Why Relationships Matter

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The biggest issue couples fight about is whose version of reality is right—whose experience is valid, accurate, and what really happened. As their therapist, I am assigned the role of referee in the battle, with the power to determine whose truth is accurate and thus deserving of being heard and attended to. The question becomes which person’s story I will award with my official seal of rightness. Whose version of reality and experience in a particular situation is the psychologically correct one to have?

The experience people long for more than any other in their relationships is a simple one, but nonetheless, one that doesn’t happen often. People long to be heard. But heard in a very particular way—without judgment, correction, or interpretation, and without being told to change. Ultimately, to be heard correctly, without anything being done to or added onto their experience.

More than anything, people want to be seen and known, to be given the space to share what they’re living—without being told what to do about it, what’s wrong with it, why it’s invalid and not the right experience to be having, why they’re to blame for that experience, and essentially how to make it go away. They long for a space where their experience can feel welcome and safe, where they can determine their own truth, and define, for themselves, what they feel, want, and need.

At the core, we all long to have our truth related to as a destination, a place to land and be received, as it is, rather than a place from which to launch a........

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