make trouble for people, pushing them toward ideals and actions that may not fit for them. In fact, we think that many people can live good, rewarding lives without partnering, without being in monogamous or long term partnership, or without meeting any of the other ideals that are conveyed in our culture(s) and those of our interviewees for couple relationships. But since the cultural pressures are what they are we focus on what we focus on in this book if for no other reason than the pressures have had such a profound impact on interviewee construction of love and intimacy. But as this book spells out, many people we interviewed did not necessarily find it easy to partner with someone or to get along comfortably in a partnership. So even though this is a book about knowing and not knowing in intimate couple relationships, there

The cultural context of this work

13

are ways that the difficulties people talk about offer something of a cultural critique. To add to the complications of culture, we do not know and cannot know from our research whether knowing and not knowing work in the same way in couple relationships across differing cultures. For us and, we think, for most or all of our interviewees, intimate knowing seems culturally valued, particularly in the sense of knowing what one needs to know in order to create a couple relationship that has a good chance of surviving and being rewarding. And a degree of knowing seems valuable in an ongoing relationship just so the two partners can live a coordinated enough couple life. But we live in a culture where truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth seem not necessarily valued. For example, corporate advertising and assertions by politicians and lobbyists are important and influential in the society but not necessarily truthful. And the judicial system is premised on the idea that while there are truths to be learned, some people are not necessarily telling the truth or the whole truth or nothing but the truth. So we cannot say that it makes sense to say that we and our interviewees exist in a culture in which truthfulness is always valued. We think there are ways that US culture as represented in the mass media seems to assume that people are more or less constant, so if one knows a partner well today one will know the partner well for years to come. But as we said above, we think that one’s partner, information about the partner, and oneself as a knower or a person to be known are not necessarily the same from one time to another. An intimate relationship is thus, in our thinking, one that requires two partners to pay attention, rediscover, relearn, and change recurrently. No problems are permanently solved; no relationship can go on just as it has been for very long; almost any question may yield a different answer from one time to another; what the important questions are changes over time, and the person (one, one’s partner) that one thought one knew well at one time may seem rather a stranger at another. To characterize the cultural context of knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships, we think one would have to pay a great deal of attention to contradictions. That is so because, as will be seen throughout this book, we found that people and their relationships were filled with contradictions. Somebody could both know and not know a partner. A partner could be trusted and not trusted. People could see themselves as guarded but also may be very open during an interview. We try, in this book, to represent accurately and to respect what people said, and at some places where they contradict themselves, we will note that. But more generally,

14

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

we want through the course of this book, to paint the contradictory picture that we think is cultural, and perhaps human, reality. For example, people value honesty but also sometimes are not honest; they hunger to be known but sometimes want not to be known, and they may say they know their partner very well but also say that in important ways they do not know their partner.

How we did the research Phenomenology of knowing and not knowing Ours is a phenomenological, qualitative interview study, focusing on people’s accounts during intensive interviewing of their lived experience of knowing and not knowing in an intimate relationship. There is a very large quantitative research literature on intimacy, embedded in a larger field often called relationship science. By our standards many of those studies provide interesting research findings and conceptualizations that are relevant to our study, and we cite the most relevant studies and conceptualizations at appropriate places in this book. But the quantitative studies almost always focus on realities other than the phenomenological ones that we focus on. Although tapping important, interesting, and relevant material, the quantitative studies miss the experiential richness that comes with in-depth, qualitative interviewing. They do not tap into people’s own understandings in their own language and do not gather their narratives. Many of the quantitative studies use questionnaires; a few use highly structured interviews that cannot yield the depth and breadth of qualitative interviewing like that done for this research. The quantitative literature works with conceptualizations and measures that come from the researcher and the quantitative research community. The work has an outsider’s looking-in quality that may well tap in to some of what goes on with people in intimate relationships but will almost inevitably miss the range of ways people understand things, the complexity of their understandings and experiences, the contradictions and ambiguities, the range of what can be involved in an intimate relationship, and the language people choose to use in talking about their relationships. In particular, knowing and not knowing are difficult to study in a deep way using quantitative measures and measures in which the researcher sets the framework for what people will provide as data. This is so because knowing and not knowing are so variable and complex from person to person, so tied to the particular, concrete experiences people have had, and so wrapped in variations in the

How we did the research

15

language people use and how they use it. So this phenomenological study on knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships illuminates an important area of intimate relationship that has been neglected in quantitative research and is difficult if not impossible to study using the standard quantitative approaches. Some of the published work that used structured questionnaires or interviews and that seems to have obtained relatively brief qualitative material has been labeled by their authors as “phenomenological” (see review by Sprecher & Felmlee, 2008). All self report methods have the potential to pick up aspects of people’s lived experience and related realities, language, perspectives, and ways of understanding things. But we think that in common usage in the social sciences the descriptor “phenomenological” is ordinarily applied only to research that involves intensive, open-ended interviewing that elicits meaning-laden accounts of people’s lived experience from their own perspectives. This kind of meaning-focused in-depth interviewing about people’s lived experience gets at people’s “phenomenology” as “phenomenology” is conventionally defined (e.g., Creswell, 1998; Maso, 2001). There are three pioneering phenomenological studies of the general experience of intimacy, and they provide substantial riches, illuminating certain areas of knowing and not knowing. Register & Henley (1992) offered their readers themes of people’s experiences of intimacy (for example, nonverbal communication and a bonding presence). Werth & Flaherty (1986) focused on deception in intimate relationships. And then there is a book on the fear of intimacy that includes excerpts from interviews of people involved in long term discussions and/or psychoanalytic therapeutic relationships with the senior author of the book (Firestone & Catlett, 1999). This last work is not clearly a work of research, and the interview excerpts may well have come out of realities that had been co-constructed with Firestone over quite some time, but the excerpts are informative, particularly as they relate to fear of intimacy. Taken all together, these three works do not focus comprehensively as we do on knowing and not knowing, and they blend in material from relationships other than those between romantic partners in a long standing relationship. Thus, to date there is not, as far as we can determine, an intensive phenomenological interview study that focuses as ours does on people’s lived experience of intimacy with long-standing romantic partners in the area of knowing and not knowing. What we gain from a phenomenological approach is a clearer sense of what people experience in their intimate relationship. It is their ways of thinking, their feelings, and their memories that structure what they have

16

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

to say. Thus, as part of the research, we gain a sense of the words people put to their experiences and what the concepts are in their everyday language for the area of life on which we focus. While we value quantitative psychological and social science data gathering, data analysis, and theorizing in the area of intimacy and see the vocabulary of quantitative researchers who write about intimacy as an achievement of great importance, we also value people’s own ways of putting language to their experience and believe that in their language are crucial ingredients for understanding intimacy. Related to this, there is still a strong tradition in quantitative psychology and the social sciences of focusing on behavior, and we certainly think it is useful and interesting to know about behavior. But with phenomenological interviewing we get a view that goes beyond and beneath behavior, to what things mean to people. We also gain a sense of the complex moral issues that are involved in trying to be fully open to a partner or respecting a partner’s right not to be open about something. And, with phenomenological interviewing, there is the possibility, over the course of an intensive interview, of learning more of the texture, complexity, ambiguity, and contradictions of lived experience and more of the connections of lived experience with other things in people’s lives. So this research provides a phenomenological view of people’s lived experience in the area of knowing and not knowing, being known and not known in an intimate relationship. Since the approach we take and, to a considerable extent the questions we ask people, are outside the mainstream of research on intimate relationships, there was for us an issue of how much to rely on and cite the existing, largely quantitative research. For the most part the existing research was not a foundation for this research, because the territory it maps is not the territory we wanted to travel, and yet it was helpful to know what had been looked at and how what was looked at was conceptualized. We have chosen, in writing this, to cite the existing research where it is most relevant, best connected, and most helpful to our work. But we do not want to insert substantial reviews of a literature that is not, in our thinking, closely enough related to our work. So the reader should be warned that this is a specialized book and that our references are far from a comprehensive coverage of the vast academic literature on intimacy. Furthermore, our focus was on knowing and not knowing, not on other aspects of intimacy, for example, love, sexuality, and commitment. Although it will be clear in this book that knowing and not knowing are very closely linked to other areas of intimacy, and so this book illuminates those other areas, the questions we asked people were primarily about knowing and not knowing. And so that is what they talked about the most and what this book is most about.

How we did the research

17

We interviewed only one person in a couple We want to explain why we interviewed only one person in a couple. Some interviewees were widowed, but even if a partner (or ex-partner) was alive, we chose not to interview that person. We believed that many people would not be as open and honest with us in a couple interview as they would be in an individual interview. We thought that with the partner present they would avoid revealing secrets to us that they had kept from the partner and they might well slide away from saying things that would annoy, embarrass, offend, enrage, or otherwise make difficulty with or hurt the partner. We were concerned that in some couples one partner would dominate the conversation or bully the other during a couple interview, so we might not hear as much from the one partner as we would in an individual interview. We also were particularly concerned that a conjoint couple interview could possibly make serious, perhaps even irreparable, problems in some relationships. Secrets or deceptions could surface that could be very damaging. Someone who had worked throughout the couple relationship to avoid talking or hearing about some matter that could be very threatening or unpleasant might find themselves interacting about the topic in a couple interview. We considered interviewing partners separately, but we were concerned that even that could set off serious and perhaps even irreparable problems if one partner asked another how she/he answered this question or that. So for ethical reasons we chose not to interview both partners in a couple. In fact, as the study moved forward we were affirmed in our choice to interview only one partner in a couple because we frequently uncovered material that we thought could be upsetting to a partner if the partner knew of it or even had a hint of it – including extramarital sexual affairs, pornography addictions, emotional affairs, spying on a partner by going through the partner’s e-mails and phone messages, lying to a partner about expenditures, and thoughts of leaving the partner. We were also unwilling to interview ex-partners, because we feared even that could create problems, even ones of physical danger. For example, in one case we had reason to fear that an ex-partner might engage in stalking of our interviewee and perhaps become violent with her if an interview reawakened his connection to her. How we recruited interviewees We recruited interviewees, all of whom were volunteers, through brief announcements that we were doing interview research on intimacy in

18

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

couples in the area of knowing and not knowing, being known and not known. The announcements appeared in a number of venues. The one that produced the largest number of volunteers was an article about the research that was published as a news item in the major Minneapolis daily newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. We also sent announcements to a number of masters and doctoral human service programs in the metropolitan area, trying to recruit graduate and professional students and faculty and to pick up interviewees who were referred to us by those students and faculty. We turned to graduate programs for recruiting because they had listservs and because most of the people we recruited through the newspaper article were over 40 and we wanted to recruit from populations that were predominantly younger than that. We received so many volunteers, especially from the newspaper, that we were never able to contact everyone who communicated to us that they were possibly available for an interview. Also, with so many volunteers to choose from and with the newspaper serving a very large geographic area, we limited ourselves to interviewees who were in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Although our announcement defined the study for people, when we started interviewing people we found that there was considerable variability among people in what they thought we were studying. One indicator of the variability is how they defined intimacy for us. I think intimacy is accepting the good and the bad. I think it’s a comfort level in a relationship. (chuckles) He can ask me to come in and look at what he’s done in the toilet, and discuss it. “Does it look normal?” (laughs), which I think is funny and I just get a kick out of that type of intimacy . . . We have so much history together, and we have survived a lot. That’s intimacy. [08] To me intimacy has nothing to do with sex. It’s knowing somebody, knowing how they’re going to react in any given situation, them being your best friend, the go-to person for anything . . . Somebody who feels like they’re almost like yourself, it’s like another you or another half of you, ‘cause we say the same things. We think the same things. And I know that’s probably because we’ve been together so long and shared experiences, and to me that’s what intimacy is. It’s a shared life, a common life. ‘Cause he can walk around with a look on his face, and I’ll say, “No, I don’t know where your screw driver is. Don’t even ask.” And he hasn’t said anything, and I don’t know what he’s doing. I just know from that look he’s looking for his tools. That’s intimacy . . . I think love is an emotion. Intimacy is a state of being. [28]

How we did the research

19

Intimacy is sex to me. [13] (a man)

Far more women than men volunteered for the study. We think that means in part that the topic of knowing and not knowing in an intimate relationship is more of interest for women than men – perhaps more often central to what a relationship is about for women than for men, or more often part of how women conceptualize intimacy than how men do. But perhaps it is something more mundane – for example, that women are more likely to be enroled in the human services programs where we recruited some participants and are more likely to read the part of the newspaper which contained the article about our study of intimacy. The interview Thirty-three of the 37 interviews were carried out in our offices at the University of Minnesota. Four were carried out in the homes of the interviewees. We took turns being the lead interviewer, but the two of us were active in every interview. We used two recording machines in each interview, just in case one of them did not function (which sometimes happened). The average interview lasted 87 minutes. After going through the University of Minnesota Institutional Review Board-approved consent process and asking a brief set of background/demographic questions, we asked each interviewee to focus on one relationship that was, in her or his thinking, the most significant, the most long term, the one they are currently in, or otherwise significant, as long as they had been in it at least one year. We also said that if they found, during the interview, that they wanted to compare one relationship with another that was perfectly okay. And some did that. We had an interview guide, which was a reminder to us of possible matters we might ask about. It was not a list of questions we tried to ask or felt bound to ask. We did not necessarily use the exact wording in the guide when asking questions, and in no interview did we ask all the questions in the guide. Moreover, because the interview process required us to tune in on interviewee experiences, realities, narratives, language and ways of thinking, in every interview we asked questions that were not in the guide. Our goal with each interview was to understand how knowing and not knowing had played out and was still playing out (if the relationship was ongoing) in the person’s views of the relationship. The interview guide is in the Appendix to this book. It includes questions on how well

20

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

the interviewee knew her or his partner and vice versa, with probes for areas of not knowing, privacy, and withholding, and questions concerning honesty and truth telling. We also asked about curiosity, snooping, how important it was to each partner to know and be known, the various ways one could know or not know the other, how much the interviewee felt she or he knew herself/himself, and how much knowing was valued. In most topic areas we asked the interviewee to answer for her/himself, to venture a view of how the partner might answer the same question, and to venture a view of how the partner might view her or his answer to the questions. This book says at many places that partners disclose more to each other, know each other better, and are more knowable if there is caring and trust. And we think interviews are not different. Most interviewees disclosed a great deal to us about their relationships and their thoughts and feelings, and we think part of that is that we worked at caring about, respecting, and genuinely liking the people we interviewed. An interview was not merely a cerebral process of us following the interview guide and then coolly and rationally adding questions that seemed appropriate follow-ups. It was also an interpersonal process in which we offered genuine caring, respect, and liking and in which we were intensely interested in, even fascinated by, what people had to say. And we think most interviewees felt that, appreciated that, trusted us, and felt safe and rewarded in disclosing a great deal that they might not ordinarily disclose to others. That does not mean that we stopped being “objective” during the interviews in the sense of turning off our minds, our capacity to question and doubt, or our awareness of consistency and inconsistency in what people said. But we tried to have our thinking and questioning come out of a caring place, and it was easy to accomplish, because most of the people we interviewed were, for us, genuinely likable and fascinating. Maslow (1966, ch. 11) wrote about the value of love for and fascination in the object of study, if one wants to learn well what there might be to learn. From his perspective, research opens up more knowing when those who would be knowers love and are intensely interested in those who they seek to understand. And that was our experience as we engaged in a caring way with interview participants. Quite a few interviewees told of relationship crises where truths had not been told, information had been withheld, or ignorance about partner (or self ) made great trouble. Quite a few told about how for them and perhaps for a partner, the great knowledge they had of each other, often

How we did the research

21

knowledge that was greater than anyone else had of them, was foundational to the relationship or a symbol of how close and important each was to the other. For many, perhaps all interviewees, the interview was emotionally gripping. Almost everyone spoke at times with great intensity. Quite a few people teared up or cried when talking about something that was hard, sad, happy, meaningful, or upsetting for them. But then quite a few people, perhaps all, laughed and/or chuckled at times. We had no intention of making the interviews therapy for people and did not try to do anything therapeutic, but some said that the interview had been therapeutic for them. And two took notes during the interview because they were interested in having a record of what we asked and what they had answered. The people interviewed We interviewed 27 women and 10 men. They ranged in age from 22 to 78. All were residents of the United States. Two were Asian American, one was African American, one had immigrated years before from Europe, and the rest were European Americans. Twenty-two of the 37 were married at the time of the interview and focused what they had to say on that marriage. Five interviewees were widowed and focused on the relationship with the spouse who had died. Two interviewees were lesbians. The duration of the relationship that people talked about ranged from 1 to 54 years. Twentyone of the 37 interviewees talked at least briefly about a relationship with someone other than the relationship partner on whom they focused during the interview. Five interviewees talked about a relationship with someone from a culture other than their own. Every interviewee had at least some college education and quite a few were human service professionals or in training to be human service professionals. A sample this educated and with so many educated in human services means that we interviewed people who were probably on the average more articulate about relationships than would be true of the population as a whole and also people who cared more and paid attention more to interpersonal connections in their own lives. To the extent that middle and upper middle social class standing in the United States is connected to the values one has for oneself in relationship to another, to ideas about telling the truth and not telling the truth, to how gender is enacted, and to all the other issues dealt with in this book, what we say in this book is not necessarily relevant to people who are not middle or upper middle

22

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

class. For that reason and many others, as with any research, let the reader be wary of how widely applicable the ideas in this book are. Transcribing The recording of each interview was transcribed. Most were transcribed verbatim, though with a few interviews, digressions (for example, about the weather and parking on campus) and things that could not be heard clearly were not transcribed. The transcriptions included indications of laughter, chuckles, tears, pauses (timed in seconds), restarts, and much else that is not included in the interview quotes in this book but were potentially helpful in making sense out of what people said. Twenty-five of the interviews were transcribed by Rosenblatt. The 12 transcriptions that were done partly or entirely by student volunteers were carefully checked by Rosenblatt against the interview recordings. Data analysis The data analysis focused on knowing and not knowing in a big picture sense. We did not focus on, and had not really asked interviewees about, everyday familiarity knowing, like how a partner knows when the other is down or tired or sexually interested. We did not focus on, and had not really asked interviewees about the extent to which they knew what the other did in everyday actions around the house, like knowing what the partner typically does in the bathroom before bedtime or how the partner typically puts away freshly laundered clothing. Nor did we code, or ask about, the knowledge that must underlie couples pulling off their coordinated routines, for example, what they must know about each other in order to grocery shop or entertain together. So we have focused on analyzing more generic and, we think, generally deeper statements about knowing. We analyzed as we carried out each interview in the sense that we tried with each interview to get to what we were looking for in this study. So if the questions we had asked did not seem to quite yield material on what we were looking for, we asked additional questions. And if what someone said was unclear, contradictory, or seemed thin in some way, with eventual data analysis in mind we probed further. The more formal coding process began after we had done four interviews. At that point we coded the interview transcripts independently of each other, developing an outline of our coding categories and placing interview

How we did the research

23

quotes from each case in appropriate places in the outline. We did this to be sure that we were on the same page in understanding and making sense of the interview material, to be sure our interview guide was working for us, and to check whether we needed to add or revise questions. We discussed extensively what we had come up with separately in this first stage coding process, and that led to our feeling our interview guide was working well for us, and it also led to a preliminary shared coding outline. When we had completed all 37 interviews, we went back into formal coding, relying to some extent on the preliminary coding schedule we had done after four cases. In this second stage, we coded a few cases independently, again to check on whether we were on the same page about what we were aiming to do. We seemed to be, so then Rosenblatt coded every case, to some extent adding to and revising the preliminary outline, and putting quotes from each interview at appropriate places in the outline. Wieling reviewed his coding and certified that it was on the track we agreed we were on, and she also used her memory and knowledge of various cases to check that Rosenblatt was coding appropriately. The coding continued with the writing of this book, with Rosenblatt writing first drafts of the chapters, based on the coding outline. In creating the first drafts, the coding outline and the classification of quotes drove most of the writing, but coding revisions occurred at a number of places as coding overlap, ambiguities, and misclassifications were discovered and cleared up. Wieling reviewed each chapter as it was written to check for fidelity to the outline and fidelity in the use of each quote. The coding continued as we wrote and discussed the writing in the sense that we were learning more about the people we interviewed, the relevant academic literature, and our own thinking about knowing and not knowing as we moved forward with the writing. As a consequence, not only was our sense of how to interpret some of the specific things that interviewees had said changing, but we were changing the selves we bracketed as we analyzed and wrote. What we mean by bracketing is that we tried to know and then put to the side our own academic and personal biases so that we could be more open to what was given to us by the interviewees. To the extent that as we coded and wrote we became more aware of ourselves in terms of our own experiencing of knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships we recurrently questioned ourselves. Also, in the area of gender, each of us wrote pieces about ourselves that made it clearer to both of us where we were coming from as gendered researchers. We thought it particularly important to be careful in this way about gender because there were some stark (for us) gender matters in the interviews, because the gender material opened

24

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

up entries to our own thinking about ourselves as gendered individuals in intimate relationships, and because once we started thinking that way it became important to explore whether there were things in each of us that might well merit bracketing. Validity/data quality One way to evaluate the validity of the interviews and the quality of the interview material is to pay attention to what interviewees said about the interview. No interviewee criticized the interview questions or the interactions they had with us. Most had very positive things to say about the interview. I’ve just been really happy to be able to talk to you. I trust you very much . . . I perceive you aren’t judging me. You just, you’re asking the questions . . . You’re real good. I mean I appreciate the questions. [17]

Some people volunteered to be interviewed because they thought it might help them understand themselves and their relationship, and many of those people seemed grateful for their interview experience, feeling that the interview had touched on important matters that made a lot of sense to them. I wanted to know what kinds of questions you would ask, for my own selfish purpose because I thought that it would help me to think about the kinds of things that I’m writing about, the kinds of questions that I would ask about my life or the lives of the people that I’m writing about, and I wondered what I would hear myself say. [09] The reason I agreed to do this was because I think about [our intimacy problems] from time to time, and if I can learn anything from voicing all these things, then that would be useful. [23] There have been things that have come up that, you know, like (sound of surprised interest:) “Oh-h, I haven’t really thought about it from that angle before,” so, kind of cool. [02]

Consistent with a literature that says that people have their biases in viewing a romantic partner (e.g., Fletcher & Kerr, 2012), the one criticism that some people raised was about our interviewing only one partner in the couple. The people who raised this criticism thought we were not getting a full and balanced picture.

How we did the research

25

I’m just hearing how I’ve presented my side and what that’s made her look like. And so I’m concerned (chuckling) that I’ve misrepresented her. [16] You should meet her and then balance this out, because it’s all onesided. [13]

But once we explained the ethical risks we saw in interviewing both partners in a couple, people could appreciate why we were only interviewing one partner. s: In the StarTrib thing, I remember you saying, or maybe you said this in an e-mail, that you were only interviewing one side of the couple. And that was actually really shocking to me, because I would think that you would want that . . . He’s a much different personality than me. So why don’t you want both perspectives? p: We really do want both perspectives, but we’re terrified of what it will do to some relationships. I mean, we’ve had a lot (s: Oh, I can see that) of, we’ve interviewed a lot of people who were critical of a partner or people who talked about long term affairs . . . but I do really hunger for the multiple perspectives. s: Yeah, oh, but I totally get that. I guess I didn’t even, I was thinking of it in terms of just, yeah, not that kind of weighty kind of tragic stuff, but, yeah, you’re right. That would be really, yeah. Okay, now I get it. But, yeah, I mean it does seem like a large part of intimacy is perspective (laughs). It’s how you see it, and that’s how you feel it. [18]

On the other hand, some people were glad that their partner was not involved and felt that they could be more honest knowing that she or he would not know what they said. [My husband] was kind of upset when he heard that I was going to do this. He was wondering what was going to be discussed. And he’s very private, and I’m not (chuckles). But I would have had trouble discussing that with him here. And I would be very uncomfortable with him here and talking about him, saying what I’ve said. This is all a secret (small laugh). But it would have made me uncomfortable. I wouldn’t want to hurt him. It’s not that I’m afraid of him, but I sure wouldn’t want to hurt him or make him feel bad. [08]

But then quite a few people said that their partner would generally see things the same way they did, even the things they said that sounded critical of the partner. p: If he had been here during this conversation, would he have (S chuckles) disagreed with anything or said, “No, no. That’s not how it is at all”?

26

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

s: I can’t think of anything that I think he would disagree with. (2 second pause) I don’t think so. Some of the ideas that I presented to you are things that I’ve talked to him about and that we’ve agreed on, or that I have a sense that we both see kind of to a certain extent that, you know, like you have some sort of mutual understanding of how they work. [37] He probably would have added more stuff about his point of view, ‘cause he’s not as open about like the emotional aspects, I guess for the most part. He does intellectually a lot more stuff, and he will come out with the emotional stuff occasionally, but I think he probably would have been able to fill in a lot more gaps in terms of how well he thinks he knows me . . . and stuff that annoys him . . . I think for the most part, he probably wouldn’t have disagreed with anything I said. [35]

For us another indicator of data quality is that the interviews were dominated by interviewee words, which means the questions animated them and hit topics about which they had a lot to say. Almost every interviewee seemed engaged by the interview and energized in addressing the issues that came up. With two interviewers at every interview, we were checks on each other. We each had the potential to refocus the other’s interviewing, to clear up what the other had not drawn out clearly from an interviewee, to clarify the other’s interview questions, to be sure the other was not interrupting or cutting short an interviewee, and to make sure that the interview guide was not abandoned. Another check on validity and data quality involves you the reader. We offer quotes throughout this book and we make statements about those quotes. We think the statements fit the quotes, but we offer the quotes in part as evidence with which readers can check whether the quotes and our statements match well. But then the interviews were only about what they were about. One can conceive of other matters that we did not explore that would be relevant to knowing and not knowing. For example, our focus was on words. We did not, for example, ask about physical knowing, the knowing that comes with touching, holding, and sexual contact. If we had we might have come to a more complex view of things. For example someone might say that she or he has a partner who is very closed in the domain of words but very open to being known in the domain of touching, holding, and sexual contact. Also, a partner who is reticent to talk about something may communicate a lot through the form that reticence takes, and we did not systematically ask about that. For example, a person who communicates shyness, modesty, and discomfort in not giving much of an answer to a partner’s

How we did the research

27

question may give the partner a much different sense of what is going on and what the couple relationship is than a partner whose answer is belligerently resistant and is laden with accusations directed at the asker of the question. Interviews like the ones we carried out rely a great deal on retrospective self-reports, which are subject to vagaries, subjectivities, contextual effects, imperfections of memory, self-presentational dynamics, and other processes that may affect what a person reports (Metts, Sprecher, & Cupach, 1991). The interviews also rely on reports of current thoughts and feelings, which are similarly limited. But it is people’s subjectivities that we want to understand and that are the focus of phenomenological interviews. There is no other way to get at people’s lived experience and the meanings and meaning-making associated with that experience (Metts, Sprecher, & Cupach, 1991). We were careful in our interviewing not to push people to recall what they could not, so we did not challenge answers such as “I can’t remember” and “I do not know.” We were careful to minimize our pressures for any particular answer, to ask interviewees for examples of specific events and experiences rather than to settle for generalizations, to ask for clarification when that seemed relevant, to check for consistency and ask about inconsistency about matters that seemed important, and otherwise to keep data quality relatively high. We think this work has much to offer, but we interpret the data with caution in part because of the subjectivity and potential for different realities in different circumstances that comes with the subjectivity. How much the quotes are the truth (versus just what was said) We do not quote interview material or even write about it in this book if the material was so unusual that a reader who knew an interviewee might be confident that the material was from or about the interviewee. For example, if one of our interviewees worked with her partner in a lion taming act in a circus, we would not quote anything that revealed that they were involved in such a circus act. Such couples are so rare that we would fear that a quote could reveal who they were. In quoting people we have omitted most uh’s, er’s, and other nonlexical sounds, restarts, many instances of words and phrases like “okay,” “you know,” “I mean,” “like,” “whatever,” etc. We have deleted quite a few repetitions of the same word, phrase, or sentences. We also have edited many quotes to make the point we are making clearer, to simplify, and to make this a book of manageable length. The places in quotes where

28

Knowing and not knowing are central to intimacy

we have edited out material that is not repetitive and seems to us to have lexical meaning are indicated by ellipsis dots ( . . . ). Our view of the interview quotes in this book is that they reflect people’s phenomenology, perspectives, truths, and what they were inclined to say to us in a particular situation and a particular time in their lives. We would not want to say that we know what is true, that their partners would see things the same way that the interviewees did, or that in another time and situation people would say the same things. We assume some people withheld some information from us, sometimes let us believe things that they knew were untrue or too simple, at times exaggerated for rhetorical effect, told us things in ways that made a better or more understandable story rather than telling us something that was as accurate as they could tell us, or told us things as true that they had reasons to doubt. And, of course, we are limited as knowers and so may have misunderstood various things that were told to us. So what we offer in this book is offered cautiously and provisionally.

chapter t wo

How couples build knowledge of one another

Getting to know a partner is a lifelong process. The learning process for couples may be very intentional and intense early in the relationship, but it extends far beyond the initial learning that leads them to feel attracted to each other and to feel like it is a good idea (or worth a try) to move forward with an intimate relationship. What is involved in building up knowledge of a partner and a partner’s building up knowledge of one in a couple relationship?

Trying to know the other Quite a few interviewees said that there had been times, and some still were in such times, when they made a conscious effort to work at knowing their partner. They were intentional, not passive learners. Particularly early in a relationship and before there was clear mutual commitment people were still trying to decide whether the relationship was going to work for them and what they could believe about the partner (cf. Harvey & Omarzu, ch. 3). For some people in that situation the anxiety of not knowing the other helped to fuel their curiosity. I think what really makes me have like fear . . . is his lack of verbalizing things to me, his lack of telling me things, and kind of giving me like a little snapshot of what he’s thinking, and so I’ve said . . . to him, “You have to tell me what you’re thinking. How do you feel? . . . ” Because I’m so feeling oriented (small laugh), and he’s just so much more practical than feelings. He doesn’t let his feelings take over, whereas I feel more feeling driven than anything (small laugh) sometimes, and I think if he was able to just communicate with me more . . . I would just feel more at ease about everything in our relationship. [01]

At any time in the relationship, but perhaps particularly in the early months and years, curiosity, caring, or something like romantic interest could make them very curious about each other. 29

30

How couples build knowledge of one another I want to know him. I want to know everything about him. I mean, when I say that I don’t necessarily mean like everything he ever did or who he was before. I’m not so concerned about that, but who we are together I would like to know as much as possible. [33]

Getting to know one another at the start of the relationship In the United States most people could be said to have substantial freedom of choice in finding a romantic partner, though they may not feel freedom not to find a romantic partner in that parent and peer pressure to partner and the enormous emphasis in the mass media on finding a romantic partner may be difficult to resist. Further, the pressure is on to find the “right” partner. So with the apparent freedom of choice of partner may come very strong feelings of responsibility to find a partner and to find the right one. Our impression is that the people we interviewed took that responsibility seriously and also tried to protect themselves against bad choices by investing considerable effort, time, and thinking power in getting to know a partner. They feared making ignorant mistakes about who a person was, how a person might act in various circumstances, and how compatible the person was. They needed to know how much they could trust the other with their own self disclosures (cf. Murray & Holmes, 2011). They might at times wonder whether the other person could be believed. One does not want to find oneself in close relationship with someone who is disappointing or even dangerous, who will not hold up their end of the relationship, who will be boring, who is uncomfortably different from oneself, or who is otherwise not a good partner. One does not want to waste one’s time, emotional energy, and other precious resources building a relationship that will not work out or that will be harmful. Thus, it is not surprising to learn that many people worked hard to reduce uncertainty about a potential partner (Afifi & Lucas, 2008; Berger, 1988) as they moved toward finding someone who was right (or good enough – Goffman, 1959) for them. How did people get to know someone who might become a romantic partner? Previous acquaintanceship Although the film version of two people coming together may be of two strangers meeting at a club, work place, party, classroom, bus stop, or the like, the reality in our research is that quite a few people knew the other in some capacity prior to the beginning of dating or romance.

Getting to know one another at the start of the relationship

31

We didn’t start dating for many years . . . First we were just friends. [22]

There are great advantages to acquaintanceship prior to moving into a possibly romantic relationship (Guerrero & Mongeau, 2008). One can see the other when the other is not trying to impress one as a potential romantic partner and when one’s own perceptions are not clouded by the first rush of a potential romantic relationship. One may be able to observe the other in situations that show whether the other is trustworthy and can be counted on to be what he or she seems to be. p: You had a bank of information about each other . . . You’d seen each other a lot and you had friends’ information about each other too. Do you think that made it safer for one or both of you to have the relationship and to develop it pretty fast the way you did? s: Yes! That is . . . absolutely true. I think that I learned a lot about who he was when we were teenagers . . . like the sense of whether a person is faithful . . . I feel like I picked up information even on that at a pretty young age, even though we weren’t in a relationship . . . So the leap of faith to move to [that distant city with him] would have been very different if I hadn’t known him as a younger person, if I didn’t know his family, if I didn’t know quite a lot about, I mean I really did know a lot about him. Definitely that made me feel like there weren’t so many unknowns. [37]

She could feel safe moving far from home and friends to live with him because she knew so much about him from the time before they were romantically involved. Similarly, a woman who was coming out of a very unpleasant and difficult marriage felt that she could trust the man she had recently become involved with because she had a prior acquaintanceship with him. And he, coming to the relationship with his own emotional scars, could trust her because of his prior acquaintanceship with her. Initially there was an instinctual, gut thing of trusting each other, maybe based on, we were aware of each other, didn’t really know each other well, but we knew each other . . . I was good friends with his sister . . . You see each other’s lives. You see what they do, how they are, what they are, and I think . . . from the beginning there was a level of trust that we had for each other, and respect . . . That was a great benefit to the relationship, because I knew his family; I knew where he came from; I knew his history; I knew a lot about him already, without knowing him, so it was safe for me. And I think that led to the trust base, because that is one thing, that he does have a reputation for being honest and hardworking and somebody you can depend on. [02]

32

How couples build knowledge of one another

Possibly some people cannot become a close friend of another of the appropriate gender without romantic thoughts intruding. But we interviewed people who said that they had built a strong friendship and a substantial base of knowledge about their partner prior to romantic interest arising. And that knowledge and strong friendship could lead the two to feel much more confident and safe when their relationship turned romantic. I think we know each other really, really well. Prior to being in a personal relationship we had a very, very strong emotional connection and friendship . . . We were best friends before we got into any kind of emotional or personal relationship. So we knew a lot about one another before we even, I mean . . . over [many] years we had gotten to know each other really well. [18]

Knowing the other prior to romantic involvement does not mean that one only knows positives about the other. One might well enter the relationship with an understanding of what the other’s failings are and what one will have to deal with that could be challenging. In the areas where I’m detail oriented, he’s absent minded. And I was aware of that. We actually knew each other for [many] years before we married. We weren’t like best friends or anything, but we knew each other well enough that I had . . . noticed this about him. So I knew this would be kind of a perpetual thing in our relationship. [05]

Another way in which prior knowledge of a potential partner’s failings helps is that it can be a relief to become romantically involved with someone who knows aspects of one’s past that would be uncomfortable to reveal if one were starting a relationship with someone who did not already know one. Hence, one woman was glad to become romantically involved with a friend who knew she had cheated on her first husband. The new partner’s prior knowledge of her cheating meant that she did not have to tell him about it. And also, because of their prior friendship, she knew about his misdeeds in earlier romantic relationships. For her, there was comfort in each of them entering the relationship knowing “the worst” about the other. I . . . had a previous marriage . . . One of those young and stupid type things (laughs) that I just don’t talk about, and it ended in a bad way. I ended up cheating on him, and I felt terrible. But I don’t tell anybody about that these days . . . But my group of friends does [know], ‘cause the guy that I was married to . . . was also friends with them . . . So among my friends it’s no big deal, and [the man I am with now] was one of those friends. So he was aware of it . . . That part is nice that he knows that, because I have no idea how I would broach that with somebody that you’re starting a new

Getting to know one another at the start of the relationship

33

relationship with . . . With [him], another thing too is . . . I knew about his whole past stuff as well, ‘cause he had a lot of random stuff (chuckles) that he had done, and it was well known among all our friends . . . So it was maybe kind of safer in that way . . . He knew the worst about me basically, and I knew the worst about him. [35]

Having seen the other in social situations prior to becoming romantically involved also means that one has some basis for deciding whether the other is actually romantically interested. For example, is the other just being friendly, or is he treating me in ways that go beyond how he is as a friend? I saw him as a friend, and I’ve seen how he communicates with people, and I’ve heard him speak to other people. And the way he speaks to me is not the same as he speaks to other people. I know that he loves me, and I know that it’s very real to him and very true to him. [01]

Testimony of others about a potential partner Another way one can come to know about a potential partner is through the words others say about the person. Several of the quotes earlier in this chapter mentioned learning things from others about their partner before they became romantically involved. For example, [35] talked about learning things from her friends, and [02] talked about learning about her partner from his sister and other members of his family. Sometimes third parties provide warnings about a person with whom one is becoming involved. For example, one woman regretted that she had not heeded a friend’s warning about a man with whom she became involved. A friend called me up and . . . said, “I notice [name] paying a lot of attention to you . . . You know he’s a drunk.” And I said, “Well, what do you mean he’s a drunk?” “He’s an alcoholic.” And I thought, “O-kay. What does that mean?” . . . And I decided, okay, so if he has a drinking problem, I need to find that out. I can’t take the word of somebody else. And it was probably two or three months in the relationship when I realized that, “Oh, yeah, he does drink and sneaks into stuff too.” [10]

She had also been warned not to marry her first husband and had come to regret not heeding those warnings. s: I didn’t get a lot of what you should or shouldn’t do [from my parents], other than I was told not to marry my first husband; that would be a bad mistake. From my parents, and from his foster parents. He was an exchange student . . . and had lived with the family for a year, and they didn’t think it was a good idea either. He had emotional problems . . . Well, what did I care

34

How couples build knowledge of one another

at age 17, 18? That didn’t mean anything to me. He was tall; he was good looking. He liked to dance and we had fun, and he was a good kisser . . . p: Were they right? s: Of course they were right. It didn’t last, did it? (laughs) [10].

More often, however, when people talked about the testimony of others the testimony was heeded and was helpful. In fact, some people talked about actively seeking such information. I had . . . called . . . a number of people and inquired [about him] . . . I called up my minister and said, “Hey, is this guy married or not? How is he presenting himself at church?” [24]

Her seeking the testimony of the minister and others was a bit like checking the references of a potential hire. More commonly interviewees were passive recipients of testimony they did not seek. In the quote that follows, the sister of the man who became her romantic partner encouraged the interviewee to take her brother seriously as a potential romantic partner (and to stay away from another man who was “icky”). A guy at the gym . . . wanted to have an affair with me, and she didn’t have a good feeling about him, because she thought he was icky, and she said “My brother . . . now that’s somebody you should have an affair with,” so she was like recommending him, ‘cause she thinks he’s great, an upstanding individual. [02]

Among the reasons that testimony of others might be important is that people who praise themselves are not necessarily thought well of by others (Speer, 2012). Thus the praise of the sister mentioned in the quote above was important in part because she was a more trustworthy source of praise about her brother than her brother would have been. Revealing important information about oneself up front Early in escalating or potentially escalating relationships there are often interesting self-disclosure processes. According to a review of studies in this area by Derlega, Winstead, & Greene (2008) a certain amount of selfpresentation selectivity is typically involved initially in a couple relationship with a potential future, apparently because people are careful about not putting off the other. But sometimes people choose to disclose some of their strongly negative attributes at the beginning of what might become a long-term relationship (Derlega, Winstead, & Greene, 2008), and that fits what some of our interviewees said that they did. Some laid out possibly

Getting to know one another at the start of the relationship

35

off-putting information about themselves in initial encounters with the other. That might include their faults, desires, and needs that might put some people off, health problems, and past sins. They might also say up front that they want a long-term committed relationship, even though that might frighten off many people in an early encounter with someone who they do not know well. When the woman whose statement follows “laid my whole life on the table” the first time she and her now partner went out, she told him about a chronic illness she had that at times was seriously limiting, that required frequent medical attention, and that could seriously affect a relationship. For her, being up front about the illness was partly about being honest and partly about not wasting her time or his if the illness would turn out to be too big an impediment for him to move toward a committed relationship. s: We met in a group setting . . . But that was the first time we’d been by ourselves. And I pretty much (laughing) just kind of laid my whole life on the table and said “This is who I am, and if you don’t, because it’s too much,” ‘cause I had a sense right away that this might not be what he’s looking for; this might be too much for him, and so I just kind of put that out there. And it was at first. We dated for 3 or 4 months, and then we broke up. He said he just couldn’t handle it. And then, like 6 months later he showed up at my door and said this is what he wanted . . . I only want to go forward with it if it’s something I think . . . might be long term . . . I didn’t want to hurt myself, but I also know for other people it’s really hard to adjust to my life. [33]

In a study done in India, where cultural factors might be very different from those in the United States, roughly half of a sample of women with epilepsy withheld information about their epilepsy as they moved forward toward a marriage relationship (Santosh, Kumar, Sarma, & Radhakrishnan, 2007). So conceivably at least some women in the United States might not have done what the woman quoted immediately above did, to be open at the very beginning about a serious, but not obvious, health problem. Sometimes people entered a blunt discussion at the first date because one of them wanted a clearer understanding of what was going on or what might go on between them. For example, one woman said that she came to the first date with the man who is now her romantic partner “kind of clueless” about dating, having spent many years in a dysfunctional marriage and having had little dating experience prior to that marriage. So she asked the man with whom she was having a first date to come right out and say what was on his mind, and he did.

36

How couples build knowledge of one another I was kind of clueless. I mean he kind of asked me on a date. I didn’t realize any, you know, ‘cause I was just in a different world, and he was maybe kind of flirting or hinting around at things. And I just said, “Sometimes I can be really dense, and you just need to come right out and say stuff, ‘cause I may not know what the deal is, so you just gotta like,” you know. And he said, “Yeah, me too. I’m the same way.” . . . Then he said, “Well, I’ve thought about us.” I said, “Well, what do you mean? You’ve thought about us, about us what?” (laughs). He said, “I thought about us having sex.” (she laughs) And I said, “You ha-?” You know, but I really appreciated that. Like, “well that’s a straight answer. I’m glad.” And then I think too, the fact that he acknowledged up front . . . ”You’re really vulnerable right now, and you’re in a position that I could easily come and take advantage of you, and just swoop in and s-,” and he goes “Actually, I feel kind of guilty, ‘cause that’s kind of, I think that’s what I’m doing.” And that’s true. I was in a vulnerable position, but he said that. And he said that he was concerned about it, but at the same time he kind of pursued it anyway. So I think those kind of things built my trust, because I realized, “He’s not sweet talking me and telling me what I want to hear. He’s saying hard things. I mean he’s telling the truth here.” So for me that’s like very (three second pause), very valuable. [02]

By replying to her questions about what he was up to, the man gained her trust. He told her things that he could fear might put her off, and she trusted him more because he took the risk of saying those things. High levels of self-disclosure early in a relationship can be understood as simply matters of communicating clearly and not wasting time in a relationship that might not continue once the other finds out what the other would eventually find out. But high levels of disclosure also can be seen as part of establishing a high quality, satisfying relationship (Baxter & Bullis, 1986; Derlega, Winstead, & Greene, 2008). So those early selfdisclosures can attract the other and escalate the relationship, adding depth and a sense that the discloser trusts the other. Early knowing of the other’s family and friends Through knowing a person’s family and friends one can make informed guesses about the values, integrity, work ethic, spending habits, alcohol and drug usage, and much else that may be part of the person’s makeup. Knowing that kind of information can help in deciding whether to go forward in a relationship. See, for example, the quotes earlier in this chapter from interviewees [37], [02], and [35], people who started out with good knowledge of the partner’s friends, and, in one instance, the partner’s family. Then, too, knowing or getting to know the other’s family early in

Getting to know one another at the start of the relationship

37

the relationship may help one understand the family relationship dynamics that have shaped the person. For example, a woman who is quoted earlier in this chapter about her prior relationship with the family of the man who eventually became her romantic partner said this about knowing his family: s: When we first started dating . . . I said, “Don’t be afraid to open up your heart to me.” And, he said, “okay.” But I think there’s still, and it may not even be me, and I mean just, I mean he has opened gradually, but knowing his family system too, it’s not surprising (small laugh), comes from an abusive family. p: Physically, emotionally, all of it? s: Umhm, alcohol use and drugs and, he has a good relationship with his parents now, but they were in not a very happy marriage for many years, and his mom had an affair for . . . years, and his dad was physically abusive with the kids, and his mom and dad were physically abusive with each other, and . . . I know his . . . siblings, and so sometimes there’s like things will come out of him, or I see in him, and I see it, and I, “Oh, this is the [last name] thing. They all do this (laughs). I’ve seen this before.” I know what it’s coming from, so that’s helpful to me, because I think it gives me a perspective. It’s not like . . . taking it personal . . . but just seeing the bigger picture. [02]

Knowing what she knew about his family made some difficulties with him more understandable and tolerable. For example, she did not take his emotional distancing as necessarily about her because she knew that was a pattern in his family. Some interviewees did not have much, if any, contact with the other’s family or friends. The other’s family may live far away, or may no longer be alive. The other’s family and friends may not be in the picture until well into the relationship. Not knowing those others was frustrating for some people. For example, one man talked about it being more difficult to know his significant other at the beginning of their relationship and for her to know him because they did not have access to each other’s family and friends. Another way that we don’t know each other as well is because . . . we’re a little bit older. Both my parents were deceased, so she did not get to meet either one of my parents, and with her parents, her dad had Alzheimer’s and passed away during the time that we have known each other. And then her [mom’s] health has been deteriorating and she just doesn’t communicate very much anymore. And so it’s kind of hard to get to know her. And I think you do get to know somebody a little bit when you get to know their parents. [25]

38

How couples build knowledge of one another

Along rather the same line, one woman was upset that she had not had much opportunity, particularly at the beginning of the relationship with her husband, to get to know his family. She felt that reduced her knowledge about him. He also didn’t tell his family about me for a year, probably, and that was really upsetting to me, because in that way I felt I didn’t know him. I feel like you learn a lot about a person when you see them with their family, with their siblings, and that really bothered me. [31]

Sometimes what one thinks one learns about the other by knowing the other’s family and friends is disquieting. Disquieting information may come from direct observation and also, as in the case that follows, from something that someone in the other’s family says that reinforces what one has observed. Sometimes I see [him] as being very close to his dad in his actions and his thoughts and behaviors, and it does worry me. That is a concern for me, that he’s gonna take after his dad, and I’m going to end up with a boyfriend or perhaps a husband that acts like his dad. And I don’t want that at all . . . His dad’s fianc´ee has confided in me . . . about her struggles with [his] dad, how similar the two are. I mean she’s the one that said that to me, and then it provokes anxiety in me, and I’m going, “Oh, my gosh.” [01]

So the knowledge one might have of a potential or actual romantic partner does not necessarily only come from the partner but may also come from interacting with the partner’s family and friends. That knowledge may help one to decide that it would be good to move ahead with a relationship, but what we heard in the interviews was that sometimes the knowledge was a warning about challenging matters to be prepared to deal with, and sometimes it was helpful in interpreting where the other was coming from that could be more upsetting if one did not see it as derived from the partner’s family of origin. Insight into why propinquity is important in finding a partner A research finding of long standing in the literature on couple relationships is that people are more likely to partner with others in their immediate environment (e.g., Aron, Dutton, Aron, & Iverson, 1989; Sprecher & Felmlee, 2008). It seems obvious that people would be most likely to meet and get to know those who are nearby. And this chapter certainly supports that view. But then the discussion so far in this chapter adds something

Practical reasons for knowing and being known in ongoing couples

39

that perhaps has not been so clear in the literature, that it is not just that people meet and get to know who is nearby because those people constitute a conveniently available pool of potential partners. It is also that for people who are nearby one is likely to have relatively great information on which to make decisions. One may have prior acquaintance with the person, may have people around one who know and can tell one about the person, and may know the person’s family and friends well enough to have information from them and about them upon which to make choices. So then it is not merely availability of the person that makes for a propinquity effect but also availability of knowledge upon which to decide whether and how to move forward in relationship to the person.

Practical reasons for knowing and being known in ongoing couples Many interviewees indicated that one should try to know what one might be getting into in a relationship with another, and that one should want the other to know and accept one for who one is. We can take that as cultural knowledge about knowing in the development of a relationship. And the practical reasons for getting to know the other better and for being known better by the other do not end when each partner decides the other would make a very good partner and they make some kind of commitment. There are many practical reasons to keep on learning more about one another. One is that despite the sense of fit together, the partners may still be aware of very substantial differences between them that need to be dealt with. For example, one couple was strongly motivated to know each other well because their backgrounds were quite dissimilar and that raised concerns for them that their differences could create insurmountable problems. We were both really aware of how different our upbringings were, and I think we both had an interest in being open about that and discussing those differences, ‘cause they were really marked. [29]

In other couples information sharing in some area might be at a high level because of partner interest in solving problems in that area. In one couple a major problem area where there was much to understand and deal with was one partner’s chronic illness and their shared concerns about the medications she was taking. s: He comes to my doctor’s appointments . . . p: Do you know if he’s ever done a search on the web for the med side effects?

40

How couples build knowledge of one another

s: He has, yeah. Actually that’s something that we talk about a lot, because I am really bad about reading side effects of meds, freaking out thinking I’m getting like every side effect (chuckling) . . . He reads the side effects (laughs) and then I’m supposed to tell him if I’m feeling weird. (l: He’ll know.) Then he’ll know (laughing), yes. But that took us a couple years to get to that point where he was okay with that. And I trust him. [33]

In another couple the problem area that motivated continued learning about the partner had to do with the woman’s mood shifts when she was premenstrual. Her husband kept track of her cycles so he could know better how to behave in relationship to her at times in her cycle that seemed to make for challenging interactions. p: Did he know where you were in your cycle? s: Oh, yeah, ‘cause of where I was. He didn’t like mark it on a calendar (chuckles), but he could tell, and I would tell him. I’d say, “You just ignore me and just don’t be mad,” and he would say, “You are irrational when you’ve got PMS! Irrational.” And I was conscious of it . . . I could control it to some extent or in some situations, but there would be other times when I’d just fly off the handle . . . During the heat of it, we didn’t discuss it. I just was mad, and he would (chuckles) sneak away. [28]

Similarly, another husband was careful during his wife’s second pregnancy to tune in on how the hormone changes of her pregnancy were affecting her, since he and she had learned when she was expecting their first child that pregnancy could lead to her having extreme mood swings. p: Do you and he talk about your hormones? s: Yeah (laughs) . . . He notices and he’s curious about that. With the last [pregnancy] it was really bad. I had to go on anti-depressants . . . So he’s prepared for this time . . . He totally notices (imitating a plaintive voice:), “ . . . Are you okay today? ‘Cause it does seem you’re a little off.” ‘Cause I would either be crying at commercials . . . or . . . laughing uproari-, there’s . . . a Skittles bunny commercial where the rabbit was singing opera . . . It was absolutely ludicrous and ridiculous, and I laughed at it for like a half hour straight. “The Pan’s Labyrinth” came out that year . . . Not a good movie to watch . . . ’cause . . . in the last half hour of the movie I just broke into weeping. So I wasn’t just like wiping my tears; it was like outright sobbing (chuckles). And . . . all the way to the parking lot, so he was pretty . . . aware that hormones make my moods completely off. So . . . he’ll mention it every once in a while (chuckles), like, “You know, you’re kind of crying at this.” Yesterday I was crying at a Big Foot documentary. And he was like, “I think you’re a little off right now.” (laughing) So, yeah, he notices it. [35]

Another kind of practical issue underlying an ongoing process of getting to know each other is that a person might benefit from educating her or his

Practical reasons for knowing and being known in ongoing couples

41

partner about personal preferences in couple interaction. One woman, for example, worked early in her still relatively new relationship at educating her male partner about body image issues that women might have. I . . . try to . . . explain things that I think he does not realize are going on, and body image is a good example. I think that most women are in some place of either working against or oblivious to . . . gender norms about their body. And in my case, that’s something that I feel proud that I’m pretty healthy about, but in order for me to stay healthy about it, I do have to talk about it. And it does involve him, because how he expresses his feelings about what I look like or what is attractive about me, and all those things feed back into how I see myself. [37]

In another couple, partner educating focused on sexuality. Sex we talk about really openly. We have a very, very . . . I would say, honest, adventuresome sex life . . . When he was in his [previous] relationship . . . they never talked about sex. “Yi! What? Are you kidding me?” . . . Never talked about frequency or happiness or are you getting enough, or do you need something else, or fantasies or, I mean, nothing. And we talk about all that . . . What I’ve given him, I think he would say this, is the, “opportunity” is not the right word, the permission to put his stuff out there. He just always had to stuff everything of how he was feeling. And I really try to draw that out of him, so if he needs something or wants something sexually, he puts it out there. [18]

In a few couples, the practical reasons for one partner to learn more about the other had to do with social isolation and boredom. Thus, the learning helped meet a need to be connected with someone and to not be bored. To illustrate, in one older couple the husband was almost completely housebound because of ill health, and so he was highly dependent on his wife for social input. He’s stuck in the house all the time now. He can’t drive. The only way he can get out is if I drive him . . . So he wants to know what I’m doing, who I went with, what did they say, because he doesn’t have that. [10]

Although she did not have much that she wanted to hide from him, she found it rather dreary at times to have her reports of her day’s experiences be his entertainment. I think we’re going to be able to get a scooter for him, so that he can get around in our neighborhood, which will make a big difference, ‘cause he can only walk about 1/2 a block without being able to die either from not being able to breathe or his back hurting. So hopefully that will help, and

42

How couples build knowledge of one another I won’t have to spend quite so much time (chuckles) explaining my every move, which gets tiring sometimes. [10]

An analogous situation in which learning more about one’s partner can become quite important is when a couple arrives in town as newcomers without any friends. So it is not just curiosity that motivates additional learning about the partner but also that aside from the partner there are not many, or perhaps any, others with whom to talk. Maybe [moving here, where we knew nobody else,] led to the kind of intimacy I think we were talking about mostly developing maybe more quickly, because we didn’t have a single friend . . . I know she was lonely at first. [26]

In this situation it is practical to deal with loneliness and isolation (and perhaps unusually great dependence on the partner) by getting to know the partner better and by becoming better known by the partner. This section of this chapter has shown that in the phenomenology of many interviewees there were practical reasons to get to know a partner and to be known by the partner. Also, from the perspective of the relationship science, quantitative literature the practicality of partners getting to know each other well includes research findings that show that to some extent partners who know each other better get along better and are more likely to stay together (Neff & Karney, 2005; Riediger & Rauers, 2010). The people we interviewed were not in a position to make those sorts of quantitative comparisons, but we suspect that they would say that those research findings made sense to them. They certainly saw knowing and being known as central to intimacy.

Knowing and being known as intimacy Some interviewees said that they wanted to know their partner well and to be known well because to them knowing represented intimacy (cf. Harvey & Omarzu, 1999, ch. 3). For them, a high level of knowing was essential to a close, committed, intimate relationship. From this perspective, sometimes one partner’s desire to keep something private or feeling that something was not important enough to share would clash with the other partner’s feeling that volunteering personal information would be an act of intimacy and improving relationship closeness. p: If he goes for a checkup, is that fair game to ask about? Or is that a personal and private thing?

Curiosity, being nosy, prying, snooping

43

s: . . . He wouldn’t volunteer anything if I didn’t ask, but I usually say . . . “How did it go? Is everything all right?” (chuckles) . . . Sometimes I do wish he would understand about me that that would be a sign of intimacy, if he were to volunteer that information. That would signal to me that there’s intimacy there. [05]

As is discussed further in Chapter 10, she was among a substantial number of interviewees who valued high levels of knowing and being known in part because a high level of sharing information was a marker of an intimate couple relationship.

Curiosity, being nosy, prying, snooping In some couples the process of getting to know a partner included something like prying or snooping – for example, looking in the other’s personal papers, browser history, telephone records, or dresser drawers. That is because some people wanted to know things about the other that the other had not revealed and might not necessarily want to reveal. Consistent with research from the Netherlands about distrust of a partner promoting snooping (Vinkers, Finkenauer, & Hawk, 2011), the reasons some interviewees offered for snooping included wanting to defend themselves against something unpleasant happening in the relationship, particularly the possibility that the partner was not truly loyal to them. He had met this girl . . . at a bar . . . She ended up putting her phone number into his cell phone, and he didn’t stop her, and this is all unknown to me, until two months after, when she started to text him at 2:00 in the morning. Of course I’m gonna start acting suspicious, and wondering what’s going on, and so when I confronted him on it, I confronted him when he was sleeping, in fact (chuckles). Because I was going off to work, and I had looked through his cell phone, and I breached his privacy, and that was an issue we dealt with later. But I felt like I had reason to look through it, because of her constant texting in the middle of the night. And there were some texts on there that were questionable. [01]

Although her lover seemed to resolve the situation by distancing the woman from the bar, the interviewee continued to feel insecure. And so she continued, on occasion, to look at the call records in his cell phone. She has not been bothering him, because . . . he ended up telling her to leave him alone, and she has not called or texted since. And, yes, I have checked his phone since, although I promised him I wouldn’t. [01]

44

How couples build knowledge of one another

Others also talked about insecurity about what was known or true leading them or a partner, particularly early in the relationship, to probe for disloyalty and dishonesty. The first time I invited him to sleep over at my parents’ place . . . I allowed him to sleep on my bed. I slept in the living room, and then the next day he told me that he went through everything of mine in my bedroom . . . I guess now when I think about it, it’s like he’s not a very trusting person. He probably had been very hurt by different people in the past. [30] I grilled [him] pretty, pretty carefully when we first were going together about a number of things, probably because I wasn’t very trusting. But then I trusted his answers. He could have been lying. And after [many] years [together], I think I would have caught on by now if he was. I think. (laughs) Maybe not. [10]

Another kind of probing for information early in a relationship that might be related to insecurities about the partner has to do with the partner’s relationship past. One woman, for example, wondered whether the personality she saw currently in her partner led to the end of his previous relationships. p: Did you want to know about his past? s: Kind of just to . . . know more about who he was, like what type of person he was . . . He had an ex-wife and an ex-fianc´e, so I was kind of curious about that, to see what did in their marriage and then also what did in the whole agreement (chuckling) to get married . . . He’s got a very strong personality so I kind of wondered what about that was an issue of [those] relationships. [22]

A different motivation for snooping had to do with concern about a partner’s viewing of pornography on the internet. Some male partners of women we interviewed, and some men we interviewed had strong interests in internet pornography, and that could be such a concern for a woman partner as to lead to her covertly trying to keep track of her male partner’s viewing history. She’ll look at the internet to see what sites I’ve been surfing. She’ll check out my porn sites (laughing) . . . So I get busted, and then it becomes an hour [of her talking about it with me]. [13]

Being partnered with someone who is wary or suspicious and who snoops can be annoying, not only about the partner’s snooping but also because it can lead to one having to be self-conscious about actions that one fears the partner might misinterpret.

Curiosity, being nosy, prying, snooping

45

I like to have my space, and she crowds in on my space a little bit more than I would like. It’s not that I have secrets . . . But sometimes she thinks I do . . . We have his and her computers and we have kind of offices that are next to each other, and if I’m at my computer there may be things that I’m doing that I would rather her not see. Not because I’m doing something bad, but just because it’s a privacy thing . . . And she will just walk right in and she’ll just start looking at my screen and reading whatever is there and then . . . ask . . . about it. And to me it’s a little too intrusive. And then she’ll get upset if she comes in and I might be going off my computer, to change to a different site or something, and then she’ll think I’m hiding something. [25]

Even after a relationship has ended, there could be insecurities that motivate snooping. One kind of insecurity could be about whether the ex-partner could be dangerous. Another kind of insecurity could arise from second thoughts about whether the breakup was the right thing. One woman addressed those two kinds of insecurity by snooping in legal records related to her ex. What she found reassured her that he was not dangerous to her and it was good that she had broken up with him. s: After the breakup . . . I looked [for legal records about him], and I felt like a scumbag when I did it, but I said, “Well, they’re public records for a reason,” and so I looked at all of them . . . I couldn’t find any indication that he had ever physically harmed anyone or attempted to. That wasn’t what he did. He played other kinds of games. p: Do you feel like there are ways you got to know him better after you broke up? s: (3 second pause) Only if that means that I did eventually figure out and get some affirmation of what was going on. And in a way that protected me from nostalgia about him . . . Eventually what I learned . . . enabled me to be resolute about leaving it behind . . . But it’s very sad because there were good things, or at least there was a yearning for those good things. It was . . . a very dark relationship, darker than I thought it was when I was in it. [09]

Some people snooped or were curious just because information was available. They were not motivated by insecurity or fear, but the partner was interesting and important to them, and if the information were available without breaking into paper files, hacking into a computer, or otherwise being aggressively intrusive, they might go after the information. l: How about snooping? Some people look at each other’s e-mail or diaries or . . . s: The short answer is I have such deep trust for him in terms of like fidelity that that is not like at all even the most remote concern for me. So that wouldn’t motivate me to do any of that . . . [But] I’m still a curious person, and so . . . like he has a desktop computer and . . . if he’s got his [e-mail] page up I may look at the subject lines . . . But I don’t open his mail or anything

46

How couples build knowledge of one another like that. And I try to respect his privacy in a way that I would want him to respect mine. [37]

But apparently some people did not snoop or pry into areas that were private to their partner. The husband of the woman quoted immediately above seemed to her to respect her privacy to such an extent that he would never snoop or pry. l: Do you ever get the sense that he’s kind of trying to check out or curious or even snoopy with you? s: No. I’m trying to think if there’s anything like that at all. (2 second pause). I can’t think of anyth-, no, I really don’t. I think it’s partly that he has this deeper respect for privacy than I do. I respect privacy. He really, he comes from a family that’s much (chuckling) more private. [37]

In some couples there did not seem to be snooping, but the lack of snooping was not so much about respect for privacy but about lack of interest. s: I have kept a journal since third grade. So there are journals all over the place. The current ones, the just past ones (chuckles), the far away ones if he really wanted to go into the boxes in the cedar closet (chuckles). He doesn’t read it . . . p: How about you? I mean, he’s got stuff lying around s: He does. I’m a person who knows what and where everything is in the house, his stuff and mine. He does have stuff lying on the desk that I don’t care about. I don’t think either of us have interest in poking around to see what the other one, you know. [15]

One woman did not snoop because she would rather avoid being troubled by what she might learn. Even if [he] did have weird things in his e-mail . . . I wouldn’t want to see it so I don’t snoop basically. What I don’t know won’t hurt me (laughs). [35]

Wanting to be known People may have mixed feelings about being known very well, even by the person to whom they are closest. They may fear to be known well by someone else because they do not want to know themselves well (Maslow, 1966, pp. 16–17). They may fear to have their partner know them in areas of shame or in areas that are likely to put the partner off. But many people may also hunger to be known, to truly be known, especially in an accepting, loving relationship (Halling, 2008; Harvey & Omarzu, 1999, ch. 3). Many of the people we interviewed said that to be known in a close, loving

Wanting to be known

47

relationship was a very positive form of intimacy. That kind of knowing was rewarding and comforting. And for people for whom loneliness is aversive, being known very well helps to repel loneliness. But we do not want to simplify. Not everyone we interviewed said that they wanted to be known fully, but still, wanting to be known at least rather well by a lover or partner came up in many interviews. Here is what one woman said who was not currently in an intimate couple relationship. I still do sometimes really feel, can I say that I feel “unknown”? That’s not really true. Maybe not known in the way that I would like to be, because I’m too much of an extrovert to be a big secret (chuckling) to the people who know me and work with me every day or the friends that I have, and there are a few of them that I really have the kind of relationship with where whether I see them a lot or not, that I can pick up where we were the last time and go on. And I try consciously to spend more time with those people, but it’s not what I really want. I mean, it’s not that I don’t want that. It’s that I had something else in mind for myself, and I don’t have it. [09]

She wanted an intimacy that goes beyond what she had with good friends. For her, and for many others who were interviewed, an intimate couple relationship that worked and was satisfying was one in which they were known very, very well and the knowing was entangled in shared experience, a shared future, sexuality, and good conversation. One woman, a lesbian who was in a relatively new relationship, said the following about that. p: How much do you value having a partner you can know well and who knows you well? s: I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately . . . I want to talk about everything. I’ve always wanted to do that, but . . . I find that I’m frustrated when [the woman I’m currently seeing] doesn’t ask questions when she’ll ask about my day . . . I know she really cares. But she doesn’t really dive in much deeper than that. And it’s frustrating (chuckles). So I think I value it very much. [34]

As people talked about how important it was for them to be known it was often clear that it was not just important to be known and known deeply but also that there is some kind of validation or acknowledgment in the knowing. The following might be a poor example, because it is not about knowing the other’s deepest thoughts and feelings. But it illustrates the validation aspect in being known. s: He likes to hold up his bicep . . . He’ll be exercising and he just wants to show off, and he wants me to go, “Oooh!” (laughs). l: And do you? (laughs)

48

How couples build knowledge of one another

s: Oh, yeah. (laughs) l: So that’s an example of a way that you know that he wants that from you (s: Umhm), and you’re giving him (s: Yeah), so that validation (s: Yep, umhm). [22]

With validation and acknowledgment of deeply personal information about the self comes a freedom and safety to be oneself in ways that one might not be able to be with most others. I feel like I can be me [with her], and everywhere else in my life I feel like there’s some part of me that I either can’t reveal or I have to pretend isn’t really there, or use some sense of false something in order to mask the fact that at my core I’m afraid of everything. And I’m insecure as all get out . . . She knows that, and she’s always been okay with that. And would actually rather have me just be that, and acknowledge it, then try to be what I thought I needed to be in whatever other setting in order to not appear that way or to get what I wanted. [14]

A poignant illustration of the power of being known in an intimate relationship came from a man who was a widower. He missed his wife terribly, including missing her knowing of him, and he dealt with that by continuing to act as though she still might be in a place to know about him. I write a letter to her every night . . . The letters are intended to convey some part of what I did that was interesting or horrible or happy or sad or whatever . . . I have my doubts about (laughs) who’s getting the message (chuckles), but I don’t rule out the possibility. [26]

Truth as a value As is discussed more fully in Chapters 4 and 5, some people valued telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to their partner across many or all situations, but others did not. Presumably a person with a partner who highly valued truth across many or all situations could more readily acquire a great deal of reliable knowledge about the partner. But then truth-telling is not necessarily welcomed; people were not always comfortable with a partner’s truth-telling – for example, if one experiences the partner’s truth-telling as critical of one. There have been times when I’ve been really honest with him about how I perceive him, and how I perceive his situation, and I don’t think I would say I would ever regret being honest with him. I think it was hard for him to receive the honesty at times, but I don’t regret it. [29]

Truth as a value

49

But some people embraced truth-telling even when they felt hurt by it. One woman, for example, said she would rather be told a hurtful truth than be denied information about how another saw her. I’m one of these people that’s probably more honest than I should be (laughs), and so I really value that. There’s a lot of people that want to sugar coat or not say something because they don’t want to hurt your feelings, and I’ve always thought I’d rather have you hurt my feelings and tell me the truth than to lie and protect me. [02]

Another kind of honesty that could be potentially threatening to a partner was honest talk about being attracted to another person. In the following quote from a woman in a lesbian relationship, confessions of being attracted to others actually seemed to be a way of binding the two partners together. Also, talking about the attraction seemed to make an affair with the third party under discussion less likely. Boundaries are so important, and whether it’s in a professional sense or in a personal sense, we’re really conscious of if you see somebody who you think, “Gosh, that person’s very attractive” . . . we consciously have that conversation of: “I saw this really beautiful person today” . . . just to be able to speak about that and to do it is, we found, we each have found independently . . . if we say those kind of things, that, number one, enhances our intimacy together, and number two, it seems to guard us against some of the boundary difficulties that can come so easily in so many different parts of life . . . Neither one of us has ever acted on that kind of thing. So it doesn’t feel as big and scary as it does for somebody who’s had an affair, even an emotional affair. [27]

Other interviewees also were in relationships where mutual truth-telling was highly valued. I . . . have absolute moral and ethical standards that I will not breach for any reason. And he’s that way too. Yeah, we tell the truth. [15]

And clearly some people were unhappy when they were not told the truth by their partner or their partner hid something. He downloaded porn on the computer. I don’t mind him downloading porn, but he left it all up there. The kids go on the computer, and I’m like, “They could just click on that and see that. They don’t need to be seeing that.” And he . . . told me he would stop doing it, and then I found out that he hadn’t stopped doing that . . . We had an argument about that . . . I don’t have a problem with [porn] if he’s open with [me about] it. I just don’t want him to hide it. [28]

50

How couples build knowledge of one another

Even when there were risks of hurt feelings or couple conflict, a number of interviewees said that not being honest was counter to intimacy. For them, to have an intimate relationship required honesty. l: Your choice to tell her about the infidelity, what drove that decision to share that with her? s: Because I was in love with [her], and I wanted it to be okay . . . I couldn’t live with myself knowing that without her knowing it. [34]

Spending considerable time together Some people talked about the importance to knowing and being known of spending considerable time together, doing things together, and being with each other in both romantic and mundane situations. I think you can know someone extremely well. Part of that knowing is from the conversation and from the experience that you have, just the particular experience of meeting and falling in love and all that stuff, and then the longer term experience of just living together and brushing your teeth and just being in each other’s space for years and years and years. [27]

For couples who marry, the accumulation of time together that leads to high levels of knowing is not just premarital. To illustrate, one man said that he and his wife were still learning quite a bit that was new about one another. I’ve gotten to know her pretty well as time has gone on . . . especially after having started to live together, which was about two years ago [by which time they were married half a year] . . . Having that day to day interaction with somebody is really when you get to know somebody . . . We spend a lot of time together. So I would say primarily it’s just based on that kind of face to face interaction. [25]

It is not only that spending considerable time together leads to more intimate knowing. Spending time together is a form and expression of intimacy. We live . . . [far from our families of origin] and don’t have many relatives or extended family. We spend all of our time together. We go grocery shopping together, clothes shopping together, we work out together . . . So the intimacy comes from being together 24 hours a day and enjoying each other’s company. [28]

Confrontation

51

Of course it is not just that time is spent together but what is done in that time. For one man an important part of building shared knowledge was seeing the other in a variety of situations. [I get to know her better] by talking and by observing and by seeing how she reacts to different things. And she’s much more emotional than I am, which has its good and bad things about it. And part of it is I see how she reacts emotionally to various things and that sort of helps me understand a little better kind of where she’s coming from. [25]

However, it is also clear that spending large amounts of time together can lead to learning that the other is withholding information and is not necessarily the right person for a long term, committed relationship. So even after a relationship seems to be committed or well on its way to being very long term, what is learned with additional time may lead to a re-evaluation. One woman talked about why she refused to go along with a lover’s desire to share a residence. s: A year or so into a relationship seemed absolutely brand new and strange and, you know, I did know that I didn’t know this person very well. l: So the first year you had the idea that you did know him well, but then things started to . . . s: Well, I thought, he seemed like he was really forthcoming, but then increasingly when I would ask him questions, he would be evasive or as he became more comfortable in the relationship, sometimes he would really block that kind of conversation [about intimacy]. [09]

Confrontation Confrontation can facilitate knowing. Rather than being a passive recipient of information or being politely reticent, one might confront the other about concerns. In particular, a number of interviewees talked about confrontation regarding loyalty and truth-telling. Here is an example, already discussed to some extent in this chapter, about what seemed like evidence of a possible extra-relationship affair. I confronted him. I actually woke him up and said, “Who is she? And (small chuckle) what is your relationship to her?” And he told me it is not romantic, never was. He explained the situation, somewhat, in his half sleep, and then I went off to work. And I had a horrible day, and came home, and I said, “You need to tell me exactly what went on, and why is she texting you at 2:00 in the morning?” . . . He explained how she came . . . to know him and . . . put her phone number into his phone, and she was this, as in his words, “a fat girl,” who he would not date, and that nothing happened.

52

How couples build knowledge of one another And so I believe him, and I have never felt a deep emotional pull that he has cheated on me. I’ve never felt that way, even though those text messages made me wonder. [01]

In another instance, a woman’s insecurities about whether her partner was committed to her and feeling love for her led her to confront and provoke her partner. p: Do you find yourself kind of cross-examining him? s: . . . On bad days probably cross-examining him, or provoking him like . . . where I said something sort of with shock value, and I think partly under that was this desire to kind of force out (chuckling) some kind of more . . . emotional reaction, or just to get us into a conversation about our relationship, ‘cause it’s not something that he . . . feels like he needs to talk about as much. [37]

Worries about loyalty and truth-telling led one woman to confront her partner about how he had learned to do what he was doing sexually with her. The issue with her is that I came more experienced than I let on at the beginning of the relationship, because at the beginning of the relationship I talked about how much sex I had with my [first] wife, and based on that, I mean, “That’s what you said, and this is what you do. How did you know how to do that? Where did you get that? Well, it’s either porn, or you’re lying. So which one is it?” So we’ve had that discussion. [13]

She confronted him as well about the possibility that he was not telling her the truth about his current relationships. [She] . . . has called me on . . . knowing what people want to hear and then saying it. And she’s saying, “What are you saying to me?” And then she’ll kind of make me back up and say what I really meant, and it might not have been what I said. Or then she’ll call me on things that I don’t say and, “What do you really mean by ‘going out’? Were you out last night? And just because you weren’t drinking doesn’t mean you weren’t out last night.” [13]

Being able to see behind the fac¸ade Another process for knowing and being known involves how a couple relates to fac¸ades. In the two quotes immediately above, the man had erected a fac¸ade of what he thought were socially desirable lies, and his partner was able to penetrate the fac¸ade and confront him about the lies. To be able to see behind a fac¸ade, it helps to have a partner who is not highly skilled at erecting and maintaining a fac¸ade. One woman talked

Feeling safe

53

about what she gained in that regard from her lover being “not exactly the smartest, brightest person.” The only reason I would be concerned is if I started finding evidences of him doing things that I just don’t approve of. He is not a drug user. He does smoke, but he does not use drugs. If I was ever gonna find any kind of pipe laying around or anything like that, then I know (chuckles) . . . He’s not exactly the smartest, brightest person. I think he would leave a trail . . . and I don’t think it would be that hard for me to find out if he had cheated or if he had used cocaine or something like that . . . I like that he is that transparent. I like knowing, I like that safe feeling that I have. [01]

Feeling safe In some discussions in this chapter there is evidence that people worked hard at getting to know a partner or potential partner better in part because they were not sure the partner could be trusted or that they could build a future together. So sometimes the knowledge acquisition might be accompanied by or lead to the thought that perhaps one should end the relationship. But then it might be easier to get truth and honesty from the other if the other feels secure that the knowledge they reveal will not drive one away. p: Can you compare how well you know [him] with how well you know the other men who were in your life a lot? s: Oh, I know him a lot better . . . I think because we share things more. I’m more open, probably. I’m not afraid of losing him by maybe saying something. I’m not afraid of offending him by having a particular feeling and expressing it. And I was in other relationships. [10]

In fact, genuine knowing in an intimate relationship must to a large extent be based on the knower caring about the person to be known (Maslow, 1966, 103), and this caring includes being close to the other, emotionally connected, empathic, identified with the other, and in other ways showing that it is safe for the other to be known by one. One way a few couples moved to greater safety in revealing aspects of themselves to each other was by going together to counseling. One man talked about how counseling helped to build mutual trust by making it easier for him and his wife to talk without judging one another. p: Do you think you know more about her because of the counseling . . . ? s: Yes, definitely. It was a way for us to talk without being judged by one another . . . It did us a lot of good. We definitely had more conversations with it . . . That was our best times, counseling, and we tried to carry it over into our life on a daily basis. [04]

54

How couples build knowledge of one another

For another couple a counselor created a zone in which the interviewee’s husband felt safe sharing difficult aspects of his past. The safety did not seem to go with them when they left the counselor’s office, and their problems were not resolved through the counseling, but in the comparative safety of the counselor’s office the interviewee came to know her husband better. .

l: You mentioned earlier that you and [he] have gone to therapy. (s: Yup.) Was that isolated to issues of the pornography, and was it helpful? s: I think I expected more. I don’t know why. I had never gone to a marital counselor before. I learned a lot about it, and I learned a lot about [him] in particular and issues he had when he was younger that caused deepseated shame that allowed him to go in that direction . . . It’s not gonna solve anything, but it helped me understand him better. [12]

Good listening Another part of the process of getting to know one another that some interviewees mentioned was good listening. In fact, some people talked about being attracted to the partner because the partner was a good listener. And with good listening by a potential partner one can become better and more quickly known. p: Those first months of getting to know each other, how did the two of you get to honest places? s: We sat and talked, and I remember thinking that . . . I could say things to him that I didn’t feel comfortable saying to anyone else. And so we just talked, and I felt as though I could be perfectly honest with him, and whatever I said was fine. p: What was he doing that made it so easy for you to be open and honest? s: He was just very easy to talk to. He listened. [06]

Another woman talked about how attractive the listening ability of the man who was now her husband had been when she first met him. And it was not just that he was a good listener, but that his listening led her to trust him and to reveal a lot to him, and even made it easier for her to be a good, trustworthy listener for him. [He] and his [first] wife had seen a marital counselor on and off for . . . years. And through talking with the counselor he learned to listen to a woman. He was like a big ear when I first met him, that was my image of [him], that he could just listen to me. And I thought, “This is really neat.” And that just facilitated the trust and being able to reveal myself to him. [12]

Getting to higher levels of knowing and being known

55

Getting to higher levels of knowing and being known Long after a couple might have made a lifelong commitment to one another, they will still be learning. Some interviewees who were married for years said that compared to what they eventually knew they had known relatively little about each other when they first married. When we first got married, I didn’t know him very well. [10]

One clue to some couples that there was a learning curve in their relationship was that relatively early in the relationship they got into arguments about trivia, and only after months or years had passed did they get good at knowing the deeper layers in self, other, and relationship from which the arguments over trivia arose. In the past he just didn’t talk about it. And I was kind of like that too. And then we would just kind of like suddenly end up in a big fight about something stupid like the dishes, and then it would come up that one of us was mad about something else. But now I think we’ve gotten a lot better about picking up the little cues of facial expressions or kind of just that sense that something doesn’t feel right and I’m confronting it in the moment and saying, “Well, did I annoy you when I said that?” . . . and just trying to be open about it and both of us making that effort. [33]

For her, with greater learning came greater understanding of his internal processes and nonverbal cues, and that meant she felt more secure with him. I think it’s a process. At this point it isn’t so much a frustration . . . At first I was concerned ‘cause I was like, “I don’t know how you feel.” . . . Not that he didn’t love me, but it was like, “Are you really at the same place I am?” I didn’t know. And I think now . . . I feel very confident about that. So now I don’t feel worried; it’s more just, “It’d be nice if you could say this,” but I mean he says he loves me . . . It’s just certain things are really hard for him. [33]

Others talked about the sense that as intimate knowing increased, they learned that their partner’s way of doing intimate knowing clashed with their own. Being aware of the difference can make it easier to live with the partner, but the difference can still be challenging. I think there’s places where we’re different . . . I think we always know the other, at least some way from our experience of ourself, and so empathy comes into play and I am empathetic . . . because I have some idea of what it’s like to grieve, or what it’s like to be happy, or whatever emotion

56

How couples build knowledge of one another we’re dealing with, and so I think that sometimes it’s hard for us to be in relationship to one another because we both have our own [way]. And I want to express intimacy in my way. That might mean that I want to talk about her, I want to explore such and such, or she wants to express it her own way. And sometimes she wants to have this lo-ong conversation about it, and I’ll be like, “Just talk about this bit of it . . . ” So we just do it in our different ways . . . Sometimes there’s that question of, “Do you respect my way of doing it?” Because I’m gonna approach it from my angle from my set of experiences or my lens. And she’s gonna approach it from hers. [27]

Sometimes very important learning came after a relationship had ended, learning that helped to explain why and how the relationship came to an end. I thought I knew her very well, but near the end she became a lot more introverted. I’ve discovered since we’ve broken up, because we still talk once in a while, and when we do it’s usually pretty intense . . . so many things I didn’t know about her . . . like how low her self-esteem was, or how suicidal she was. [34]

As a relationship went on, some people became better at listening to the partner, which meant they got better at knowing how to know the partner. I have to listen differently with her, because there are things that she doesn’t say, that she says by not saying. So I have to listen to what she doesn’t say as well as what she says . . . We’re at a point where I can give her the general idea, and she can read between the stupid comments and [know] what I’m trying to say. And it’s kind of like guy talk, where we say the wrong things and we’re just trying to be honest . . . Taken from anybody else they would misinterpret it. [13]

So far this discussion of learning as the relationship goes on could be read as meaning that couples are rather even keeled while learning about each other. But there are many examples in this book of learning coming out of conflict and pain. We do not necessarily agree with the assertion about what is true that is in the following quote, but it does highlight the sense that an intimate relationship is not necessarily always easy or peaceful. I think every marriage goes through six or seven really horrible times, and if you can get through those, you know the [other] better; you know yourself better. [03]

Conclusion

57

Conclusion What is couple life about? How do couple relationships evolve? What do couples spend their time doing? It is clear from this chapter that the answers to these questions have to include processes of becoming known and of getting to know the partner. The work of couples in both developing and established relationships is very much about knowing. Of course couples spend their time in mutual role relationships, in daily chores, and in shared recreational activities. But everything a couple does is inevitably entangled in processes of knowing and becoming known. And as this chapter reveals, the processes of knowing are diverse and complex. So this chapter makes the case that to understand couple life we have to account for what partners do regarding knowing and being known.

c h a p ter t h r e e

How well do you know each other? about 90%

How successful were interviewees and their partners at getting to know one another? We asked people how well they knew their partner and how well they thought their partner knew them. Although there were a few people who felt that they did not know their partner very well (and were not happy about that), typically in ongoing relationships people said that they knew their partner and their partner knew them quite well. Some people attached numbers to that, with numbers around 90% being most common. There isn’t a lot that we don’t know about each other. [16] p: In general, how well do you think you know your wife? s: Oh, on a scale of 1 to 100, about 91 and a half. [21] l: How well would you say that he knows you? s: (3 second pause) I don’t know. I think he knows probably about 90% or so, so that’s the majority. But there’s a good (chuckling) 10% he doesn’t know. [22]

Not much is held back With an estimate of something like 90% people meant that not much was held back. In fact, many interviewees said that they and their partner had learned from each other most of what was important or interesting to know. A few could name what they had withheld from their partner, and often it was only one area of information out of the thousands that conceivably there were to reveal. I tell him everything. I mean, literally everything. I don’t hold anything back, except that “I don’t think I love you as much as you love me.” [10]

That one piece of information she withheld might be very important to him to know, but she felt that withholding it was an act of kindness and caring. And in the context of having disclosed so much to him, she felt that the one secret was unimportant and that overall he knew her very well. 58

The 10% that is not known

59

If most people meant that not much that was important was held back, what was important? We believe that what was important typically included whether each was telling the truth about most matters, whether each was truly loyal to the other, and how much they and their personal core of values, feelings, beliefs, and concerns were available to be known by the other. I sort of think I got her basic personhood down, but that doesn’t mean that there [is] a lot of stuff that isn’t there still to learn . . . It’s not so much like more information, but it’s . . . more of a depth of knowledge, of trying to see more deeply inside her to see how she looks at the world. And I think she has done the same thing with me, try to understand me better in terms of how I look at the world. And it’s kind of hard to explain because it’s not necessarily more. I suppose it’s based in some way on more information but it’s not so much learning things about the person you didn’t know as it is getting more inside the person and trying to figure out who they are. [25]

The 10% that is not known Perhaps it was almost as significant to the people we interviewed and to us that there was that 10% or so that people typically said they did not know. It was an acknowledgment that a partner could not be known perfectly, that there was always more to know, and even if one thought one knew what was important and interesting in the partner, there could be a shadow of doubt. The doubt might be a sense that there could be secrets that were well kept and lies that were told effectively enough not to be recognized as lies. But as the woman quoted immediately below said, there is also something about the limits of one’s capacity to know another, the limits of being a person in relationship to another. Presumably she was talking about the ways that people cannot be perfectly transparent, perfect communicators, or perfect and completely thorough knowers. I think there’s always that question of . . . “Is there something I don’t know?” I think I know her extremely well. And I think she knows me very well. And I think we feel pretty confident in that, and yet there’s always kind of that curiosity, which I think it’s just kind of a normal human curiosity of, “Is there more?” Not in the sense is she keeping secrets, I don’t have questions about that, but how does one know the other and what does it mean to be a self in relation to another? [27]

Despite the sense that there might be more to know, she was clear that she knew a great deal about her partner and that they talked about many things.

60

How well do you know each other? about 90%

l: Do you think you know everything there is to know about each other in terms of everyday life, in terms of past? s: Yeah. I do . . . I know I’ve heard all the pieces of it . . . [Plus] we don’t stay away from religion or politics or any of that kind of stuff. I know there are people who have relationships where they just say, “We just don’t talk about that.” And we don’t really have something that we just don’t talk about. [27]

Other interviewees who said that they and their partner knew each other quite well offered rather the same view, though it might come from a somewhat different place. For example, one woman saw her limit on knowing her lover as coming from knowing him only so long and only in the environments in which she had been with him. It’s this little realization that, “Yeah, there’s still more to him that I don’t know, because I’ve only known him for this long in this environment, and he has this whole life out here.” [02]

Some people confessed to holding things back from the partner or knew that their partner was holding things back from them, so there were those limits on knowing. There’s some things you have to keep to yourself, ‘cause that’s realistic. [32]

There is more on holding back in Chapters 4 through 8. This chapter is something of an introduction to those in beginning to lay out ways of knowing and being known that might be limited. One key to this introduction is the matter of priorities, of what is important to know and what is not. For example, a woman who felt there was substantial knowing in her marriage said there were some things she would not ask her husband about, but she felt they were not particularly important. p: How well do you think he knows you? s: Oh, probably better than I wish he did. (Laughing) Probably. He knows me pretty well. [Being together for several decades] is a long time, and it sort of leaks out (laughs) . . . He really knows most everything that’s of importance, I suspect. There’s some things I don’t know about him that I will not ask, which are not particularly important. [24]

There are also barriers to full knowing that come from two people thinking so differently about certain issues that it is difficult for them to fully communicate about those issues or to understand what each other tries to communicate. For example, one interviewee talked about something that came up in a couple conflict where it became clear that how her male partner was using certain words was different from how she would use

Experts on each other

61

them, and that, to her, meant there were areas in which they could not know each other so well. The way he described what was wrong had to do with his sense of trust and that [what I did] was a violation of trust. But the way that he described it, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to tell you the specifics, but the way he described what happened in his mind in that situation didn’t click to me. Like . . . the way he uses that word “trust,” and the way he talked about it, some parts of it made perfect [sense], but there was some other thing that I think had more to do with his own really unique understanding of what a relationship is that I didn’t totally get . . . It’s things like that where it’s like I don’t know if we’re ever going to fully and completely see things through each other’s eyes. [37]

There were some people who seemed to imply that everything was known in their relationship, because nothing was held back. I can honestly say there’s nothing that [he] doesn’t know about me. And he said the same thing to me, so we always just kind of put everything out on the table. [18]

But we take that as a statement about the spirit of openness and truthtelling in her relationship, not about what actually went on. We do not take her statement to say that the two share all details of daily activity, all thoughts, all dreams, and all events in the past or that go on at present when they are apart from each other. For example, in another place in the interview she talked about her partner not being so open about his mistakes and faults. So she actually did not know everything about him. Of course, a phenomenological approach will not necessarily give a full picture of what is going on when people say how much they know their partner. For example, the approach is, we think, usually unhelpful at illuminating the ways that people might assume that they know more (or less) than they know. Nor is it helpful at detecting when people exaggerate how much they know about their partner in order perhaps to feel or to communicate to us that the two of them are better connected than they are. Still, in the phenomenology of the people interviewed, the lived experience of an intimate relationship generally includes a great deal of knowing.

Experts on each other There were a number of people who said that their partner knew them better than anyone else did, or they knew their partner better than anyone else did.

62

How well do you know each other? about 90%

p: How well do you think she knew you? s: As well as somebody can know someone else, which means not entirely, but she certainly knew me very well . . . [She] was the one who knew by far and away more about me. [26]

Other people made similar comparative statements, grounding their answer to our questions about how much they were known by their partner or how much they knew their partner in a sense of how much was known that others did not know. In those comparisons the measure of something like the extreme in intimate knowing was when they could say that one partner knew important things about the other that nobody else did. He knows a lot. We’ve been together [for] years, but I have known him [many more years] . . . So I think he just knows a lot about my past that a lot of people might not know about and about my family . . . At this point I think I know him well. I don’t think he has any deep dark secrets (chuckles) he keeps from me. He seems to be pretty up front about most of it. And there are things that I do know that other people don’t that he would be pretty upset if I was sharing. [35]

The expertise a partner has about one can be delightful to a person who wants and needs to be known well, but there also can be challenges in the partner’s knowing so much. Among the challenges is that the partner’s knowing one so well pushes one to know oneself better than one otherwise would. And that self-knowledge can be threatening. For example, the concept of resistance in individual psychology refers in part to people not wanting to know certain things about themselves. Resistance can be very difficult to overcome, though sometimes it is overcome in a supportive environment. So perhaps the woman quoted immediately below would have felt more uncomfortable in being pushed by her partner’s knowing her so well to know herself better if her partner were not so supportive, but he was. I feel like I . . . learn about myself . . . through my relationships with other people. But I think particularly with him it’s been the case because we have grown so close. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close with anybody. And so he knows me on a level that I don’t think anybody else does. And he challenges me in ways that nobody else does. And supports me . . . I’ve never felt as supported by anybody else. [33]

Consistent with what is in the previous chapter in the section on Spending Considerable Time Together, the expertise people claimed to have about their partner or attributed to their partner was partly based on longevity

Doubts and limits in knowing

63

of relationship. There is experimental evidence that people in relationships acquire over time some accuracy in being able to know how the other might react internally in certain situations (Thomas & Fletcher, 2003). And, in fact, a number of interviewees said that after so many years together (5, 10, 20, 40 . . . ) there was a lot known. p: How well do you think [she] knows you? s: Ooh. (breathes out audibly) Um, I (slight pause) think fairly well. I don’t know if that’s a good enough answer. I mean, we’ve been together for a long time, [decades]. So I think she knows me pretty well. p: Can you think of things that she doesn’t know about you, or doesn’t quite get about you? s: . . . She doesn’t know my full past. I mean those periods of darkness we’ve never really offered up, who and what did that entail, and so there’s that, relationships that I had while I was in school. What doesn’t she get about me? I think I’m a lot simpler than she probably thinks. I don’t need a whole lot to be happy. She misses the target frequently in terms of gauging or seeing that . . . [And as far as knowing her] we’ve been together for such a long time, most of the layers of the onion I think have kind of revealed themselves. [14]

Doubts and limits in knowing It seems obvious that being together longer people would know each other better (cf. Fletcher & Kerr, 2012), but we also heard contradictions of that from people who said that after many years with a partner they realized the partner was rather a stranger to them or their partner did not know them well in important areas. And that leads to a discussion of interviewee doubts about knowledge and the limits of knowledge in intimate relationships. One place to begin exploring doubts about knowing and the limits of knowledge is to look at truth-telling. Knowing a partner comes in part from the partner telling the truth, avoiding telling lies, and avoiding the blurred line between lies and truths where a lie might not be told but misconceptions may be fostered. One man who talked about that blurred line used the metaphor of peeling an onion. He and his partner had peeled back a couple of layers, and he thought it good that he was not misleading her and creating misconceptions as he had with his first wife. l: How well do you feel like you know [her]? m: Pretty good . . . We do talk about an onion, and peeling back layers, and knowing each other better, and we’ve peeled back a couple of layers . . . and we’ve gotten to know each other pretty good. I do share a lot of . . . knowledge of her entire life that I’m very sure nobody else does, about who she is and how she feels, and so we’re pretty close.

64

How well do you know each other? about 90%

l: So would you say you feel that you know just about everything about her? m: Sometimes disturbingly so. Some things I don’t want to know about. Yeah. Past lives that I don’t necessarily want to know all the details about. And she in return . . . [In my first marriage] I used to not say everything . . . I wouldn’t lie . . . but I wouldn’t tell . . . everything . . . “Were you out drinking tonight?” And I’d say (sounding indignant and irritated:) “Well, no.” Well, just because I was out with somebody else doesn’t mean, and we didn’t drink, I was telling the truth, but not honestly. There wasn’t honesty. And I have that with [my current partner] where I don’t do that with her. [13]

Another route into exploring doubts and the limits of knowledge in relationships comes from how people responded to our questions about what their partner might have said if their partner had been present during the interview. Some said that their partner might be skeptical about their knowledge claims. l: If [she] was sitting here and I asked her “ . . . How well does he know you?” What do you think she would say? s: I don’t know. That would be an interesting question. She might say that I don’t know her that well, or I just know her from my perspective. So I’m not sure how she’d answer that, but I don’t think she’d say I know her as well as I think I know her. [16]

His thinking that his wife might say he did not know her as well as he thought he did is no doubt related to something else he said, that at times his wife had told him in one way or another that he was wrong about her. Although he felt confident that he knew her very well (see the quote from him at the beginning of this chapter), he also knew that his wife at times said he misunderstood her. From another angle, there seemed to be a gender difference in our interviews in knowing and knowability in the couple relationship. As is discussed more fully in Chapter 8, when it came to giving numerical answers to our questions about how much the partners knew each other, some women in heterosexual relationships said they knew their male partner better than their male partner knew them. p: How well do you think [he] knows you? s: On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say a 9 . . . I can’t get away with much . . . Yeah, they’re a lot of like little things like what my favorite toothpaste brand is (chuckles) . . . He knows me mentally. He might not know physical things. He probably doesn’t know what size bra I wear and what I weigh, but he knows what my opinions are on things and how I would react to any given situation, how I would discipline my child . . . p: How well do you think you know him?

Doubts and limits in knowing

65

s: Very well, 100%. Maybe 99 (laughs). The reason I say 99 is because I don’t know his work, I don’t know what his personality’s like at work . . . but home life and where I’m involved, I would say 100% . . . [And] the time he got a speeding ticket he didn’t tell me for a few years . . . [maybe] because he was on his way to a strip club. [28]

She felt that she knew him better than he knew her. But she also said that: “You can’t have an in-depth conversation about anything with him, not about anything deeper,” which seems to us to contradict what she said above about knowing him maybe 99 or 100%. Perhaps for her there was no contradiction because she may only have meant that she knew 99 or 100% of what was available to her to know. Or perhaps what she meant was that she was more curious about her husband than he was about her or that she worked harder than he at knowing what there was to know. Another perspective on the limits in knowing another person comes from contradictions in statements some people made about how much they thought they knew about their partner or their partner knew about them. Some people said at one point in the interview that their partner knew everything about them and at another point that there were important areas where their partner was clueless. Here is an illustration of that kind of contradiction: p: Were there things that maybe he didn’t know about you? s: (7 second pause) No, I would say he knew everything about me . . . [31]

But then later in the interview there was this interchange: p: So it sounds like there were times when you had sex with each other when it wasn’t real for you (s: Oh), it wasn’t emotional for you. s: Right. p: Did he pick up on that? Did he know that? s: No. [31]

The interview interaction that followed the quote that is immediately above focused on issues of sexual communication rather than the contradiction, so we can only speculate about the contradiction between saying he knows everything and saying he did not know about her disappointments with their sexual relationship. But one guess about what she meant was that her partner knew everything about her that he was capable of knowing. As she talked about him, it seemed that he was too interested in his own sexual pleasure to tune in on her emotional needs in a sexual encounter. So given that limitation of what he could do, he knew “everything about me.”

66

How well do you know each other? about 90%

Another person who spoke about the limits of knowability referred to surprises. She had years of relationship experience, not only with her current partner but in other relationships, on which to base her sense that one can know a partner intimately over many years and still encounter surprises. There’s always surprises. Absolutely no matter how long you know somebody because we are complex always changing beings, there’s always, always surprises. I know he doesn’t know everything about me and I know I don’t know everything about him and we never will, because we are so incredibly complex, and because of our histories. We don’t know everything that happened to each other before we met . . . I’d never think that I know anybody thoroughly well. You don’t. [12]

She also talked about the limits of language and communication, that there were things one could not put into words that would communicate clearly to a partner. Honesty, I think, is trying to communicate what you believe to be true to the best of your ability. Nobody can, I think, articulate it to the point where you can put into words your exact thoughts about a lot of things. It’s the attempt to honestly convey what you’re thinking or feeling to another person. We fall, I fall short of that all the time . . . Sometimes you think, “Well that’s not quite it.” It’s really hard. Our language is so limiting. “Can’t you just read my mind and see what’s in there?” [12]

So for her, and for some other interviewees, there could be a sense that they knew their partner well but that there were many things they would not ever know. Also some people said that they knew that there were things they were incapable of understanding about their partner or vice versa. I think he knows there are things about me that he doesn’t grasp or doesn’t consciously think about or know. [And] I think there are just, I don’t know, I guess what I would call the secret places in everyone . . . some things in my heart . . . that he may not know. He knows they’re there, these secret areas he doesn’t delve into. But he doesn’t really know what they are. [15]

So one can know enough to know that there are things one does not know, but even knowing that there are things one does not know is a kind of knowledge. And some of what one does not know may not be possible for one to know. For example, a man will not know what his woman partner feels when she is premenstrual, even though he may know words she says about that and the ways her behavior changes when she is premenstrual.

How do you know how well you know the other?

67

And then there are things one knows one does not know about a partner because the partner has not shared them. I think I know him well . . . I can say that I know him because I live with him. I know about his job. I know about his goals. We have a shared vision of the future. There’s mutual support. I don’t really know about his overall history, because I think there’s been a lot of childhood issues that he had to face, and I think it’s hard for him to talk about those things, and so he hasn’t been able to share with me . . . I haven’t actually met his parents . . . [But] I feel like I’ve known him forever. [30]

What she said highlighted his choices not to share with her. But one can say that she had a role in her not knowing, because she had not pushed him to talk about his experience of childhood sexual abuse and had not pushed to meet his parents. So we can make a case that her not knowing is to some extent her doing as well as his. In general, if one has some kind of knowledge of what one does not know about a partner, it could be partly one’s own doing that one has not learned more about that area.

How do you know how well you know the other? When people told us how well they knew their partner they also generally told us how they knew how well they knew their partner. What evidence did they offer about how well they knew their partner? After a break-up People may move from thinking that they know a partner well to thinking that they do not if the relationship hits a crisis (Halling, 2008). So it is not surprising that quite a few interviewees who talked about a relationship that broke up said that as the relationship moved toward break up or after the break up, looking back at the relationship they felt that they did not know the partner so well. Part of what changed for some people was that breaking up is evidence for them that they did not know the partner as well as they once had thought. I think that I knew him about as well as anyone in his adult life knew him. But as I look back on it, I think that there was so much that was concealed that I don’t know how much I knew him. [09]

A past relationship can also become a baseline for evaluating a new relationship, and to the extent that a relationship that had been in difficulty

68

How well do you know each other? about 90%

can seem to have been one where there was not a high level of knowing, openness, and honesty, a new relationship can look much more rich by comparison. This marriage is different from my first marriage in a lot of ways. I think in some ways [we are] more honest . . . with each other than [my ex] and I were. And there were a whole lot of things that I didn’t know and didn’t realize. [23]

What the partner says about how well you know her or him Some people offered the testimony of their partner as evidence of how much they knew him or her. For example, one man felt that he knew his romantic partner rather well because she had said that to their therapist. I knew the basics, I mean when we first started seeing each other, and that was one of the things that she said to the therapist . . . was, “He gets who I am,” which was important to her because she’s somebody that feels like a lot of people don’t understand her. [25]

By contrast, one woman talked about her husband repeatedly telling her that everybody has secrets, which led her to believe that he was hiding things from her. When we were [getting to know each other] I think we shared everything, well at least I shared everything that I could possibly think about me (laughs) . . . so I think he knows me well. But as with him, the reason why I say that there’s a lot of things in his background that I don’t know is because he’s made remarks like, “Well, everybody carries a dark bag of secrets.” Which I’m like, “I don’t have a dark bag of secrets at all.” And so things like that make me think that there are probably very bad things that happened to him when he was growing up or just in his [first] marriage or whatever that I don’t know about that he probably is not comfortable talking about. [30]

Another way a person can communicate to a partner that the partner knows a great deal about one is that the person can reveal to the partner that certain things the partner knows other people do not know. Being the only one who knows something can be taken to mean that one knows a person well. [The members of his family] know nothing about [his] panic attacks. I am not sure why. I think there is a sense of shame with that which is understandable. Because he always thinks it’s a heart attack. So he freaks out

How do you know how well you know the other?

69

about that. He’s ended up in the ambulance at the ER . . . He totally hates talking about that and wants nobody to know that he has gone through that . . . He usually keeps that from other people. [35]

But then there is a potential paradox in a person telling a partner that she or he knows the person well in that if the person is lying, has secrets, or is otherwise evading being known, that might be exactly what the person would say as part of keeping the partner ignorant. One woman spoke about that possibility. I’m not aware of any secrets . . . that I think that he’s trying to keep from me. I guess I wouldn’t know (chuckles), right? [37]

In fact there are many ways in which a person could deny that there is another reality than the one the person wanted to foster, including not going along with partner realities, which is what the woman who made the following statement said a man friend she was no longer seeing had done to her. We had quarreled . . . and as he repeated to me what had happened, you know, “this is what you did that was wrong, that was awful, why I’m mad at you.” What he described was exactly what he had done . . . He was clearly the provocateur. The kids had seen it. A lot of people had seen it. But what he described was exactly what he had done, but he attributed the behavior to me. And I thought . . . there must be some misunderstanding. This is just too weird . . . I don’t understand what this is about . . . I’d never had that kind of an experience with someone else. I mean, the quarrels that I’ve had with either husband or with my children, certainly we had quarreled, and bitterly, but not anything like that . . . I had never had the experience of having my reality challenged. But then he kind of pulled back into his old self, and brushed it off, and when I said, “This is what you said,” he said, “I didn’t say that.” So, if I had known about gas lighting I might have said, “He was gas lighting me.” [09]

Predictability of the other Some people said that a key indicator that one person knew the other well was predictability. There were four areas of predictability that were mentioned in at least a few interviews. Being Able to Finish Sentences. One way that some people took as a sign that they and their partner knew each other well was that at times they could finish each other’s sentences.

70

How well do you know each other? about 90% He wants to think that he’s still mysterious to me (small laugh), and he’s not (small laugh). He wants to have a little bit of an edge- . . . He wants to be unknown, and not have everything known about him. But . . . I can finish his sentences. [01]

One can imagine that being able to finish another’s sentences could be mundane and unremarkable. But for a woman who was widowed after having been married for decades there was a sense of how her decades with her husband meant that they had vast amounts in common. She expressed satisfaction in looking back and knowing that one of them could say a word about something in the distant past and the other would know what was being talked about and that they could at times know what the other had in mind without the other finishing a sentence. That was, at least in retrospect, not mundane and unremarkable for her but quite gratifying. It is like not finishing a sentence that they can finish it for you. They only have to speak, and that too goes with the length of the time that you know someone, because you can mention a word and they know what you’re talking about, even though it came from 20 years ago. And you don’t even have to say the whole sentence, just the little trickle of it, and they’re with you, which I think is the real enjoyment of a long term relationship. [06]

That kind of predictability can mystify outsiders (Maslow, 1966, p. 103) who have no background for making sense out of the fragments a partner can make sense of. But then perhaps the mystification of outsiders is at times part of the specialness to two partners being able to finish each other’s sentences. Few Surprises. When one knows another well there is less to surprise one. Almost everything said and done fits with what is familiar and known. When you’re with somebody for that long there kind of isn’t that much of a surprise anymore. [06]

The woman quoted immediately above had been widowed after many years of marriage. Similarly, a man who had been widowed after many years of marriage talked about the sweetness to him of the ways he and his wife were each predictable to the other. She really saw into me and understood my thought process. And I understood her thought process . . . Very seldom was I surprised by her view or she was surprised by mine. Very, very seldom, and that takes a long time to really develop . . . She’d turn to me, and we’d see a certain flower, and I knew she was going to say, “Oh, [name], look at that.” . . . So I think intimacy

How do you know how well you know the other?

71

involves enough knowledge of the other person so that you can do this kind of intangible exchange of feelings and thoughts. [26]

But even after many years together, a partner can still surprise one. Surprises may be infrequent, but they occur. I think even though we know each other’s habits and daily life situation . . . so well, we both still surprise each other sometimes by our attitudes or by our responses to something, as we shift and mature and grow and learn and change and read things and learn things. [15]

Predictability of what the other will do, want, or like Predictability goes beyond predicting the ends of sentences and beyond lack of surprise. If one knows the patterns of a partner’s life there are many times when one can predict what the partner will do, want, or like. A lot of times I can predict how he’ll react to something. [05] I can predict things that he’s going to do, like I know he’s fishing right now . . . I just know it . . . Sometimes . . . he’ll say something like, “Oh, I bet you did this,” you know, something that’s going on, and I said, I was describing something. He said, “I bet you said this or did this,” and I’m like, “Yeah, that’s what I did,” and it is kind of like he knows me and he knows how I would respond to something. And he knows what would get me really mad or he knows what, if something happened, how I would react. [01]

One woman talked about the predictability of her husband’s life and about the confidence and comfort she derived from that predictability. I get the sense that he’s sort of an open book about a lot of things. Easy to read (laughs). The . . . 8 to 5 work schedule (laughs). Yeah, he’s predictable in some ways, and that adds a sense of confidence and comfort and all of that. [22]

Even a partner’s changes are predictable for some people. A man who talked at length about recent changes he made in his life felt that for his wife he was still predictable. I think she knows my heart very deeply. I think she could identify and predict many of my responses to future situations, just from the life experiences we’ve had. I think she’s also experienced my continuing evolution, and I would say in just even the last five years there have been some intense experiences that she’s probably recognized how we contrast each other, and I don’t think she’s surprised anymore that I have had some changes in the last five years. I think she sees those as very consistent, so I think she does know me well. [20]

72

How well do you know each other? about 90%

Predictability has its limits. It is not the same as understanding. The man quoted immediately below could predict what his wife might do in many circumstances, but he felt that he did not always understand her, and he wanted that understanding. So her predictability only took him part way in knowing her. I know most of what there is to know. Understanding is a little more difficult. In other words, if you view understanding as the ability to predict, I can’t always predict what her response is going to be . . . . I know the nuts and bolts. I know what her stand is on social issues, on raising children, on managing money, on uh (clears his throat), on, on sex, and things like that. [23]

There can also be a sweetness in predictability. One woman who had spent years in a very difficult first marriage was pleased that her new lover knew a lot about what she would like and that he was sensitive to what might upset her. He . . . invited [his daughter] to come along to [an intimate] dinner [we had planned] . . . I was just taken aba-, ‘cause I was expecting we would have dinner alone, and then he felt bad. He’s like “O-oh. I didn’t realize.” And I was like, “No, that’s fine.” But he knows that my time alone with him is valuable . . . He brought it up more than once yesterday . . . just saying something like, “I know this, I’m sorry about that,” or, “I know our time is really important to you, and I know maybe you had anticipated this being like a quiet, romantic dinner.” . . . It ended up being with his daughter and brother . . . I was actually fine with it. I was not all that disappointed (chuckles), but I may have been in the past (chuckles), but the fact that he acknowledged . . . it made me feel good . . . And he knows when we have to part . . . that’s very difficult for me. Transition is hard for me . . . Sunday, after we had been together most of the week, and I was leaving, and his son had come over. There was a lot going on. My daughter was with us at that point, and so we just kind of had a quick goodbye and then he just “Are you struggling? I know it’s hard for you,” and I said, “Yeah, I’m okay.” So just little things that he (2 second pause) is sensitive to [my] feelings. [02]

Being Able to Push the Partner’s Buttons. A final aspect of predictability that came up in a few interviews is knowing the partner well enough to be able to make the partner laugh or become angry. Perhaps one could even make a stranger laugh or become angry, but when one knows a partner well, one knows much more about what will push the emotional buttons. I know how to make him laugh. I know how to piss him off (laughs). [05]

Conclusion

73

s: Oh, I felt very well known . . . l: What are some of the ways that make you feel that way? s: I think he . . . certainly knew how to push buttons (chuckling), but I think he also knew what would make me happy, and what would make me content. [06]

Conclusion It is conceivable that people would say that they and their partner have been and always will be strangers, that their sense of existential aloneness would guarantee permanent strangerhood. But despite a general sense from interviewees that it was impossible to know everything about a person, they typically said there were high levels of knowing in their couple relationship. They validated their knowing in various ways, but particularly in ways having to do with everyday experiences of partner predictability. So in interviewee experiencing of their relationship, efforts to know and be known worked rather well and for them a long term relationship was experienced as one in which one could legitimately feel rather well known and that one knew the partner rather well. The fact that people felt that their knowing and being known was generally imperfect is important to explore and understand if we are to make sense of couple relationships. And these issues will be explored in Chapters 4 through 7. But the fact that the interviewees generally felt that they knew the other and were known by the other at something like a 90% level gives a sense of how well knowing processes work in relationships and what it means to be in an ongoing intimate relationship. There are relationships where very important things may not be revealed or known, but if one wants to know another well and be known well by another, the interview material gives real hope of that for many people in ongoing couple relationships.

c h a p ter four

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction to something not yet revealed

Some people we interviewed were clear that they did not want their partner to know certain things about them. And that fits with a literature that asserts that too much self-disclosure, particularly of matters that can threaten the existence of a relationship, that can set off conflict that is uncomfortable, or that is difficult or impossible to resolve can make trouble in intimate relationships (e.g., Baxter & Wilmot, 1985; Cozby, 1973; Derlega & Chaikin, 1975; Finkenauer & Hazam, 2000; Gilbert, 1976; Hatfield, 1984; LaFollette & Graham, 1986; Prager, 1995, p. 220; Weiss, 1987). Thus, a person can know or suspect that certain kinds of information about self might upset the partner or make trouble in their relationship, and knowing that can lead the person to be reluctant to reveal those things to the partner (Afifi & Guerrero, 2000; Komorovsky, 1967; Petronio, 1991, 2002, 2002; Roloff & Ifert, 2000). That fits what some interviewees said. I think he gets a little scared, not so much fearful, just a little scared that I’m going to react to something he says, and so I think that he decides what he’s going to tell me based on what my reaction will be. [01]

Judging by what she said in the rest of the interview the reaction her boyfriend might be scared of was very unlikely to be her leaving him but much more likely to be her questioning him, disagreeing with him, or disapproving of what he said. He also might be concerned that she would express annoyance, indignation, or anxiety, and that she might cry. So we doubt that he was avoiding serious threats to the relationship but simply interactions where she said and did things that could make him uncomfortable. She was not in a different place than her boyfriend in that she talked about not wanting to reveal certain things about herself to him because she did not want to hear or face his reaction to them. 74

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction

75

s: I’ll just say what I want to say to him. If I don’t say it, it’s just maybe because I don’t want to hear what he has to say . . . p: The times you decide not to say something to him, how do you keep silent? What are you doing when you keep silent? s: Umm (embarrassed laugh) (three second pause) uww, in most things that I do, I do kind of like a trial run in my head before I even speak . . . I think that’s because that limits my anxiety about having to say something . . . Sometimes I try to envision what his response would be, and if I don’t think it’s really going to make me happy (small chuckle) then I just won’t say it. So I kind of do this mind reading game where I try to guess what he’s going to say. [01]

Some people talked about being protective of a partner, not wanting to upset the partner or hurt her or his feelings. l: Are there other areas where you keep some things [from him]? s: Not too many, yeah. I don’t have a lot of secrets. But I think I do keep certain things from him, just where I know it might upset him. [22] I wouldn’t want to hurt him. I would keep something a secret if I thought it would hurt him, because I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to be mean, or mean-spirited. [08]

Protecting a partner may always be in some sense a protection of self. For example, when the woman quoted immediately above said that she did not want to be mean or mean-spirited she can be understood to be protecting her self-image and her feelings of being a good person in relationship to her husband. Some people were clear about the specific topics they had not or would not reveal to their partner. Sometimes they were clearly trying to avoid criticism. Sometimes people withheld information from their partner because they wanted to hide their own psychological vulnerability. In the following example, the woman’s vulnerability had been her thinking that if she were very happy in a relationship the forces of the universe would take the relationship away from her. There was one thing from my past that I never shared with [her], or anybody, until (2 second pause) I went to treatment this summer. So there was always that in the back of my mind. It was like, “Well, that’s why they go away. There’s no way, if there is a God or anyone that’s controlling this, they wouldn’t let me have it, something that good.” [34]

She may have hid her thinking from her partner because she thought it was irrational and would have been embarrassed to have anyone else know

76

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction

it. But perhaps she feared what she thought was all too true, that telling her partner about it would accelerate or guarantee the partner’s leaving. Judging by what some interviewees said, some partners were more critical, disdainful, judgmental, or defensive than others. And the more reactive partners might on the average receive more selective communication in couple interactions than they would if they were less reactive. Similarly, our sense is that some interviewees were more sensitive and defensive about their own vulnerabilities and more harshly reactive to what they might have communicated to them by their partner, and those dispositions too might on the average reduce how much knowing and being known went on in the couple relationship.

Concerns when the relationship is relatively new When a relationship is relatively new, people may have reasons to hide certain kinds of information that they would not mind revealing in a committed relationship. Hence, it is not surprising that some people talked about the ways that they or their partner withheld certain information when their relationship was relatively new and they wanted the relationship to continue and grow. They did not want to reveal things that might drive the other away. For example, one woman talked about trying to conceal what she considered to be her intellectual limitations. The stakes are high, in the sense that when you’re starting a new relationship that you really want to work out you . . . want to be really cautious about what things you show. So I think . . . the first year or so . . . of our relationship . . . I wasn’t quite as authentic with him as I am now. ‘Cause I was probably more concerned about how he’d think about certain things about who I am . . . I’m still . . . carrying around some . . . childhood baggage . . . [about how] intellectually smart I am, and . . . I still worry that people will perceive me as not that smart . . . I think the reason why it relates to this relationship so much is because for as long as I’ve known [him] I’ve known that he has excelled in school. He’s gotten really good grades, that his parents are very bright and that there are all these indicators of intelligence that I thought they’re like shining . . . So . . . anything that would give away . . . that I’m not [so bright] . . . those were things that I was a lot slower to open up to him. [37]

Another woman talked about trying to conceal her internal conflicts about religion and her insecurity concerning whether the couple relationship would continue long term.

Concerns with partner knowing about one’s past relationships

77

I just have a problem with (chuckles) that current Christian culture in America. I just can’t get over how ridiculous it is. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have faith in God. I think that it goes way beyond the culture of Christianity right now, but the representation of Christianity in America is so sickening that I just hate going to church. I just hate being around people that are so judgmental and critical, and that’s what I grew up with. And so that’s why I feel like I’m pulling away from it . . . But I also feel like in this stretching of myself . . . I could be losing some . . . important things. And so that’s, you know, this conflict that I always have going on, and that could be part of the 5% that I don’t tell him about. And the other part of the 5% . . . is my insecurities in our relationship . . . Is it going to work out? [01]

One woman talked about the early days of her marriage when her husband was reluctant to reveal his body to her, presumably because he felt that his body was unattractive enough to put her off. When we first got married, he used to get undressed in the bathroom, come on in the bedroom when the lights were out. I got him out of that one (laughs). [24]

Several interviewees talked about partners who concealed psychological difficulties early in the relationship. A partner with a psychological difficulty might try to conceal it, but the other might at some point come to see and even to have some understanding of the difficulty. I found out well into the relationship [that he] was very high functioning borderline personality disordered, and he was very capable and he was almost the archetype of the really high functioning one. He was super smart and charming and pretty crazy, but it wasn’t really obvious to people who weren’t very close to him. He kept people at a distance, and he kept a lot of secrets. And I didn’t know that he kept a lot of secrets . . . It was a really long time before I suspected that there was anything weird about him. [09]

Concerns with partner knowing about one’s past relationships Quite a few people talked about keeping knowledge of their previous intimate relationships from their partner. The only thing about me that we don’t really talk about is that I dated for years and years and had tons of relationships and still have a lot of male friends. We don’t have any distrust, but I think he knew that I ran around and had a lot of fun with a lot of people, and he did not. He was shy until he was much older. [15]

78

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction

Her withholding information about past relationships may be based on many different factors. If the couple’s focus is on their own current relationship, they do not need to know about their pasts. If she might feel embarrassed about her past or he might feel worried or judgmental about her past, that might motivate them to stay away from it. There also is an implication in the quote that he might feel intimidated about her past, because he did not have much past to talk about. The past might also be difficult to talk about if it relates to the present in ways that could be threatening. For example, one woman had past lovers who were current friends, and she did not think her partner would be at all comfortable knowing about her past relationships with those friends. There were some things I preferred to keep from him in terms of maybe past romantic relationships that I’d had . . . I probably just wouldn’t really reveal to him the nature of relationships, especially in terms of people that I’m still friends with that he knows. He probably knows that I had some sort of relationship with them, but I just never would have revealed the details of it. [29]

As evidence that there is something to be said for suppressing information about past relationships, some interviewees said that they regretted revealing information about past intimate relationships to their partner. For example, one woman’s disclosures about her past intimidated her partner, who was much less experienced than she, and that led to him exaggerating his own previous relationship experience. s: When we initially started the relationship . . . I was really open about [the] experiences I had had sexually, and that really freaked him out as I found out later, because he hadn’t had a lot of sexual experiences. So here I was spouting my mouth off . . . and he was really intimidated by that, so he lied about having sex before me . . . p: How did you find out that he’d lied to you that way? s: I think it came out probably a couple of years later, but I could always tell that he was sort of, I mean, the story changed a few times. [31]

She valued relationship honesty but thought that not only might it have been better by her standards to lie about her previous sexual experience but also to lie about a sexual relationship she had with another man after her relationship with her current partner had begun. I started dating [him] probably a month after I had gotten out of . . . another long relationship. Obviously wasn’t moved on completely from that. So I within a couple months was back with that guy and (2 second pause) was with him a few times, but then only told [my current partner] that it was a

Concerns with partner knowing about one’s past relationships

79

one nighter . . . He got so mad about it that I just said that I had kissed him, and so then I didn’t go further, and then later I told him that I had slept with him, but then still to this day he didn’t know . . . how many times it had happened. [31]

One man said that he did not want to know about his partner’s past relationships because it made him feel jealous. He knew his partner had a past, but he did not want to know more about it than he already did. I prefer not to talk about the past too much, especially past relationships, because I’ve got a jealous (chuckling) part of me . . . When she has started telling me about some past relationship . . . I don’t want to hear it. And so I’ve said I would just rather not talk about past relationships . . . Even though . . . those relationships weren’t necessarily relationships that worked out . . . it’s just that she had them and must have been something there that was good, otherwise why would she have been in them? And I just don’t want to hear about it. [25]

Another man feared that knowing about his wife’s past relationships would lead him to feel insecure. I don’t know that I’d really want to know what boyfriends she had because I think my insecurity would have me not measuring up in all kinds of ways. [14]

In some couples the feeling was mutual about not sharing information about past relationships. I’m really open and just bla-a-ah, maybe too much, and I’m curious about his past relationships. And he doesn’t think that’s appropriate. He doesn’t feel comfortable sharing certain things . . . I don’t really have a big history, but then as I got thinking about it I did have some things in my past that I don’t necessarily want him to know about. So then I was like, “Okay, that makes sense. This may be an okay thing.” . . . Especially when you are in a relationship later in life there are a lot more pasts. So what would be the purpose for me to hear about stuff he did when he was in his twenties? We all do stuff . . . So . . . I’m okay with not knowing everything. [02]

There were a few people who had a history of extramarital relationships in a previous marriage or marriages and were in a new relationship where they claimed (to their partner and to us) to be loyal and monogamous, but they still had extramarital friendships that they did not want their current partner to know about. Over the course of my [first] marriage, I had some relationships. I’ve had some sex, intimacy, and [she] knows about that, and I’ve been honest with

80

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction her and told her about them, and I felt at the point in my marriage that I needed that, that I wanted it, and I sought it out. And I don’t anymore . . . I have [her], and I’m very happy with her. I’m very . . . comfortable with the rest of my life with [her]. But, yeah, that comes up. She has this piece in there that says, “Have you heard from [Boston],” the girl in [Boston] . . . I have, and I don’t tell her that. It’s nothing that’s going to morph into anything. But, yeah, I don’t tell those things . . . because first of all I feel there’s nothing there, and there never will be. I’m very happy. And second . . . it’s an hour of discussion . . . [about] old business. It’s an onion that’s been peeled back . . . It’s already been painful enough. We had some very deep discussions about that, and I don’t feel I want to open it up again. [13]

Possibly he regretted telling his current wife about his past relationships, but possibly their relationship also gained from her knowing about his past. In some couples, talk about past relationships may be valuable (Harvey & Omarzu, 1999, pp. 43–7), for example, in establishing a firmer basis of trust, in explaining why one might be sensitive in certain situations, or in building greater depth and breadth of knowing and being known. Then too, perhaps many people would prefer to know something about their partner’s potential for extramarital affairs by knowing about their partner’s past affairs and current affair-relevant interests and activities. There were several accounts of relationships that had serious problems because of affairs. And in those instances, the partner of the person who was having an affair might have felt less vulnerable if she or he had not been so much in the dark about what was going on. For example, one woman talked about how her failure to be suspicious of her husband left her completely vulnerable to his affair that led to the end of their marriage. I’ve always been a very trusting person, and I tell the truth, so I don’t expect other people to not be telling the truth. And I think maybe I’m a little more suspicious now, but I have friends that say, “ . . . You’re pretty gullible.” . . . The two older children knew before I did that there was a problem. I had no clue. I really had no clue . . . I trusted him. [10]

But then there might be instances where secrecy about past affairs is based in part on decency and kindness – not only for one’s partner but for the person with whom one had the affair. That is, one might not want to get into an interaction with the partner that would hurt the partner or betray the trust and privacy of the person with whom one had the affair. Then too, one might not want to undermine the feelings, meanings, and personal impact of a past relationship by getting into a conversation that might cheapen or distort it.

Concerns about money

81

Concerns about money Given that for couples in therapy talk about money is often difficult (Atwood, 2012), it is not surprising that money was another area of concealment that was mentioned commonly in our interviews. Some people hid certain expenditures from a partner or lied about how much they had spent on something. p: He doesn’t try to hide any of these gadgets or subscriptions from you? s: Not usually, except for his recent acquisition of the . . . phone . . . I’m sure he would have told me about it. He had just bought it like a couple of days ago, and I had not even noticed he had this brand new phone that was making funny noises and . . . hadn’t actually told me about, and I think he was thinking too that, ‘cause the bill just came up . . . I was like, “Look, we’ve got a $400 bill! (chuckling) How are we gonna pay that?” So I think he knew that he was going to get in trouble with me for that, so I don’t know how long he would have gone without telling me that. But I have a feeling he would eventually have said something, sheepishly. [35] I used to lie to him about what things cost. [08]

Some people might not have told their partner the truth about financial problems they were having. The only thing he might have not told me the truth about is when he was in debt. [24] I would be . . . tempted to hide things from him [concerning money] . . . I’m not as much of a saver as he is . . . For example there was a period . . . where I didn’t pay off my credit card . . . and it had gotten up into like the $400s . . . which for me is kind of a lot. And we’re both pretty careful about going into debt . . . We’re trying really hard to save . . . Maybe it’s more like withholding information than it is like lying, ‘cause it’s not like he comes to me and says, “So, where is” (laughing), you know, “your checking account balance . . . ?” But something like that I might not really love the idea of telling him, but I always do. It’s just sort of that temptation to be like, “Oh, this is embarrassing to me. I don’t really want him to know that I’m,” like my [wages are] barely covering it, and I know I should be doing a better job of managing my money. [37]

One man talked about his wife hiding from him that she had acquired a credit card in both their names. s: When our first child was born, she got a credit card for the kid’s clothes. I had no idea, and she got one in her name and my name, and I had no idea until the credit card company called . . . “Credit card? I don’t have no credit card.”

82

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction I personally dislike credit cards. And (laughs), lo, and behold, it’s just, “look again. You have a credit card.” So I asked about this when she got home, and I said to her, “You didn’t tell me about this. And you weren’t going to, were you?” “Well, I was going to tell you eventually.” But I knew she wasn’t. [04]

Some people said that they had hidden financial problems from a partner because they feared their partner’s anger. One woman, for example, talked about her fear of her husband’s reaction to her damaging their car or something in the house or other money problems she might have created. When I know he’s gonna be angry, that’s when I find it hard to be honest and upfront, and it’s usually if I’ve dinged the car or damaged something in the house or the car or spent more money than I think I should have. Those kinds of things . . . I’m not honest about. He finds out eventually. I just feel like there needs to be a time span between the happening and me telling him, because I know he’s gonna be mad. [28]

A woman who managed her husband’s finances said that she had lied to him about how much money he had, because he would often overdraw his checking account and then incur a penalty. By telling him he had less money than he did, she decreased the chances of him overdrawing his account. Her concerns in misleading him about how much money he had were not that he would be angry with her but that he would incur overdraft fees. s: There were things I kept from him. I [managed] his checking account. He would easily bounce a check. And he didn’t bounce them because they would float him a loan, but I thought that was a total waste of money. So he had more money (chuckling) in his checking account than he ever believed he did, because I just didn’t like that. [06]

Concerns about the other’s reactions to one’s health issues A few people withheld information about their personal health problems from a partner. Some who withheld health information said that they did not want to worry their partner. So that kind of withholding could be caring, not wanting to burden the partner. In one case withholding information about a health problem was in the service of the woman doing the withholding having the kind of physical intimacy she wanted to have with her husband. If he knew what she was suffering from, she thought that he would not be sexual with her in the way she wanted.

Concerns about disagreeing

83

I’ve had vaginitis for two and a half years . . . It’s kind of not really the wonderful thing (chuckling) to have happening when you’re newlywed. But there were times when he would refuse to even try intercourse because he was afraid I would be sore . . . but I wanted to anyway, and I wouldn’t tell him I was sore, ‘cause I just wanted the closeness of it, instead of some creative other things he’s come up with . . . So there were times that I didn’t tell him that I was uncomfortable, because I was afraid that he would just not touch me for weeks. [11]

Sometimes people withheld health information from a partner in order not to be criticized by the partner or thought badly of. For example, one man whose wife was concerned about his weight talked about hiding from her that he had gone off his diet. I don’t tell her how I really have gotten off the food track when I’m . . . ordering food out. [21]

A widower talked about his wife withholding health information from him as she was dying. However, as he talked about her withholding information to protect him from being anxious about her, his major point was not about the withholding but about her sense of the unfairness of her dying first, leaving him poorly prepared to live alone. s: She really did not complain, and she did not share some of her health stuff as much as I guess I would have liked to have. I probably would have been worried out of my skull if I knew some of the things that were going on. p: Was she protecting you? s: To a considerable extent . . . While she was still coherent, I mean she was dying, she died at home with hospice, um, now wait. I’m going to tell you something enormously important. She kept saying, “It’s not fair. The husband’s supposed to die first. And you’re not as prepared as I was to live alone.” So she was not complaining that she, you understand the concept. It’s nothing bad about her, but she always expected to be a widow. And so she hadn’t trained me properly (small laugh). [26]

Concerns about disagreeing Some people talked about withholding disagreement from a partner. For some interviewees it seemed that doing that was about getting along with their partner, but in the example that follows it seems that the woman saw her and her husband both withholding disagreement as about them both protecting the husband from the thoughts he would get into about himself if she disagreed with him.

84

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction He thinks he’s communicating clearly, but he’s not. He [had a] . . . very physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic father, doormat mother. You could not speak your mind. Or he’d get . . . the crap beaten out of him. His mother wouldn’t do anything about it . . . He was . . . expected to be perfect. And he could never be good enough, and if he dared open his mouth the wrong way at the wrong time, he’d get the crap beaten out of him. So he’s afraid to communicate clearly, because it was not safe . . . He’ll just flat outright lie, like I’ll say . . . ”What do you think about that? Do you agree? Do you disagree?” He’ll say, “You’re right.” And I’ll say, “Are you saying that to humor me to get me to shut up? Or do you really agree with me?” And it’s like he’s afraid to express his opinion. And I may not agree with his opinion, but I’m not going to sit there and yell at him about it. But then if I disagree, he feels like I’m saying he’s stupid, so it’s tricky. [11]

A woman was very careful about disagreeing with her lover about matters of religion, because in the past she had been, by her standards and apparently his, offensively judgmental about his religious knowledge and beliefs. [Religion] is not a topic we talk about much, and if we do talk about it, he does not share openly his opinion very often. There’s been a couple of times when he has, and my reaction was . . . not positive, and I have definitely apologized afterwards because I just know that that probably did more damage than good . . . I just saw myself as . . . this very judgmental spiritual person, who I’m trying to get away from . . . I had to leave the room and go cry for a few minutes before I could come back and apologize and just say, “What I just did was so ridiculous, and I know that you and I are very different when it comes to how we view God especially, so I want to respect what you think.” [01]

Concerns about the other’s reactions to one’s failures Some people tried to hide their failures from a partner – for example, difficulties on the job or trouble staying with a chemical dependency treatment program. For some, the withholding seemed to have been about feelings of embarrassment or shame, feelings about having let the partner down, or avoiding the partner’s disapproval. But one man felt that his wife’s love was contingent on his doing well. I kind of feel like she loves me when I’m doing good, and she doesn’t love me when I’m doing bad. So I’m not gonna bring up when I’m doing bad. [16]

He also wanted to keep his past failures (including his failures in relationship with his wife) from himself. For him healing involved her not

Concerns about the other’s reaction to one’s emotional pain

85

talking about his past failings and him thinking about them as little as possible. I’m trying to get her to let go of the past, because that’s what’s been keeping me kind of immobilized is living in the past, going over failures, trying to figure that out. That’s been my biggest point of transformation, is to be able to shut that down and live more in the present. [16]

Concerns about the other’s reaction to one’s emotional pain Some people said that their partner did not want to know about their emotional pain. In principle, one might want one’s partner to know about one’s sadness, depression, feelings of having been psychologically wounded, feelings of having been treated unfairly on the job, and so on, and to be supportive. And some people did tell their partner about their emotional pain. But some interviewees talked about partners who wanted distance from the interviewee’s emotional pain and went along with the partner’s wishes, withholding substantial information about pain from the partner. In some instances the withholding of information might have been simply an act of caring about the partner. But sometimes the partner worked hard, and sometimes harshly, to stop the interviewee from revealing emotional pain. For example, a woman who was young and partnered with someone even younger than she said her partner did not want to hear about her sadness, and he even said belittling things to her to try to silence her talk about sadness. After a while I just didn’t tell him how I felt anymore, because he never wanted to talk about it when I was sad. He used to cheer me up a lot at the beginning of the relationship, but then he was just like, “Why are you being a baby?” [32]

Some partners were said to resist hearing about an interviewee’s emotional pain because it depressed them. For example, one woman talked about a lover who felt dragged down by her pain, resisted hearing about it, and tried to stop her from telling him about it. Her idea of intimacy had included that he would listen to her tell about her pain and be supportive, but she had come to realize that if she was going to be sensitive to his needs, she would have to find other people with whom to share her pain. His capacity for handling really deep, dark emotion, I think, is much less than mine . . . Any time . . . I am sad or there’s depression . . . he does not want to go back there . . . He’s so afraid . . . whereas with me . . . it’s kind of

86

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction like I don’t mind being a little miserable (laughs) . . . That’s been a part of who I am my whole life, and it doesn’t scare me. There’s almost comfort there, and growing up I gained comfort from being depressed and angry. So we have such a totally different approach and view to that, and it took me a while to figure that out, because at first if I would get down . . . the expectation would be he would want to comfort me. But he would get angry and didn’t want to be around me unless I was happier, and then that really bothered me because I thought he was being insensitive, and then . . . he told me . . . it brings him down. And so I wasn’t realizing the impact I was having on him, and then I was like, “Oh, that’s insensitive of me.” And so I tried to be more cognizant of that, and there would be times then when . . . if I was feeling down or struggling with something, I wanted to call him and talk to him, and then I’m like, “No, it’s not going to do any good. I’m going to call someone else, or I’m going to figure this out on my own.” And that has made a difference . . . It is a fine line, because you don’t want to not be who you are, but [you want to be] respectful and understanding of his limitations. [02]

Sometimes what was withheld from a partner was emotional pain about a specific issue, but sometimes there was quite an array of issues. p: Are there ways that [he] doesn’t know you? s: Umhm. Lots of ways . . . We have been pretty consistently intimate for about a year and a half now. And . . . I don’t know if [he] knows that I feel as vulnerable for work [she was out of work] as I do . . . . He doesn’t know much about my pain. And my mother has Alzheimer’s; my daughter has cancer . . . So I’m pretty sad a lot (crying) and he can’t stand it . . . He’s not a good listener when I have problems. [17]

Sometimes the partner’s unwillingness to hear about pain was not only about the interviewee’s pain but also about the pain of others with whom the interviewee was in contact. For example, one woman’s partner did not want to know about the emotional pain of people to whom she provided services and did not want to know her feelings of concern and empathy with regard to those people. To respect who he was, she did not talk to him about her work. She could understand his dislike of dealing with emotional pain in others, because of his own history of emotional pain, but she still felt the loss in not being able to talk with him about her work. And her loss in not being able to talk about work with him was combined with the losses she felt about him being reluctant to talk about his own emotional pain. I kept certain things from him in terms of my work . . . just because he was made really uncomfortable by . . . situations that I would describe to

Concerns about the other’s reaction to one’s emotional pain

87

him . . . He just is really uncomfortable talking about vulnerable people, people who have a history of abuse or are in . . . a really sad situation . . . So I . . . chose not to share certain things with him . . . But I wanted there to be more of a shared interest in what I do . . . He had . . . a traumatic history of abuse and . . . there is just some emotional things that are hard for him . . . I feel like he was pretty private, at least in the beginning . . . about his upbringing and . . . his family life was sort of a mystery to me, and is still somewhat of a mystery, although I’ve learned a lot more since then. But . . . I felt like it wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to share those things. But it was painful for him to talk about it. [29]

Rather like the man who was talked about in the quote immediately above, a man who had been sexually abused in his childhood did not want to talk about that with his wife. She said: [The incest] is one of those things that I think it’s a big part of our lives without being acknowledged . . . It’s one of the one or two unspoken, big elements in our lives. [15]

Similarly, another husband who had experienced sexual abuse in his childhood also did not want to talk about it with his wife. s: I’ve tried a couple times [to talk with him about his experience of abuse], but it brings a level of discomfort that I don’t want to deal with and also because I know, in the past I’ve tried to ask him. There isn’t definite answers to it . . . l: What’s his discomfort look like? Is he getting angry or sad or? s: He doesn’t show emotions and he doesn’t necessarily have face to face contact with me, and then that makes me feel uncomfortable, because usually we’re so close to each other. When it comes to that he doesn’t really pay full attention. He doesn’t put his heart into trying to explain it to me. He doesn’t want to try. So I don’t want to put him in that situation nor put myself there . . . He’s told me that when he grew up he had been molested . . . . I don’t think anybody knows about it except for his mom . . . I have an understanding that . . . maybe that sexual trauma really did affect him and made him into the person that he is. And if he’s not comfortable talking about [it] I’m not going to dig into it. [30]

In this section of this chapter many of the examples are of women who wanted to talk about pain and men who did not. We have more to say about gender differences in Chapter 8. But one thing that could be said here is that in cases of a traumatic past (for example, in the case of the husband of the woman who is quoted immediately above) talking or not about the traumatic past is not like talking or not about a casual

88

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction

experience. Traumatic events can have a powerful effect on emotional selfregulation, interpersonal boundaries, and perspectives on self and life. So traumatic experiences may often have a substantial, even profound, impact on a person’s subsequent intimate relationships.

Concerns about hurting the partner’s feelings Some people withheld information from a partner that they feared would hurt the partner’s feelings. As was mentioned in Chapter 3, one woman withheld from her husband that she did not love him as much as he loved her or perhaps in the way he assumed she loved him. He probably doesn’t know that I don’t love him as much as he loves me, or it may not be that I don’t love him as much. It’s in a different kind of way, I think . . . He absolutely adores me, and everybody knows it, and I don’t feel that way about him. I never have felt that way about him. I looked at him as a really cool guy who got along with family and was funny and enjoyed doing some of the things that I did, and that was a companionship kind of thing. And at the beginning the sex was pretty good . . . I don’t let on. I would never do that. It would be so hurtful to him . . . He’ll say, “We’re so happy. People look at us, and they say, ‘You’re so happy. You must have a wonderful marriage,’” and he’ll say, “Oh, I do. We have a good marriage. I have the best wife in the world. She’ll do anything for me.” And I’ll think, “Oh, gol. That’s kind of heavy. I don’t feel quite the same way.” [10]

Other people, too, said that they tried to avoid hurting their partner’s feelings because they cared about the partner too much to want to hurt the partner. As with [10], who is quoted immediately above, they said it was not that they feared what the partner might say or do to them if they hurt the partner’s feelings. They said that they genuinely cared about protecting the partner. p: Did you ever fake things with [him], fake sexual reactions, or fake feelings that were more positive than you felt or fake more interest in what he was saying than you actually felt, or anything like that? s: (6 second pause) Yeah, I’m sure . . . I guess I don’t want to hurt him. p: So when you say you don’t want to hurt him, you’re kind of feeling protective of him? s: Yeah p: Or was it making it easier for you not to get him irritated or? s: No, I think I genuinely didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and I cared about his feelings for sure. [31]

Concerns about the partner having contact with one’s family

89

Concerns about the partner having contact with one’s family A few people talked about having a partner who did not want them to meet the partner’s parents, siblings, and other members of their family, perhaps including children and grandchildren from previous relationships. Because we did not interview the partners who blocked contact with extended family, we cannot be sure what that was about, but there were hints of partners not wanting to make trouble with members of their family and also hints that the family of origin might have had problems (such as mental illness) that a partner might not like the interviewee to have to deal with or perhaps even know about. Some interviewees felt hurt at being denied contact with members of a lover’s or spouse’s family of origin. He’s very close to his family and he has met some of my sons, but he doesn’t want me to get to know his family. And that’s kind of hurtful. [17]

But then some people did not want to meet a lover’s or spouse’s family. In fact, the man dating the woman quoted immediately above also had his reasons for not seeing her mother. He has never gone with me to go see my mom. And I think he thinks that’s really too gruesome. I mean it is . . . kinda gruesome. She’s lost 40 pounds in the last year, and she knows who I am, and she doesn’t have teeth on the bottom anymore, and I can communicate nonverbal mostly with her. Rub her back and I sometimes hum to . . . her (sniffles) . . . But he doesn’t want that intimacy about knowing my mother. I think that he’s got enough grief to carry around. [17]

The two instances in which blocking of access to extended family was most clear and persistent both involved men who came from cultures where the extended family was traditionally highly interdependent and important. In those two instances the man might have felt he had something to risk in terms of maintaining the relationships he wanted to maintain with his extended family by introducing his woman partner to the family. But then in both instances there were other complexities that challenged any simple interpretation of what was going on. In one instance the woman par amour’s strong desire to meet his family might have been perceived as an escalation of the relationship that he did not want. In the other instance, the man lived far from his extended family and may have wanted to maintain distance of all sorts from them.

90

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction

Concerns about causing family (not just couple) conflict Sometimes people hid things from a partner in order to head off conflict between the partner and other family members. In the example that follows, the concealment was a great deal about protecting one of the couple’s children and the spouse’s relationship with that child. And the perceived need for protecting through withholding information was compounded by the alcoholic rages of the interviewee’s husband. His temper and their daughter’s willingness to confront him could lead to extreme conflict. s: [My husband and daughter] just really didn’t get along at all, and I would hide things from him that I knew she was doing, because I was afraid. p: Of his big temper? s: Yeah, yeah. And I was just trying to . . . protect each of them from the other, ‘cause our daughter was really good at getting him angry, and I think she’d kind of thrive on that. So I would be kind of the protector there. And he does have an ugly temper, and I got to the point where I had to say, “I shouldn’t be afraid of you.” He’s never hurt me, but he’s scared me. And particularly when he was drinking. [08]

The protection through withholding information was also about protecting herself and her marriage. A key reason for protecting the marriage was that one of their children needed the healthcare her husband’s insurance provided. Her fear was that if the marriage ended, her son would lose necessary medical care. l: [Was keeping your husband from knowing about your daughter] to protect yourself as well? s: Of course it would be. Yeah, because at the time I was afraid that our marriage might end, and I didn’t want that to happen, because our son had major medical problems, and I didn’t want to rock the boat, so I did, at that time, I was careful not to anger [my husband]. [08]

Overcoming concerns about the partner knowing something Some people had the experience of overcoming personal concerns that limited their disclosure of certain things to their partner. One woman had left couple relationships in which she had considerable fear for her safety if she disclosed too much, and now, in a new relationship, she had the benefit of feeling safe about revealing information that had been risky to reveal in previous relationships. But it was not just that she was with a different partner. She also was now willing to take more risks.

Making sense of people’s concerns about disclosing to a partner

91

He knows me a lot better than either of my previous husbands did. But that’s also my choice about getting past whatever my fear is about sharing those things, ‘cause I know that’s my thing, and it’s my choice to get past that with him and to sit down and maybe have riskier conversations with him, ‘cause I’m committed to having extraordinary relationship, and I know I’m going to have to not withhold if I’m going to do that. So I’m more willing to take those risks. But it’s also because he receives it better than the previous two. I don’t get yelled at. [11]

She did not say that she disclosed all to her current husband, or that he could comprehend and accept all that she might disclose, but she valued relationship honesty and wanted to have a high level of it. She wanted a relationship that was “as real as possible.” It’s hard to really be known in a relationship, because we edit so much stuff before we express it, and because they have their filters, how they interpret it, and so I think that it’s very, very difficult to really truly be known for who you are in a relationship . . . [But] I don’t want to waste my time on something that’s not real. I want it to be as real as possible, and the more I edit the more of an illusion it is. [11]

A man who had considerable fear and anxiety about self-disclosing wanted to suppress or fight his fear and anxiety more now than in the past. He had gone through chemical dependency treatment and was clear that, like the woman quoted immediately above, he wanted to have a “real” relationship. I have to be hypervigilant about being honest, more so than a lot of people, and it’s really because for me, the manifestation of my drinking was an inability to be emotionally honest. And so I know what I’m capable of if I give myself any wiggle room. She will oftentimes tell me, “You don’t need to be that honest,” and I’ll be like, “No, I do. You don’t get it.” Cuz it’s such a slippery slope that if I, oh, give myself an inch and I’m living some kind of a lie. [14]

Making sense of people’s concerns about disclosing to a partner As can be seen in the material in this chapter, many people had concerns about a partner reacting to certain kinds of information. Perhaps everyone we interviewed did, but a few interviewees did not address the issue. The picture we get is not of people who willingly open up about everything to a partner but of people who have areas they would rather keep away from the partner or that they open up with anxiety and trepidation. The message in this area of the interviews seems to be first of all that openness

92

Concerns about the other’s potential reaction

is more a matter of degree than an all-or-nothing matter. So even when people seem open and claim they are open they may not be fully open. Also, one can read many of the quotes in this chapter as meaning that people thought before they talked about certain things and might choose not to talk at all about those things. Related to this, one can read some interview quotes in this chapter as indicating that some interviewees had something like theories of the partner and their couple relationship, and those theories offered, in a sense, maps of safe and hazardous paths, and people generally wanted to avoid the hazardous paths. They might not know quite what they would get into on a hazardous path if they revealed what they would rather not reveal, but it would be interesting to consider what they have to go on when they choose not to disclose something. As the material in this chapter and throughout the book suggests, people do have knowledge of the partner on which to make decisions about disclosure. They know the partner’s previous reactions, the partner’s opinions and values, what happens when the partner is upset, and much more. They also know themselves and how they might or might not be uncomfortable with certain kinds of disclosure or reactions to disclosure. People also bring their experience from past couple relationships and their family of origin into the current relationship, and this could mean that to some extent what is disclosed or not to the partner has nothing to do with the partner but everything to do with what the person knows, believes and feels based on previous couple relationships and family of origin experiences.

c h a p t e r fi v e

What people cannot or would rather not know

Very few people who we interviewed said that they were eager to acquire every bit of knowledge that they could about their partner. There are practical limits in learning all there is to know about a partner, because there is too much to know. Also, there are limits to what people are curious about, and some people may not be able to grasp some of what goes on in a partner’s life. Then too, many people said there were things they would rather not know. And when a relationship is experiencing difficulty people may want to know less (or more) than usual, and may want to provide less (or more) information than usual to the partner.

There is too much to know People cannot pay attention to everything and cannot assimilate all information, and this affects every area of their life, including their closest relationships (Rosenblatt, 2009). There is far more information available than can ever be transmitted, apprehended, kept track of, or dealt with. So people in couples have to have a sense of priorities about what to know and what to try to communicate to a partner. People who want to share a great deal of information with each other are not, we think, ever able to do so, but they are especially not able to do so when their lives are very busy, which they often are, with work, children, household chores, other relationships, health issues, personal energy limits, television, the internet, commuting, religious activities, reading, fantasizing, and hobbies. For many couples, the time available for sharing is often only a few minutes in the typical day, and even that may be limited to when they first go to bed – if they share a bed, go to bed at roughly the same time, and both can stay awake long enough to share (Rosenblatt, 2006). There are, however, periods in the life cycle when there is potentially more time to share, to know, and be known. For example, one woman said that she and her partner had finally left the extreme busyness of their younger years 93

94

What people cannot or would rather not know

behind. With her no longer working outside the home and her children old enough not to require a great deal of parental attention, there was more time for marital conversation. We’re old now. We sit around and don’t have much to do, and so we talk and share ideas . . . When you got a family and you’re working a couple of jobs and going to school, there’s not a lot of time for that togetherness. [10]

But even they did not have enough time to share all their thoughts, dreams, past experiences, feelings, memories, and so on. Another woman who talked about time pressure was in a busy dualcareer couple. She said that she and her lesbian partner made time to talk about what was important, but with only so much time in which to interact they were selective about what they talked about. They tried to focus on what was high priority to share. I don’t feel like we keep any . . . secrets from one another, and yet I know that there are things that we don’t talk about because our days are very full . . . We talk about the important things, the things of value, or things of meaning. Relationships are things of meaning, but she doesn’t know everything I ate for lunch or every hour of my day, every minute. I mean we do talk about, hey, how was the day, and we’ve actually sort of tried to be very conscious about not talking about it all the time, because she doesn’t want to know my whole schedule and everybody I talked to and relive fourteen hours. [27]

Thus, not only did they not have enough time to talk about it all, but they did what we think all couples do, which is to work with personal and couple priorities about what to share and what not to share.

Curiosity limits Two people differ in a million ways, so there will often be partner differences about curiosity within the relationship, and those differences could be challenging. For example, when one is partnered with someone who is less curious about one than one would like, the partner’s lack of curiosity could be frustrating and even make one feel uncared about. In some couples where there were curiosity differences, a partner might walk a fine line that enabled her (it was usually “her”) to communicate more to the partner than the partner seemed to want to know but that still involved withholding a great deal in order not to burden the partner with too much unwanted information.

Curiosity limits

95

p: Do you experience him as curious about you? s: (8 second pause) I’d like to say a bit or somewhat, but I don’t think in extraordinarily unusual ways. I wouldn’t characterize him as that curious about me. I tell him more than he asks, but less than there is. [15]

Curiosity is to some extent situational. When people are feeling too busy, or preoccupied by other matters, or there is not much for them to learn, their curiosity is limited. Some interviewees talked about times when they or a partner was not curious about aspects of the other’s life. Usually we talk about whatever’s gone on at work. If he’s interested. Sometimes he doesn’t care. [10]

Sometimes one partner tried to discourage the other’s curiosity. They might do so because they did not want to spend a lot of time talking, they did not think their life was interesting, they did not like to talk about work or certain other aspects of their life, or because if they told the partner a lot the partner would tell them a lot and they did not have much curiosity about what the partner might say. But a person could be upset with a partner who obviously withheld information. And matching the partner’s withholding with one’s own might feel uncomfortably like an expression of anger. I felt like he was withholding, and maybe he just wasn’t able to be as open and giving as I wished he would be, but I think as a result of that I became withholding, and I was angry at him, and just wasn’t as fully engaged in the relationship. [29]

But then one woman talked about being in a relationship of such long duration that she and her husband had run out of curiosity about one another. I don’t think we’re curious about each other. After [decades together], I’m just not curious anymore. [08]

That does not mean that she and her husband knew each other totally, but it meant that they knew enough of what they wanted to know and were known as much as they wanted to be known. Some people, typically men, were seemingly limited in how much curiosity they had about their partner. (More about this in Chapter 8.) The following was said by a widower who had loved his wife dearly, so his curiosity limit was not about feeling negative about her; it was just about what was more important for him to pay attention to.

96

What people cannot or would rather not know

p: Of the two of you, which of you was more curious about the other? s: (7 second pause) I have to think that she was more curious about me than I was about her . . . I really wasn’t . . . curious about her. [26]

Inability to grasp partner realities Possibly nobody can grasp another person’s realities fully. Everyone is different, living in her or his own skin, head, past, daily experience, and uses of language. People have many experiences that a partner has never had, and so the partner does not have an experiential base to use in understanding those experiences. For example, a white partner in a blackwhite couple will not have experiences with racism like those the black partner has had (Rosenblatt, Karis, & Powell, 1995). So there is likely to be the frustration, at times, of a partner not being able to understand what one is feeling, thinking, dealing with, experiencing, or trying to communicate. He struggles with [my health problems] a lot because he doesn’t understand what it feels like. And so I get frustrated because I’m like, “You don’t know what I’m going through.” [33] We could literally talk for days about sex, and she wouldn’t understand. And I might not understand what she’s saying either. But she would not get it, like what . . . I would like our sexual relationship to be like. [16] I know that there’s parts of me that [he] will never probably truly know, because that’s who I am, and sometimes I just question how much can you truly know about a person. And how much can you really tell them, because the way they understand you is not how you are (small chuckle), meaning their perception and the way they see things and the way they see you kind of is a framework for how they perceive what you’re saying to them about you. And so if I was gonna tell [him] that I’m struggling spiritually . . . he doesn’t really have much of a background with that, and so he would just go, “Oh (sounding very sympathetic), that’s too bad.” Then that’d be it. [01]

Even though a great deal of what blocks a person from grasping a partner’s realities has to do with each person’s unique constellation of experience, memory, thought patterns, language use, and so on, there are some things that might be outside of a partner’s experiences and realities that still are possible for the partner to grasp. Couples will have enough language, experience, social skill, and shared cultural knowledge in common so that a partner can have legitimate reason to hope to be known and understood about some things that the partner has no direct experience of. For example, a person who is struggling and unhappy with a difficult supervisor at work

Inability to grasp partner realties

97

may have a reasonable chance of having a partner understand the work difficulties. After all, there is considerable lore in the culture about difficult bosses, and difficult bosses are common enough that the person may well have had personal experiences with difficult bosses as a partial foundation for understanding a partner’s difficulties. But in some relationships hopes of being understood have been dashed so often and so thoroughly that a person might seek some kind of help from outside the relationship to try to bridge the chasm with the partner. One such source of help is couple therapy. A woman interviewee talked about going to a therapist while in a marriage prior to her current one in hope of finding ways for her then husband to become a better listener. [He] and I went to one [therapist] for a while, and she did this active listening model . . . But he was completely incapable of empathy. He just couldn’t empathize at all. Just didn’t get it. Couldn’t be there. He was so committed to being right that he couldn’t understand anyone else’s point of view about anything basically. It’s like there’s only one way to look at everything, and it was his way. [11]

In her account of what happened, her ex-husband was unable to grasp realities different from his own, and because of that the couple therapy did not help. But there are other accounts in this book of therapy that helped one partner to understand the other (for example, an instance with interviewee [12] that is described in Chapter 2). The majority of interviewees who talked about large and frustrating gaps in knowing and understanding never sought (and perhaps never even considered) couple therapy. As an example, what follows is a quote from a woman who, like the woman quoted immediately above, felt that her lover was quite limited in knowing certain things about her that did not fit his realities and ways of thinking. He seems to have a difficult time comprehending anyone or something that thinks differently outside of the realm of how his mind works. And that’s really hard for him. [02]

She seemed to be willing to live with and accommodate to him being that way. But what else can a person do when a partner does not seem to understand the person in important areas? Consider, for example, a person whose work is central to her or his life but who has a partner who knows nothing about that kind of work. The person might try to educate the partner about the work, though if the person keeps the education simple

98

What people cannot or would rather not know

enough to get through to a partner who cannot grasp a more complex and accurate view, the partner may still be very far from knowing the person in that area. Religious differences might be similar in that one might try to teach the partner about one’s religious beliefs and practices, but may have to simplify in ways that mean that the other does not learn much of what one ideally would want the partner to know. Our religion differences . . . I feel like he doesn’t really know that part of me, and so if I wanted to talk about that, I would have to explain it in a very, very basic way to him . . . My education of the bible and of Christianity is so much more advanced than he has ever had in his life that I have to be very considerate of that and talk to him about it in a way that he will understand. [01]

Sometimes the chasm in knowing and understanding seems to have been central to a relationship ending. For example, a woman talked about a relationship that started out very hopeful for her, but eventually she learned how much the man she had such hopes for did not know her but only projected the image onto her that he preferred to have of her. In what follows, it is not that she withheld information from him but that he was not open to important information about her that she tried to provide him. There were some ways that I felt known by him. He certainly noticed the things that I liked and catered to those . . . But then there were times where he would project his stuff onto me and say, “I know that you like this” or “I know that you’re this way,” which wasn’t me at all, and that would be really frustrating. It was him saying in a way that he liked those things or wanted things to be a certain way. He said . . . “I know that you want a $250,000 house.” Well that would be the equivalent of a million dollar house now. And he pointed this particular one out. “I know that you want that house, and we could live there,” and have all our children there. And in truth, I didn’t like that house. I liked my own house, and I didn’t want to move, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have chosen a house like that. But he always expressed it in terms of projecting that this was what I wanted. And in the beginning it was just mistaken, and over a long period of time it became really annoying, and then there were things like that that would make me feel that I was, now that I think about it, probably in the last two years of the relationship, I felt so objectified. I didn’t feel like in his eyes I had three dimensions. And he was still flattering, and he was still full of flowers and romance and all that stuff, but I thought that he knew me less than I thought he did in the beginning, because it wasn’t about . . . finding out who I was. [09]

Inability to grasp partner realties

99

The relationship ended, and a central reason for its ending, in her view, was that he wanted her to be what he wanted her to be to such an extent that he was incapable of knowing her in important areas. In another example of a relationship ending because one partner could not grasp the other’s realities, a woman talked about her frustrations with a former lover who had trouble knowing her or seeing the world as she saw it. I don’t think he ever really thought about the complexities of inter-racial relationships. So to him this was easy and it was going to be fine and we weren’t going to have any issues . . . It’s hard when he doesn’t see things that way or sees things a lot simpler, it was hard to explain to him why I wasn’t happy in our relationship . . . He saw our breakup as out of the blue, and I was like “Are you kidding? I’ve been unhappy for a year and feel like I’ve told you why.” And part of it was me saying, “I feel like we can’t talk about these things. Why can’t you just have this conversation with me about issues that we’re going to have to deal with married and an interracial couple? You don’t think we’re going to have to deal with anything? You don’t see that people stare at us . . . ?” “No, I don’t worry about that,” he’d say. [31]

Some interviewees talked about receiving such contradictory information from a partner that they did not know what was true. Then they faced the interpretive challenge of putting the contradictory pieces together. And the way they did that might be in the form of something like a theory of the inner life of the partner. p: s: p: s:

Does she ever say “I love you” to you? Umhm. Do you believe her? Sometimes . . . I believe her, but I think I’m not sure what she means when she says that. I don’t know who she sees when she says that . . . because when we get into those fights, she can say some things that are unbelievably mean . . . When she says she loves me, to me it’s more about an image of me, like maybe she feels good because I’ve been working pretty solid for two months and now we’ve got some money in the bank. And now that’s a good feeling . . . So I think the “I love you” is attached to how secure she feels. [16]

There are always limits to a person’s ability to grasp a partner’s realities, but it is difficult to imagine living with someone for very long with any quality of relationship if the partner does not understand one’s realities at all. Even a partner who fails to understand one’s realities in a relatively limited area of life can be frustrating. The frustration is there to read in a number of quotes in this section of this chapter, and it is then no surprise that “failing to take the other’s perspective when listening” was the dominant client couple

100

What people cannot or would rather not know

communication problem reported in a study of the practice experience of 50 couples counselors (Vangelisti, 1994). And it is understandable why two of the interviewees quoted in this section of this chapter ([11], [09]), had left the partners who could not seem to grasp their realities. On a different, but related, note, one can hear it said commonly in the United States that some couple broke up because they grew apart. The growing apart may be about increasing differences in values, interests, and preferences. And perhaps becoming more different than they were is enough to split a couple. But it also may be that it is not the growing apart that is the problem but that in that growing apart people lose interest in or capacity to grasp one another’s realities and experiences. Then the problem is not the increased difference but insufficient capacity to know one another across the gap created by the increased difference.

Not always wanting to know the truth A number of interviewees touched on areas where they did not necessarily want to know the truth or the whole truth. Sometimes not wanting to know the truth was a matter of knowing the truth in general but not wanting to know more of the details that went with the general truth. But some people also said that at times they had deceived themselves about their partner without being at first aware or fully aware that they were doing that. A woman who is quoted earlier in this chapter about a man friend who projected his own wishes for who she should be onto her offered reasons for why she had deceived herself about a different man to whom she had been married. She said that she had not, for many years, let herself learn or realize certain things about her husband. It was later that I realized that he was not an emotionally connected person, and I had, what? Pretended or ignored or, I’m not even sure any longer what it was, hoped, that because he was such a gifted [person] that [he had] . . . to have this soulfulness. And that if I did the right thing, that I would be within that circle. [09]

So she had the experience of for years not being as connected emotionally to two different men as she thought she was. We do not think her experiences are unusual. People often enter relationships with illusions that are difficult to recognize as illusions (Cerullo, 2006), even if one has come to recognize that one had had such illusions in a prior relationship. Perhaps [09] did not want to know the truth or could not at first know the truth about the husband, even though years later she could look back at the two

Not always wanting to know the truth

101

relationships and see that the illusions she had about her marriage were not totally different from the illusions she had about her lover. Illusions and selective obliviousness about a partner are not, we think, uncommon. A person might not want to know the truth about a big secret in their partner’s life that would be threatening to know. Learning the truth about something that threatens one or one’s sense of having a relationship that is good and trustworthy can hurt and even shake the foundations of one’s life and sense of self. Learning truths about big secrets can confront one with extremely painful, even unacceptable decision choices. So it is not surprising that some people thought their partner avoided knowing about a big area of secrets in their life. I had a really extended affair for . . . years . . . And I think [my husband] chose not to know that. [03]

Similarly, another woman talked about her husband not asking her about the e-mail continuation of what had once been a sexual affair, perhaps because he did not want to know about the continuation and what that might imply about her emotional connection to the other man. l: Would you say that there are things that you purposely keep from each other? s: (sighs) There have been in the past. Mostly things that we’re ashamed of (4 second pause). What I’ve kept from him, I still have, is that I had a very close relationship [with a man from a distant state], and he’s aware of that, and that’s [many] years ago now. But what he doesn’t know is that occasionally this fellow and I still e-mail each other. We told each other at that time that we would never see each other again . . . and we’re each leading our own lives, but we’ve maintained a friendship through e-mails . . . [My husband] knows about him, but I don’t think he knows that we’re still in contact. Would I tell him if he’d ask me? I would tell him, ‘cause I wouldn’t lie to him, but I think he’s avoided (chuckling) asking me because he might not want to know. [12]

Sometimes a partner does not learn about a big secret one has because one is trying oneself to stay away from the secret. A man who said that at one time he had weighed down his life under the burden of alcoholism told about not wanting, during his time of uncontrolled alcoholism, to know the truth about how angry he was. He worked at hiding that truth from himself as well as from his wife and other family members. I was dishonest with my family, and a lot of my life refused to admit that I was angry. All alcoholics are angry, resentful. [19]

What he said illuminates the link that is often present between dishonesty to self and dishonesty to partner. It may always be the case that if one

102

What people cannot or would rather not know

cannot admit something to oneself one cannot admit it to one’s partner (see Rubin, 1986, pp. 22–4). And so if one is lying to one’s partner, the lies may be linked to lies one tells oneself. Or to put it another way, there may be much that we cannot tell ourselves about our own life and experience, and those things are impossible to tell to someone else. Related to this, perhaps many people are defensive about certain things that they are at some risk of learning about themselves from their partner. They might not want to hear certain kinds of threatening comments or criticism; they might be unwilling to admit to certain things or face them in themselves. So defensiveness may lead a person not to want to know certain things a partner might conceivably communicate. And that defensiveness can be seen as a block or limit on the person’s knowing (and quite possibly also on being known). He has some really sensitive areas that I think have made it hard for him to be vulnerable. His dad has some abuse issues, not physical really but he’s been a very stressed person most of his life, and has taken that out on his family in some ways, and I think that [my partner] still has a ways to go in his own process of dealing with his family stuff. I think it comes into play in our relationship too, because you don’t have to go very far in getting to know each other before you hit those things. [37]

There is a literature that says that relationships may be happier if truths are limited (e.g., Finkenauer & Hazam, 2000). But some interviewees talked about hearing hard truths from a partner that were not only not a problem for them but made them feel better about their partner. One woman, for example, talked about her reaction to her man friend telling her that he did not love her. She liked that he spoke what was the truth for him, though she also believed from his actions that he did love her. The oddity of it is that the fact that he tells me he does not love me makes me desire him more, because I realize he’s telling me the truth . . . That’s so important to me coming from the situation [in my first marriage] where . . . the words were there, but it was a lie. And yet ironically it’s kind of the same thing only reversed because there’s incongruence in the words and the actions, but now I’m choosing to believe (laughing) the actions instead of the words. [02]

Information exchange when a relationship is not doing well The way partners exchange information when a relationship is in trouble may be different from how they usually exchange information. An angry

Information exchange when a relationship is not doing well

103

person might not want to self-disclose to the partner, might not want to hear from the partner, or might want to convey how angry, hurt or disgusted she or he is by not disclosing much of anything to the partner. A person might feel vulnerable to the other’s insults or misunderstanding if she or he reveals certain things to the other. A person might not trust herself or himself to react reasonably to things the other might say, might not trust the other to say things that are truthful and not hurtful, and might fear making things worse (see Komorovsky, 1967, pp. 140–4). Thus, it is no surprise that a number of interviewees told about times in which greater emotional distance meant that they also were more distant in terms of information given out or desired. In the first of the following two examples, the woman’s lesbian partner and the woman were angry and distant from each other, and in that anger and distance they no longer maintained the communication processes that enabled them to know each other and to be known by each other. In the second example the women felt that her man friend had lost curiosity about her, so she stopped sharing as much as she previously had. p: How well do you think she knew you? s: Up until we stopped communicating, very well. I mean she was my best friend. [34] In the course of the relationship I think I became much less forthcoming with him. I don’t recall lying to him, but I certainly remember withholding things from him. And then I did this more as time passed, because I didn’t feel like he was interested. I mean, if he was interested he would . . . seek it from me. And he didn’t. [09]

But sometimes, when a relationship is in trouble, people become more open. They may learn things about their partner’s feelings or actions they had not known previously. Anger, anxiety, desperation, no longer caring about keeping something silent, becoming curious about something one had been missing – these are among many factors that might lead to a richer information exchange when a relationship is in trouble. See, for example, some of the quotes in Chapter 2’s section on Confrontation. One might assume that people who lie a great deal, people who some might call pathological liars, are so rare as to be unlikely to be mentioned in interviews with 37 people who were talking about their closest relationships. But a substantial number of people we interviewed were currently or had been at one time or another in a relationship with someone who lied a great deal. Our interviewees are not a random sample of the population, but based on their experiences, we suspect that partnering with someone

104

What people cannot or would rather not know

who lies a great deal is not rare. And this leads to questions about how one can sustain the information exchange part of a relationship when the other does not reciprocate truth with truth. Lying at the extreme might make it unlikely that a relationship would be long term. One woman with a partner who lied to her a great deal came to a point where she could not tolerate remaining in the relationship: I didn’t know a lot about him, his personal life, his health, and what his relationship was with his family. He said he had a good relationship with his family, but his family would tell me otherwise (laughs). And . . . he had said a lot of stuff about his health that wasn’t true. So for example when we first started dating he had, like I think he knew I was going to break up with him, maybe at the beginning of the relationship (chuckles), and then he had said that he had cancer. And then I was really worried, and [he said] his family didn’t know . . . and then I went along with it for two or three years . . . After a while I would start questioning it, saying, “How are you feeling today?” “Can I come and see you in the hospital?” He’s like, “No, you shouldn’t come and visit me, because I don’t want you to see me like this.” Like, well, “Does your family know?” And he was . . . really defensive . . . and so then I was just like, “You probably don’t have this.” . . . We did stop talking about it after a while, ‘cause every time I tried to, he would just argue and argue and like really defensive and so I just never brought it up . . . If he was going out to the movies with . . . a girl, I’d never knew about it, [but] someone else would see him . . . So then he’s like, “Oh, that’s probably my brother,” ‘cause [he] looks kinda like [his brother] . . . So that kind of like spiraled into a big thing. So that was when I like, “ . . . Are you just making this up?” [32]

Conclusion There is too much to know, and there are things one probably would rather not know either because one is not curious or because some of what there might be to know would not be comfortable to know. There may well be aspects of a partner’s thinking or experiences that one cannot grasp. And there can be times in a relationship in which the couple is not getting along well and one or both partners closes down in interactions with the other, so less is communicated. Think of knowing and not knowing as a matter of flow of information, analogous to the flow of water in a system of pipes. The system can only accommodate so much water, and some things (for example, curiosity or its lack) can increase or decrease the flow. This analogy also gives us a sense of there always being a reservoir of information about a partner that is still to be tapped, and one can imagine a flow that is blocked being diverted

Conclusion

105

elsewhere, for example, to a friend or individual therapist who can know about a person in ways that a partner is not getting to know the person The analogy is an imperfect one, because with water each molecule can seem to be the same, whereas with information in a couple relationship there are particular pieces of information that might be withheld, might be too threatening to know, or might be too hard to grasp. But in general it makes sense to think of the flow of knowing, without even considering specific kinds of information, as being more or less limited in a couple relationship.

c h a p ter s ix

Processes in being a judicious nondiscloser

As can be seen in quotes throughout this book, quite a few interviewees said that they deliberately hold back certain kinds of information from their partner. Some things were never disclosed. Some things were only disclosed when it felt safe or when it was no longer desirable to hold back. Some things were blurted out in an argument or disclosed in a moment of relative great intimacy and trust. In some relationships some thoughts, actions, and feelings were lied about. The factors leading to disclosure, nondisclosure, and lies are numerous and diverse, but there are some factors that came up in a number of interviews that we want to spell out in this chapter.

“Need to know” decision process Many interviewees talked about a “need to know” decision process that they engaged in. They had no intention of trying to tell their partner everything the partner could be told but instead made decisions about what to tell the partner based on their perception of the partner’s need to know and their own related sense of what they wanted their partner to know. The need to know process might typically be about avoiding talk about trivia. But echoing what was said in Chapter 4, some people emphasized that with their “need to know” process they avoided upsetting or troubling the partner. I make my decisions about what I’m honest about mostly when I feel like there’s a need for him to know. Is there a need for him to know this feeling I have . . . ? Does he really need to know it? If he doesn’t need to know it, if it will just cause him to either worry or become upset or [have] some kind of negative reaction to it, then I don’t feel like he needs to know. I also feel like . . . a person has things that they don’t want to share with anybody. Or maybe they don’t want to share with their significant other. And I don’t think that that’s necessarily unhealthy . . . And if he doesn’t want to share something with me . . . that is fine with me. [01] 106

“Need to know” decision process

107

He’s asked . . . who’s better in bed? Well, am I going to tell him, “not you”? Unun! (laughs) [10]

With these two interviewees, need to know was not simply a matter of deciding what the partner needed to know in order to be well informed. It also was about avoiding trouble with the partner. So the phrase “need to know,” which quite a few interviewees used, is perhaps misleading. Perhaps a more accurate wording would have been “trouble avoidance,” which means “I try to avoid making trouble for my partner, me, or the two of us together.” And that is in accord with a self-disclosure model offered by Greene, Derlega, & Mathews (2006), which asserts that people make decisions about what to self-disclose based on what they think the consequences might be of the disclosure. Consider, for example, the interview quote immediately above. Telling her partner that he was not the best person she had ever been in bed with might have made considerable trouble for the woman. Similarly, a woman whose husband was much more cavalier about spending than she tried to keep information about her finances and assets from him. He has a completely different attitude toward money than I do. I want my bills paid on time and in full, so I pay all the bills, and we’ve never had a joint savings account. He has his own business; I have my own business. I own most of the stuff we have. I own a house. I own stocks. I own the buildings. Because if he owned it he’d lose it . . . He had no idea of how much money my business made. He knew at the end of the year what my accountant told him to write on the taxes . . . His attitude is if we go broke, we’ll make some more money. He’s got a very cavalier attitude about it, which is why I pay the bills. [24]

Another woman talked about her husband’s intense dislike of conflict and how that led him to hide certain mostly trivial things from her that she did not need to know but that would upset her if she did. There’s been things that he hasn’t told me that I’ve found out later, that he didn’t tell me because he knew it would be something that would upset me. And because he’s mild and calm and easy going, when I get upset, sometimes it’s scary for him . . . They’re things like buying the wrong yogurt brand . . . .It’s mostly (chuckling) trivial stuff. [05]

So, need-to-know assessments are, in this instance, as in the others discussed so far in this chapter, self-protective as well as perhaps partner protective. There could, of course, be individual differences in need-to-know decisions. That is, even if the desire to avoid conflict may lead to many partners

108

Processes in being a judicious nondiscloser

or couples choosing to stay away from certain matters (Afifi & Guerrero, 2000; Firestone & Catlett, 1999; Roloff & Ifert, 2000), there are no doubt individuals who are particularly conflict avoidant and hence do more withholding or sliding away from topics that could set off conflict. But conflict avoidance is only one of many factors. A woman with a serious chronic illness talked about her learning curve and the marital learning curve she shared with her husband concerning topics to talk about. She had learned to set priorities about what was important to tell her husband, and that was partly about there not being enough time to tell everything and also about a choice to spend less time talking about the negatives and more time talking about the positives in her life. I have to make a conscious effort to not tell him all of my problems every day. And I don’t, because the list would be like this long. But I have to very carefully be like, “Well, this is important; this is not important, and the rest kind of keep.” At the beginning . . . we’d come home from work and we’d sit for like an hour, and I’d tell him all my problems, and we were like, “This is too much; we can’t (laughing) do this.” So we’ve gradually kind of come to a balance of when I need help I ask for it, and when I don’t we don’t talk about it, because we can focus on . . . positive things. [33]

In a culture that values monogamy and in which many people think of a committed relationship as sexually and emotionally exclusive, a romantic or sexual extra-relationship affair may have especially great potential to threaten a partner and the couple relationship. In fact, an affair might be the prototypical matter about which there could be strongly guarded lies or secrets and which could be seen as dangerous to reveal in a relationship (cf. Firestone & Catlett, 1999). An affair might be something a partner would “need to know” in some sense, because it is highly relevant to relationship trust issues, to understanding who the partner is, and to interpreting words and actions that may have been deceptive. But an affair might be precisely what a person might decide a partner does not need to know, for many reasons, including that the person wants the partner to continue to trust and believe her or him. No doubt in some instances the desire to keep the partner ignorant is simply about wanting to continue to get away with the affair without hassles from the partner, but in our interviews there were a number of people who saw their affair or affairs as anomalies and felt that the trustworthy person that the partner knew was the real person. Thus, a number of interviewees had once had what could be called affairs, and quite a few of them kept the affairs hidden from their partner, and every

“Need to know” decision process

109

interviewee who lied about an affair or kept it secret seemed to think that was a good thing to do. One way to make an affair something not worth talking about with the partner is to frame it, in one’s own thinking, as something small. Thus, some interviewees belittled the significance of an affair and made their lies and secrets concerning it seem not to be a problem. For example, one man distanced himself from the affairs he had early in his marriage by saying they were in the past. s: I don’t sleep around (small laugh) anymore (laughs). (6 second pause) I have had affairs while I was married early on, but it’s a lot of work. Not that it wasn’t enjoyable, but it’s a lot of work. I love my wife, but sleeping around was the rush . . . [On the other hand] dealing with one . . . female is tough. Dealing with two, ach, it was (claps his hands together once), it was time constraining . . . l: But she didn’t know about it. s: No, my wife doesn’t know. [04]

Some interviewees had an emotional relationship they might not consider an affair and hence for them that made the relationship small in comparison to an affair, but the relationship was so intense and important to them that they thought it would be threatening for their partner to know about and as a consequence it would be best to keep the relationship concealed. For example, one woman talked about an emotional extra-marital relationship via e-mail with a person she had never met face-to-face. I’m sure if [my husband] were here, the way I would say things would be different . . . I wouldn’t be talking about my [e-mail] friend . . . We don’t see each other, and I can tell him almost anything. And he says he feels that same way, like it’s strange we’re sort of strangers that can have this random internet talk . . . I think that would really bother my husband. And there’s nothing for him to worry about (chuckles) in my opinion. I mean he’s not a person I’m interested in anyway . . . But I know bringing that up would probably be a sensitive topic for [my husband]. [22]

Others who kept information about extramarital relationships from their partner dismissed the relationships by saying they were “flings” and not a threat to the partner because they were not romantic or long term. Labeling with a term like “fling” means, we think, that the person felt that they were not emotional or commitment threats to the marriage. And that notion is present in the larger culture and in academic writings about extramarital relationships, with people differentiating brief extramarital

110

Processes in being a judicious nondiscloser

relationships without emotional involvement from longer term relationships with emotional involvement (e.g., Duncombe & Marsden, 2004). But then some interviewees kept knowledge of a “fling” from the partner, which probably means that the person who had the fling thought the partner would feel angry, hurt, and betrayed. In fact, despite the label that could be seen to categorize the extramarital relationships as not a threat to the partner, if the partner felt it was a threat there might be serious, even relationship-ending consequences. The complexity of the thinking of someone who had “a fling” is captured in the following quote, in which sexual dalliances are dismissed as “flings,” but the person who had the flings guarded against the possibility that the partner would feel hurt and would react strongly by keeping information about the dalliances from the partner. I had a, not an affair, but I had a couple of one night flings very early in our marriage. But that’s it. And as far as I know, she never knew about that. [26]

This section on need to know has focused on interviewee decisions about whether the partner needed to know something. But we believe that for the partner too there is some kind of need-to-know process going on that means she or he does not want to know about some, much, or almost everything that could conceivably be known about the interviewee. And we believe that is not simply a matter of seeing priorities because there is too much to know but also, sometimes, of avoiding trouble.

Selectivity processes As the interviewees who talked about their ways of disclosing selectively to a partner described how they were selective, a number of processes were described. There may be many ways to be selectively honest and truthful with a partner, but the following four subsections of this chapter each deal with processes that came up often in the interviews. Tell the general truth but not the specifics Many interviewees touched on areas where they or their partner did not necessarily want to tell the truth or the whole truth. Sometimes not telling the truth was a matter of having told the truth in general but not telling crucial, possibly touchy details that went with the general truth. For example, one could say “I had a meeting at work today” without getting into the specifics. This example may seem benign, but imagine that the comment

Selectivity processes

111

about the meeting purposely omits a detail that might hurt the partner’s feelings or create relationship difficulties – for example, that at the meeting the person said something derisive about the partner. As evidence for the idea that people might tell the general truth but not the specifics, one study (Metts, 1989) reported that avoiding hurting the partner’s feelings was the most common motivation for not telling the whole truth, and married people (in contrast to mostly younger unmarried people in the study) were more likely to omit information that could make trouble and less likely to lie about such matters. That implies that they would be more likely to talk about attending a meeting while omitting, say, that they said things that would be hurtful to the partner. Hide things from your partner that will make big problems There is reason to believe from questionnaire research that people generally believe that they can successfully deceive a partner so that their deceptions are relatively unlikely to make big problems (Boon & McLeod, 2001). Also, some people fear big consequences, perhaps even the end of the relationship, from disclosing certain things to a partner (e.g., Firestone & Catlett, 1999). So it is not surprising that quite a few people we interviewed said that they avoided telling the truth or the whole truth to their partner in certain areas in which disclosure might risk big problems. One man whose wife was jealous (perhaps with some justification) and concerned about the man’s relationships with other women was tempted to keep information about lunch dates with other women from his wife. But he also was concerned about what deception might do to their relationship. I don’t believe in sneaking out on somebody or lying . . . When you start feeling like you have to do that in a relationship, to me that’s the beginning of the end . . . How can you have a relationship with somebody where you feel the need to sneak around or you need to lie? And some of those pressures were on me in the beginning, because I felt like, can I be honest with this person about some of my current relationships with people if she’s going to be so bent out of shape about them? And so that was kind of a struggle too to feel like I could be open and honest with her. [25]

Quite a few people talked about hiding possibly very big things from a partner, including affairs, alcohol and drug problems, online pornography viewing, and secret expenditures of money. It might seem obvious why these things would be big in the sense that if the partner knew about them the partner might be very upset and the upsetness would not necessarily end

112

Processes in being a judicious nondiscloser

quickly or with a restoration of easy and comfortable couple interaction. But these things could be big for many additional reasons, including how much they belie the self a person presents to the partner and how much they do not fit the assumptions and apparent agreements that have been built up in the couple’s relationship. If there is this big violation, what does the past on which the partners have built mean? Also, disclosing a big lie or secret can make one seem no longer credible or believable, and that means one is in a poor position to make peace with the partner. One’s claims, promises, apologies, etc., may not be trusted. We who are outside a relationship cannot know what will make a given act of concealment a big issue for a particular couple. Things we think of as big may not be big in some relationships. Things we might think of as trivial, like concealing that one has thrown out a piece of junk mail addressed to “resident” or that one has not used fabric softener in laundering something for the partner, may be immense for some partners. Any issue can become big in a relationship, and so some people might keep almost anything from a partner. But we think that what would be typically big are things that indicate less exclusive loyalty to the partner than what the partner wants and expects, a big difference between a person’s self as displayed to the partner and the self in other situations, addictions (because of their capacity to undermine one personally and financially), and inappropriate use of couple financial and other resources. These may often be problems that a person might be particularly likely to choose to hide from the partner. Among the hardest things to hide are activities that continue. That is, a brief “fling” can occur, and then it is over. A one-time pornography viewing session on the computer ends when one turns off the computer. Ongoing affairs and pornography viewing habits are much more difficult to conceal. And similarly in the category of ongoing lies, what does one do when evidence of what was hidden persists? For example, what does one do with secret purchases in violation of the couple budgeting agreements that remain present in the house? l: So there are times when you might not want to share with him something that you bought? s: Yeah (nervous laugh). There were times I shoved things under the bed before he got home (laughing), then took off the tags and threw them into the laundry. [22]

The process of concealment continued when at some point she would put on a secretly purchased garment, and her husband, who paid attention to

Selectivity processes

113

her wardrobe, would ask where the garment came from. And she would say something that was in a sense true but which also hid that this was a purchase that violated their budget, “Oh, it’s an old thing I’ve had lying around the house.” And then with regard to ongoing sexual or emotional affairs, physical evidence may not be constantly present in ways that a partner could detect and interpret correctly, but the fact that they are ongoing may mean one has to be rather constant at concealing the clues. And concealment can be imperfect, so there is always the possibility of the partner coming to suspect something, and that can lead to ongoing effort, discomfort, stress, and guilt feelings for the person doing the concealing. p: Are you ever not honest with him? s: (4 second pause) Uh (3 second pause) (very quietly:) Yes . . . (8 second pause) When I said that [he]’s the only person I have an intimate relationship with, that is true. [But] I have another friend . . . and I rub his back. I make him feel good. He helps me in a bundle of ways, and . . . I don’t feel real good about it, because I know he cares about me, and he’d like to be able to have genital sex with me . . . I feel uncomfortable about that, because it’s kind of a bartering, because he does help me so much. And he is a dear friend. But I never think of him in the same way I think of [the man with whom I’ve had the long term relationship]. I don’t do, I mean, it isn’t, it wouldn’t happen . . . But he helps me . . . with lots of things . . . I do feel like I’m compromised kind of. I don’t think that I’m saving anything from [the man with whom I’ve had this long term relationship], because I’m not. But I’m kind of giving affection to two different men. [17]

Hide truths from yourself Some people are effective in hiding things from their partner by hiding them from themselves. That is, some people at times do not allow themselves to know their own feelings and needs (Firestone & Catlett, 1999, p. 17; Rubin, 1983, p. 20), and that means that those feelings and needs are unlikely to be disclosed during interaction with the partner. To illustrate, a woman interviewee talked about the ways that her partner had changed in relationship to her so that finally he could speak more truth about his needs than he did or could in his previous close relationships. In the past he had suppressed and denied his needs and feelings and had put others first. But as she and her partner became closer as a couple she had worked at getting him to be more open and honest with himself and hence with her and others.

114

Processes in being a judicious nondiscloser He knows himself better since we’ve been together, because I’ve given him a safe place to go there. To be okay, like expressing what you want, or putting your stuff out there. Prior to that, in his family . . . mom, dad, siblings, and then going into his marriage, there was none of that, of any kind of encouragement, of introspection, or self awareness, or even empowering him to put his stuff out there. So part of our friendship initially was wanting to draw [him] out, because I knew there was a lot of stuff inside of him that was not coming out . . . Because of his personality, which is very sensitive and kind and gentle . . . Sometimes people like that get run over by forceful people. And so a lot of people in his life didn’t recognize all that stuff inside of him . . . I . . . tried to . . . draw him out and get him to think about himself . . . Nobody said, “ . . . What do you need?” So I spent a lot of time going, “ . . . What do you need? What do you want?” . . . His life has been taking care of others, being there for others, and not really feeling like he had permission to figure out what he really wanted. [18]

Although her emphasis was on him getting to a place of knowing himself better and getting more of what he wanted, it was also clear that she felt that she knew him better than did others (including his ex-wife) because he now knew himself better. Among other accounts of people hiding things from themselves and hence others, two women interviewees each had a male partner who had been sexually abused in childhood. (See quotes concerning these men near the end of Chapter 4.) Sexual and emotional abuse may block one not only from wanting to tell others about one’s specific experiences – the abuse, the lack of support from others in dealing with the abuse, the ways the abuse transformed one, the ways one may still be confused about what happened and why – it may spread to other areas and make one less transparent to oneself or one’s partner. Too many things inside one may be vulnerable or may be uncomfortable to think and talk about. For example, one may not be sure that the abuse was not deserved, or one may not be sure that one deserves to have a partner. To the extent that such thoughts are too uncomfortable or threatening to address, one may stay away from thinking about the topics and hence from talking about them. More generally, some people may be disposed to stay away from thoughts and feelings that make them uncomfortable, that threaten or confuse them, or that make them sad or anxious. They may distract themselves, find ways to stay away from or smother thoughts and feelings they would rather not get to, and may become good at not remembering anything relevant to what makes them uncomfortable. Then, if they are in a couple relationship with someone who asks about something in the discomfort zone, they will have little or nothing to say, both because they cannot access much

Following cultural rules about what to tell and not tell

115

in that area and because they are disposed to divert their attention and the attention of others from such matters. Even if they could think of an appropriate answer to the partner’s question, the internal need-to-know setting they use in deciding what to disclose could make it unlikely that they would disclose much, if anything, in a threatening or uncomfortable area to the partner. Changing the subject People can stay away from truths they don’t want to tell their partner or themselves without lying, so they leave no trail of lies to feel anxious about or have to continue to cover up. One way they can do that is to change the subject. And that works well if the partner accepts that. p: When he shies off of it, what does he do? s: Oh, just changes the subject or says, “I’d rather not talk about that.” p: If you really wanted to go after it would you? s: I wouldn’t do that. I would not ask him to talk about something he really didn’t want to talk about. There’re some places you don’t want to go, and I suppose if I thought it was crucial to something, I mean, to the kids or to our relationship, but it’s not. It’s why he’s afraid of the water, for instance. I think someone scared him and he doesn’t like to talk about it. [24]

Following cultural rules about what to tell and not tell A very different kind of process for deciding what to reveal and what not to reveal is entangled with everything discussed in this chapter, tuning in on and following cultural rules about what to disclose and not to disclose. There are cultural rules (general guidelines that are typically observed in a culture) about many aspects of couple relationship, including about what to share and not share, what to ask about and not ask about, what to know and not know. For example, people in many cultures in the United States who are in a relationship that they hope will escalate into something romantic, sexual, or long term often present their best self, hide their disagreements with the other, and otherwise work to offer a self that they believe will be attractive to the other (Firestone & Catlett, 1999). However, we believe that many cultural rules that might be relevant to a given situation are not in a person’s awareness and not easy to verbalize. Thus, people cannot usually tune in very well on the full range of rules governing knowing and not knowing in intimate or potentially intimate relationships in their own culture. But there are situations that make one more aware of cultural rules

116

Processes in being a judicious nondiscloser

about relationships, and one of them is being in relationship with someone from a culture quite different from one’s own. Fortunately, among our interviewees were people in cross-cultural relationships who encountered strong differences in cultural rules about knowing and not knowing. And their experiences helped them, and hence us, to know how much culture shapes, limits and pushes for disclosure about various matters. s: Americans don’t really share (chuckles) everything about like, it’s sort of embarrassing (chuckles) to say, but [people in his culture] do this, like they’ll say, “ . . . diarrhea . . . ” l: Completely blunt about any bodily function. s: Yeah, they want to know it all (chuckling). And I’m just like, if I say “stomach trouble,” that should be enough. No further questions. But . . . he feels like he has the right to know (laughing), and I’m like, “I don’t know if I really want to share all that.” . . . I just don’t feel like I have to announce everything (laughs). And he’s like, “I should know.” And I’m like, “Why?” And I say it’s because I’m American that that [is] sort of an off limit topic. [22]

A few older people we interviewed were aware of certain cultural rules because the rules had changed from the time when they were younger. We take the following as an illustration of that – a woman in her late 60s talking about cultural rules that affected how her husband knew her during the earlier years of their marriage in the area of sexuality. p: I want to pick up, if it’s okay, about the sexual piece and ask was part of the way it didn’t click so well that he didn’t get who you were? s: . . . I don’t think he cared . . . .I don’t think that was important to him . . . I tried talking to him about it, but he just didn’t want to talk about it. I think that’s something you don’t talk about. You just do. But you don’t talk about it. [08]

And perhaps another illustration of greater awareness of cultural rules because the rules have been different for different generations came from a woman in her late 60s whose husband and she had become a couple many years ago in a rural community at a time when people did not say strongly positive things to others about their spouse. She told us about the one time her husband said to her (and others) that he was happy he had married her. At his 50th high school reunion . . . we were kind of in a circle talking and it was his time to possibly say something, and he said, “As I think back, I’m happy about two things. One is . . . I finally went to [college]. And the other is that I got married to [her].” And I thought, Wow! He’s never said that to me.” (laughs) So, neat. [07]

Summary

117

So she had to wait decades into their relationship to know that he thought that about her because in their culture, as it was when they started out together, a husband would never say that about or to a wife.

Summary Perhaps there are people who never withhold anything from a partner, but it seems that many if not all our interviewees could be called judicious nondisclosers. They did not want to disclose everything to their partner. They made choices about what to disclose on the basis of their judgments about what their partner needed to know. There were four elements to the processes of nondisclosure that were mentioned relatively often by interviewees: telling the partner general matters but not specifics, holding back things that might make trouble with the partner, hiding truths from themselves (which makes it easier to withhold those truths from the partner), and changing the subject. And the processes of judicious nondisclosure are not merely matters of individual psychology but reflect cultural ideas about what should and should not be revealed.

ch a p ter s eve n

Discovery of lies and secrets

Lies are not necessarily easy to identify and label definitively as lies. In an essay on lies and gender the noted feminist poet, writer, and thinker, Adrienne Rich (1979) offered a set of insights that helps us to understand the ambiguity and complexity of what could be lies. A major challenge is that there are so many ways to lie. For example, she asserted that “Men have been expected to tell the truth about facts, not about feelings” (p. 186), that lying is done with silences as well as words, and that lying may not be calculated but just something that arises out of the complexities and ambiguities of an interaction. She also wrote that one can lie by responding to the other’s question by not answering but by turning the question back to the other. Despite the many ways in which lies may be disguised, may be more like evasions or secrets than untruths, or may not be intended to be lies, she asserted that there are liars who know well that they have lied and live in fear of being caught. One can read Rich as saying that love or a relationship moving toward love pushes partners into a delicate and difficult process with regard to what she calls “refining the truths they can tell each other” (p. 188). Having a relationship in which one can tell many of one’s truths, however refined they become when one puts clear words to complex situations, thoughts, and feelings, and in which one might confront one’s own self-evasions and uncertainties regarding what is true, can be quite challenging. However, it can be immensely rewarding to reveal truths to a lover that had not been shared before with anyone, because the revealing might help one to know oneself better, to come to valuable new insights, and to feel less alone. But then as indicated in earlier chapters of this book there are also self-protective aspects to keeping some information about oneself from the other. One can feel that a relationship is good as it is, so why make trouble by revealing something that could undermine it? On the other hand, one can believe from news articles, soap operas, the experiences of acquaintances, films, literature, popular songs, TV shows, and one’s own 118

Discovery processes

119

experiences that relationships may not be what they seem or can even be dangerous and that it is best to protect oneself by probing for what might be hidden. So on the one hand, people may have reason not to tell the whole truth but on the other they may want the whole truth from their partner. Partly because many if not all people have reason to evade and deceive at least some of the time (Moellering, 2009), partly because people can be strongly motivated to try to know more than they now do about a partner or potential partner, and partly because of the complexity and ambiguity that inhere in what the truth is, we thought that many interviewees would have stories about the discovery of what seemed to be lies and secrets in their relationship. And they did.

Discovery processes How might lies and secrets be discovered? Sometimes physical evidence is found. For example, one woman learned about her ex-partner’s secret alcohol problems when she opened certain closet doors. p: You said that she became more introverted. Does that mean she was withholding more from you than earlier? s: Yeah, and actually the other big thing was her alcoholism. She was hiding (two second pause) her drinking. p: How did you find out? s: I found empty cases of beer in closets. [34]

She also learned about her ex-partner having taken money from her. The information came out when she visited the ex-partner after they had broken up, saw how nicely furnished the ex-partner’s new place was, and asked how the furniture was financed. s: I was the only one with a checking account the whole time we were together . . . When my grandmother died, I got [lots of money]. That was gone within a year. Didn’t know where more than half of that went. And now that we have broken up, I found out she was paying off a lot of bills that she had for herself. And when we broke up, I thought we had a set amount of money, and apparently she had thousands of dollars, so the money that she would make, she would hoard it. And I didn’t know that . . . p: How did you find that out? s: By seeing her a couple of weeks after we broke up and seeing her new place, and the new furniture . . . I (laughing) was so pissed off. Yeah, I was like, “How in the hell did you get this?” “Well, I had some money put back.” (laughs) “Really!?” That was my money, okay, but my money became our

120

Discovery of lies and secrets money, so that was a big fight . . . She did all the finance . . . I’ve never been very good with money, ever. And knowing that she would pay bills on time, we discussed early on that she would just be the one to handle it. [34]

Another woman found out about the affair her intimate man friend was having with another woman when by chance she got to know the other woman. [I met this woman who knew him] . . . and I got to be friendly, and the long and short of it, he also dated [her], and they had an intimate relationship (laughing), because I got to know her and I asked her how she knew [him] (still laughing), and she said, “Oh, we’ve been an item for several years” (laughing a lot) . . . I was absolutely stunned, because I trusted him. [17]

Another woman found out about an array of lies her husband had told her and secrets he had kept from her when his ex-wife telephoned her. s: In the beginning . . . I didn’t know about his family background. I mean, as far as his intellect and his academic background, those were true, because I actually went and [dug] into his academic records and those were true. He was a straight A . . . But as far as his age, he didn’t tell me he’s . . . 30 something at the time. He told me he was 25, and he painted a really good picture of his family background . . . When I found out the truth about his age and the names of his parents and it’s like everything didn’t really resonate. But [at first] I didn’t know about that. I knew about it at a much later time. So I found out . . . l: How did you find out these other parts of him? s: . . . His ex-wife called me, and I guess they weren’t together anymore, but she was really still involved in his life, too. So she called me and told me about it, and I confirmed it with his parents. [30]

A wife found out about a secret her husband had been keeping from her when he blurted it out while they were arguing. We had a sexual relationship that was probably pretty normal in terms of being kind of repressed, but I was trying to figure out “Well there must be something more to this. And so (chuckles), this is kind of interesting, because I’ve never talked about stuff like this. So oral sex was something that she didn’t want to participate in, but I still wanted to figure out this, I wanted to know what I was missing out on, so I went to and paid for once at a massage parlor. It wasn’t really worth it, and it didn’t (chuckles) last that long, but I made the mistake one day when we were fighting about something about confessing that to her. And I made a mistake, meaning it didn’t do me any good to tell her, because I don’t think it helped . . . for her to know it, because that’s been a huge thing that’s in her memory bank. [16]

Discovery processes

121

The man just quoted was telling about a single specific secret he disclosed to his wife, not an extensive array of lies, secrets, and deceptions. But the other four quotes so far in this chapter are about relationships in which extensive lying, deception, and secret keeping were ongoing. People who lie extensively may be easier to find out, because extensive lies leave more evidence of lying. Some people who lie extensively may also unintentionally reveal that they have been dishonest because they cannot keep track of their lies. One woman had several sources of evidence that her long term lover was lying to her, including eyewitness reports from her friends of him going out with other women. He also unintentionally revealed that he was lying because he could not keep track of his lying. She had a better memory than he about some of what he said, so she could recognize lies in his inconsistencies. He lied so much that he actually started to believe in his lies . . . But then I started finding out his lies and getting mixed up, and I was like, “Wait! I thought you were” (laughing), so he couldn’t keep track of his lies . . . and then I would be like, “But you just said this.” Then he would, “Yeah, I did.” Then he’ll make up something else. [32]

Another way she learned about his deceptions was when she began looking at the messages in his e-mail inboxes and outboxes. His extensive lying could be seen in e-mails he had saved. [One time] he had to give me one of his passwords to get the balance [of an account] . . . . [Later on] I started getting suspicious, because a lot of my friends were like, “He’s at the club [with another woman]” . . . So one day . . . “God, I remember what his password is. I know he gave it to me.” And I eventually got in [to his e-mail], and . . . some other girls were there, things like “Oh, thank you for . . . lunch yesterday.” And I really wanted just to cry . . . He didn’t know I was reading his e-mails for a long time . . . . I went through everything. And one day . . . we were just chatting, and . . . I said . . . “Why have you cheated on me? . . . ” He . . . denied everything. So I was like, “Do you remember the one time you gave me a password? He goes, “Yes.” “I have your password. I’ve been reading your e-mail for the last month, everything.” And then he was like silent, dead silent. And then I just looked at him . . . Then he started defending himself. And then I was like, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.” . . . And he started crying, and he’s on his knees. [32]

It seems easier to discover lies, deceptions, and secrets when they are spread across a substantial time and require a substantial set of evasions (which is common with big lies like those associated with an ongoing affair – Werth

122

Discovery of lies and secrets

& Flaherty, 1986). But then in most of the examples in this section of this chapter, the lies, deceptions, and secrets seem to have gone on for some time before they were discovered. And in a few instances (the chance meeting with a woman who turned out to be the “other woman” in a lover’s life, the lover having funneled some of her partner’s inheritance money into her own accounts) it might have been only an accident that the deception was discovered. So even in cases of extensive, intentional deception, there could be a good likelihood of getting away with it. There is also reason to believe that people who are being deceived about something big may suspect that something is going on, but they also may deceive themselves for at least a while that there is no deception and nothing untoward hidden under the deception. That fits interview material reported by Werth & Flaherty (1986) from people who had been deceived by a partner. As an example of that in our research, interviewee [34] is quoted at the beginning of this chapter as saying how surprised she was that her ex-partner had stolen some of her inheritance money. Interviewee [34] offered us reason to think that she had been working at self-deception when she said that she “Didn’t know where more than half of that [money] went.” That could mean that she had reason to think money was disappearing, but she chose not to distrust her woman partner while they were still together and to ask for a thorough accounting. In her case, full recovery from self-deception and from the partner’s deception occurred abruptly, when she visited the former partner. But sometimes recovery from self-deception and overcoming the other’s deceptions may be gradual (Werth & Flaherty, 1986). For example, interviewee [32] is quoted earlier in this chapter as being confused by her boyfriend’s lies, and we can take that to mean that she did not abruptly decide he was lying to her but went through a period of being unsure what to believe. Having oneself told big lies or secrets may make one better at detecting a partner’s lies and secrets. A woman who is quoted later in this chapter talking about the long term affair she had that her husband chose not to know about said that her experience keeping her affair a secret taught her a lot about how people with big secrets keep those secrets. And with that learning she was confident, looking at her husband, that he was not hiding big secrets from her. p: Do you know if he has had big secrets that you’ve chosen to ignore? s: I would bet you any amount of money that he hasn’t. Maybe because if you become secretive enough yourself then you see how people disguise secretive behavior. [03]

After discovery of a big secret or lie, then what?

123

And she did not say this next piece, but we think it could be implied in what she said, that having been so successful at deceiving her husband made it less likely that she would succumb to self-deception were she to have any clues or circumstantial evidence suggesting that he might be hiding something or trying to deceive her. So it would not simply be that she had good radar at picking up big secrets but also that her attention would not wander away from any hint that her husband might be hiding something or harboring a big secret.

After discovery of a big secret or lie, then what? There is no simple statement that can encompass all that people said happened when a big secret or lie was uncovered in their relationship. Sometimes there apparently were no negative consequences when a big secret or lie was discovered because the discovering spouse chose not to let it be a problem. p: Has there ever been a time when he wasn’t honest with you? s: Well, the time I can think of that (laughs) it made a particular difference was the one time, as far as I know, that he had an affair. It wasn’t an affair. It was a one night stand as I understand it, and when it came up, he admitted it and said, “It was stupid and I did it.” . . . p: How did you find out if he was not being honest? s: . . . We were talking about . . . someone else that had had an affair, and I said, “Isn’t that stupid?” And he didn’t say anything (small chuckle), and I looked at him and I . . . must have said something like, “Who would do such a dumb thing as that?” . . . and he said, “Well, when we were having our battles, I went off and met this [woman].” And I said, “Am I ever going to meet her socially?” And he said “no,” and I said “Okay.” [24]

Despite instances like the one just quoted, commonly there was emotional pain or anger when a big secret or lie was discovered. The pain and anger seemed often to be primarily about having been lied to or kept in the dark about something big, about the meaning of what was lied about or hidden, and about the frightening implications that one’s knowledge about the other had been so incorrect. I think I’ve died so many times. Not only did he lie to me when we were dating, but also he cheated so many times. [30] When I first discovered this pornography addiction, I was just completely blown away. I had no idea, and it was really painful. [12]

124

Discovery of lies and secrets

Discovering that one had been lied to or kept in the dark about a big secret did not necessarily end a relationship or end it soon. Often people stayed with the partner despite the pain and the loss of trust. Sometimes they stayed, at least for quite a while, despite ongoing activities by the partner that they felt were betrayals. At an extreme, one woman stayed for years with a husband who she had learned was having homosexual affairs and who was not interested in her sexually. She stayed with him for many reasons, including that she did not believe in divorce and she thought it better for their children to maintain the marriage. I was in a marriage for [a long time], and half way into it discovered he was living in a double life. He was a closet homosexual. And so of course that came with a lot of betrayal and trust issues . . . I stayed married to him for [many] more years, because that’s what you do (laughs) from my cultural background and he told me he didn’t want that life because it was sinful, and he wanted to stay married to me and . . . we had . . . small children . . . He did say though, his first thing was, “If you want me to leave, I’ll understand,” which I think he wanted me to say “leave,” because then it would have been my decision but his out. But I’m like, “Absolutely not! I’m not going to break up our family” . . . and then I just felt for many years like this is just my lot in life, this is what’s been the hand I’ve been dealt and so my understanding of intimacy, it’s like, “Well, this is as good as it gets.” [02]

Perhaps another reason she was willing to live with him for so long after learning about his lies and deceptions was that uncovering the lies helped her to feel less down on herself about why he had not seemed to find her sexually interesting. Early on I remember thinking, “What’s wrong with me?” You hear all these stories about . . . women that can’t keep their husbands off of them, because they want sex all the time, and I’m just like: he hardly ever wants it, and he doesn’t seem interested in what I look like, and in fact when I found out that he’s ho-, I, he was arrested for soliciting in the park and that’s how I found out [he was homosexual]. I had to go bail him out of jail. When he finally told me what it was, my first thought was, “Oh, it’s not me.” You know, all these years I thought it was me. [02]

Another woman felt betrayed when she learned about her husband’s continued, secret pornography viewing. But she had no intention of leaving him. The things that he has tried to hide have come out. I think the larger [the] issue in someone’s life that they try to keep from somebody else, the more apt it is to bubble out. He has a problem with pornography, which I hadn’t

After discovery of a big secret or lie, then what?

125

known about . . . That was really hard for him, especially as a Christian, to admit that he has an addiction to that . . . He hid it really, really well. And I got really upset that he didn’t feel he could reveal that part of him before our marriage. But he didn’t. He worked really hard at hiding that . . . I was devastated. My heart was broken. I felt betrayed, ‘cause we had talked about emotional intimacy and how important that was between the two of us and how important trust was, so the feeling of betrayal was even more so because we had discussed trusting each other in all ways . . . I cried and cried and cried and cried and cried. I felt like I had a plate glass window in my chest that had been smashed. It really hurt, like I had slivers of glass all inside my chest it hurt so bad. And he distanced himself because he filtered it as my being angry at him. [12]

Perhaps in both cases quoted immediately above there was greater emotional distance after the lies and secrets were discovered, but perhaps in both cases there may already have been substantial emotional distance, and the discovery just made it clearer what had been going on and did not add to the emotional distance. That is, discovering the deceptions may have helped the two women to understand what was crazy-making in their relationship. But then as Rich (1979) asserted, discovering that one has been lied to can also be a little crazy-making, presumably because it undermines one’s sense that the world and one’s abilities are what one thought they were. One did not know nearly as much as one thought one did, was not as astute at knowing and trusting as one thought, and now one can fear that one does not have a solid foundation of knowledge or ability to go on from the new and disturbing place in which one finds oneself. In some interviewee accounts, discovering they had been lied to definitely increased emotional distance from the partner. The lie may be understood to have undermined the basic assumptions and foundations on which the relationship was built and to have invalidated or made suspect what had seemed good and positive in the relationship. s: [His lies about his age, his family, and his past] hurt me a lot, and even now I don’t trust him . . . I opened up myself. I opened up everything that was sensitive about me and all my past. And we had a trust . . . That . . . connection that we had was so deep, that it hurt a lot . . . . So I think there’s a lot of tension. I don’t trust him . . . and I feel sad sometimes. It’s like I’m afraid that if I live all my life till the end of day and still feel I don’t know him that well, I think that would be very sad. So that bothers me . . . I know for sure that the next thing that I find out that, you know, if he’s talking to a girl, just anything near that, I will not be able to put up with . . . accepting the situation. I’ve accepted it for what it is, but if anything different comes into it I don’t think I can stand it. Because it takes a lot of energy to form new thoughts, to

126

Discovery of lies and secrets

form new perspectives in a totally chaotic new environment, and if anything different happens I don’t think I could continue to be as positive as I’ve been. p: And then what would you do? s: I don’t know exactly, but for sure I know I would block everything away from him so that he doesn’t come close to me, and I would just maybe block everything that we’ve had together. Block everything. [30]

Her sense of where further big lies might take things was not to an end to the marriage but an end to her willingness and capacity to be close to her husband – not divorce but a permanent gulf. Some interviewees told of relationships that were shattered by a big lie. That is, at the extreme were instances where discovering a big lie seems to have led to the ending of a relationship. [My first husband] seemed totally indifferent [to his extremely lifethreatening cardiovascular disease], like he’d been waiting for a long time to get the pink slip, that it’s time . . . to check [out]. And we quarreled bitterly, and he said, “What do you want me to do? Increase the life insurance?” I said, “You could start with that . . . ” He had a quintuple bypass, and then, going to secrets and betrayals, he was home and one of the things that we did together that we both really enjoyed was that he could play any song you could think of, and I knew the words to any song you can think and so he would sit on the steps in the kitchen while I was cooking, and we would sing together. And I think the children thought that this was probably close to heaven. It was as sweet as it sounded. And I was a really good cook; I loved to cook . . . And I had to relearn to cook [with] . . . [him] having this [health problems]. And so I was trying really hard to relearn . . . I was using mustard instead of . . . butter . . . and I said, “I’m out of it; I have to go to the store. Look after the children while I go to the store . . . I’m going to take your car. You left mine without any gas.” So I was already annoyed, but I got in his car, and he’s just a little bit taller than me. And I reached under the seat, pulled the seat up, then saw this stuff under the seat, and I pulled it out, and it was whoppers, and double cheeseburger, and big Mac wrappers, and double French fries, and every kind of fast food garbage that you could imagine, stuffed under the seat. I had been making myself crazy trying to figure out how to keep this guy alive, and he’d been praising me to the moon and nipping cheeseburgers on the side. So I grabbed all these things up, and I said later, “If I had found women’s underwear under the seat, I could not in that moment have felt more betrayed or more enraged.” And I . . . gathered . . . an armful of the stuff, and . . . went back into the house, and . . . he was still sitting there, playing the guitar on the steps. And I didn’t say anything. I went in and I stood in front of him . . . and I began to throw those things at him. None of them could hurt him, but I wanted to hurt him, and I threw them at him, and I cursed him, and I said, “God damn you . . . From this day on, you gotta care more about whether you live or

Big lies and secrets that are not discovered may also have costs

127

die than I have to care.” And I knew in that moment that the marriage was just over . . . He had praised me to the moon, and deceived me about his commitment to keeping himself alive. So about two, three years later we divorced. [09]

One can read in her story a sense of betrayal of everything, that the lies in his eating shattered the precious trust that people can build up in a love relationship in which they (as Rich, 1979, saw it) struggle to become more truthful with each other and with themselves than they almost ever are in relationships. It is a delicate, tender, and difficult job to wrestle so much with the truth in a relationship of great love. So his betrayal was not simply about what he was doing to stay alive (though that was enormous) but also about the invalidation of the very essence of the truth processes in a relationship that had seemed to be one of great love. But then, as was said in the preceding chapter, not everything that would be a big lie or secret in one relationship is a big lie or secret in another. For example, not all affairs are kept secret or seem to be relationship threatening. One man’s emotional affair was so open to his wife that she regularly typed e-mail messages for him to the woman with whom he was having the affair. What I felt might be threatening is the fact that I think there was certainly on my judgment, and I’m sure my wife’s judgment too, just a tremendous physical attraction to a colleague. And I’m sure that maybe, although she never commented on that, I think that probably was a bit of a [problem] for her to address . . . Many of my e-mails which were very intimate e-mails in terms of sharing [with this other woman] my wife was typing for me. [20]

We do not read what he said as meaning that his relationship with his wife was without lies, secrets, and deceptions, but that a matter that in some relationships would have been hidden from a wife was not hidden in his relationship. He still might have been lying to her (and even to himself ) about what went on inside him in relationship to the other woman and what it meant to him to have his wife writing those e-mails. Discovering a big lie or knowing something about a partner that would be lied about in many other relationships does not mean that the relationship is free of other lies.

Big lies and secrets that are not discovered may also have costs The discovery of big lies and secrets may be very costly emotionally and in many other ways to the person who has lied or kept a secret, to the partner,

128

Discovery of lies and secrets

and the couple relationship. But then some people talked about the costs to their relationship or to them as individuals of maintaining big lies and secrets. In accord with some clinical writings (e.g., Firestone & Catlett, 1999), several interviewees said that keeping a big lie or secret put distance between them and their partner, that a big lie or secret meant there was less intimacy in the relationship. I keep secrets, even though that’s wrong. I think keeping secrets puts up a little bit of a barrier in a relationship. [08]

One woman talked about the way a secret kept from a partner is also in a sense a secret from oneself in that the secret closes one off from part of oneself in relationship to the other and also in relationship to the self. If you keep a secret from somebody else you’re also keeping it from yourself. You’re limiting what you’re even willing to be about . . . The image that I have is of windows being closed, of a house getting smaller and smaller, ‘cause I can’t talk about this or I can’t open that window, and I can’t talk about this, so I can’t open that window, and it just gets tighter and tighter. [06]

Then, too, a person could be burdened by having lied or kept secrets. A person might, for example, wonder what is wrong internally that leads to his or her need to have secret affairs. And the person might feel bad about potentially or actually hurting the partner and why he or she wants to be in the relationship with the partner and yet is not satisfied enough with the relationship to be completely loyal to the partner. s: I cheated on him a few times . . . I’ve cheated on a lot of guys, and I don’t know why I don’t feel satisfied with just one person. That’s frustrating. l: So that raises questions for you about, “Can I be monogamous”? s: Right, right. But I’ve been in a lot of relationships and a lot of long term relationships since I was 14. And so I guess I just don’t understand why I feel comfortable being in relationships and would rather be in a relationship but want to act single while I’m in a relationship (chuckles) . . . I know I shouldn’t be doing that probably, and just because I don’t like hurting people, and everyone keeps saying when you meet the right person you won’t have the urge to do that, but I don’t know if I really buy that. And my mom thinks I need to see a therapist. [31]

Good lies and secrets Based on our interview material we agree with DePaulo, Morris, & Sternglanz (2009) that except for pathological liars people can seem in

Good lies and secrets

129

many ways to prefer to tell the truth and usually need a reason to lie. So among our interviews, statements about lies and secrets often included statements about reasons. For our interviewees who lied or kept secrets, the lies and secrets seemed generally to have been justified by reasons. Then, given their reasons, some interviewees felt that some lies they told were good to tell and some secrets they kept were good to keep. The lies and secrets that many people felt were good included secrets and lies that might be considered small and inconsequential by many people. For example, if one partner asks the other, “How do I look in this clothing?” it might be best, a lot of interviewees said, to be positive even if their private thought was that the partner did not look so good. Otherwise, one might hurt the partner’s feelings and create conflict over matters that are not major issues and that cannot be changed easily. And that is consistent with other research that reports that people might want to avoid hurting feelings or getting into conflict about small matters (Afifi & Guerrero, 2000; DePaulo, Morris, & Sternglanz, 2009; Roloff & Ifert, 2000), consistent with research suggesting that people do not even consider such minor or benign lies to be immoral (Peterson, 1996), and consistent with a number of quotes in Chapter 4. As one interviewee said about minor or benign lies concerning a partner’s appearance: It’s the classic, “Do you think I look fat in these jeans?” You’re not (laughs) gonna go, “Yeah, you look kinda fat.” So that kind of stuff, when it has to do with just kind of minor hurting feelings . . . I would do a white lie . . . The fat thing is not a problem . . . If it’s just kind of needlessly going to hurt somebody and there’s nothing you can do about it, we’re not going to go down that path, of either criticism or calling a spade a spade. [18]

But then what people consider to be good lies and secrets are not necessarily effectively lies or secrets. To stay with the example of how a partner responds to the question, “How do I look in this clothing?” in some couples even though a person might never say something bluntly negative about what the partner was wearing, they might still say something positive in a way that leaked that they were not enthusiastically approving. He does have a certain way of looking if he doesn’t think [what I’m wearing] looks as good as it could or if it looks terrible even, he’ll never say like, “Oh, my God, that looks terrible on you.” But he’ll be like, “Oh, (imitating a hesitant, faint praise) g-r-e-a-t,” (laughs) kind of thing . . . But if he thinks it looks good, he’ll like (sounding more enthusiastic): “Oh, you look really good today.” And then I know that I’ve got the right thing on. [35]

130

Discovery of lies and secrets

Also, some people considered lies and secrets to be appropriate when they were concealing details of how they chose to live their life that they felt were personal. For example, one woman felt that what she ate or how much she ate was something she could safely withhold from her partner, that a secret about eating was not a problem. This echoes the “need to know” discussion in the previous chapter. p: Are there things you don’t particularly want him to know about you? s: No. I don’t think there’s anything I can think of, other than how much crap I eat maybe (chuckles) . . . Sometimes I’ll wait until he’s gone to bed to eat something so he won’t know. Yeah, so, yeah, that would be, to the extent that [I lie to him], the garbage I eat. [28]

Similarly a man who had given up smoking but still occasionally smoked a cigar said that he hid his cigar smoking from the woman with whom he was romantically involved, and he did not see that as a big secret. In his thinking, it was a small thing that he did with his own life and hiding it from her protected him from an hour of dealing with her upsetness if she should discover that he had been smoking. I’m an old, old heavy smoker. I’ve now quit cigarettes, but I do have the occasional cigar . . . and I kind of can’t tell her about that, because she’s concerned about cancer . . . I consider that innocuous and petty and she would say, “No. It’s something we need to talk about.” And then it’s an hour (laughs). [13]

However, one aspect of this last quote that is interesting is that it is clear that his woman friend did not think of his smoking as a small matter, and so she would disagree with him strongly that his hiding his cigar smoking was an insignificant deception. And that leads to something another interviewee said, that it is not only generally best not to lie, but also that if you have to question whether a lie is small or big, it is probably best to think long and hard about whether you should lie. l: How about things that people refer to as white lies? Maybe [your partner] asks you if she looks good in a particular outfit, and you’re like (groans). (s: Yeah) How do you deal with those things? s: I’m not as good at that stuff, because I am a little bit more direct . . . There is probably a place for white lies, if you’re able to do it. But if you’re not able to do it well, maybe you shouldn’t bother with them. Because I just feel like, if I really feel like I should say something and I don’t say it, it’s going to eat at me and then it’s going to come out in the wrong way. And it’s a little better

Is the truth as clear as it seems in many of the interviews?

131

when I’m conscious of what I’m going to say next, and I’m more in control of that. I think the lies can get out of control in some really dangerous ways. I think there’s a space for white lies . . . but if you have to question if it’s a white lie or if it’s a big lie, then it’s probably something to think about or look at. [27]

Is the truth as clear as it seems in many of the interviews? The quotes throughout this chapter could be read as contradicting what we wrote at the beginning of the chapter, citing Rich (1979), that the truth is ambiguous and that lies and secrets are often marked by what is not said or how some matter is subtly evaded. Instead, in quote after quote, interviewees seem to be talking about facts. Were we and Rich wrong? We don’t think so. We think after the fact of discovery and after figuring out what was going on, what was originally ambiguous becomes fact. If in this chapter we had tuned in on someone who was in the process of discovery and making sense of what would eventually become refined as truth, as opposed to reporting discoveries from the past, we think we could have offered evidence more clearly consistent with what Rich wrote. For example, [02] said that she lived for years with her husband not being sexually attracted to her and, she implied, this meant that she lived with frequent lies and obfuscations from him. It took a very long time for her to decide that he was what she called a “closet homosexual,” but once that was revealed the old presuppositions, obfuscations, and ambiguities disappeared. Then too, many of the stories in this chapter include accounts of acting in response to lies and secrets. It is probably much easier to act on lies and secrets that have been made into facts than to act based on what is ambiguous. So perhaps some of the facts in this chapter are offered in more concrete and factoid form than might be warranted if we knew all the information that was available. We suspect, too, that in couple relationships the locus of the ambiguity about what might be lies and secrets is in part in the different views that the two partners have and the different assertions they make. That is, to some extent the ambiguity occurs between partners, and since we were only interviewing one partner in each couple we were not able to pick up most of what was there between the partners. One example in this chapter involves person [20], who was having an emotional affair with a co-worker to whom he was intensely attracted. He claimed in the interview that he

132

Discovery of lies and secrets

was open about the affair to his wife, even to the extent that she typed some of his e-mail messages to the other woman. But our hunch is that if we interviewed his wife, things might not be so clear, for example, about his openness or about the nonphysical nature of his relationship with the other woman.

ch a p ter eig h t

Gender differences in intimate knowing

Typically interviewees talking about heterosexual relationships said that they and their partner differed in the area of knowing and not knowing. Men were often (but not always) described by women partners or by themselves as less open and less curious; women were often (but not always) described by men partners or themselves as more open and more curious. This is consistent with a literature that asserts that women on the average seem more open about themselves and desire emotionally intimate, self disclosing interaction more than men do, while men on the average are more closed or have less to disclose and are not as interested as women in emotional intimacy (e.g., Komorovsky, 1967; McAdams, 1989; Murstein & Adler, 1995; Rubin, 1983). These are only tendencies in our data, so in reality there are men who do knowing and emotional intimacy very well and women who do not. But still the same tendencies reported in the literature appeared in our interviews. In the interviews women in heterosexual relationships were more likely than men to long to be known better by their partner and to feel frustrated that their partner was not more open about feelings, thoughts, and experiences. Men in heterosexual relationships were more likely than women to feel recurrently pushed to be more open than they were inclined to be and felt pushed to report feelings and thoughts, even those they might not have been aware of or did not think they had.

Women conceptualizing men Many women we interviewed who talked about a relationship with a man had ideas about their male partner or men in general. That they did sensemaking about issues of knowing and being known in their male partner or men in general suggests that they were paying attention to the issues, they cared about what was going on in those areas, and they were using their 133

134

Gender differences in intimate knowing

mental abilities in ways that might have been helpful to them and their partner in getting along in the area of knowing and being known. Some women talked about events that crystallized their awareness that a male partner was not the ideal they might have hoped for in terms of interest in knowing and in openness to being known. One woman had an “aha” experience when she and her boyfriend were watching a television film. Her flash of insight (and anxiety) came when during a commercial break in the film they discussed a situation in the film where a man did not tell the whole truth to a partner. We were watching . . . some stupid movie on TV, but it had an interesting idea in it, which was: Are you lying to someone if you are omitting truth? At . . . a commercial break I had said, “Oh, he . . . should have told her he was going to go . . . ” And [my boyfriend] just thought, “Why? Why did he need to tell her that?” And I’m like, “Because she needs to know. No, he didn’t lie to her, but he’s not telling her the whole truth,” and just, those kinds of things just strike me, and I’m going, “Oh, man. We are so different. How much do I not know?” [01]

The discovery process seems for many women to have involved tuning in on their own frustrations and struggles. Sometimes that tuning in was easy, because many interactions with the male partner were frustrating. At the extreme, one woman might well have found every encounter with her boyfriend to be challenging because of the ways he was closed and because his curiosity about her was so limited. In fact, she described herself as having felt controlled by him because he was setting the terms of their relationship in the area of knowing and not knowing. He wanted to be known by me, but not nearly to the extent that I wanted to be known by him, and I think he wanted to be known by me in a way that was really on his terms, and sort of at his pace. And I always felt like I was holding back, not asking him too many questions, and not trying to get to the bottom of whatever his past was or why he might act or feel a certain way. [29]

She said that her boyfriend opened up more as the relationship went on. However, the ways he opened up never satisfied her, and she was chronically disappointed by his lack of interest in her as a person. It is not surprising that the relationship ended. It actually became better as we got to know each other better, and he opened up more and more, very slowly, but it was always frustrating that it was just sort of this long, slow process . . . [It] felt like his way of knowing me was more based on what he could see, was more based on tangible sort of

Women conceptualizing men

135

visible acts. And my ways of knowing him, like I wanted to know what he was thinking about and what he was feeling and about his past. And he just kind of looked at me as sort of like more in the present . . . He is an incredibly curious person. And he’s extremely inquisitive, like to the point where I’m like, “That’s enough questions about” whatever event in history you’re talking about. But it was never really directed at getting to know me . . . It was just more about things and events and happenings . . . I think maybe the not knowing him fully or him not having a real full understanding of me as an emotional being probably contributed to the relationship not functioning in a way that was really working for both of us. And I think that there were things that we just maybe didn’t talk about that we needed to talk about, and that might have contributed to the relationship [ending]. [29]

One could say then that often part of the development of a heterosexual couple relationship is a process of the woman discovering that there is a substantial difference between her and her male partner in areas having to do with knowing and being known. And then she has to decide what to do with it. Some women talked about how they kept pushing for more from their partner, and often that meant that it was the woman in a heterosexual couple who initiated conversations in which the two might be enabled to know more about each other. He does get curious, but I’m usually the one that’s asking how the day went and what’s going on. [35]

In the process of coming to terms with their differences, quite a few women had come to conceptualize the difference in one of three ways – he’s a typical man, that is his personality, or he is the way he is because of his family of origin. He’s a typical man Some women in heterosexual couples took the position that there were things about men that made them different from women, and these women seemed to believe that what they were dealing with in their male partner was his maleness, his typicality as a man. And to some extent that made their issues with their male partner less personal, more to be expected, and more tolerable. One woman, for example, framed her husband’s lack of curiosity about her as him just being a man, and that may have made the way he was more acceptable to her. He’s never asked me a whole lot of questions. I mean, he’s sort of the typical male in some ways. [24]

136

Gender differences in intimate knowing

A widow whose husband had not talked about his daily activities when he came home from work also conceptualized his being that way in terms of a broad view of how men compared with women in the area of work. She saw men as more inclined to “compartmentalize” their work and leave it behind when they came home. I think that women are more willing to talk about their day, and that includes their work day. And men, I think, stop work, and they don’t need to discuss it anymore, that they really can compartmentalize it, and “That’s work, and I’m done at work, and now I’m onto another task. And I’m not there anymore.” And I don’t think women drop that as easily. [06]

Saying that a husband or a boyfriend was “a typical man” was not necessarily a positive thing. For some women “typical man” was rather an insult. A male partner’s lack of thought about “deeper things,” his being unreflective about their relationship, and his staying away from conversation about issues that could be problems in the couple relationship could be frustrating. He’s a typical male. That’s not a nice thing to say, but these are things I don’t think that he even thinks about the deeper things. He just kind of goes along, and “everything’s okay, but maybe it’s not, but we don’t talk about it.” I like to bring things up. I like to kind of stir the pot . . . He tends to bury things. I don’t know that he dwells on these thoughts like I do. [08]

The following point is speculative, because we did not question people in a way that could tap into what we are speculating about here, but it is possible that seeing a male partner as typically male made it less likely that the woman partner would push for change or even be very upset. If he is seen as a typical male, he may be seen as incurably the way he is. So then she does not expect or push for change and he has relatively great freedom from dealing with pressure from her for change. That’s his personality Some women tried to account for a male partner’s lack of curiosity or his resistance to her curiosity by explaining it in terms of his personality. That thinking was not about maleness but about attributes that women could have as much as men. In one sense a woman doing that was trying to understand him; in another sense she was quite possibly trying to feel better about what he did by attributing her experience of him to some factor other than his not caring about her. For example, in the quote that follows, by her saying that her partner was “quieter,” the woman who is quoted was in a sense saying that she did not have to take personally his

Women conceptualizing men

137

giving her less information about himself than she would like. He was just being true to his quieter self. Then there is no malice in his giving her less information than she would like. p: Is he more private than you? s: In a sense, just because he’s quieter, umhm. [05]

Some women talked about their own personality as well as that of their male partner. The couple differences and her frustrations then came not just from his personality but from the difference between his and hers. Thus, one woman talked about her need to have her male partner disclose things because that would tell her that he loved her. But then she could say that he and she were different in personality, that he did not need what she needed, that he was not in touch with his feelings (and so could not do much to disclose them), and that he did not have the words to express feelings. So she seemed to know quite a bit about what made both of them tick in terms of personality. However, her understanding did not necessarily make it easier for her to live with the ways they were different. She still felt considerable frustration. p: Does that get to be an issue where you’re trying to get feelings from him (s: Right), and he doesn’t really want to give them to you or doesn’t seem to even know them? s: Yes, yes. That is exactly it. And it’s an ongoing, very difficult issue for us, both in a general sense and also specifically like thinking about intimacy. Part of what . . . that means to me is . . . knowing that you’re loved, and having that sense of shared feelings towards each other . . . [He] tells me that he feels pretty comfortable and secure in that without having conversations about it very much, or without hearing a lot about it. And if I go very long without us expressing those feelings towards each other, it’s not like a total sense of doubt that it’s like irrational . . . I just need to hear it . . . So, yeah, it’s a very difficult thing for us. Actually it’s probably one of the most difficult things in our relationship is that we have very different ways, we’re really kind of built differently and socialize differently . . . He’s not withholding feelings. He does not know what they are, and he doesn’t know how to describe them sometimes, a lot of times. Sometimes he can, but a lot of times it’s pretty hard for him to place it or know what to say. [37]

He is the way he is because of his family of origin Some women made sense of a male partner’s withholding information or being less curious by seeing him as the way he was because of his family of origin experiences.

138

Gender differences in intimate knowing He’s not much of a delver. I’m the delver in the relationship (laughs), to use that funny word. He comes from a background that included incest and so there’s not much delving done. There was at the point of his mother’s death . . . years ago an acknowledgement among the brothers of what had happened. That’s the first time and only time they’ve ever discussed it, at a point of extreme emotion and intimacy. So there’s not a lot of investigating or personal attempt to grow by learning from one’s own situation. There’s a cutoff point in that family. [15]

Her explaining her husband in terms of his family of origin experiences seemed to make it somewhat easier for her to live with the way he was and also reduced her inclination to push him to behave in ways she would have liked him to behave. He is a mystery, and frustrating to deal with Some women offered no explanation, or at least no mitigating explanation, for why their male partner was the way he was. They just said that he was difficult in the area of knowing and being known. One woman talked about her husband’s closedness about his thoughts and emotions, his lack of depth, and his insisting on having his way about certain things and not being willing to explain where he was coming from. They had been together many years, and she clearly had great affection for him, but he was still a mystery in important ways and frustrating to deal with. We have conflicts over discipline [of our children], whereas I’m more liberal and he’ll just put his foot down and want everything done the way he said, ‘cause he said so, and he’s not willing to elaborate on that . . . I’d . . . much rather discuss it until we worked something out, whereas he just turns off and he’s like, “No. I said no . . . and that’s it . . . ” And he put a wall up and he didn’t want to discuss it. And he does that a lot with issues . . . We’ve had a dog for four years, but it’s taken 18 years to get a dog (chuckling) . . . because he wouldn’t discuss why he didn’t want a dog. He just said, “No. I’m not getting a dog,” and that’s it. He won’t elaborate. And I don’t know why. That’s a side of him I don’t know. He shut down on the things, and he didn’t want to discuss them . . . His aunts are all dying . . . and . . . he’ll just say, “I’m okay,” and send them a card and that’s the end of it. Whereas I’ll want to discuss it. “How close was she” and “Do you want to go to the funeral?” It’s like, “No, no. I’m fine.” And that’s the end of it. So he has areas where I don’t know how he’d react. If somebody said, “How did your husband react to the death of his aunt?” I might [say], “I don’t really know.” . . . He doesn’t talk a lot about his feelings or his emotions, and he doesn’t cry. I’ve never seen him cry, except once, when he was drunk . . . He

The intimacy dance

139

is chatty, but yet not deep . . . You can’t have an in-depth conversation about anything with him. [28]

Another woman who had been married a much shorter time also talked about the ways her husband was a mystery to her and the frustration she felt about the ways he could be physically present but emotionally and cognitively absent. When he withdraws I have absolutely no idea what he’s thinking about. I have no idea what he’s upset about. I have no idea how he’s processing what he’s upset about. I really don’t have a clue . . . . In that one area, I really don’t know a lot about him, because he doesn’t share his process with me . . . It would be easier for us to heal together if I kinda knew what was going on more with him. I would know more how to be there for him. So that’s kind of frustrating . . . I know when he leaves [emotionally] before he knows that he’s left. Like I could just feel the energy shift, and he does this thing with his eyes, and I see it instantly. I can tell. He’s left. [11]

One woman raised a question that many women could have raised in the interview. With the man in her life not being able to “get” what she thinks and feels very easily, she had to work hard to explain herself to him. By contrast, she felt with women she could speak a kind of short hand and be fully understood. So her question was “Why can’t you be a woman?” “Why can’t you be a woman? I can use short cut with a woman.” And I have to use a long version with him (laughs). [12]

Possibly some women who emphasized that a male partner was a mystery and frustrating were on a path toward finding a more comfortable framing of the issues. But two of the three women quoted in this section of this chapter had been with their male partner many years. In a sense, for some women living with their male partner was, in the area of knowing and being known, rather like living with a chronic illness. One would rather not be ill, but one can at least say what the problem is and do one’s best to live with the limitations and discomforts it brings.

The intimacy dance In general men and women saw women partners as wanting more intimacy in the area of knowing and not knowing than the men wanted or perhaps could provide. A woman who said that she wanted to know more about her male partner than her male partner wanted to know about her feared that

140

Gender differences in intimate knowing

her male partner felt that she wanted to know everything about him, that he had no privacy and no freedom at all from her curiosity and scrutiny. I don’t want to ever come across as being someone who needs to know every detail of every second of every day. But I feel sometimes that that does come across with him, and I don’t want him to feel like I’m being like that. [01]

In saying what she did not want him to feel, it seems that she thought that if he felt that way he was wrong, because she really did not want to know everything about him. But then at another place in the interview she contradicted what she said in the above quote about not wanting to know everything about him. She said (in the following quote) that she actually would like to know somebody 100%, or as close as she could get to that. And it was not just curiosity. For her, a big part of it was that she equated such a high level of knowing with love. I would love to know everything about somebody (small chuckle), just because I would feel so connected and so close to them, and I would love to be known by somebody almost 100% too. And I say almost because I just don’t know if it’s possible, but if it is possible . . . and if it was a very healthy, positive relationship I would want to be known and know somebody that intimately in every area and have it be sustained, not just you know them for a time and then they go away. I’d like to have a lifelong thing like that. But I have had conversations about this with [him], and he has told me, “I don’t want you to know everything about me.” And my first reaction was like, “But (sounding whiny) I want to. Then how are we going to be in love?” [01]

So perhaps her boyfriend was not wrong if he felt that she seemed to need “to know every detail of every second of every day.” Another woman talked about the pressure her lover felt because, as she described him, he thought she wanted more commitment, closeness, and intimacy than he wanted or could give. I’m not sure where he’s really at in his comfort level with being completely intimate with another person. I still see in him kind of a protective . . . holding back . . . There have been times when I think I, at least the perception appears to be that I want more than he does . . . maybe more togetherness, more closeness, more commitment . . . I think for the most part it’s his perception. I think he feels a pressure that he thinks I want more than he can give, or more than maybe he wants. [02]

Related to that, she saw him as less curious about things in general than she was.

Do women know men better than men know women or themselves? 141 He’s less curious about (laughing) a lot of things than I am. He’s content to not know stuff. And I’m not (laughs loudly). [02]

Apparently what he thought about her, and what a number of men we interviewed and a number of male partners who were described by women interviewees seem to have thought, was that there was pressure coming from a woman partner to be more open, curious, and emotionally intimate. Some men may not know they are under pressure or care about it if they are. But to some extent, judging by our interviews, there is an intimacy dance in heterosexual couples in which she pressures for more intimacy, and he does not give it or even pulls further away (see Lerner, 1989; Rosenblatt & Barner, 2006). And she tries again, perhaps even a bit harder, and he resists or pulls away even more. And on it goes.

Do women know men better than men know women or themselves? One consequence of a man being less curious about a woman partner could be that she knew more about him than he knew about her. In fact, that was what some women said was true. l: Do you feel like you know him? s: Yes, I do. I feel like I have him down to an art. Yep, and I feel like he maybe doesn’t even know where I begin, sometimes. [01]

Another woman also said that she felt she knew her male partner better than he knew her because he was not as focused on relationships (or the finer grain of relationships) as she. Sometimes I feel like he doesn’t know me as well as I know him. But then I wonder if everybody thinks that . . . I think people have different focuses, and I think I have stronger focus on relationships or to a finer grain level than he does. [05]

In accord with this, there is evidence from experimental research with heterosexual dating couples that the woman partner knows the male partner better than the reverse (Thomas & Fletcher, 2003) and from a study of married couple narratives that wives typically seemed to remember more about the couple courtship and wedding than husbands do (Holmberg, Orbuch, & Veroff, 2004). In the area of who knows who more, there were even women who said that not only did they know their male partner better than he knew them, but they also knew him better than he knew himself. This makes sense if

142

Gender differences in intimate knowing

part of what is going on with some men is that they are relatively closed because they do not tune in on themselves, and it fits what some scholars have said about differences between women and men in the United States (e.g., Rubin, 1986). Possibly, then, in some couples an observing woman partner could do a better job of tuning in on aspects of her male partner than he could himself. And that is what some women we interviewed said. p: Would you say he knows himself as well as you know you? s: No. No, he doesn’t. p: So he doesn’t tune in on some things about himself. s: Right. Absolutely. p: Like what would be examples? s: Well, like depression. Depression, procrastination . . . loneliness. [08] s: In some ways I think I know him much better than he knows himself. [11]

Consistent with this perspective, one man said that the woman in his life knew him better than he knew her. p: How well do you think you know her? s: Probably not as well as she knows me . . . I don’t know that I would know her as well as I think she might know me. [14]

However, if a man is less open about feelings than his woman partner, one might think that if he is paying attention he would know more about her feelings than she does about his. Thus a woman who can say what the woman who is quoted immediately below said might actually be known in some ways better by her male partner than she knows him. I probably told him how I was feeling a lot more that he told me about how he was feeling. [31]

In fact, one man said that he was hard to get to know because he was not so expressive, but his woman partner was expressive much more than he, and so he felt that he could know her better than she could know him. I think it’s a little bit harder for her [to get to know] me because I’m not as emotionally expressive. It’s one of the things that doesn’t come easily to me (laughs). And so I don’t always tell her as much about what’s going on with me. It’s probably a lot easier for me to figure out what’s going on with her, just because of the way our two different personalities are. [25]

His view of his difference from her was that it was a matter of personalities and was not even a big difference, because they both needed and wanted intimacy. But then he also seemed to some extent to contradict himself in that he said she was more tuned in than he to his withdrawing.

He’s okay

143

I think of myself as being like her in terms of needing to have intimacy . . . But she . . . said, “I think you do have a problem with being intimate.” . . . I’m not the open book that she is and I don’t always talk about my feelings. And sometimes she feels like she has to kind of guess what’s really going on with me . . . I’m not even so much aware of this until she points it out, but I have a tendency to withdraw at times . . . She picks right up on that . . . So she’ll know right away and . . . say, “What are you doing? Why are you withdrawing? What’s going on? What have I done?” (laughs). And I’d be (chuckling) barely aware that I’m even doing this, and so usually my first reaction will be, “What are you talking about?” And then later on realize, “Oh, maybe I was doing that.” [25]

He’s okay As was indicated earlier in this chapter, some women had come to accept and not be bothered by a male partner’s lack of curiosity about them or his comparative closedness. The woman whose quote follows seems, with her husband, to have gone through a process where the stresses in his life were used to explain his lack of curiosity about her. And she also said that their personalities differed, that he was not as curious as she or as self-aware. Given that she had these explanations for their differences it is not surprising that she was no longer upset by the differences. She did not take how he was in relationship to her personally. p: Are you more curious about [him] than he is about you? s: Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. p: And does that difference annoy either of you some of the time? s: I would say initially it bothered me. And I had a hard time dealing with that, yes, because I’m curious . . . I’m interested in a lot of different things. [He] not so much. And so initially . . . because he was dealing with so much other stuff, he just couldn’t . . . He always felt bad that he didn’t ask me more about stuff, but he just felt like at the time, because of what he was going through in his life, he just couldn’t. He’s gotten better at it, but maybe he’s just not as curious a personality as me . . . In all honesty, I don’t know whether it’s denial on my part (chuckling), it doesn’t bother me at all. It did early on in the relationship, ‘cause I thought . . . “Why is he not curious,” or “He’s . . . not interested” . . . but that’s just who he is. [18]

A woman who is quoted earlier in this chapter as saying her husband was less interested in relationships than she also said that her husband was less expressive and talkative than she. At times, his lower level of expressiveness and his comparative quietness frustrated her. But she felt that basically he was okay and they were doing well as a couple because they could talk

144

Gender differences in intimate knowing

about anything and she could frame his lower level of expressiveness as him being stable and mild. I think just in general he’s less expressive . . . If I’m havin’ a bad day, most people around me know that. And if he is, it’s a lot more subtle. And it took me several years to kind of be able to read him a little bit, like if he’s stressed out or upset, but he’s also a much more, I don’t want to say flat, but stable (laughs), mild. He’s more even . . . He doesn’t fluctuate with his mood as much as I maybe do . . . I think relating to the fact that I’m kind of more open . . . there’s a larger section of verbalizing things in a relationship than for him. He’s kind of quiet, but we talk about just about everything. We’ve had a lot of conversations about money, about kids, about religion, about politics, what happens when we get older and start to physically decline, end of life things. I mean I don’t feel that there’s really any area that’s off limits. [05]

Sometimes the sense that the male partner was okay came in part from him learning to be more open about himself and her learning how to make better sense of the verbal and nonverbal information he provided. Then he was okay in part because of the outcome of their shared learning process. As part of that learning process many men were pushed by a woman partner to be more open and curious, to care more about their partner’s inner self, and to pay more attention to who the partner is and what she wants. As can be seen in the following quote, some men could also appreciate what their woman partner was pushing for even if they did not necessarily go in the direction they were being pushed. She finds it a little frustrating with me sometimes because she thinks I could be a little bit more open about what’s going on with me . . . She has this real strong need for intimacy, and if there’s anything that happens where she feels like she’s being shut out, she will do what she needs to do to get things back together again . . . [She] never withdraws . . . She’ll kind of go in and kind of mend things. And it’s actually better for me because my natural tendency probably would be more to withdraw. [25]

It is not surprising that some men changed, since many were being pressed to change. Thus, the man described in the quote that follows had been relatively inaccessible emotionally when he was younger, but by his wife’s standards he had made some progress. If he seems distant, I might say, “What on earth are you thinking about? You just have not been present one bit.” . . . We were at dinner, and I was trying to get him to say something. And . . . . he said, “Kind of since the heart attack, when I get really riled up, I . . . have to kind of go to my little

He’s okay

145

quiet place.” (Guffaws) “And that’s why I couldn’t respond to you right then.” That was a pretty good explanation. So now if he seems emotionally unavailable at a particular time, if I can think to remember it, I might think, well, “He’s in his quiet space.” [03]

Another woman who talked about her male partner’s learning process had made his disclosing feelings a project, and she said that he had gone along with the project and at the time of the interview was doing better at knowing his feelings and revealing them to her. She was also working on getting him to be more curious about her, particularly about what she called her “deep beliefs.” s: He said, “I’m not mad about this. I’m not mad.” He was actually clarifying his feelings to me, which he did not do in the beginning of our relationship. He has gotten much better in telling me how he feels . . . A couple of nights ago, we were laying in bed, and he was frustrated at me. I could tell. And then he actually verbalized it. “I’m frustrated at you.” And I just kind of wanted to like give him a little pat on the back, and I’m like, “Good, honey, you actually talked.” . . . I’m going to be stereotypical, he’s just a very roughneck type of guy who likes to drink . . . and smoke and . . . party . . . But he also is responsible and gets his shit done . . . It was just really good that he actually spoke and actually told me what he was feeling, instead of me trying . . . to read his mind. And I don’t know how many times we’ve gone over how, “I can’t read your mind. You’re gonna have to tell me how you feel.” So I think it’s kind of sinking in a little, 16 months. p: Could you say to yourself what areas you want to be known in? s: Yeah, sure. I guess I want him to be more interested in me, in what, how I think. The way that I think, my processes, and the things I’m passionate about . . . I wish he would . . . ask more questions . . . or ask my opinion about things more . . . If he does, it’s about very simple things, not about any kind of deep beliefs. [01]

But then she also seemed to have become more accepting of his limitations in knowing her. p: Does it ever bug you that he’s not so curious about you? s: Yes, it does. And not so much anymore. It did earlier on. I felt like he did not know my mind, and I felt like he didn’t know what made me tick. [01]

Another woman told how her relationship with her husband had evolved in that she now understood that he would like to tell her more about his feelings, but he did not know how to. That is, he did not have a way to link his vocabulary to what he felt.

146

Gender differences in intimate knowing

s: He is kind of a secretive person. I mean he’s not secretive intentionally, but he’s pretty quiet, and he doesn’t talk a lot. So I think to get stuff out of him, you really have to pull. p: And you do that? s: Yeah, (laughing) probably more than he’d like, yeah. Yeah, I do. p: What do you go after that is hardest to get from him? s: His feelings. He doesn’t like to talk about his feelings. p: Does he say, “I don’t even have feelings”? s: No, he never says that. He actually says he’s a pretty emotional person, but he just doesn’t know how to express them . . . I ask him a lot of questions and . . . he says he gets frustrated ‘cause he wants to talk about it and wants to communicate, but he doesn’t know how to put things into words very well . . . At the beginning it was just a constant source of frustration, and we would fight about it. And now we’ve gotten to the point that we can . . . have conversations about it [and] we don’t get mad at each other. But it’s still frustrating, and he just will say, “I wish I could explain this to you better,” and he just can’t . . . He has feelings; he cries and he expresses his emotions in physical ways. [33]

She also said that she had been attracted to aspects of what frustrated her, the calm and stability of her male partner. I was attracted to him because he’s so calm. And I was looking for that. I think I needed that. [33]

Thus, an even-keeled man who seemed not to be easily upset might frustrate a woman partner, but his lack of reactivity might also be attractive to her. Then the story is not so simple. It is not just that some men are deficient by the standards of their women partners in areas of self disclosure and emotionality but also that a woman partner might value a man’s lower level of self disclosure and emotionality in some situations. That makes it more understandable how it might come to be that many heterosexual couples have tensions over how expressive the male partner is or is not. He may feel pressure to change, but he also may be appreciated for not changing. She may want him to change, but also want him not to change.

Making sense of the apparent gender differences Among the people we interviewed, men were seen by women and themselves to be on the average less inclined than women to be open about their daily lives, their inner thoughts, and their feelings (or possibly even to know their feelings) and were on the average less curious about their partner’s daily life, inner thoughts, and feelings. For many women these

Making sense of the apparent gender differences

147

differences were at times frustrating, and it led in some couples to a pattern of her pushing for more and him defending against giving more or not being able or willing to do it. However, in some heterosexual couples, there had been a process of evolution, with the man coming to be more open and curious and/or with the woman coming to be more acceptant and tolerant of the man as he was. Also, we should not let the gender difference lead us to miss how women as well as men may be closed in some ways, out of touch with their own feelings, and uncomfortable about being open. The literature on gender differences is vast (see, for example, Impert & Peplau, 2006), and so there are many ways to conceptualize the gender differences that many of our interviewees talked about. In what follows we lay out several ideas that make the most sense to us and that seems to fit what we heard from interviewees about gender differences. All of those ways may offer a grain of truth in both the academic world and the world of the interviewees, but all of them also could be made into dangerous and incorrect overgeneralizations and stereotypes. So we want to be careful, and that includes emphasizing that people are vastly more diverse and complex than can be described briefly here or that can be understood from our interview materials. And to add to the explanatory challenges the genders are difficult to characterize because people differ so much from culture to culture; we as writers have our own culturally limited lenses and language; and our research approach focuses on what interviewees had to say, which means that our questions and their replies located the conversation about gender in a particular cultural niche. Also, even the gender differences that may seem to be true among people living in the United States, for example, gender differences in self-disclosure, turn out to be differences that are quite small and are contradicted by some research (Derlega, Winstead, & Greene, 2008). So we are reluctant to say that there is an essential, invariant set of characteristics for women versus men or that people who seem typical of their gender cannot change radically. One possible conceptualization of the gender difference is that men and women have different resources of power in a heterosexual couple. Men are more likely to have greater physical size and strength and bring home greater income. Perhaps, then, for women the resources of choice may have to be words and emotions and whatever they can do with words and emotions to shape the relationship. Related to this, Hochschild (1983, p. 163) speculated that in an exchange relationship with a man who has more of certain resources than she, a woman may offer feelings (and presumably words and curiosity about feelings). So what we found in our interviews

148

Gender differences in intimate knowing

may be connected to gender differences in the resources women and men bring to a relationship and, thus, the resources they have and do not have for getting what they want in the relationship and for doing their part to maintain the relationship. Then it is important to note that even though this chapter is partly about women’s dissatisfaction and frustration with men who are not so open or curious, there were a number of women who said that their male partner was okay or was a typical man or was who he had to be given his personality or his family of origin, so they could scarcely expect more than what they were getting from him. And from a perspective on exchange and power, one way to understand women who said they were not dissatisfied with the gender difference in disclosure and curiosity was that the difference was actually helping these women to maintain their place in the couple power system. If he were more like she in terms of emotional expression, curiosity, and general self-disclosure, she might feel less powerful. Another compelling conceptualization of the gender difference takes on issues of power from the perspective of feminists who have pointed out that the patriarchal patterns in western society that advantage men put women in heterosexual couples at a disadvantage (e.g., Rampage, 1994; Thorne, 1992). For example, men are paid, on the average, considerably more than women, find it easier to rise to the top in organizations that have glass ceilings for women, end up doing better on the average financially after a divorce (e.g., Gadalla, 2008), and do less housework and childcare on the average in a heterosexual partnership when both partners are employed outside the home and the couple has young children (e.g., Sayer, England, Bittman, & Bianchi, 2009). Also, men are more likely to use extreme violence and the threat of it in a heterosexual couple relationship (e.g., Tanha, Beck, Figueredo, & Raghave, 2010) and are more likely than their women partners to have extramarital sexual affairs, which could threaten the long term security and stability of the couple relationship. Because of these gender imbalances women need to know their partner better. Women have more to lose economically, have fewer resources to draw on if the couple splits up, are more at risk of physical violence, and are at more risk of their male partner leaving for another relationship. Also, if a couple breaks up it seems generally easier for men than for women to find another partner (Wu & Schimmele, 2005). So it makes sense that a woman in a heterosexual partnership would want to know her partner better and want him to know her better. Relatively speaking, her wellbeing, the stability of her life, and her future are more likely to be in jeopardy.

Making sense of the apparent gender differences

149

Also, men may often be up to quite different things in a close relationship than women are. Given their upbringing, cultural scripts that are common in the cultures of the United States for women and men, what they learn from their peers and the media, their relationship values and preferences (Impert & Peplau, 2006), and what they see in themselves, the priority of many men in a close relationship might not be on self-disclosure. It might be on an assortment of other things. For example, Patrick and Beckenbach (2009) interviewed men who saw intimacy as involving self-disclosure, but also much else, including sexuality, feeling safe to be themselves, and being protective of a woman partner. Rampage (1994) suggested that men’s reactions to a woman’s disclosure of feelings about something wrong in her world might be more likely to be a suggestion of a solution to the problem than an acknowledgment of the feelings, and that, Rampage asserted, reflects the kind of socialization boys and men often receive. Moreover, from the viewpoint of many women we interviewed, and it can be seen in some of the quotes in this chapter, women value men who work hard and are loyal to their family, and for the women in heterosexual relationships who we interviewed and who were still in the relationship, the clear majority of the men were hard workers and loyal. So even if a man is not particularly self-disclosing to or curious about his woman partner or acknowledging of her self-disclosures, he may still be highly valued for other attributes. Arguably, the male role ideals for many women who we interviewed and many others in the United States is that of a loyal and reliable provider (Rubin, 1986), with other attributes possibly being at a lower priority. And for the women we interviewed who were in heterosexual relationships, perhaps particularly the older women, there had been socialization to find and hold a man who will be a provider (Lerner, 1989), and that could put knowing a partner or potential partner well at a higher priority for women than for men. Thinking of men as deficient and women as having the right idea about relationships can be seen to miss how much they both have standards and disappointments. Hence, one can think of heterosexual partners as often going past each other (cf. Bader & Pearson, 1999), each framing what is going on in ways the other does not, and each feeling frustrated that the partner does not see and do things their way. But then there is considerable reason to feel hopeful. One starting place for hopefulness is that in every couple the partners are creating meanings out of what goes on. So if either is frustrated or dissatisfied, there is a sense in which the frustration and dissatisfaction involve choice about what meanings to create. And that implies that they have the choice and the ability to do something about the

150

Gender differences in intimate knowing

frustration and dissatisfaction – not only possibly finding ways to change the partner, but also changing themselves, including the meanings they give to what is going on and their standards for the partner. We speculate that with so many heterosexual couples that we and others (e.g., Rubin, 1983) have studied being the same way there could be powerful societal forces that create the gender differences discussed in this chapter. Possibly that means that even though there are times of frustration, sadness, loneliness, and anger in many heterosexual couples, perhaps many couples work better in some ways because of the difference. That is, the ecology somehow manufactures and maintains the difference. Why might the ecology push for the difference? We can only speculate, but possibly a division of labor in knowing and not knowing one another, including each other’s internal states, supports the division of labor in other areas and makes it easier for many couples to get along as they do in other areas of intimacy, such as sexuality. And from another systems perspective, heterosexual couples with a clear difference in the areas of knowing and not knowing, being knowable and not being knowable, did not start out with the two partners being alike in these areas. The differences were there from the beginning, so something about the differences might have worked for the two partners and perhaps even have been part of the chemistry that drew them together. Among many possibilities, the difference may have made the woman early in the relationship something of a pursuer, as she tried to learn what was going on inside the man, and both partners may have found something rewarding in that dynamic. Then too, as was mentioned in the preceding section of this chapter, a man’s closedness could be seen as strong, and that could have been attractive to the woman. Further, despite the gender difference making it seem that men are closed and women are not, women have their own closedness, their own reluctances to be open, and their own fears of being discovered (by their partner or themselves), and having a partner who is not particularly curious about them makes it easier to be closed about whatever a woman might be uncomfortable to be open about (Rubin, 1983, p. 85). And even though women seem more curious about their male partners than the male partners seem to be about them, perhaps many women actually prefer to (a) talk about themselves, (b) neither talk nor listen, or (c) fill in the blanks about the partner in ways that feel satisfying rather than have the partner say things that make the relationship more problematic for the woman. So the man’s closedness can work well in a system where the woman actually does not want to hear so much from the man (cf. Rubin, 1983, p. 86).

Making sense of the apparent gender differences

151

This is a book about knowing and not knowing in intimate relationships. It is not about the whole range of intimacy in couple life. So it would be a mistake to generalize from what is in this chapter to gender differences in all areas of heterosexual couple intimacy. In other areas of intimacy than knowing and not knowing – sexuality, touching, providing economic and material resources for the shared household, caring, providing body warmth, providing protection, empathy, shared activities, etc. – gender differences may be absent or even reversed, with men and women in heterosexual couples both feeling that the man was providing his fair share or more than a 50–50 share. And even with regard to self-disclosure, men may be as self-disclosing as women, or even self-disclose more than women, on topics other than those we have focused on in this research (Borisoff, 2001). An important idea in this book, one that is particularly prominent in this chapter, is that even though couples may value something like symmetry in intimate knowing, couples can stay together (often happily) in relationships that lack symmetry.

ch a p ter n in e

Family of origin

So many interviewees talked about the relevance of their and their partner’s respective families of origin to knowing and not knowing and to honesty and its alternatives that it is important to address what people had to say about family of origin. The narratives we heard about families of origin were often offered as explanations. That is, people had stories about their or their partner’s family of origin that explained why self or partner was the way they were or why the two of them had certain difficulties with each other. The explanations often were part of a larger story about how the interviewee and the interviewee’s partner dealt with a difference that was vexing. Saying that their families of origin differed could be a way of saying, “Here is a difference we have to work out.” Or it could be a way to diffuse tension. That is, by saying “Our families of origin differ,” people were often saying something like, “It’s not we who are fighting; it’s our parents.” For example, one man who talked at length about his marital struggles had this to say in comparing his family of origin with his wife’s: She was brought up to question everything, and I was brought up where if an adult told you to do something, whether they were your teacher, a relative, a coach, you just did it. And if it was you against any adult, you were wrong. Period. And she grew up in a house where it was “question everything.” [14]

Awareness of their difference helped to explain to him why he was often uncomfortable if she questioned him in relationship to her or questioned his parenting of their children. He often felt attacked when questioned by his wife, but he also could tell himself not to take what could feel like an attack personally, that his wife was coming from a different place culturally. Similarly a woman who at times was upset with her husband’s seeming to make commitments to do things and then reneging on those commitments had this to say about her family of origin: 152

Openness versus closedness in family of origin

153

I was brought up thinking “But you said that I could, and that’s just (chuckles) the way it is now,” like we already had our agreement. [22]

One way to understand what she said about her family of origin is that it was her way of explaining her upsetness when her husband did not follow through on something and at the same time a step toward telling herself that her husband’s pattern was not necessarily wrong and her expectations based on her family of origin experiences were not necessarily right.

Openness versus closedness in family of origin In the interviews, the strongest, most consistent theme about family of origin differences had to do with the area of openness versus closedness regarding emotions and self-disclosure. Many interviewees described themselves or their partner as open or closed because that is what they learned in their family of origin. Perhaps they had a parent or parents who modeled being open or closed; perhaps they were taught by parents to be relatively open or closed, or perhaps they learned to be relatively closed as they defended themselves in painful or terrifying family of origin encounters. In talking about family of origin patterns they implied that a person learns patterns of relating and self-disclosure in the family of origin and then brings the patterns into adult relationships. That line of thinking, as the following two quotes illustrate, means that one can say that one’s partner is not being malicious or weird but is just enacting what was learned in her or his family of origin. And in some ways that means the blame for any frustrations related to the family of origin pattern goes to the family of origin. His family is all like that. They don’t really talk about things at all, and that’s always been an issue with me because my family is very open and his is very closed. And so I see where it comes from, but it’s still frustrating [him being so closed about feelings] . . . I attribute most of it to his family. [33] When we first started dating . . . I said, “Don’t be afraid to open up your heart to me.” And he said, “Okay.” But I think there’s still . . . I mean he has opened gradually, but knowing his family system too, it’s not surprising (small laugh), comes from an abusive family . . . Sometimes . . . things will come out of him, or I see in him . . . and I, “Oh, this is the [last name] thing. They all do this (laughs). I’ve seen this before.” I know what it’s coming from, so that’s helpful to me, because I think it gives me a perspective. It’s not like looking really narrowly at it, like . . . taking it personal . . . but just seeing the bigger picture. [02]

154

Family of origin

Some families of origin were said to have developed relatively closed patterns because they had things at least one family member wanted to hide. What was mentioned most often were incest, physical abuse, financial problems, and extramarital affairs. As the interviewees talked about family of origin closedness, the family’s need to hide those things was not just about preferences and comfort levels but also about community reputation and the possibility of trouble with legal authorities. The quote that follows illustrates this point and also shows how couple struggles over openness and closedness may be not merely about surface disagreements but can be about what is very deep in the psyche of one or both partners. s: I remember going out with him . . . for a ride . . . I wanted to talk to him expressly about intimacy. I remember that I used that word. And he said (imitating an indignant male voice) “What do you think this is, if it isn’t intimate?” And I was trying to talk to him about being able to ask things freely, and feeling safe in that, because increasingly I didn’t feel safe, not physically unsafe, but emotionally unsafe, that if I asked the wrong thing . . . he’d become angry. He’d really withdraw, and it seemed like the things that I was asking were not bizarre or inappropriate or even confrontational . . . I remember that he ended up getting really angry and it seemed like even the word made him angry. (l: Intimacy.) Intimacy. Yeah, and I remember him saying, “What do you mean by that?” but not listening to my trying to say what . . . I meant . . . I’d envisioned the conversation being one that really opened us up more to one another, and rather than doing that, I came away feeling rejected and badly treated and that clearly I had come up against some threshold in him . . . l: What’s your best guess about what triggered for him? s: . . . Later on I learned . . . there were things to hide in his family, that the denial of bad things had been the rule . . . In my family it seemed like we didn’t have anything that was all that awful . . . We didn’t have anything that was shameful; we certainly had bad stuff. I mean, my father had lost his job, or . . . the match between my parents was not always happy. But they always seemed like really just very, emotionally very truthful people and very accessible people, so you could talk to them. And that was what I had come from, and that was what I always anticipated in someone that I loved. [09]

One could read what she said as simply meaning that her parents and family of origin were open, in contrast to the family of origin of her lover. But it was not that simple, because later in the interview she said things that made it seem that even if her parents could be considered open, they were closed in the sense of lying about certain very significant matters. So the clash she experienced with her ex-lover may not simply have been a clash of closed versus open preferences based on family of origin patterns, but a clash of closed by denying and not talking and possibly not even

Openness versus closedness in family of origin

155

understanding versus partially open but also closed to the point of even lying about some matters. I think of my family of origin as a very open family. [But] in some ways that’s not true. [And then she told a story of two family secrets that still have power more than 50 years after the events that set off the secrets. She concluded with:] They were pretty good at lies . . . And I thought that they were pretty open people (chuckles). [09]

Related to her account, one aspect of family or origin openness and closedness is that whereas some families of origin were deemed to be generally or always open and others generally or always closed, some families of origin were closed only about specific issues. For example, the woman quoted immediately above said this about the family of origin of her first husband: In his family no one ever talked about the death of his father. [09]

So a partner might seem generally open, but if the conversation touched on an issue that in his or her family of origin had been an area in which people were closed, one might experience the partner as evasive, angry, distancing, or otherwise closed. Although one can take most of the quotes so far in this chapter as implying that people were critical of their partner’s family of origin and were very positive about their own, that was not the case with some interviewees. Some saw problems in their having grown up the way they had. In a lot of ways I’ve been pretty open with him, because I come from a family that doesn’t do (laughs) a very good job always of deciding what things to say or not say but just kind of says everything (giggles). So I’ve never really had a really strong developed sense of what to withhold. [37]

She not only could see her family of origin as at times disclosing matters that were inappropriate to disclose, she could see that being extremely open can have quite negative consequences. But even though she could see undesirable sides to what she brought to her couple relationship from her family of origin, she still saw very real challenges in her relationship with her partner that came from them having different family of origin cultures. We . . . come from really different families, and he comes from a very all male family . . . He has [several] brothers and his dad and a lot of uncles . . . His mom grew up with all brothers, and so when I try to relate to her, there are a lot of things that I might do around other women . . . of her generation that I don’t . . . and some of it has nothing to do with gender, but I think some

156

Family of origin of it also has to do with gender and just that she’s been around men a lot (laughs) . . . In his case I think it does fit that that impact as far as gender is concerned is the expressing feelings . . . how he expresses himself and what he chooses to reveal of himself is kind of different, like it’s very slow and it’s hard. It’s hard for him even to put things to words . . . I think all I was really referencing there is the cultural differences between his family and [my] very female-dominated family, and a less intellectual family. He comes from an educated family that sits at dinner and talks about science . . . My family talks about feelings. [37]

So openness about feelings is not necessarily a contrast with closedness about feelings but may be a contrast with a more intellectual way of engaging with issues or with openness about issues remote from feelings. For her, the intellectual approach of his family or origin could be uncomfortable and threatening. Similarly, for people whose family of origin approach to issues was to stay away from emotion, a partner who brought an emotional approach to issues could be puzzling and make things uncomfortable. p: Are there times when you feel like he’s a stranger or that in some ways you’re alone with him? Or are there times when he might feel that way? s: (11 second pause) I was about to say ‘no,’ and then I think “maybe very occasionally.” A couple or three times over the long time we’ve known each other, if there’s something that’s really bothering him, his ultimate emotional response is perhaps pretty regularly or only anger. He can’t fix some things. Some of the biggest, biggest things, whatever they are, finally come down to him being really angry, whether it’s at the world, or someone specific, or himself, or the helplessness of the situation. When I see that, because I grew up in a family that hid, put away all their emotions, that’s the kind of person I don’t know. I don’t quite know where that extreme emotion comes from. [15]

But it’s not that simple The discussion so far in this chapter may seem to imply that there is a simple relationship between what went on in the families of origin of a couple and what goes on in the couple. But it is not that simple. First of all, some people backed away from what could seem like simple stereotyping based on their own or a partner’s family of origin. The woman quoted immediately below wanted to be open to whatever might be going on with her partner, rather than to say something like, “Well, his family is that particular ethnicity. No wonder he’s that way.” This process of trying to understand how to interpret each other correctly [is] almost like a little translator in your head. And it’s pretty tough, because

But it’s not that simple

157

it’s really easy to over-generalize or make too many assumptions based on . . . these catchy, easy-to-understand little things . . . like “stoic Norwegian culture.” . . . It’s really way more complicated than any of that . . . I don’t want to fall into the trap when I’m trying to understand where he’s coming from or what he’s thinking, just making too many assumptions about what it is that’s triggering that, and not . . . opening myself to really what is going on. [37]

Another way it is not so simple is that the family of origin pattern is not necessarily in the past. It could be part of the ongoing everyday life of a partner or of the couple in ways that put pressure on them in the present. I’ve always been somebody who wants to know a lot of information about the other person and has sort of demanded (chuckling) a lot of honesty from the other person. And my mom was really that person for me, and she was really forthcoming and we still have a really open relationship. We talk about almost everything . . . I think I carry that into intimate relationships where I just sort of expect to know everything and expect them to share a lot with me. [29]

She still talks with her mother, so her mother is still a player in her life, and thus in the woman’s couple relationship, and still a force for being emotionally and informationally open. Then too, despite what some interviewees said and despite research showing a carryover of such dispositions as how one does conflict from family of origin to adult couple relationships (Whitton et al., 2008), there were a number of people who said that they or their partner did not conform to their family of origin patterns. For example, the two people quoted immediately below said that they had been working at being different from their families of origin. The man did not want to be a distant and paternalistic bully as his father had been in relationship to his mother. And the woman had come to be much more open with her husband than she would be if she conformed to her family of origin pattern. I try to step around and see what life’s like for her being married to me and kind of [change] those roles . . . I don’t know if it’s common for men my age, but I think we’ve had patterns from our dads where they treated my mom a certain way, and I picked up a lot of that, and so I’m trying to reverse things that I’ve done to her that have affected our intimacy, like the way that I talk to her, the way that I treat her. [16] s: [The members of my family of origin] do not talk about anything . . . And with my own family that’s completely different, me and [my husband] and [our son]. I’m very open and affectionate . . .

158

Family of origin

p: You seem to have escaped from [the kinds of walls your family of origin had up]. Did you have therapy to get to do that escaping? Or how did you do that? s: I’m not sure how that happened. And it’s still there with other people. Like [my husband] and [our son] it’s fine, but hugging other people is not my thing . . . I do have close friends I can tell certain stuff to, but there’s still I think that wall there with other relationships outside of [my husband], but I think when you share a house and you have sex with somebody and you have their baby, after a while I reached that point where it’s like, “Why would I have a wall?” (laughs) “I’ve had your baby, for God’s sake . . . Might as well share everything else. You’ve seen all the gross things, so (laughing) nothing to be ashamed of anymore.” [35]

Similarly, some people were clear that they or their partner functioned at a much higher level of honesty in their couple relationship than they had witnessed in their family of origin. p: You really value honesty and you’re good at it. Was that something that came out of growing up in the family you grew up in? s: No, because I don’t think they were honest . . . They kept secrets from each other . . . I think in a lot of ways they weren’t honest with us, but I don’t think that it was intentional. I think it was because they were hiding secrets that they didn’t really think were secrets. It was just something that you don’t have to know. [10] I think he always wanted a real honesty, because I don’t think his parents were. And he really resented that. [06]

Family of origin abuse may show up in the couple relationship Family of origin sexual abuse, violence, and emotional abuse can create defensiveness, vulnerability, protectiveness, reactivity, closedness, or other relationship dispositions in someone that can carry over into adult relationships (e.g., Cui et al., 2010; Ehrensaft, 2009), and because carry-overs from family of origin show up often in couple and family therapy, family-oforigin factors are central to a number of influential family therapy theories (Nelson, 2008). Consistent with what is documented and theorized about in the academic literature on family-of-origin, one woman interviewee saw the expression of an abusive childhood, coupled with the deaths of many family members, as having created trust issues in a man with whom she had had a long term relationship. And then, too, she brought her own scars from a difficult childhood into the relationship.

Family of origin abuse may show up in the couple relationship

159

I think him coming from sort of an abusive childhood and losing most of his family members [led him] to not trust and to not open up quickly and to not get real emotionally invested, for fear of being hurt or losing that, and so it was adaptive in that sense, and I guess maybe became maladaptive in our relationship. And then for me it was probably, just in terms of communication, I feel like I . . . in the family system I grew up in, just sort of learned “Don’t talk about it. Don’t trust. Don’t feel,” these messages I got that were really adaptive . . . where I just had no control, [but] putting that into this relationship became maladaptive. [29]

Similarly, one woman saw in her husband the long lasting effects of the emotional abuse he had experienced as a child. Related to this, a major challenge for her was that he had very strong reactions to things in her that reminded him of his abusive father. He used to feel intimidated to talk about some of that stuff, because I think, from what I can piece together about the family he grew up in, he was picked on a lot by his father, and so that’s why I think he’s kind of a little on the shut down side. And I have a quick temper, like his father does, and so I think sometimes I kind of trigger some of that stuff, and seem kind of intimidating. And another difference in my family, if you have a lot of emotion, you could talk loud, and in his family you could (speaking softly) never raise your voice (chuckling). And so, he hears a loud voice, and that just freaks him out. And it feels so stifling to me to try and flex in a damping down way, when I’m all het up over something. [05]

At times she was aware of what might upset her husband and was careful not to trigger his defensive reaction, but at other times she was surprised by his reaction, and had to work backward from his defensiveness to try to understand the link of what he was reacting to in her to his childhood experiences. I think that what we grow up with is what we know, and it kind of creates a framework that we tend to try and get everything to fit in. And so I think that you have to say that there’s a little component of that, because of what I was saying before about I’ll say something and I think it’s a pretty neutral thing and he’ll react in a way that feels kind of defensive to me. And so then it’s like, “Well, what just happened here?” And I think that it does come from his upbringing, his family of origin. [05]

Some interviewees said that there was great trouble in their relationship because of family of origin abuse – for example, [29], who was quoted at the beginning of this section of this chapter. But [05], who is quoted immediately above, never said that there was real trouble, possibly in part

160

Family of origin

because she was aware of how her husband’s family of origin experiences were a presence in their couple life and partly because she seemed, from many things she said, to have the willingness and ability to accommodate to her husband’s sensitivities and triggers.

Conclusion Movie versions of romantic relationships sometimes show a couple running hand in hand slow motion through a field of flowers. But judging by what many interviewees said, if the movie camera panned more broadly we would see that their families of origin are running near them, yelling advice to them. Or if they have physically left their families of origin behind, the family’s impact is still present in the bodies and minds of the couple. Even if there were not family therapy and psychological literatures that document family of origin effects on couple relationships, we would have considerable reason based on what the interviewees quoted in this chapter said to believe that such effects are part of their experience in couple relationships. In theory family of origin effects may be part of what one finds attractive in one’s partner. But the predominance of what we heard from interviewees was that the partner’s family of origin could be part of what vexes one about one’s partner, part of what may be the basis of excusing one’s partner for being in some ways challenging or difficult, and generally something that is potentially present to know and deal with.

ch a p ter t en

Is it good to know and be known extremely well?

Despite their disappointments and conflicts about openness, curiosity, and knowing, in general most people who talked about an ongoing relationship felt there was a high level of knowing and wanting to be known in their relationship. To them, knowing seemed a central part of the relationship and necessary for getting along well, feeling close to and safe with the partner, living a comfortably predictable life, having a caring and loving relationship, feeling truly intimate, and being in a relationship with staying power. They also saw knowing a person well as to some extent an artifact of being in a relationship for a long time. But it is not that simple, because many interviewees said that they and/or their partner did not want to be fully known or to know the other fully. In fact, quite a few people had real concerns about what might happen if they or their partner knew too much about the other in certain areas. So partly as a way of summarizing some of the ideas in this book and partly as a way of making the case for knowing that is both substantial and imperfect this chapter explores what people had to say about how knowing someone extremely well can be a problem and can be good.

Sometimes knowing and being known too well might be a problem As is indicated throughout this book and particularly in Chapter 4, interviewees identified a number of scenarios in which someone knowing a certain something might have been a problem for one or both partners. And so someone withheld certain information, regretted not withholding it, or regretted learning it. Why might people sometimes feel that knowing or revealing something might be a problem? As was shown particularly in Chapters 4 through 7, people do not necessarily value total openness and honesty in a couple relationship, in part because they want to avoid relationship trouble. Partners might differ 161

162

Is it good to know and be known extremely well?

about a particular instance of knowing, with one being very glad a certain piece of knowledge has been revealed while the other regrets that the information has been revealed. But as a general rule it seems that most if not all interviewees felt that certain kinds of information might best be withheld or not known. As interviewees talked about their couple life, relationship trouble came in many forms, including undermining of trust, discomfort in relating to the partner, long and difficult conversations, hurt feelings, anger, conflict, periods of greater emotional distance, and even relationship breakup. Some people were concerned that if their partner knew certain things that could undermine the partner’s trust in them. In some interviews this seemed particularly so when knowing was about actual or potential sexual relationships with people other than the partner. For example, one man talked about how much his current marriage was affected by his openness with his current wife about extramarital relationships in his previous marriage. p: Does she know that you’ve had extramarital or multiple sexual relationships in the past? s: . . . Yes, yeah, yeah. She knows about that. And . . . she’s afraid that some relationship that I might have with somebody else would lead to straying. And she’s made it very clear . . . and I don’t have any problem with this . . . that . . . if you do have an affair with somebody, that’s the end of the relationship. [25]

And here is a related example, of a woman who confessed a brief extrarelationship fling to her partner and then found that the honesty undermined the relationship with her partner. s: She was a bit of the jealous type . . . A girl couldn’t look or call or anything without her thinking that I have some kind of agenda. And that was even before the infidelity on my part . . . p: There was an infidelity. How did she catch on? s: I told her . . . The next day I told her . . . After a few months, she said, “I’ve forgiven you, and we can move on. I really want to move on and our relationship to grow.” . . . But she never, ever let it go . . . If we did communicate, it usually did turn into a fight, and more often than not she’s gonna bring it up, and this would be something she would say a lot: “Why don’t you just go fuck one of your bitches?!” [34]

So knowing certain things can undermine trust, and yet as was said in Chapter 1, trust is a foundation for knowing. That gives us something of a circular paradox. If one trusts the partner then the partner probably will disclose more and be more inclined to accept the disclosures one provides.

Sometimes knowing and being known too well might be a problem 163 But people may not tell the truth or the whole truth in order to gain the trust of a partner, and disclosing the truth can sometimes undermine trust. Hence, in some relationships some of the time, the calculations on both sides may be very complex and confusing about trust, trustworthiness, honesty, and openness. In line with discussions particularly in Chapters 4 through 7 of limiting the information given to a partner and of lying to a partner, some people did not want their partner to know them well or at all in certain areas. They feared that too much knowing could create personal discomfort for themselves or their partner. In the following quote, a man talked about leaving his youthful ideal of total openness behind once he tried a relationship that was fully open. The openness created feelings of discomfort for him. So his position became that it is preferable to withhold information for the good of the relationship (and for his own comfort level). There are things I don’t want her to know . . . from my past . . . When I was younger I had . . . this idea of total openness. You let the other person see everything about you, [and you saw] everything about them from their past . . . I had a relationship, this wasn’t a marital relationship but it was somebody I lived with, and we tried to follow that way . . . I thought it caused more problems than anything else, ‘cause I . . . did get jealous of some of the things she was sharing about some of her past relationships. And she’d go into great detail . . . It . . . seemed like it was raising the idea of having to be fully and truly completely open past a point of what was in the best interest of the relationship . . . You don’t have to know every little . . . thing. [25]

He went on to clarify his view by saying that he thought it was good to leave the past in the past, but things that are relevant to who the two partners are now should be talked about. If . . . it has to do with who they are now and some important, then I can see you need to talk about it. But otherwise I just say let the past be the past. [25]

Another man who presumably would agree with what was said by [25] had regrets that he had been as open as he had been with his wife about his youthful sexuality and sexual interests. Her knowing certain things about him made for difficulties. He mentioned trust issues, but perhaps the greater problem was that what she learned about her husband led to moral judgments and disgust about him, and those were uncomfortable for him.

164

Is it good to know and be known extremely well? There’s probably a couple of things, and one is just normal sexual things that would happen that when you grow up like we were in a Christian environment, in a Christian culture, we were both virgins when we were married, but men, I think, are different than women in terms of how they deal with that. And if you are a normal male outside of the church that’s just being young and you start masturbating, or you start looking at Playboy and stuff, that’s just normal. But in the church it’s not normal. Everybody’s doing it but nobody’s talking about it. And so I think those things followed me into my marriage and that was just a huge thing to her. It was just like that was not normal to her, so there was this almost feeling like she’s living with somebody that, she, it’s like a trust thing. [16]

In fact, a number of interviewees said that it is always or generally good to avoid relationship trouble by not revealing certain matters to one’s partner. Some people feared high levels of intimate knowing, and perhaps that is part of what underlies the gender differences discussed in Chapter 8. Like the male lover of the woman quoted immediately below, some people may fear exposure and closeness. She said that intimate knowing soothed her fears, but he had fears of too much intimate knowing. I have a lot of fear that is my impetus towards intimacy; intimacy comforts the fear. I think with him, he has a fear of the intimacy (laughs). His fear comes from too much exposure . . . revealing and closeness . . . He might deny that he has a fear of intimacy. Well, yeah, ‘cause he’s not afraid of anything. That’s what he says. So then one time I said, “Okay, what word would you use if not ‘fear’?” He said, “Trepidation.” (laughs) I laughed. I said, “What word usually precedes (still laughing) ‘trepidation’?” (imitating a defensive masculine voice:) “Fear.” (laughing) [02]

So in their relationship, his revealing too much to her apparently made him uncomfortable. Based on what she said, his discomfort was that becoming informationally exposed put him in an anxious, worried, fearful place. With what has been presented in this section of this chapter, and with other examples presented in earlier chapters, it seems clear that quite a few interviewees saw risks of difficulty in revealing or learning certain information, but that does not mean that interviewees necessarily thought that difficulty should be avoided or that a high level of knowing and being known is, in net, anything but very good in a couple relationship. The next section of this chapter addresses some key ways in which interviewees thought that knowing and being known well can be good.

Often knowing and being known well seems valuable

165

Often knowing and being known well seems valuable Despite the sense many interviewees provided that there can be risks in revealing or knowing certain things, there is research suggesting that high levels of openness about personal matters leads to a high quality, satisfying relationship (e.g., Baxter & Bullis, 1986; Uysel, Lin, Knee, & Bush, 2012), and self-disclosure can be seen as essential to what people consider to be intimacy in a couple relationship (Waring et al., 1980). Further, if laboratory studies of undergraduates who had relatively brief interactions with other undergraduates who were strangers to them are relevant, one study (Kashdan, McKnight, Fincham, & Rose, 2011) showed that those who were more open and curious created more positive interactions with their conversation partner. That might imply a long term benefit in relationships from openness and curiosity. As is laid out throughout this book, many interviewees would agree that higher levels of openness, self-disclosure, and curiosity benefit a relationship, even some of those who had problems with or concerns about disclosing certain matters. Some people said that they valued very highly a life of shared knowledge such that each partner knew and understood the other very well. The woman quoted immediately below was in the same profession as her husband, and that meant to her that they each brought great depth of background knowledge to their conversations about their workday, and they both valued that. Part of the attraction is we can talk about our day and understand what the other one went through. [13]

Some people said that they felt safer and more comfortable because they knew their partner well. Related to this, some interviewees were clear that they valued predictability in the partner. One woman said that she felt comfortable with her boyfriend because she knew him very well and hence did not have to deal with any surprises or mystery from him. Her knowledge of him meant it was safe for her to let her guard down and be fully present with him. Knowledge of the other can also protect one from potential harm from the other. For example, several women interviewees had learned that their husband had a very intense temper, and they used that knowledge to be more cautious with him. p: Probably when you first started living together, there were surprises, or you learned more things that you hadn’t known before.

166

Is it good to know and be known extremely well?

s: I found out that he has a really bad temper, and I didn’t know that before we were married. That was a surprise. I thought he was more easygoing. p: Has that temper kept you from poking around with him and more to walk on egg shells? s: I think initially it did. Initially I was more cautious. [08] s: He saw counseling separately for a while on kind of an anger management issue (chuckles). And I think it worked, or it helped him a lot. He’s very different now . . . p: Were you scared of him some times? s: Early in our relationship, yeah, there was a time I was scared. Now I’m not. [22]

Many people said that they valued being known very well by a partner. Perhaps nobody who said that told us all their reasons for valuing being known, but the diversity of reasons within and across people for wanting to be known well by a partner was striking. Some people mentioned that with knowing comes the potential for greater caring and support. To illustrate, one woman talked about how because her partner knew her well her partner could be more caring at times when caring was desirable. I think when it’s a deeper thing, she’s really respectful, and she knows where those lines are, and she loves me enough to draw those lines and to walk carefully and tread softly on those places, and I think I do the same for her. I think on the other stuff, the stuff that we tease publicly about especially of, you know, should [I] go to the Y more often? That kind of stuff, which feels a little bit sensitive, I mean just stupid little stuff, those are the things that are kind of like the second or third tier stuff, where on a rough day it cuts in, even if it’s a joke or even if she doesn’t mean to, but I still feel it. And . . . frankly she knows what’s gonna push my buttons, and she knows most of the time when it’s okay to push my buttons and when not. [27]

Another woman felt better understood by her partner because he could use his knowledge of her to interpret things she said. However, in the situation described below, his knowledge of her led him to say that he felt manipulated by her. Although she agreed with his interpretation, she was not happy hearing him state it. Thus, a partner’s greater knowledge of one can be both valued and at times a source of discomfort. I said to him . . . something like, “Ach, maybe we should split up.” And the reason I said that is because, I (laughing) know it sounds like, “Whoa,” the reason I said that is because . . . I was fantasizing about how nice it would be to be like fresh and new to each other. And I was like, “I . . . want to go to Hawaii” by myself, and read some books and get in shape and re-center myself and . . . get back to who I want to be . . . “Then I’ll come back and

Often knowing and being known well seems valuable

167

[he] and I will be together, and it’ll be great, because we’ll feel refreshed and we’ll get to know each other.” . . . When I said that to him . . . “Maybe we should split up.” . . . then I paused, and I could have immediately explained why I said that . . . not like as in “I’m not interested in you anymore. I want to be with somebody else” . . . but like, “I’m always thinking of ways to freshen my relationship and be more real toward you.” . . . I realized how it could come off, I think then . . . some manipulative part of me was willing to wait a few seconds and see what kind of reaction that would provoke, which is really horrible. But I did it, and he got upset with me, ‘cause he felt manipulated. He didn’t think that I was serious . . . ’cause it would have come totally out of left field and out of character and . . . so he took that as like, “Wow, you just tried to (laughing) manipulate me emotionally to get a reaction out of me when you could have just told me honestly what was going on or what it is that you need.” [37]

One man wanted to know and be known very well because of his belief that being known well would help him to know himself, as well as others, well. Everybody’s got a false view of reality. And we tell ourselves things that aren’t true every day. And we need other people to help us see some of those things, and then tell ourself what’s really true. And so that’s a part of my journey is trying to find out how am I fooling myself, ‘cause that’s what knowing is. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” . . . What that means is if you find the truth you will experience freedom . . . To me it means that I’m in charge of my choices. I’m making them; they’re not being made for me. So I’ve got a clear view of reality. I can respond to people that might be in need or that I can just have a conversation with . . . I don’t have my false reality making those decisions for me. And so knowing is a part of that. Intimacy is a part of knowing the truth about people. [16]

Others linked being known well to acceptance. They very much liked having a partner who knew them well and who accepted them even if some of what the partner knew was not positive. For the two women quoted immediately below, it was not just being known well that mattered but also that they were accepted by the partner despite what was known. I think what goes on with that is the feeling of being known and accepted for who I am, to really know me. To feel that he really does know me but still accepts me anyway, even if he see things that maybe he doesn’t like or that I’m ashamed of. [02]

168

Is it good to know and be known extremely well? He does not push or pry or anything. And anything I say, he just takes it and he just accepts it and deals with it however he wants, and my opinion is my opinion. And even if it’s different, it doesn’t change the way he feels about me. [01]

Some people said that for them being known well was central to what they understood as marriage or as a love relationship. The woman quoted immediately below talked about her first marriage, where as time went on there was progressively less that she and her husband could talk about, so there was progressively less knowing. For her, that was the opposite of what a marriage should be. I know with my first husband there were issues that would crop up that we were not able to resolve. So [those issues] were treated . . . like a brick. “We can’t talk about this because we’ve argued,” so there’s one brick. And you go through time, and another issue comes up that you can’t seem to resolve and there’s another brick. And over years, I let those bricks build up. And it became a wall between [him] and me, because those bricks were there. When I met [my current husband], I was determined not to let any bricks ever form ever again, because that destroys that feeling of intimacy between people, and we both worked, thank God he is a very verbal man and he’s in touch with his feelings, and he can actually voice his feelings and his thoughts. We both worked hard and we don’t have any bricks after 10 years; there’s no area that we can’t discuss. [12]

Similarly, another woman spoke about the link of knowing to honesty and felt that without honesty (and the knowing that went with it) there could not be a relationship. An intimate relationship without honesty is not a relationship. [06]

Some people talked about having felt lonely in a relationship where there was not much knowing, and for them feeling lonely was very unpleasant. There is a loneliness and there is a desire to want to be known more, and I’m not sure sometimes if she loves me. But she’s my best friend. [16]

For him the fact that his wife was his best friend made it even harder that she might not know him as well as he would like. He was living with the paradox of having a best friend who in important ways may not always be fond of him and may not know him well. There also were hints from some interviewees of a paradoxical view of knowing, that in a sense the more a partner knew one the less the partner

Often knowing and being known well seems valuable

169

had to pay attention to one. To illustrate, one woman emphasized that being known well she would not have to tell her partner so much for him to know what she wanted him to know about something that had come up for her. l: Is it important for you to be known, to have sort of an inner self and likes and dislikes, whatever the range of what it is to be known? Is it important for you? s: Yeah. I guess to be understood maybe. You don’t have to know my exact likes, but it is important, yeah, that we can connect on that level where you don’t have to tell somebody everything because they already know it all. [35]

Then there are the practical reasons for knowing each other well that were discussed in Chapter 2, including being better able to deal with partner differences, solve couple problems, and tune in on each other in ways that made for smoother and easier relating. From an existentialist perspective, one could argue that all humans struggle with the anxiety of being existentially, ultimately alone in facing life, the responsibilities and uncertainties of having whatever freedom they have, meaninglessness, and death. The anxiety of existential aloneness may at times (or perhaps, for some, even all the time) be quite difficult and unnerving, and it can be a threatening presence, at least in the background. Perhaps for many people, being known well by another and knowing another well can reduce the feelings of being alone and overwhelmed in facing existential aloneness. That does not mean that one does away with existential aloneness. Even in one’s most intimate moments of knowing and being known, one is existentially alone (Cowan, 2009), and may well feel the feelings that go with existential aloneness. But still, from an existentialist viewpoint, for many people a big part of the hunger to be known and know another well may be the desire to escape the anxiety of existential aloneness. This is not to say that the awareness of existential aloneness is undesirable or that knowing and being known are necessarily divorced from awareness of existential aloneness. But it is to speculate that for many people knowing another well and being known well may be related to efforts to deal with the discomfort of existential anxiety. Nobody we interviewed spoke in those words, but we can imagine existential aloneness issues underlying things people said about their hunger to be known, discomfort with loneliness, the comfort of being known well, and their unhappiness with relationships in which they did not feel known well.

170

Is it good to know and be known extremely well?

Being known well by another who is accepting and even very positive about one can be quite validating. To have someone know one’s quirks, one’s strengths that many others do not know, one’s times of great embarrassment, the self one does not show to the public, one’s secret fears and anxieties, the mistakes one has made, and so on, can be quite validating. It says that whoever one is, both the good and what might be taken to be not good, one is still worthwhile, lovable, worthy of commitment, cared about, enjoyed, valued, and respected. Having that kind of validation can be quite a plus for one’s morale, self-confidence, quality of life, and capacity to face the challenges of the world.

Interviewees generally vote for knowing and being known well If one takes what is in this book as a straw poll about whether knowing another very well or being known very well is desirable, the votes clearly fall more into the “yes” column than the “no” column. Interviewees generally valued knowing and being known. That does not mean they said they valued 100% knowing and being known, but their values seemed much closer to knowing at a 100% level than to knowing at a 0% level. However, consistent with what was reported in Chapter 8 on gender differences, the voices for limiting knowing and being known were more the voices of men than women. Men generally valued knowing and being known, but they seemed more inclined to say that the past should be left in the past and that they would rather not be as open as a woman partner would be or would want them to be. From another angle, being known better and knowing better seem relatively inescapable as a relationship goes on. Experimental evidence supports this viewpoint (Thomas & Fletcher, 2003), and it seems consistent with the interview material in this book. But one can also come to believe that it is possible to miss very important things in the other, even in a relationship that goes on for a long time. So sometimes a relationship of long duration may hit an informational brick wall when someone realizes something important that she or he did not know about the partner. Whether the person knew at some level but not at a level that made it information to fully comprehend or whether what suddenly became known was not previously knowable may be difficult to say in some instances. But arguably even if some things were genuine surprises discovered later in the relationship (for example, that the husband was actually gay, that the long term man

For people who want advice about their own intimate relationship 171 friend was an untrustworthy and manipulative person who did not actually tune in on one, that the husband was sneaking food that was bad for his health), the partners in all these relationships were known well in many ways, perhaps 90% known.

For people who want advice about their own intimate relationship This is not a self-help book for many reasons, including that it paints such a complex picture of what people do, want, experience, and value that it seems nearly impossible to offer simple advice. There is not one clear or best path. But in general we can say that most people we interviewed wanted to know the other they were in close relationship to at least up to a point, and that point was generally at quite a high level of knowing (90% perhaps). Similarly, most people we interviewed seemed to value being known well (at least at something like a 90% level). This means that one must learn how to know another (how to seek information, pay attention, listen, remember, and care about a lot of what there is to know). And one must learn, at least up to a point, how to be knowable. But the learning is not done independently of how the partner speaks and acts. A relationship is a new learning venue for both partners in the areas of knowing and being knowable. As part of the learning occurring in tandem with the partner, one must learn how to nurture and accept the knowing the other offers, to really “get” it and generally to get it in a way that the partner thinks it should be gotten. One must learn to live with what is possible intimately in the relationship and to make what can be made out of the interactions one has, as opposed to making assumptions about the intimacy that can or must be achieved in the relationship (Weingarten, 1991). And one must learn to live and cope with the differences, dissatisfactions, disagreements, disapproval, and other challenges of the relationship that go with knowing and being known. Possibly some couples get along with both partners feeling very positive about what they know about each other and what goes on in their relationship with regard to knowing and not knowing. But judging by our interviews, in quite a few couples part of what is known is not so pleasant or comfortable to know, and part of what goes on with concealment, evasion, or leaving certain areas alone can also be not so pleasant or comfortable. We do not offer answers to questions about what would be best to do in an intimate relationship, and do not think answers can legitimately be

172

Is it good to know and be known extremely well?

offered based on the phenomenological data on which this book is based. But reading this book will offer someone who seeks self-help a substantial amount of information with which to put her or his experience in the context of the experience of those we interviewed and in the context of our analysis of that experience.

c h a p ter eleven

Phenomenology of knowing and not knowing, being known and not known

What a phenomenological approach adds We think this book advances scholarship in the area of knowing, not knowing, being known, and not known in intimate relationships. The phenomenological approach we employed provides a rich texture of people’s stories of their relationships and the meanings they give to what has gone on. The interviews offer insight into the language people use in talking about their relationships, the dilemmas they have faced, and how they have made sense of things. The interviews also provide a sense of how intricately things are linked, qualified, and nuanced in people’s narratives about their experience, and with that a sense of how fluid and ambiguous experiential realities can be. The scholarly literature on close relationships is vast and rich, and it offers an impressively insightful set of theories, analytic schemes, and concepts for understanding close relationships. The phenomenological approach taken in this book honors that literature by citing quite a bit of it but also resists working within the frameworks and vocabulary of that literature, because it is extremely difficult to embrace the richness of phenomenological realities while using scholarly frameworks and vocabulary to filter and frame what people have to say. The openness of a phenomenological approach only works if one can, to the extent possible, know and put aside one’s own schemas and presuppositions for making sense of people’s experiences and remains open to and willing to work with what people have to say in ways that are loyal to their realities. Thus, while honoring and valuing the close relationships literature, we believe this book fills a gap in that literature.

Essence of lived experience concerning knowing and not knowing Phenomenological research traditions typically focus on the essence of lived experience, a relatively simple common core in an important area of people’s 173

174

Phenomenology of knowing and not knowing

lives. What seems to be the essence of the lived experience of intimacy with regard to knowing and not knowing? This is not a simple matter to address, because in our approach we respect the diversity of people’s experiences and understandings of intimacy in the area of knowing and not knowing, and also see contradictions within and across some interviews. So things are not simple. But the essence seems to us to be the following: Most interviewees wanted to know the other a great deal and be known by the other a great deal, and to a large extent most succeeded in knowing and being known very well. But many, if not all, were imperfectly known and did not want to be perfectly known, and many, if not all, knew the other imperfectly and did not want to know the other perfectly. We could say that within the realities of the interviewees, in many relationships there was a certain amount of dishonesty, evasion, deception or something else other than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But people did not necessarily experience their incomplete, evasive, deceptive, and possibly even dishonest self-disclosure as a bad thing, and people did not necessarily experience their incomplete knowing as incomplete knowing or a bad thing. The people we interviewed were not indifferent to knowing their partner. In fact, at the beginning of the relationship and often before the relationship had escalated much or had become a fully committed one, people often used one or more of five approaches to knowing the other. Everyone worked at knowing the other through direct interaction. They asked questions and paid attention. Dates, going for walks, helping the other out, meals together, etc., were not only about enjoyment but also about the detective work of knowing and about allowing the other to do her or his detective work of knowing. Secondly, some people relied on the learning acquired through previous acquaintanceship with the other. They might even have had years of knowing the other, and often a knowing that was not biased or clouded by the relationship being romantic or seeming to be on its way to being romantic. That is, when a relationship showed no signs of becoming romantic, the two individuals might not have reasons to hide or distort things that they would hide or distort in a romantic relationship or a relationship on its way to being romantic. Some people learned from third parties about the person they thought they might be interested in, either passively receiving information volunteered by others or actively seeking it. In some relationships that seemed to be possibly or actually becoming romantic people put information about themselves up front that might deter the other – perhaps particularly information about serious health problems or an interest only in having a relationship that would be moving

Essence of lived experience concerning knowing and not knowing

175

to long-term commitment. Related to that, for some it was clear that they did not want to waste time in an escalating relationship if information came out that made the relationship seem like a bad or untenable choice to the other. And still another way of getting to know the other early in the relationship was to get to know the other’s family and friends. Some people said they could know important, even vitally important things about another by knowing the values, behavior patterns, and ways of relating of people who have been important in the other’s life. In fact, some people who had little or no contact with the other’s family and friends felt at a disadvantage in trying to know what they might be getting into with the other. Almost everyone we interviewed seemed to value knowing and being known to a considerable extent. For quite a few, knowing and being known were symbols and indicators of intimacy, and central to intimacy. Thus, it is not just that we scholars think knowing is important. In the worlds of most of the interviewees, knowing and being known are important and even central to intimate relationships. Almost everyone who was in an ongoing relationship felt rather well known in that relationship and most who were in an ongoing relationship felt that they knew their partner well. But there were areas of not knowing. Some did not know, did not want to know, or did not want their partner to know about past romantic/sexual relationships. Other areas in which at least one person did not want to be known or known well included purchases that violated couple budget standards, pornography viewing, failure to adhere to a diet, health problems, things they thought the other could not understand, things they thought the other would not find interesting, things that might be painful or threatening for the other to know, and things they thought would hurt the other or make trouble in the relationship. In many interviews there were contradictions in that people would say that they valued honesty but also spoke about not being honest with their partner. And they could say both that they hungered to be known but also that they sometimes wanted not to be known regarding certain matters. And even though many said that they knew their partner better than anyone else in the world knew her or him some also indicated that in important ways they did not know their partner. Almost every interviewee in an ongoing relationship felt that she or he understood the most important and essential things about the partner, including whether the partner was telling the truth about most things, whether the partner was truly loyal, and the partner’s basic personhood. They might not like all that they knew, but they knew well who the

176

Phenomenology of knowing and not knowing

partner was. And people in ongoing relationships generally thought that their partner knew rather well who they were. The accumulation of knowledge about the other builds up in complicated ways. To some extent it is simply cumulative. To some extent it builds by fits and starts in that a relationship can seem for quite a while to be rather close to a nothing-new-coming-in state in terms of knowing one another and then something happens that can open up a large new area in which conceivably there is much to be learned. We think, for example, about the woman who was married to a man for years before she discovered he had a secret homosexual life and the woman who discovered that her highly religious husband was hooked on online pornography. And even ordinary life changes, like becoming pregnant, having a baby, or moving to a distant new location, can open up vast new areas of possible knowing. New knowing can radically transform previous knowing. Words said during an angry confrontation can, for example, open to question much of the caring and positive things the partner said previously. Finding that the partner has had a well guarded secret can make one wonder whether much that one thought one knew about the partner was based on lies, secrets, and deceptions and that the partner is not who he or she has seemed to be. And things can come up that can radically change what one thinks one knows about oneself. Imagine, for example, a person who says she is tolerant and open to her partner’s lack of interest in religion and spirituality and then becomes infuriated and hurt when he shows little interest in or grasp of what it means to her to be wrestling with issues of religious and spiritual identity. At the extreme, a relationship that one thought was right for one or that one thought had a real chance of having a wonderful, long-term future may come to seem like a bad choice either because of transformations in knowledge about the other or transformations in knowledge about oneself.

Nature of knowing and not knowing, being known and not known Judging by the interviews, intimate knowing is often not an end itself but a byproduct of life together and the accumulation of incidental discoveries that come with an ongoing relationship. In accord with observations by Rampage (1994), instances of disclosing more, learning more, understanding more, listening, and other matters related to intimate knowing are like other aspects of intimacy in couple relationships, not constant but

Nature of knowing and not knowing, being known and not known 177 episodic. Moreover, our interview material seems to indicate that knowing is likely to be flawed in that some of what one thinks one knows may not be completely valid or correct by some standards or in some situations, or it may not be current. And there is likely to be a significant amount of material about the partner that is not known or that may not be knowable or knowable with any way to establish that it is correct or true. Disclosure to a partner may be intentional and an act of love and closeness and may move both partners to feeling closer in ways they both value. But disclosure to a partner may be so many other things – for example, an act of distancing, an effort to maintain the relationship, an artifact of trying to solve a problem, an angry statement that is meant to hurt, or an accidental letting down of one’s guard about something. Similarly, choosing not to disclose something to a partner may be an act of love and closeness and may enable the partners to be closer in ways that both value. But nondisclosure may also be an act of distancing, an effort to maintain the relationship, an artifact of trying to solve a problem, an act of anger, or many other things. Nondisclosure may also be unintended if for no other reason than there is only so much time to communicate and so many limits on disclosure given the limits of language and self-insight. People are complicated; relationships are complicated. In any particular couple there are numerous intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics at work that both push partners not to reveal or not to know certain things and push partners to reveal or to know certain other things. For example, a husband may work hard to keep his wife from knowing about his interest in online pornography, and his wife may work hard to ignore whatever it is he does online. He may want very much to maintain his pornography viewing and to avoid creating conflict with her, and she may very much want not to invade his privacy and to avoid creating conflict with him. But the dynamics may be very different regarding, say, expenditures from their shared pool of money. They may both want to keep within an agreed upon budget, and so they both may want to disclose what they spend and know what the partner spends. The underlying motivation in this situation could be partly to avoid going into debt and partly so that they can see themselves as such good partners that they are not defensive about expenditures, that they trust each other financially, and that they are functioning as a team when it comes to money. There is a perspective on distance/closeness regulation in couples that says that distance /closeness varies from time to time and situation to situation; there is not a constant level of closeness (see, for example, Rosenblatt, 1994). From this perspective, some of what may be disclosed to a partner

178

Phenomenology of knowing and not knowing

may arise from a time of closeness and feeling safe and loving or a time of distance and feeling anxiety about the distance. Some may arise from a time of wanting to draw oneself closer to the partner or to draw the partner closer to oneself. But what was revealed then might be a problem at times when one is feeling different about the partner or when the relationship closeness/distance is quite different. However, there is no guarantee that what was disclosed at one time is remembered or important at another time. But then there are also self-disclosures that increase distance between the partners, sometimes seemingly for years. There is a way to think of relationships as involving a dance of closeness and distance (Lerner, 1989; Rosenblatt & Barner, 2006). At times one partner may feel the other is too close and will draw away. At times one partner may feel the other is too distant and will try to reduce the distance. Knowing and not knowing can be involved in the dance of closeness and distance in many ways. Prominent among them is that one may use knowledge of the partner to gauge closeness and distance, and one may offer knowledge of oneself to the other to try to push the partner away or draw the partner closer. The processes of seeking and absorbing knowledge about the other and also of wanting to be known are not constant. Because relationships have a developmental process, early in a couple’s getting to know each other there may be considerable interest in knowing the other and in wanting to be known. Some interviewees talked about laying out very heavy information about themselves at the beginning of a relationship, not wanting to work at building a relationship only to find that the other would leave once he or she learned the heavy information. But some people talked about keeping things back early in the relationship, not wanting to put off the other. Also, in first living together there seems to have been a substantial surge in trying to know the other and in trying to be known as the partners figure out how to get along in shared space. But later, when people are in a more or less committed relationship and have worked out the basics of living together, in some couples there was much less effort to know and be known. They knew what they needed to know. But sometimes the decline in interest in knowing and being known is not symmetrical. One partner, in heterosexual couples it seems to be more often a man, no longer had so much interest in knowing more and being known more, but the other partner wanted to know more and to be known more, or had more to say and more curiosity. But even in couples that seem to coast without much new knowing, issues and crises arise that make it important to know each other better or be known better.

A systems view of knowing and not knowing

179

Knowing, not knowing, and relationship quality Knowing and not knowing, being known and not being known, were important to most of the people we interviewed. For them, knowing was an important part of relationship quality. But that does not mean other matters were subordinate to knowing and being known. People often talked about knowing as it was linked to getting along economically, sexuality, shared experience, liking, love, trust, comfort with each other, laughing together, sharing values, decision making, conflict, shared parenting, and many other issues. Related to this, Baxter & Montgomery (1996) argued that knowing is not nearly as important to relationship closeness as is how much partners facilitate one another’s growth through their interaction experiences. We did not focus at all on personal growth, but we could stretch the Baxter and Montgomery perspective to say something that fits what can be seen throughout this book, that perhaps it is not knowing by itself that matters but what goes on in a couple as knowing is built up and as they use their knowing and being known as individuals and in relationship to one another in all the areas of their relationship life. That is, knowing is central to relationship quality because of its links to other matters. Judging by a few of the interviews, in some relationships knowing turned out to be a house of cards. One could build up quite a confident structure of knowing, but an additional piece of information could knock the structure over and leave one questioning how much one ever knew. The fragility may be due to secrets, lies, and deceptions. But it might also be due to a person’s illusions in feeling known by a partner and knowing a partner (Rampage, 1994), possibly even very rewarding illusions associated with feeling loved and loving. So it is not simply something like errors in logic and in processing evidence when people do not know, or do not know what they do not know, but also that people embrace the joy, satisfaction, highs, and feelings of safety and security that go with illusion.

A systems view of knowing and not knowing Although we never interviewed a person’s partner (or former partner), the interviews were filled with hints about the ways that knowing and not knowing are not simply matters of individual actions and dispositions but are also couple relationship matters (cf. Vaughn, 1986, pp. 71–8; Weingarten, 1991). There is a relationship system in operation when one person seems not to want to share some information and the partner does

180

Phenomenology of knowing and not knowing

not press for the information or find some other way to acquire it. There is a relationship system in operation when one partner is not curious or interested about something and the other does not insist on providing the information or that the partner remember it. There is also a relationship system at work when one partner seems to have secrets or is relatively closed about something that the other cares about and the other sets out to pry or snoop in order to get the information. That may lead the one with the secret or who seems to be withholding to become even more secretive or withholding, and that can lead the curious partner to escalate her or his investigations. So relationships can at times include something of a battle concerning who is going to know what. And there can be an escalating pattern of a person pursuing, which leads the partner to withdraw, which leads the pursuer to pursue more intensely, which leads the withdrawer to withdraw more stubbornly, and so on. Relationship systems are also in play in the sense of setting up informational priorities. Some things become important to know in a couple, and some do not. Some things draw attention or demand attention in a couple and some do not. It may become more important for the partners in a couple to keep up with a favorite television show and to do the grocery shopping than it is to talk about their past relationships or how hard it is to tell the whole truth about a certain matter. One can see the development of informational priorities as in some ways about individual or shared defensiveness, but they may also be accidents of choice in a world where there are vastly more things to attend to than can be attended to (Rosenblatt, 2009). But then those accidents of choice may have an enormous impact on the degree and nature of intimacy in the couple relationship, and for Weingarten (1991) the choice that matters most is that both participants choose to participate freely in sharing and co-creating meanings. The larger system of family, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, therapists, etc., provides confidantes to some people in couple relationships so that they may be known and may know well outside of the couple relationship. Hence, there will be couples in which it could seem that the partners do not know each other so well and are not particularly interested in knowing each other more, but they find outside the relationship people who meet many of their needs to know and be known. And meeting their needs outside the relationship puts less pressure on the partner to meet those needs. The larger system provides context, values, shaping, and rules that a couple imports or must somehow slide by or resist. Included in that is that

Knowing, not knowing, and relationship survival

181

the larger system offers feeling rules (Hochschild, 1983), which push people to ignore, mask, or suppress certain feelings. The rules are conveyed and enforced in many ways, including through the expectations others have of one. In fact, one way to understand the contention that quite a few interviewees said was present at times in their relationship about whether to disclose certain feelings is that there is actually a battle in the larger society over competing views of feeling rules. But then Hochschild was also clear that feeling rules in the larger society are part of what makes expressing feelings and saying words about feelings more the territory of women.

Knowing, not knowing, and relationship survival Some interviewees talked about relationships that had ended because too much was hidden or not known, or, on the opposite side of things, secrets were discovered that were so upsetting that they made it impossible for a partner to remain committed. One could then say that there are relationship risks both in being closed and in being open. But another way to look at the material is that relationships in which one knows too little or is known too little are potentially unhappy and difficult places, and if the unhappiness and difficulty cannot be tolerated or eliminated it might be best to leave such a relationship. Perhaps any relationship has its secrets, lies, and evasions (Vaughn, 1986). But we think that some interviewees and some professional relationship counselors would say that a relationship in which toxic secrets are kept might be best to leave, even if one does not know the content of the secrets. Imagine, for example, living with a person who has a secret life as a dealer in illegal addictive drugs and as a child molester. But then a less dramatic way to think about relationships in which crucial information is now known, in which there is much that is hidden, or in which not much is known is that the relationships are not being minded well (Harvey, & Weber, 2002; Omarzu, Whalen, & Harvey, 2001), that relationships must be nurtured by sufficient knowing and being known. It would, however, be a mistake to say that relationships survive when there is enough information or when crucial things are known, because some interviewees said that they worked hard to keep a relationship going by limiting what the partner knew. If a partner’s knowing of an affair one had might end the relationship, one might feel that to keep the relationship going one must hide the affair. If certain kinds of criticism and disagreement might threaten the relationship, they might be hidden. Thus, some people

182

Phenomenology of knowing and not knowing

in relationships that seemed from their accounts to be strong and stable gave a sense of a relationship that could transform into something much more likely to end if certain things were known. The focus of our research was not on the nature of strong relationships, but there were hints in some interviews that from the interviewee’s perspective, a strong relationship still could have its vulnerabilities and brittleness. And so there were interviewees who felt that they were keeping their relationship going by keeping certain things to themselves or not asking about certain things. Although there were many others who said that their relationship was strong and durable because of their and their partner’s openness and honesty, that does not seem the only path people travel to have what they consider a strong and durable relationship. Also, there were indications in several of the interviews of processes of forgiveness (and perhaps forgetting). One partner comes to learn something about the other that is distressing – for example, that the partner had an extramarital sexual fling or the partner had not been open about a previous committed relationship. Conceivably in some relationships, such discoveries would lead to splitting up. But we interviewed people who had seemingly forgiven, and if they did not forget they had moved their memory of the matters to the background. There were also people who perhaps had not forgiven but had learned to live with what they knew. So a person can come to know big secrets and deceptions by a partner and, in the end, the relationship goes on without visible damage. It might even be strengthened in that the disclosure of a big secret or deception may lead to greater trust in the relationship, greater trust that one can be truthful and it will not be a disaster, and greater trust in a partner who knows he or she need not lie or deceive to maintain the relationship. We take seriously the many things people said about why they withheld information from their partners or did not tell the truth or the whole truth – including not wanting to hurt the partner, not wanting to create conflict, not being able to put things to words well enough, and not wanting to risk the relationship. Although we came down in Chapter 1 on the side of knowing the other well and being known well, we also think it not good and probably impossible to try to live with no informational limits and boundaries. Being totally open, or asking that of a partner, seems impossible and smothering. That is, we believe having private thoughts and feelings and being able to decide what should be shared and not shared is part of being an adult in a couple relationship that is functioning and has a reasonable chance to survive.

Knowing, not knowing, and culture

183

Knowing and not knowing are linked to other aspects of intimacy Based on all that has been said so far in this book, knowing and not knowing are intricately connected to trust, love, sharing, relational values, how much each partner talks, how well each partner listens and remembers, who else partners are linked to who might meet some of their needs, how much time the partners spend interacting with each other, how much they turn to solitary and separate pursuits in ways that keep them out of interaction, how satisfied and happy they are in the relationship, what their ideas are of a couple relationship, and much else that is part of intimacy broadly conceived. We thought it necessary and think it has been productive to focus on knowing and not knowing in our interviews, but as can be seen in quite a few interview quotes, knowing and not knowing do not occur in isolation from other aspects of intimacy. With any conceivable linkage of knowing and not knowing to some other aspect of intimacy things could be complex. Love, for example, may depend on knowing or revealing certain things, but love may make it safer to know and reveal certain things, and with great love may come great acceptance of whatever the other knows about one. Love can also bring intense curiosity about the other and a desire to know more, or a satisfaction with knowing whatever one knows about the other. Love can make it seem safe to reveal much, or can make it seem very risky to reveal much. Perhaps some love relationships are fully open to whom the other is, but love can also be love of a selected and narrow other. And from another perspective, since self and other can never be fully known (because there is too much to know, because people withhold, because people do not want to know it all, because people keep changing, because people have their defenses), saying “I love you” always, in a sense, has an implicit footnote attached (see Migerode & Hooghe, 2012). The implicit footnote may say something like “I love you, given what I know and do not know at the moment.”

Knowing, not knowing, and culture Our findings are bound to the specific culture(s) of the people interviewed and the culture from which our interviewing and writing come, so it is difficult to know what would be true in other cultures. There may be many kinds of cultural factors in operation. For example, one can speculate about

184

Phenomenology of knowing and not knowing

how the mainstream of many cultures in the United States, the cultures of most of the interviewees and their partners, is linked to what this book says about knowing and not knowing. Arguably, in most cultures in the United States couple relationships are so important that some people, men more than women, may not have anyone else who knows them nearly as much as their partner or is nearly as close. That is, knowing and being known is concentrated in the couple relationship. Thus, for many people in the United States, if the partner does not know them well, maybe nobody will. And that may not be true in many other cultures.

Appendix Interview guide

Demographics (cultural background, religion, age, education, occupation, culture/ethnicity, etc.) Relationship(s) that participant is going to talk about during the interview and years in the relationship. KNOWING . . . How much and how interviewee knows the partner r When you think of (identified partner/spouse/significant other/lover), how well do you think you know him/her? r Are there areas of privacy, the past, work, feelings, thoughts, eating and drinking, substance use, relationships with others, or health that you think your partner keeps from you? r Are there things about your partner that you don’t want to know? r What does knowing someone mean to you? r Are there different domains/aspects of knowing an intimate partner? r Do you believe your partner feels known/seen by you? r How do you think your partner would react to your responses to these questions? r Potential partner agreements/disagreements regarding what you shared with us? Note: Integrate language of truth and honesty in appropriate follow-up questions as specific language is introduced by participant. KNOWING . . . The interviewees knowing of herself/himself r How well do you think you know yourself? (follow ups) KNOWING . . . Interviewee thoughts about the partner’s knowing of the interviewee r Do you feel known by your partner? How so? (follow ups) r Are there areas of privacy, your past, your work, your feelings and thoughts, what you eat or drink, substance use, relationships with others, or your health that you keep from your partner? r Are there things your partner doesn’t want to know about you? 185

186

Appendix – Interview guide

r How would your partner react to your answers? r Potential partner agreements/disagreements regarding what you said to

us? RELATIONSHIP DOMAINS r Are there particular areas about self, about your partner, and/or about your relationship that are particularly challenging to discuss or to be open about with your partner? (looking for taboos, restricted conversation topics, old/current wounds, etc.) r How do you manage to either withhold (keep silent) and/or to openly discuss these topics? What happens? How does this dance look in your relationship? Do you wish this was different/or are you satisfied with how things are? r What would your partner say about this same issue? r How do you see these topics that are open/closed impacting your relational dynamics? Sense of self and other in the relationship? r How do you make decisions about what to share/not share with your partner? (follow ups) r What do you think about keeping secrets in relationships? r What do you think about keeping secrets in your own relationship? (follow ups) r What do you think about honesty in relationships? r What do you think about honesty in your own relationship? (follow ups) r Do you remember any times that you lied to your partner? If yes, please give examples. r Do you remember any times that your partner lied to you? If yes, please give examples. r Were there ever times that you did not tell your partner all there was to tell about something or didn’t want to say anything at all about something because you didn’t want to upset your partner or make trouble for yourself or trouble between the two of you? If yes, can you give examples? r Were there ever times when you think that your partner did not tell you all there was to tell about something or didn’t want to say anything at all about something because your partner didn’t want to upset you or make trouble for herself or himself or make trouble between the two of you? If yes, can you give examples? r Is it all right to withhold the truth at times in relationships/your relationship? How so, when, why? r Do you (did you) think it’s a lie to give a compliment to your partner when you have mixed or negative feelings?

Appendix – Interview guide

187

r Do you (did you) think it’s a lie to fake more affection for your partner

than you feel at the moment?

r Do you (did you) think it’s a lie to say thanks to your partner when

you don’t feel grateful?

r Do you (did you) think it’s a lie to go along with something your

partner wants and act like you want to do it when you don’t?

r How do you think your partner would answer each of the previous

four questions for herself or himself ?

r Is there a difference between not telling the truth and lying? How so?

r r

r r r r r r

Can you think of an example in your relationship? r Was honesty or dishonesty ever an issue, an area of tension, or an area of conflict between you two? If so, what was that about? r Were there ever times you were honest with your partner when you came to wish you had not been honest? If yes, what? r Were there ever times when your partner was honest with you when you wished she or he had not been honest? If yes, what? How do you manage confrontation in your relationship – both being confronted by and confronting your partner when related to issues around truth and honesty? How do you think of “truth” and “honesty” in relationships and how much should one know? How would you describe these things? (looking for meanings, conceptualizations, definitions, rigid and open boundaries . . . .) Are there some topics that should just remain private and not discussed in relationships? What do you believe most influences your beliefs/ideas regarding truth and honesty in relationships? (looking for family-of-origin, culture, religion, gender, etc. . . . ) How do you see gender (and other cultural/contextual categories) influencing what is shared or withheld in your relationship? How happy/satisfied are you with how you and your partner manage these issues? Would you prefer some things to be handled differently? How so? How vulnerable do you feel in your relationship with respect to these topics? If you had the ideal amount of truth and honesty in your relationship, how similar to or different from what you have now would it be? How would that look? How would your partner respond to these questions about the ideal?

188

Appendix – Interview guide

r If you were to rate yourself on how honest you are with yourself regarding

these topics, how would you do?

r Given the sensitivity/intrusiveness of this topic, how honest do you

believe you have been with us today regarding these topics? (We are not asking you to disclose anything specific, we just want to know in general how honest you believe you have been.) r In the intimate relationship you have been talking about, are there (were there) positive things about that in terms of having someone who knows (knew) you or wants (wanted) to know you and who you know (knew) and want (wanted) to know? Are there parts you don’t like or don’t miss or don’t want about this?

References

Adams, G., Anderson, S. L., & Adonu, J. K. (2004). The cultural grounding of closeness and intimacy. In D. J. Mashek & A. Aron (Eds.), Handbook of closeness and intimacy (pp. 321–39). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Afifi, W. A., & Guerrero, L. K. (2000). Motivations underlying topic avoidance in close relationships. In S. Petronio (Ed.), Balancing the secrets of private disclosures (pp. 165–79). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Afifi, W. A., & Lucas, A. A. (2008). Information seeking in the initial stages of relational development. In S. Sprecher, A. Wenzel, & J. Harvey (Eds.), Handbook of relationship initiation (pp. 135–51). New York: Psychology Press. Aron, A., Dutton, D., Aron, E. N., & Iverson, A. (1989). Experiences of falling in love. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 6, 243–57. Atwood, J. D. (2012). Couples and money: The last taboo. American Journal of Family Therapy, 40, 1–19. Bader, E., & Pearson, P. T. (1999). Search for the mythical mate: A developmental approach to intimacy. In J. Carlson & L. Sperry (Eds.), The intimate couple (pp. 381–405). Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel. Baxter, L. A. (2011). Voicing relationships: A dialogic perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Baxter, L. A., & Bullis, C. (1986). Turning points in developing romantic relationships. Human Communication Research, 12, 469–93. Baxter, L. A., & Montgomery, B. M. (1996). Relating: Dialogues and dialectics. New York: Guilford. Baxter, L. A., & Wilmot, W. W. (1985). Taboo topics in close relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2, 253–69. Berg, I. K., Sperry, L., & Carlson, J. (1999). Intimacy and culture: A solutionfocused perspective. In J. Carlson & L. Sperry (Eds.), The intimate couple (pp. 41–54). Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel. Berger, C. R. (1988). Uncertainty and information exchange in developing relationships. In S. W. Duck (Ed.), Handbook of personal relationships (pp. 239–55). New York: Wiley. Berscheid, E., & Regan, P. (2005). The psychology of interpersonal relationships. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. 189

190

References

Boon, S. D., & McLeod, B. A. (2001). Deception in romantic relationships: Subjective estimates of success at deceiving and attitudes toward deception. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 18, 463–76. Borisoff, D. (2001). The effect of gender on establishing and maintaining intimate relationships. In L. R. Arliss & D. J. Borisoff (Eds.), Women and men communicating, 2nd edn. (pp. 15–31). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland. Brehm, S. S., Miller, R. S., Perlman, D., & Campbell, S. M. (2002). Intimate relationships, 3rd edn. New York: McGraw Hill. Cerullo, K. A. (2006). Never saw it coming: Cultural challenges to envisioning the worst. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chelune, G. J., Robison, J. T., & Kommor, M. J. (1984). A cognitive interactional model of intimate relationships. In V. J. Derlega (Ed.), Communication, intimacy, and close relationships (pp. 11–40). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Clark, M. S., & Reis, H. T. (1988). Interpersonal processes in close relationships. Annual Review of Psychology, 39, 609–72. Cowan, E. G., Jr. (2009). On existential aloneness: The earthly pilgrimage. In L. Hoffman, M. Yang, F. J. Kaklauskas, & A. Chan (Eds.), Existential psychology: East-West (pp. 275–86). Colorado Springs: CO: University of the Rockies Press. Cozby, P. C. (1973). Self-disclosure: A literature review. Psychological Bulletin, 79, 73–91. Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cui, M., Durtschi, J. A., Donnellan, M. B., Lorenz, F. O., & Conger, R. D. (2010). Intergenerational transmission of relationship aggression: A prospective longitudinal study. Journal of Family Psychology, 24, 688–97. DePaulo, B. M., Morris, W. L., & Sternglanz, R. W. (2009). When the truth hurts: Deception in the name of kindness. In A. L. Vangelisti (Ed.), Feeling hurt in close relationships (pp. 167–90). New York: Cambridge University Press. Derlega, V. J., & Chaikin, A. L. (1975). Sharing intimacy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Derlega, V. J., Winstead, B. A., & Greene, K. (2008). Self-disclosure and starting a close relationship. In S. Sprecher, A. Wenzel, & J. Harvey (Eds.), Handbook of relationship initiation (pp. 153–74). New York: Psychology Press. Duck, S. (1994). Meaningful relationships: Talking, sense, and relating. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Duncombe, J., & Marsden, D. (2004). “From here to epiphany . . . ”: Power and identity in the narrative of an affair. In J. Dumcombe, K. Harrison, G. Allan, & D. Marsden (Eds.). The state of affairs: Explorations in infidelity and commitment (pp. 141–65). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ehrensaft, M. K. (2009). Family and relationship predictors of psychological and physical aggression. In K. D. O’Leary & E. M. Woodin (Eds.), Psychological and physical aggression in couples: Causes and interventions (pp. 99–118). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Press.

References

191

Finkenauer, C., & Hazam, H. (2000). Disclosure and secrecy in marriage: Do both contribute to marital satisfaction? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 17, 245–63. Finkenauer, C., Kerkhof, P., Righetti, F., & Branje, S. (2009). Living together apart: Perceived concealment as a signal of exclusion in marital relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 1410–22. Finkenauer, C., Kubacka, K. E., Engels, R. C. M. E., & Kerkhof, P. (2009). Secrecy in close relationships: Investigating its intrapersonal and interpersonal effects. In T. D. Afifi & W. A. Afifi (Eds.), Uncertainty, information management, and disclosure decisions: Theories and applications (pp. 300–19). New York: Routledge. Firestone, R. W., & Catlett, J. (1999). Fear of intimacy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Fletcher, G. J. O., & Kerr, P. S. G. (2012). Through the eyes of love: Bias and accuracy in intimate relationships. In P. Noller & G. C. Karantzas (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of couples and family relationships (pp. 248–58). Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell. Gable, S. L., & Reis, H. T. (2001). Appetitive and aversive social interaction. In J. H. Harvey & A. Wenzel (Eds.), Close romantic relationships: Maintenance and enhancement (pp. 169–94). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Gadalla, T. M. (2008). Gender differences in poverty rates after marital dissolution: A longitudinal study. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 49, 225–38. Gilbert, S. J. (1976). Self-disclosure, intimacy and communication in families. The Family Coordinator, 25, 221–31. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor. Gottman, J. M. (2011). The science of trust: Emotional attunement for couples. New York: Norton. Greene, K., Derlega, V. J., & Mathews, A. (2006). Self-disclosure in personal relationships. In A. L. Vangelisti & D. Perlman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of personal relationships (pp. 409–27). New York: Cambridge University Press. Guerrero, L. K., & Mongeau, P. A. (2008). On becoming “more than friends”: The transition from friendship to romantic relationship. In S. Sprecher, A. Wenzel, & J. Harvey (Eds.), Handbook of relationship initiation (pp. 175– 94). New York: Psychology Press. Halling, S. (2008). Intimacy, transcendence and psychology: Closeness and openness in everyday life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Harvey, J. H., & Omarzu, J. (1999). Minding the close relationship: A theory of relationship enhancement. New York: Cambridge University Press. Harvey, J. H., & Weber, A. L. (2002). Odyssey of the heart: Close relationships in the 21st century, 2nd edn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hatfield, E. (1984). The dangers of intimacy. In V. J. Derlega (Ed.), Communication, intimacy, and close relationships (pp. 207–20). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

192

References

Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press. Holmberg, D., Orbuch, T. L., & Veroff, J. (2004). Thrice told tales: Married couples tell their stories. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Impert, E. A., & Peplau, L. A. (2006). “His” and “her” relationships? A review of the empirical evidence. In A. L. Vangelisti & D. Perlman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of personal relationships (pp. 273–91). New York: Cambridge University Press. Karpel, M. A. (1999). The measurement of sunlight: Assessing intimacy in couples therapy. In J. Carlson & L. Sperry (Eds.), The intimate couple (pp. 84–106). Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel. Kashdan, T. B., McKnight, P. E., Fincham, F. D., & Rose, P. (2011). When curiosity breeds intimacy: Taking advantage of intimacy opportunities and transforming boring conversations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 1067–99. Knapp, M. L. (2006). Lying and deception in close relationships. In A. L. Vangelisti & D. Perlman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of personal relationships (pp. 517–32). New York: Cambridge University Press. Komarovsky, M. (1967). Blue collar marriage. New York: Vintage. LaFollette, H., & Graham, K. E. (1986). Honesty and intimacy. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 3, 3–18. Lerner, H. G. (1989). The dance of intimacy. New York: Harper & Row. Maslow, A. H. (1966). The psychology of science. New York: Harper & Row. Maso, I. (2001). Phenomenology and ethnography. In P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland, & L. Lofland (Eds.), Handbook of ethnography (pp. 136–44). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. McAdams, D. P. (1989). Intimacy: The need to be close. New York: Doubleday. Metts, S. (1989). An exploratory investigation of deception in close relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 6, 159–79. Metts, S., Sprecher, S., & Cupach, W. R. (1991). Retrospective self-reports. In B. M. Montgomery & S. Duck (Eds.), Studying interpersonal interaction (pp. 162–78). New York: Guilford. Migerode, L., & Hooghe, A. (2012). ‘I love you.’ How to understand love in couple therapy? Exploring love in context. Journal of Family Therapy, 34, 371–86. Moellering, G. (2009). Inviting or avoiding deception through trust. In B. Harrington (Ed.), Deception: From ancient empires to internet dating (pp. 137–53). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Murray, S. L., & Holmes, J. G. (2011). Trust at motivational gatekeeper in adult romantic relationships. In L. M. Horowitz & S. Strack (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal psychology: Theory, research, assessment, and therapeutic interventions (pp. 193–207). New York: Wiley. Murstein, B. I., & Adler, E. R. (1995). Gender differences in power and selfdisclosure in dating and married couples. Personal Relationships, 2, 199–209.

References

193

Neff, L. A., & Karney, B. R. (2005). To know you is to love you: The implications of global adoration and specific accuracy for marital relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 480–97. Nelson, T. S. (2008). Transgenerational family therapy theories. In K. Jordan (Ed.), The quick theory reference guide (pp. 237–49). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science. Omarzu, J., Whalen, J., & Harvey, J. H. (2001). How well do you mind your relationship? A preliminary scale to test the minding theory of relating. In J. H. Harvey & A. Wenzel (Eds.), Close romantic relationships: Maintenance and enhancement (pp. 345–56). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Patrick, S., & Beckenbach, J. (2009). Male perceptions of intimacy: A qualitative study. Journal of Men’s Studies, 17, 47–56. Peterson, C. (1996). Deception in intimate relationships. International Journal of Psychology, 31, 279–88. Petronio, S. (1991). Communication boundary management: A theoretical model of managing disclosure of private information between marital couples. Communication Theory, 1, 311–35. Petronio, S. (2000). The boundaries of privacy: Praxis of everyday life. In S. Petronio (Ed.), Balancing the secrets of private disclosures (pp. 37–49). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Petronio, S. (2002). Boundaries of privacy: Dialectics of disclosure. Albany: State University of New York Press. Prager, K. J. (1995). The psychology of intimacy. New York: Guilford. Prager, K. J. (1999). Intimacy in personal relationships. In C. Hendrick & S. S. Hendrick (Eds.), Close relationships: A sourcebook (pp. 229–42). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rampage, C. (1994). Power, gender, and marital intimacy. Journal of Family Therapy, 16, 125–37. Register, L. M., & Henley, T. B. (1992). The phenomenology of intimacy. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 9, 467–81. Rich, A. (1979). Women and honor: Some notes on lying (1975). In A. Rich, On lies, secrets, and silence: Selected prose 1966–1978 (pp. 185–94). New York: Norton. Riediger, M., & Rauers, A. (2010). The ‘I know you’ and the ‘You know me’ of mutual goal knowledge in partnerships: Differential association with partnership satisfaction and sense of closeness over time. British Journal of Social Psychology, 49, 647–56. Roloff, M. E., & Ifert, D. E. (2000). Conflict management through avoidance: Withholding complaints, suppressing arguments, and declaring topics taboo. In S. Petronio (Ed.), Balancing the secrets of private disclosures (pp. 151–63). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Rosenblatt, P. C. (1994). Metaphors of family systems theory. New York: Guilford. Rosenblatt, P. C. (2006). Two in a bed: The social system of couple bed sharing. Albany: State University of New York Press.

194

References

Rosenblatt, P. C. (2009). Shared obliviousness in family systems. Albany: State University of New York Press. Rosenblatt, P. C., & Barner, J. R. (2006). The dance of closeness-distance in couple relationships after the death of a parent. Omega, 53, 277–93. Rosenblatt, P. C., Karis, T. A., & Powell, R. D. (1995). Multiracial couples: Black and white voices. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rosenblatt, P. C., & Yang, S. (2003). Self-sacrificing wife, gruff husband: Hee Gyung Noh’s view of terminal illness in a Korean marriage. Illness, Crisis and Loss, 11, 258–70. Rubin, L. B. (1983). Intimate strangers: Men and women together. New York: Harper & Row. Santosh, D., Kumar, T. S., Sarma, P. S., & Radhakrishnan, K. (2007). Women with onset of epilepsy prior to marriage: Disclose or conceal? Epilepsia, 48, 1007–10. Sayer, L. C., England, P., Bittman, M., & Bianchi, S. M. (2009). How long is the second (plus first) shift? Gender differences in paid, unpaid, and total work time in Australia and the United States. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 40, 523–45. Sharabany, R. (1994). Continuities in the development of intimate friendships: Object relations, interpersonal, and attachment perspectives. In R. Erber & R. Gilmour (Eds.), Theoretical frameworks for personal relationships (pp. 157–78). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Simmel, G. (1950). The sociology of Georg Simmel. K. H. Wolff, translator and editor. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Simpson, J. A. (2007). Psychological foundations of trust. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 264–8. Skowron, E. A. (2000). The role of differentiation of self in marital adjustment. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 47, 229–37. Speer, S. A. (2012). The interactional organization of self-praise: Epistemics, preference organization, and implications for identity research. Social Psychology Quarterly, 75, 52–79. Sprecher, S., & Felmlee, D. (2008). Insider perspectives on attraction. In S. Sprecher, A. Wenzel, & J. Harvey (Eds.), Handbook of relationship initiation (pp. 297–313). New York: Psychology Press. Tanha, M., Beck, C. J. A., Figueredo, A. J., & Raghave, C. (2010). Sex differences in intimate partner violence and the use of coercive control as a motivational factor for intimate partner violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 25, 1836–54. Thomas, G., & Fletcher, G. J. O. (2003). Mind-reading accuracy in intimate relationships: Assessing the roles of the relationship, the target, and the judge. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1079–94. Thorne, B. (1992). Feminism and family: Two decades of thought. In B. Thorne & M. Yalom (Eds.), Rethinking the family: Some feminist questions, rev. edn. (pp. 1–30). Boston: Northeastern University Press.

References

195

Uysal, A., Lin, H. L., Knee, C. R., & Bush, A. L. (2012). The association between self-concealment from one’s partner and relationship well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 39–51. Vangelisti, A. L. (1994). Couples’ communication problems: The counselor’s perspective. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 22, 106–26. Vaughn, D. (1986). Uncoupling: Turning points in intimate relationships. New York: Oxford University Press. Vinkers, C. D. W., Finkenauer, C., & Hawk, S. T. (2011). Why do close partners snoop? Predictors of intrusive behavior in newlywed couples. Personal Relationships, 18, 110–24. Waring, E. M., Tillman, M. P., Frelick, L., Russell, L., & Weisz, G. (1980). Concepts of intimacy in the general population. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 168, 471–4. Weingarten, K. (1991). The discourses of intimacy: Adding a social constructionist and feminist view. Family Process, 30, 285–305. Weiss, A. G. (1987). Privacy and intimacy: Apart and a part. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 27, 118–25. Werth, L. F., & Flaherty, J. (1986). A phenomenological approach to human deception. In R. W. Mitchell & N. S. Thompson (Eds.), Deception: Perspectives on human and nonhuman deceit (pp. 293–311). Albany: State University of New York Press. Whitton, S. W., Schulz, M. S., Crowell, J. A., Waldinger, R. J., Allen, J. P., & Hauser, S. T. (2008). Prospective associations from family-of-origin interactions to adult marital interactions and relationship adjustment. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 274–86. Wu, Z., & Schimmele, C. M. (2005). Repartnering after first union disruption. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 27–36.

Index

acceptance, 1, 8, 168, 170 affair, 80, 110 challenging partner about, 51 chance discovery of partner’s, 120 concerns about what it says about one, 128 kept secret from partner, 5 learning from, 122 lying about, 78 ongoing, 113 openness about with partner, 127 partner choice not to know about, 101 reducing potential for, 49 relief at learning of partner’s, 124 when partner knows about, 79, 162 alcohol, 31, 90, 91, 101, 119 arguments, 7, 55, 106 attention, 93, 115, 144, 169, 174 body image, 41, 77 changing the subject, 115 children and choices of what to conceal from partner, 90 and time available to partners to know each other, 94 from previous relationships, 89 closeness, 8, 164, 178, 179 cocaine, 10 conflict avoidance, 107, 161, 164 confrontation, 52 contradictions, 14, 175 in information given by partner, 99 couple counseling, 53, 68, 97 courage to know, 3, 164 culture, 183 and reluctance to divorce, 124 and role of extended family, 89 context of this research, 14, 147 rules for relationships, 117

curiosity about the other, 46 gender differences, 135, 150 limits of, 96 data analysis, 24 disagreeing, 84 dishonesty. See honesty distance, 85, 103, 126, 178 emotional pain, 88, 123 exchange processes, 4, 104, 147 existentialist perspective, 169 experts on each other, 63 family, 38, 90, 137, 160 abusive, 87, 114, 160 conflict, 90 open vs closed, 156 fear of partner, 82, 88, 90 feeling rules, 181 feeling safe, 54, 165 feminist perspectives, 148 friends, 38, 78, 79, 168 gender differences, 19, 64, 87, 95, 151 honesty and couple conflict, 161 and feeling safe, 53 and intimacy, 50 foundation of relationship, 168 in family of origin, 158 probing the other’s honesty, 44, 121 selective, 115 that threatens partner, 49 that undermines relationship, 162 to self, 101 hurt feelings, 88

196

Index illness and focus on life of well partner, 42 disclosing or not early in relationship, 35 not understanding partner experience of, 96 role of partner knowing about, 40 that only the partner knows about, 69 withholding information from partner, 83, 108, 127 illusions, 101, 179 inability to grasp partner realities, 100 interracial relationships, 99 interviewees, 19, 22 interviewing, 21, 22 jealousy, 79, 111 knowing advantages and disadvantages, 172 and intimacy, 1, 43, 47, 175, 183 and relationship quality, 179 and relationship survival, 182 and trust, 8, 12 defined, 6 discovery processes, 132 division of labor in, 150 doubts about, 67 essence of, 174 gauging how well one knows another, 73 importance of, 9, 172 levels, 56, 73 limits of, 67, 93 need to know decision process, 110 not much is held back, 59 practicality of, 42 responsibility in, 10 systems view, 2, 67, 146, 150, 181 language, 60, 66, 137, 145 lies about affairs, 109 blurred line between lies and truth, 63 can undermine relationship, 104 partners who lie very often, 103 reasons to lie, 78, 82 to oneself, 102 uncovering partner lies, 4, 52, 132 listening, 54, 56 loneliness, 42, 47, 168, 169 love, 84, 88, 99, 102, 140 marriage, 168 memory, 114, 121, 182 menstrual cycle, 40 money, 82, 99, 107, 119

197

not knowing and relationship survival, 182 defined, 6 essence of, 174 things not known, 61 why so much is not known, 105 openness, 92, 134, 163 partner differences, 7, 39, 94, 151, 156 past relationships basis for evaluating new relationship, 67, 72, 91 concerns about partner knowing one’s past, 80, 109 curiosity about partner’s past, 44 disquieting information about partner’s past, 120 learning from, 163 pathological liars, 103, 121 personal failures, 85 phenomenology, 16, 184 pornography, 44, 49, 123, 125 predictability, 73, 165 pregnancy, 40 previous acquaintanceship, 33 propinquity, 39 protecting partner and self, 75, 88, 90, 107 relationship beginning, 30, 77 relationship breakup, 6, 45, 68, 80, 162 relationship science literature, 16, 42 religion, 76, 84, 98 research methods, 28 Rich, Adrienne, 118, 131 secrets, 4, 81, 101, 112, 132 seeing beyond the fac¸ade, 53 selective truthfulness, 117, 134 self deception, 122, 123 self disclosure, 88, 92, 163, 171, 177 at beginning of relationship, 11, 36 gender differences, 151 selectivity processes, 117 self knowledge and partner knowing one better than one knows oneself, 141 avoidance of, 115 fear of, 46, 62, 101 gained from the other knowing one, 9, 167 sexual abuse, 67, 87, 114 snooping, 46 surprises, 66, 71, 170

198 testimony of others, 34 time together, 51, 63, 161, 170 transcribing the interviews, 22, 27 trust and affairs, 162 and snooping, 43 as foundation for knowing, 8, 12 previous acquaintanceship as a base for, 31

Index truth as a value, 50, 78, 91, 119 trying to know the other, 30, 178 understanding, 66, 72, 96, 165, 166 validation, 47, 69, 127, 170 validity and data quality, 28, 64 wanting to be known, 48, 133, 134, 167, 169 women conceptualizing men, 135