279 - Relationship Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths and weaknesses
Our friend Kevin Patterson, author of the For Hire series and a guest on this very podcast before, did an interview series that asked the following questions:
What aspects of polyamory do you excel at?
What aspects of polyamory do you struggle with?
How do you address and/or overcome them?
This episode covers identifying strengths and weaknesses in our relationships. Often, this takes lots of practice, as evaluating our own strengths and weaknesses can be difficult for a variety of reasons:
We don’t see ourselves the way others see us.
Our strengths might be something that comes easily to us, that we don’t view as a strength.
We think about strength too narrowly, when we should be thinking about it broadly.
Our weaknesses can also be our strengths in certain moments, i.e. persistence can be linked to stubbornness.
Not comparing ourselves to others is difficult, and it’s hard to call something a strength if you feel someone else is better at it than you are.
Being aware
It’s critical to be aware of both your partner’s strengths and weaknesses in a relationship. According to a study published in Psychological Assessment, couples who have greater understanding and appreciation for each other’s strengths:
Reported more satisfactory sex lives and relationships.
Were more likely to feel as though their partners supported their goals and wanted them to grow as a person.
Appreciated their own strengths better, experienced more intimacy, and were more fulfilled in their psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Discovered that seeing their partners’ strengths as an asset instead of looking for potential weaknesses also led to happier relationships.
Additionally, knowing each other’s weaknesses is important because:
No matter how you try to hide them, weaknesses and bad habits will come out as the relationship progresses.
Discussing each other’s weaknesses is a good opportunity to discover why they’re there in the first place and learn more about your partner.
Knowledge of each other’s weaknesses allows for more grace and forgiveness when mistakes occur.
You can help each other overcome them, and learning more about your partner builds intimacy.
Weaknesses exercise
Either individually or with a partner, write a list of all the things holding you back, both in life and relationships.
Try to change the wording of the thing that’s holding you back to a specific personal weakness.
Pick the five from your list that you feel best represent your weaknesses.
If you’re doing this with a partner, compare notes and see if you agree with each other.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about strengths and weaknesses in relationships. We all bring something special to the table in every relationship yet, we also tend to have recurring traits that make our relationships more challenging. Today, we're going to talk about some of our own personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as discussing ways to discover each within yourself and your partners and why it's so important to identify strengths and weaknesses in your relationship.
Emily: This came to mind when I looked up Kevin Patterson's interview series questions, which were fairly polyamory specific, but yes, I think that they can be applied to any relationship. Let's talk about those specifically. Kevin Patterson posed these questions, which were, what aspects of polyamory you excel at, what aspects of polyamory do you struggle with and then how do you address and or overcome those struggles? When you look at those, I'm not personally in a polyamorous relationship anymore, but the two of yous are. When you see those questions, what do you think of?
Dedeker: I want to respond to you with the big TEDTalk,.
Emily: You want to respond to this with a TEDTalk. Well, if you were to condense your TEDTalk into a few sentences, what would they be?
Dedeker: That's really hard for me to do.
Emily: I noticed, but I'm going to challenge you.
Jase: What's the log line for your TEDTalk?
Emily: There you go.
Dedeker: The logline of my TEDTalk, polyamory, monogamy relationships, it's all the same.
Emily: Okay. Well, what are you good or not good at?
Dedeker: All right. I have thought about this since reading these questions. I have reflected upon this and if I narrow my focus to be polyamory specific, something that I think that I excel at now, not in the past, but now--
Emily: After 10 plus, a decade plus.
Dedeker: Yes. I think that I'm fairly proactive about putting in emotional labor into having peaceful metamour relationships when that's appropriate. I think, is that okay? Yes, no? Turn me down, turn me up.
Emily: I was grunting in approval. It sounded like you were going to continue your sentence.
Jase: Yes, I was waiting to hear the end.
Dedeker: That's the one I got for now. None of you want to get me to give a TEDTalk about anything. I'm trying to be efficient with my words. That's what I think that I excel at. Jase, what do you excel at?
Jase: We're just going one question at a time. Cool.
Emily: That's fine. That's how she wants to do it. Let's do it.
Jase: I would say aspects of polyamory that I excel at, I would say maybe just based on the experience or just having done it for a while, but I guess just not feeling a lot of possessiveness toward partners and being very encouraging of their other relationships. You know what? Maybe I'll even refine that down a little bit more and say the ability to-- I think I'm pretty good at staying impartial and being helpful if a partner is coming to me with like, hey, I'm having a hard time making a decision or figuring something out with another partner.
Dedeker and I had to deal with this not too long ago about Dedeker saying, do I need to extend my visa to try to stay here in Australia or do I try to get a flight back to the US when things were a little more dicey and having that conversation where, sure, from a personal standpoint, I want you to be with me sooner, but I think I'm pretty good at also thinking about the other person and going yes, but once you come here, you don't know when you'll get to see him again. Maybe it does make sense to extend your visa and stay there. maybe that. That would be something I excel at.
Emily: Yes, that sounds awesome. Now, what are you two terrible at?
Dedeker: This question is what do you struggle with? Not what are you terrible at.
Emily: What do you struggle with? You're right. What do you struggle with? What things are still challenging for you?
Dedeker: Okay. I think what I've identified about myself is, when I'm feeling insecurity or vulnerable or jealousy or things like that, I'm slow. My brain and heart are slow to reach that place of admitting it either to myself or others. Instead, I'm very quick to find a "plausible reason" why I'm not feeling good as in it could be something like, god, I still feel bad about this. I feel like my partner's done everything right, but I still feel weird about this. Oh, it must be because of the way they told me about it. Yes, that's it. That's what we got to pick a bone about, but I think that my brain still sometimes has a tendency to default to that instead of being emotionally vulnerable.
Emily: Interesting. Jase?
Jase: I feel like I tend to struggle with managing my own expectations of my own energy level and availability and I'm slowly realizing more and more just how much of a hermit that I am and how much I need to be careful of my resources of energy for being on or being social. Especially with new partners, you tend to be a lot more on. When you're with them, it takes quite a while before it becomes more of a relaxing time together.
Then I feel like I tend to fall into the problem of maybe being too relaxed or casual with our time together and not making it special enough. We talk a lot on this show about quality time versus quantity of time, but I think for me, it's like something I'm constantly struggling with is re-calibrating my availability, not just like schedule wise, but energy-wise, I guess.
Emily: It's funny because, okay, from the time like six years ago or six plus years ago, when I was in a relationship with both of you to now, I'd say your strengths and struggles are the same.
Dedeker: Really?
Emily: Which is really funny, but yes, pretty much, yes, because I recall you talking about all of those things way back then to now. They so clearly are things that you are good at inherently and intrinsically and then things that you maybe still have a challenging time with. That's interesting.
Jase: That is interesting. That's cool to have that perspective.
Emily: Just as a primer because we're going to go into more overall strengths and weaknesses, not just in polyamory, but within any type of relationship that you're in and personal, and then also, relationship strengths and weaknesses that you have overall. I am just wondering how the two of you try to overcome these struggles that seem to maybe still be plaguing you, not plaguing, but maybe you've incrementally gotten better at them, but you still recognize that they're challenges for you.
Dedeker: Well, I overcome this struggle by recording a podcast, talking about it with clients every goddamn day.
Okay. It does help to have these things in the forefront of your mind. For me, I know not everybody has this, but for me, it actually is really helpful to hear clients share their struggles and share their feelings and really be vulnerable with me. It's really inspiring to me to be more vulnerable in general. It also helps me put in a mindset of often together with a client we can get in a really good space of brainstorming what are the things that might help here? Talking about these things.
I know not everybody works in that particular capacity, but doing something like connecting to a community or having someone close to you or a support network where you feel like you can talk about these things or maybe someone shares your struggle, I think is a helpful thing.
Emily: That's great. Jase.
Jase: I think for me, obviously, it helps talking about it every week because then these things are more on my mind, but I think just-- specifically with my struggle of over committing myself is just, I guess, just remembering that even in the moments when I'm excited about dating someone new or a new relationship to remember, "Hang on, I've learned this before. Let me try to be clearer about my availability or about what I have to offer."
I think part of that is being okay with disappointing people by not being able to offer them what they want, and doing that upfront rather than thinking, "Oh no, I don't want to disappoint someone so I'm going to try to give them this thing, even though ultimately, I'm going to have a hard time doing it." If that makes sense.
Emily: Totally, yes.
Jase: Just being more willing to not try to be what I think everyone else wants me to be. That's more of a personal challenge maybe, but I think it's related. So yes, just remembering that and being more okay with that.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: Yes, that's hard.
Emily: It is hard, yes but--
Dedeker: These are some interesting questions. I appreciate these advanced level questions, collegiate level questions, I don't know.
Emily: Yes. They are not one-on-one questions. Thank you, Kevin Patterson.
Dedeker: Definitely. Of course, we want to plug Kevin Patterson and Dr. Liz Powell, who've both been on the show before working on their new recordings of their Unfuck Your Polyamory course. We definitely recommend you go do a little Google search for that if you want to find out more.
Emily: We're going to get into individual strengths and weaknesses and what we bring to relationships and maybe what we do need to work on in our relationships. I guess because you two have talked for a while, I'll maybe say one of mine. I think personally, I'm very empathetic, but almost to a fault sometimes. I'll try to put people's needs at times, maybe before my own, and it's almost a martyrdom type thing, which is not good.
It's like two sides of the same coin. I'm really good at being empathetic, but then sometimes I also overextend myself to a degree that makes me out of spoons for anything else in my life and that's not a good thing. It's interesting that your strengths and your weaknesses can be two sides of the same coin.
Jase: No, that makes sense.
Emily: Yes, for sure.
Dedeker: I would say, Em, that your strength is definitely humility just based on the fact that when you go to talk about a strength, that you ultimately ended up with, "Well, but that's not a good thing."
Emily: Oh, boy.
Emily: Well, and I've definitely been told by partners that I'm a little victimy at times and by my mother. I probably should look at that because I'm assuming it's probably true. I know I've been in conversations with you two, and then burst into tears because I feel like I'm not being heard or being whatever and that is probably not very attractive or good in a relationship. That's definitely something to work on as well.
Jase: That actually brings up something that this whole topic has brought up for me, is the idea of identifying points for improvement in yourself I think is great. I think identifying strengths in yourself is really great and harder to do, I think for most of us-
Emily: Yes. We'll talk about that in a bit.
Jase: -and identifying strengths in your partner is something we're definitely going to talk about in this episode. I think that's super important. As far as identifying weaknesses in your partner, though, I do feel like this one's such a tricky thing because that's also a hallmark of a very toxic destructive relationship, is when you're focused on-- Even, if your motivation is positive of, "Oh, I want to help them get better at this thing." It can still be a really destructive thing.
Anyway, you, Emily, talking about all that brought it up for me, of talking about conversations we've had where you'll cry or something because you get frustrated or you don't feel like you're being heard and maybe, Dedeker and I, didn't even realize you were at that point until we see that. I guess, for me, I've never looked at that and gone, "Gosh, this is a weakness of Emily's we really got to fix that."
Dedeker: Yes. I've never thought that either if anything, I've thought that you're so patient and you're so willing to hold space for the people around you that I really do think it's a strength, but if there's ever a time where Jase and I have been squabbling at each other or anything like that and feeling like-
Emily: And I sit there for like 10 minutes just like chilling and waiting.
Dedeker: -and you're feeling left out and sad and not heard, that yes, if it's ever reached that point, I've never felt like, "Oh my gosh, she needs to tough it up and deal with it and butt in." If anything, I feel bad that we've been some talkative Thomas'.
Jase: Right. I guess I've interpreted it more as a weakness on my part of not being sensitive enough or observant enough to what was going on with you at the time.
Emily: Interesting.
Jase: Yes. Perspective is also interesting with all this too.
Emily: Yes, it definitely is. I think most of these exercises and things that we're going to talk about-- some of them that I've found do discuss trying to identify your partner's weaknesses, but many of them just say, to personally identify your weaknesses and then relay that to your partner rather than having them do it to you. Then maybe just discussing it and maybe talking about, "Hey, do you see this in me? Do you see this strength in me? What do you think my strengths are?" And that it's more of a collaborative thing rather than just one person saying like, you suck at X, Y, and Z.
Dedeker: Yes. I think that the important thing to take away here is, as we like to say, don't weaponize this conversation.
Emily: All right, well, let's get into this. I looked up a couple sits and stats type things and studies. Let's talk about one right now. Alan Acock, A-C-O-C-K, Acock.
Jase: Alan Acock.
Emily: Acock.
Jase: Alan Acock.
Emily: A single cock. Professor at Oregon State University completed a study of 326 married couples measuring 10 strengths and weaknesses. The study has a scoring system. The couples were weighted on how poorly or how well they were able to do each of these things and the study concluded that the couples had to work on all 10 things simultaneously, as opposed to just one trait at a time, and that those who did that were the most successful couples in their relationship and the happiest.
Dedeker: So he decided these specific traits?
Emily: Yes, and that those who just maybe work on a couple at a time or who left out others, they did not score as well as those who tried to overall work on every single element at once, which is interesting because all 10 things, it's a lot. Let's get into them.
Jase: Yes. We're going to start with the five strengths. The first one is forgiveness then commitment, which I have some question marks about how they measure that, what that means.
Emily: Yes. This is definitely like, this is married couples, I'm assuming.
Jase: Yes, very monogamy focused, for sure.
Emily: Yes, in monogamy focused, definitely.
Jase: Forgiveness, commitment; question mark. Attachment--
Emily: Also question mark?
Jase: Yes, also what are you measuring there? Sacrifice, which is interesting and relevant to what Emily was talking about. That could be a strength or a weakness, then power-balance decision-making. Is that power balance/decision-making, maybe?
Emily: Yes. I think that that's what they meant by that power-balance decision-making.
Jase: Which reminds me of something that the Gottman's referred to as accepting influence, I think. I imagine that's a similar thing of are both people in the relationship, do they feel like they have an equal say in decision-making and stuff like that? Are they being heard?
Emily: With these strengths, this is interesting because some of them-- Forgiveness, definitely that makes sense. Commitment, yes. We were wondering what exactly that means, like commitment to the relationship in time or?
Dedeker: I will say, again, this is just based on Gottman's because I know when they do assessments of couples measuring the couple's commitment, the questions that they ask, at least from what I've seen from the back-end, is that there's only one question that actually has to do with sexual monogamy necessarily, about whether or not you would refuse to have sex with a person other than your partner.
Most of the questions about commitment have to do with things like do I agree that it's important to help take care of my partner when they're sick? Or I make sure that my partner feels loved by me or after an argument, do I usually think about being happier with somebody else or just does my partner threaten to leave me when we fight or when I'm feeling bad, is my partner meeting my needs? Or do I feel confident that I can stay in the relationship even if we go through some difficult times? Things like that.
Jase: I like that question actually of, after an argument or a fight, do I think about how much happier I would be with someone else? I actually think that's a pretty interesting way to measure commitment that I do think still works in non-monogamy.
Emily: Sure.
Jase: Where's like if I'm having a hard time in this relationship, is my first thought, "Oh, I just wish I was with someone else". Then it's like, maybe that is a problem worth addressing, versus this is really hard but I'm engaged with it. I'm still here. Obviously, I'm focused on fixing it or figuring it out but not just immediately going to this I want to escape, same with threatening to leave.
That is an interesting-- because I feel like that question of what is commitment look in non-monogamy is one of those ones where I'm like, obviously, I know the answer to that but it's hard to put it into words sometimes. Our concept of commitment tends to be so much focused in just sexual fidelity or focused on staying in a relationship no matter what. What we talk about a lot on this show is not necessarily a good thing either. That's an interesting way to put that. I like that.
Emily: Attachment, what comes to mind with is attachment styles and wanting a secure attachment but I'm assuming it can mean other things as well. I don't know how much care you put into the relationship perhaps generosity--
Dedeker: I think of just how that attachment bond is and whether that's strong or not, whether we feel secure or not.
Jase: We've heard about other studies that talk about the importance of enmeshment which the dark side of that is. The dark side of that is becoming too codependent but there does seem there's a certain amount of taking on a collective identity with this person that studies have shown to be a good thing. Maybe that's what they're referencing here.
Emily: Then sacrifice. I think to me, that means more like little sacrifices that you make to be able to compromise.
Jase: Yes, that makes sense.
Emily: I feel compromises may be a better word there. Sacrifice is--
Dedeker: I would agree. It's so hard, both those terms most sacrifice and compromise, they can get so toxic so quickly because I think we can all think of the person who is completely sacrificing their happiness for instance in order to be in a relationship or sacrificing even their values or their identity in order to maintain a relationship. That's not cool but the day to day sacrifice and compromise, it's a give and take, that's cool. Let's talk about Elena Cox weaknesses Elena Cox. It sounds like a character out of a nursery rhyme or something like that.
Jase: I like that.
Emily: I like that.
Jase: I like to talk about strengths and weaknesses of couples. He went to the store and talked even more and then no one shared him their troubles. That wasn't very good.
Dedeker: This was close.
Emily: It fell off at the end there but you were doing okay.
Dedeker: It's pretty good for just whipping a nursery rhyme out of thin air. I'll give it to you.
Emily: Yes, well done.
Dedeker: Alan Acock, his five weaknesses that he used in this study were destructive communication, avoidant behavior, relational aggression, marital conflict and disrespect. I also have questions about some of these because I feel there's a big old Venn diagram and some overlaps. Relational aggression, is that just the level of aggressiveness or even violence in the relationship whether that's emotional violence or physical violence or how does that overlap with marital conflict versus destructive behavior. Is marital conflict related to just the areas where you're just not compatible so much, those areas of perpetual conflict like the governments talk about. I got some questions about how you define these things.
Emily: I'm not actually sure how-- this article does not say specifically how any of these are just defined. It's just like here they are and this is what people were-- I guess, how they were rated, good or not good at all of these things. I agree, avoidant behavior makes a lot of sense because again the Gottman's talk about that, relational aggression.
Dedeker: It's weird that he qualifies relational or aggression just have questions.
Emily: Disrespect, that makes sense. I think the point of all of this is just seeing how much these happen versus the other ones and trying to work through the weaknesses if they do happen on a regular basis and trying to beef up the strengths.
Jase: How do we emphasize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses, I guess, rather than there's something you can eliminate but just that it's more about finding a balance in those.
Emily: Exactly. Did these come up maybe in relationships past that you've had?
Dedeker: Oh, jeez.
Emily: Yes, probably, definitely.
Jase: I feel we could do probably episodes on each of these on their own. We could probably do a whole episode talking about sacrifice. We have done multiple whole episodes about attachment.
Emily: Yes, and destructive communication.
Jase: I feel we've had some episodes on that. I don't want to go too far into all this because each of these could be a big thing for sure.
Emily: No, I agree. Just say it. I was wondering if you saw specific things maybe you're like yes, I remember this in a relationship that I've had in the past and was that a weakness that broke the relationship, maybe.
Dedeker: I've been thinking a lot about so many things. This power balance and decision making, I know is under the strengths category, but I can see this also potentially being a weakness. If it's imbalanced, if there's a big power imbalance in a relationship or if there's a lot of decision making that tends to fall on just one person whether that person really wants that position or not.
Jase: That's a great point you bring up there of power balance and decision-making. For me, what comes to mind first is feeling like one partner is not taking the other one's input into account and just making decisions for the both of them or bullishly charging ahead with their own thing. When their partner tries to offer other ideas or disagrees, just tell them oh, no, no, because of this, this, this and just constantly putting down that idea. Then on the other side, Dedeker, you pointed out this could also be one person feeling they're forced to make all these decisions.
They want the other person's help, the other person just like, whatever, you got to pick it. Whether that's about your house or your finances. I could see that also being a very stressful thing or even the decision making like we talked about in the, I'm not your mother episode. I was like what to eat for dinner each day. Now I have to make this decision every single day of what to get, what to make, when we're going to eat it? On both sides, having that decision making power put on you can be a good thing or a bad thing or I guess always a bad thing if it's imbalanced.
Emily: Totally. We're going to talk about some of the ways that we can evaluate strengths and weaknesses in ourselves and in our relationships past these specific ones that this study talked about and go maybe more granular, more specific on what our personal ones are and what may be you all's personal ones are out there. Before we do that, we would to talk about some ways that you can help support our show and keep these episodes free and this information free to all of you out there.
Dedeker: All right welcome back. Let's get into some of the ways that we can evaluate strengths and weaknesses in ourselves and our relationships outside of just sitting down with two of your friends and having an awkward recorded conversation trying to piece it together. Some things that bear in mind is that it is often very, very difficult for us to recognize our own strengths in any aspects of our lives. Some reasons for that include the fact that we just don't see ourselves like other people see us.
Like the fact that, Emily, is so interesting that you're like, oh, yes, you all been doing the same stuff since six years ago. When I think about that, it's not like I'm like, no, you're wrong, that's totally wrong, but I'm just like, huh, I would not have seen that through-line in the same way. Friends and family might see our accomplishments while we see just the full spectrum of our motions and behaviors and thoughts day in and day out that occurred while we either made an accomplishment or a failure at something in a relationship.
Jase: Another one is that some of our strengths might be things we don't even think of as strengths because they just come natural and easy to us. We might just be good at this thing and it's just, oh, that's just normal. That's just normal everyday thing, that doesn't take any effort so that can't be a strength.
Emily: Even like you being good at everything technological.
Dedeker: Literary everything under the sun. What it is is, Jase is just good at learning. That's what it is. Your strength is learning and that's why you are good at everything.
Jase: I do love learning things. That's true.
Emily: Yes, you really sit down and take the time to learn, which is very very impressive. A lot of us just think very narrowly about our strengths instead of maybe looking at them more broadly. I don't know if a friend, for example, says you're really good at getting projects done, you do them efficiently and well and all of that but then you look at like, well, there was that one time where I just threw away X, Y and Z thing because it sucked and I didn't feel good about it or I decided to end this project because it just wasn't going the way that I wanted it to.
Dedeker: You can always find exceptions.
Emily: Exactly, focus on the little exceptions rather than seeing more broadly like hey, yes, I am good at following through for the most part and I have made some accomplishments in my life. I'm not necessarily a procrastinator. I can do these things well. It's good to look at our behaviors such as following through on something rather than just like well I'm a nice person and so that's a strength. Look at the things that you do rather than just your individual traits.
Jase: I could also see someone outside of you saying you're so good at completing projects, to use your example. In your head, you're like, that's not a strength of mine because it's a struggle all the time. If you look at your actual behaviors, you do stick through it though, so then it's a strength. Whereas for you, it might feel like a weakness because it's hard. Does that make sense?
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: It's how I feel about Japanese.
Emily: To me, you're freaking amazing at it, but yes, I'm sure it's been a challenge.
Dedeker: If you spoke Japanese, you'd know I sound like a middle schooler.
Emily: Hey, it's better than the three sentences I know how to say.
Dedeker: Another thing is that sometimes our weaknesses truly can be our strengths in certain moments. I want to take this outside of the realm of how we were all trained to do job interviews where you explain a weakness and you immediately flop it into, oh, but that actually was maybe a good thing in this instance or it's good because it's improving in this area.
Jase: I care too much. I work too hard.
Dedeker: I get too focused. I try to include too many people. I'm just really too good. For instance, maybe you're really stubborn like someone I know. By that person, I mean me. If you are stubborn, that could be a weakness but it could also be a strength in the sense of persistence and really following through with something and being dedicated to something.
Emily: Dedicated Dedeker.
Jase: Dedicated Dedeker, she keeps studying Japanese out of stubbornness. That's actually the relation.
Emily: Maybe it's a little bit of both. Persistence.
Jase: That makes sense. That makes sense, actually. The last one here is that when evaluating our own strengths, it's hard not to compare ourselves to others and say, well, this can't really be a strength because I can think of these people who are even better at this thing than I am, so that must not be a strength.
Emily: That's the one for me.
Jase: Both of you, boy.
Emily: When I look at all of these, they feel like that's definitely the one, like comparison to others for sure. I feel like basically every single person, maybe not every single person, but the people who really matter in my life, like my closest friends and those who I work with, meaning you two, all of you were just 10 times smarter than I am and 10 times more impressive than I am. I'm just like, fuck, I'm terrible at everything.
Dedeker: Here's your strength in humility is shining through.
Emily: I feel like that's humility to a fault, maybe. There you go.
Jase: Once again, she's made it into a weakness.
Emily: Definitely. Yes. Absolutely. That's the number one for me.
Dedeker: Emily, at least my observation of you is you are humble about everything under the sun except for two things. The only areas where you are not humble about and you were proud-- just loud and proud about your skills in these areas is karaoke and Mario Kart.
Emily: Yes. I'm actually not nearly as good at Mario Kart as I used to be.
Dedeker: See now?
Emily: I am very good at karaoke and getting better at singing in general. Thank you to my voice teacher.
Dedeker: Yes, it's hard. It's hard to evaluate these things. It's a weird combination. I think also especially being raised in American culture where it is a combination of being put in a culture that puts such an emphasis on winning and being the best at something and being the top of your game at something but also a weird emphasis on, at least with women, we don't like women who brag or who are really proud of themselves necessarily. With men, it seems a little of a mixed bag. I don't know.
I think there's also I think our Christian puritanical roots bring in the shame around elevating yourself to a certain extent. I do think that our Christian puritanical roots, which affect all of us, makes us more inclined or encourages us to look more towards our bad parts or our weaknesses rather than our strengths.
Jase: Right. While at the same time our business, corporate advertising culture then emphasizes this need to like you need to make yourself look amazing at all times.
Dedeker: Yes, it has to be complete hyperbole.
Jase: Right, and those two can often be at odds with each other leading to more internal conflict then about I've got to put on this face and pretend to be this thing and really play up my strengths and exaggerate my resumé. At the same time, I'm super aware of how much of a phony I am. It's a real bad cycle.
Emily: Let's discuss why it's important for you and your partner to be aware of each other's strengths and then also why it's important to be aware of each other's weaknesses. More study time. There was a study published in Psychological Assessments that shows that couples who have a greater appreciation for their partner strengths reported more satisfying relationships and sex lives. The study also found the couples were more likely to feel that their partner supported their goals and wanted to help them grow as a person when they were more interested in their partner's strengths and cared about their partner having strengths and working on those strengths and continuing to make them grow and flourish.
Jase: There was also some evidence in the study that participants who appreciated their partner's strengths were more committed and invested in the relationship, that they appreciated their own strengths more, experienced greater intimacy, and were more fulfilled in their psychological needs for autonomy and relatedness. I don't quite know what relatedness means in this case, but--
Emily: Relating to each other. Relating to others around them, yes.
Jase: I guess so, yes.
Dedeker: I have a psychological need for my partner to not be blood related to me. Is that my need for relatedness? I need at least six degrees of separation here as far as biological relations.
Emily: Not just one first cousin in some places of the country.
Jase: The people who appreciated their partner's strengths were more likely to have their needs for not being a close relative with their partner. Is that what you're saying, Dedeker? That's how you're interpreting this?
Emily: Definitely.
Dedeker: Also, seeing your partner's strengths as an asset rather than looking for the potential weaknesses associated with that strength leads to happier relationships as well. Those who focused on the costs associated with their partner's strengths, so, for instance, if Jase only focuses on how stubborn I am and never focuses on how persistent and dedicated I am, there's a chance he's going to report less satisfaction with my behavior and with the relationship in general. Jase, don't do that.
This reminds me of, again, to cite the Gottman's, they talk a lot about positive sentiment override and negative sentiment override. This idea that you can have this negative sentiment override that predisposes you to see your partner's actions as negative or maybe even see their strengths as weaknesses necessarily versus the positive sentiment override, where literally your positive sentiment overrides what's going on as in you're much more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt or maybe see their strengths as well.
Emily: I think it's a really important aspect to have.
Jase: This one specifically what Emily was saying at the beginning, that couples who have a greater appreciation for their partner's strengths reported more satisfying relationships and sex lives. I think that just comes down to this relatively simple idea of really emphasizing admiring your partner. I think in this way, seeing their strengths is a way of doing that, but of focusing on what about my partner do I admire?
I think it is a really powerful thing and something that is not generally very emphasized in longer-term relationships. Think about TV and movies and all your examples out there, when we think about courtship or the flirting or just starting to date, it's very much focused on admiring each other, often physically, but also, you're such a hard worker, you're so creative, you're-- whatever it is, right?
You're so wealthy. Whatever it is. In the movies. We're very focused on admiring. Then when we look at our examples we have of longer-term relationships, they tend to be much more focused on bringing each other down, being annoyed with each other's habits or their faults or just being in the same space, but not being particularly admiring of each other.
Emily: It's interesting when I've heard people talk about their long-term spouses who maybe have kids, there are things that they are good at and their strengths, a lot of them tend to rely around that, like he's a really good father and he's really kind and good to my kids, but that that's not necessarily an inheritance strength that you have as an individual. It's more like surrounding other people in your life.
Dedeker: That's interesting. We have to change gears and talk about also being aware of each other's weaknesses and it can be really difficult and scary for us to face our own personal weaknesses especially if another partner is present. It can be hard to take ownership of these things. It is important to address them because identifying them is the first step for being able to acknowledge them, work on them, get better at them, find ways, find counter spells to work around them as it were.
Emily: I found a couple of fun exercises out there and I tried to cobble it together into my own exercise. Something that you all out there can do with your partner or individually, but I think that it's fun to have maybe yourself and then your partner do this individually and then come together and speak about it. Take a pen and paper and write out all the things that are holding you back in your life or in your relationships.
For me, personally, we've talked about this a lot, but yes, I compare myself to the people around me and therefore, find myself to not be good at things or whatever just because I'm constantly comparing myself to people around me. There's one. Write down all of the things that are holding you back in life or in your relationships. Then once you have your lists, try to change the wording of the thing that's holding you back into maybe a personal weakness.
Like, okay, I compare myself to a bunch of people. That means a weakness of mine is that I don't believe in myself enough, perhaps. Once you have like a long list and then you change those into personal weaknesses, pick five from your list that you think best represent your personal weaknesses. That you have not a gigantic list, but just five that really are inherent within you that you think, yes, these are the top five things that are really challenging to me in my life. If you're doing this with a partner, compare your findings, see if they agree and then speak about maybe both of what you have found and the things that you find are holding you back in your life or in your relationships.
Jase: Now, warning time, and that is--
Emily: Don't weaponize this.
Jase: This is only an exercise to do when your relationship is in a time and place that it's very solid, that you're very supportive of each other and that this is going to happen in the spirit of lifting each other up and sharing and being vulnerable in a good way. If your relationship at all is one right now that tends to veer toward fights or arguments or putting each other down or anything like that, this is not the exercise to do. I just want to be clear. This is for when you're real solid.
Emily: Yes, and I think it also can be used when you are newly in a relationship.
Jase: Yes. I could see that like when you're still pretty solid because of all that NRE.
Emily: Sure, and just maybe when you don't necessarily know each other's weaknesses yet. When they're not glaringly obvious that it might be interesting to be like, hey, something that you should know about me is X, Y and Z thing. That this is something that I've struggled with for a long time and this is something that I needed to work on.
Jase: We have this list here of some reasons why it's important to be aware of each other's weaknesses or maybe I'd rephrase that to why it's important to be willing to show your weaknesses to your partner.
The first one here is exactly what you were just talking about, Emily, it's that, at the beginning of a relationship especially, it's tempting to only want to show your partner your best self, but these weaknesses or bad habits or whatever will come out, they will see it if they're in your life for a long time. There can be some advantage in getting ahead of that. I guess, having that be something that you're able to talk about as opposed to this thing that once it starts happening, no one has words for it or doesn't know how to bring it up or--
Emily: They're blindsided by it, like holy shit, I didn't know that you were going to act like this in this situation.
Jase: If they try to bring it up, they don't know if you're aware of it. That makes it harder to bring up.
Dedeker: Discussing each other's weaknesses, it's an opportunity to deepen intimacy, to be vulnerable with each other, to relay the reasons why they're there in the first place, to discover new things about how your partner ticks, maybe stuff about their family of origin, about their story, about how their brain works, about how their heart works. That this is actually really, really good meaty stuff to dive into either at the beginning of the relationship or in a relationship that's already been going for quite a while. That like, these are good open-ended conversations to help deepen your understanding of just what's below the surface for your partner.
Emily: I keep going back to that thing that you talked to us about that your sister did with her husband, right? In a psychology course or something.
Dedeker: About laying out the timeline and just on the timeline, putting basically all the painful things that have happened in your life because that's the inventory of the stuff that's going to come out when you fight.
Emily: This came up recently for me that my partner and I were fighting about housework and the dishes. He relayed to me later on that, "Hey, my father used come home and talk about this and get really upset about things like housework and the dishes and stuff. That was the first thing that he would do often when he came into the room after coming home from work." It was very triggering to hear you talk about it in an angry tone or being upset about it in some way. For me, personally, I know if we're going to be discussing that thing, then I need to be understanding in the way in which I speak about it because it's potentially triggering to my partner if I don't do it in the correct way.
Dedeker: That leads to the next thing, which is that, knowing each other's weaknesses gives you each the opportunity to extend some grace, some forgiveness, some benefit of the doubt to your partner when they come up. It doesn't mean that everything is excused. It doesn't mean, okay, well, they have this family trauma because this thing happened to them in a past relationship, that means I get to never say anything or that I have to just grit and bear it, but it does open up that little window of being able to have that compassion.
Emily: Absolutely. Just knowing each other's weaknesses can enable you to work towards getting better and maybe overcoming your weaknesses and this is a challenging thing because I don't think-- we've talked about this before, you don't want to be your partner's parents. You don't want to just like bring up every single time like, I see this thing that you're doing again and again and again because that can lead to criticism and lead to just a whole host of problems as well.
If one can do it in a compassionate way, and I think being able to know stories of origin and where your partner's coming from with all of those things, it can lead to more compassion when discussing things like this. Ultimately, with that, it can hopefully bring the two of you closer together and have more intimacy overall and that's what we want on this podcast in general, more communication, more intimacy and real love.
Jase: In going through this, something it's really brought up for me that I think ties this also back to where we started this whole episode is this idea that weaknesses are often also strengths in a different context. In terms of how to compassionately work together with each other on these weaknesses, one way is that-- say for example, that something's come up where I'm frustrated with Dedeker being stubborn about something, say.
That if I'm able to remind myself, this is also her persistence and her ability to get stuff done and continue something even when it's hard, even when she's facing adversity, that for one, I just see like, okay, this is also a positive trait. I'm frustrated with maybe this aspect of it, but I don't want to crush this whole thing. It's not like I don't want her to be this way because it's such a great strength of hers too. Same with like Emily will sometimes not speak up when she wants something or when something matters to her and I won't know it.
I can sometimes get frustrated with like, just tell me what you want. We've had that in some of our company meetings where Dedeker and I are like, just tell us then, please, but at the same time, I don't want to like crush that out of Emily entirely because that's also such a great strength of hers is being so compassionate, and so caring about other people's feelings and other animals and creatures feelings and all that too.
I think that's one thing that can really help is realizing that all of these traits are probably very much tied to their strengths as well. That doesn't mean you want to remove this thing, but more finding ways in those moments to either help them identify or help you identify, how can we move this into a more positive direction, move this toward being a strength rather than right now being a weakness.
Emily: Yes. I think that was a good overview, Jase. That was a good overview of the whole thing. That was lovely.
Dedeker: Very nice closing monologue.