3 things that can really improve our relationships, by Philippa Perry
Philippa Perry knows a thing or two about advice – her 2019 manual The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did) spent 41 weeks on The Sunday Times Bestsellers List and sold 2m copies globally. Her follow-up, The Book You Want Everyone You Love* To Read *(And Maybe A Few You Don’t) – a comprehensive look at unpacking our own belief systems around the relationships in our lives and how we can change them to better serve our happiness – also shot up the charts upon its release in 2023.
Citing the dilemmas she often encounters through her work as an agony aunt and in the therapy space, it supports the idea that if we look at three key areas in our relationships – how we love, how we argue and how we navigate change – we can unlock the tools we need for the final piece of the puzzle: how we find contentment.
'As an agony aunt, pretty much every dilemma I'm given leads back to relationships,' says Perry, 'and I suppose the key thing I've observed that people always want to know is, why? "Why do I feel like this? Why do I act like that?" When really what we should be asking ourselves is, how? "How do I organise myself in a way that this always happens to me? How do I argue?" It's only when we've gone back and figured this out that we can start to have true agency over our relationships.'
Once we've identified the common flaws in our approach, Perry says that we can then embark on a reset. Here, she shares her tips...
Connection (how we love)
Forming relationships is part of being human and fundamental to our sense of self. The people around us function like mirrors, reflecting who we are and confirming our current view of ourselves, and we all need positive mirrors in order to feel valued.
Sometimes we might not like what people see in us, and this can also be useful (although beware of gaslighting mirrors – people who are deliberately trying to make you feel less confident). Whether we find it easy or challenging to connect, we all come across stumbling blocks. Here are some common ones:
Having a relationship in your own head
A big thing that stops us getting close to others is having a relationship with someone in our own head instead of with them. A classic example is the mother-in-law who doesn’t help with the bride’s wedding: while the bride might think she’s uninterested, in the mother-in-law’s mind she doesn’t want to be interfering, and so wires cross.
When we interpret someone else’s behaviour according to our own rules, we can slide into negative patterns that are self-sabotaging. We might step back from a friendship group completely as a way of protecting ourselves. When we feel rejected or unable to connect, it can be tempting to indulge in ‘all-or-nothing thinking’ and use phrases like, ‘Everyone’s out for themselves’, or ‘There’s no point in any friendship’.
If you’re using statements like ‘everyone’, ‘100%’, ‘no one’ or ‘never’, it’s likely that you’re acting upon a theory or familiar belief that makes you feel better, but only in the short term.
Allowing the past to cloud the present
How we form new connections is often influenced by the unconscious attachment style we developed in childhood. Perhaps you developed an avoidant attachment style because your parent loved you as an extension of themselves (which in turn led you to feel overwhelmed and as if you wanted to run away). You might meet a romantic partner with an insecure attachment style (perhaps they felt unloved as a child) and when they reach out for reassurance, those feelings can be triggered again. In acknowledging how we’ve been loved previously, we can prevent history from repeating itself.
Whenever you feel a sudden charged emotion and want to blame it on the present, stop and ask: ‘Where does this really belong?’ By brainstorming our early attachments, we can look at how the relationships in our current life push old buttons. Did you have to work hard to get the approval of a parent? Is there a pattern of falling for unavailable lovers? Once you’ve identified these, it’s even possible to change your attachment style.
The inner and outer circle
Research says we all need two to three strong, meaningful connections to live happily, but that actually, it’s great to cast the net wider and have six people in your ‘inner circle’. Ideally, you’ll also have an ‘outer circle’ of another six close connections, making 12 in total.
Some people find it hard to make this many connections and that’s okay, but being part of some kind of group has huge benefits for our sense of identity and belonging. What’s most important is that we take time to share our true thoughts and vulnerabilities – this is how we go from being acquaintances to developing a more intimate relationship.
Conflict (how we argue)
There are so many ways in which we can get stuck in a conflict loop rather than being open to a resolution. Here are some you might recognise:
The ‘thinking, feeling, doing’ conundrum
We all have three modes of being: thinking, feeling and doing, and we each have a dominant – or preferred – way of coping. Some of us think our way out of trouble, some of us need to explore our feelings first and others go straight into action mode. For example: a doer’s solution will be based on action, but a thinker cannot go straight to doing without carefully thinking through all the options. The doer might say to a thinker, ‘Why don’t you just do this?’ but the thinker doesn’t want to be fixed, they just wanted to be listened to.
In the case of the thinker, a better approach would be to support them in brainstorming options, so that they can slowly think their own way to a solution. In contrast, a doer might benefit from suggestions of practical solutions, and a feeler might first need to be given the space to feel sad.
‘It’s not me, it’s you’
The game of ‘me-right, you-wrong’ can play out in all sorts of situations, from couples going through a divorce to friendships that have turned sour, but it rarely leads to a workable solution. As someone wise once said, you can be right or you can be married, but you cannot be both – and I think this applies to any relationship.
A good way to overcome ‘me vs you’ is to use ‘I’ statements: instead of telling a partner ‘You’re irritating’ or ‘You’re not listening to me’, try switching to ‘I feel irritated’ or ‘I feel unheard’. Not only does it help us take responsibility for our own responses, but the other person is also more likely to listen.
Most conflicts are about how we feel, not facts, and yet we can have a tendency to focus on logic in arguments in an effort to ‘win’. As a result, we can fall into a game of what I call ‘fact tennis’, whereby each person bats facts over the net until eventually someone ‘loses’ or backs down. Nothing is to be gained from one-upmanship – it only comes at the expense of the relationship.
Acknowledging others’ feelings, no matter how uncomfortable they might make us feel, is an important step to working out where our differences really lie. One easy way to do this is to try putting the other person’s feelings and thoughts into words and go through a process of re-vocalising their feelings back to them. It’s only when both parties feel seen and understood that you can start walking in the same direction.
Conflict avoidant
These are people who let everything go (even the things that matter), until resentment builds up and eventually all subjects become taboo. Not only can this lead to disconnection, but it can also cause communication to break down completely.
For many people, anger is seen as a ‘bad’ feeling, equating to tantrums, childishness and lack of impulse control. But often it’s the actions that go with anger that are the destructive or frightening part. The trick here is to allow ourselves to feel the anger but express it calmly – anger management isn’t about keeping everything in, but productively airing a feeling.
Change (how we navigate it)
I receive plenty of emails about how badly other people behave, but I always respond with the message that if we want things to change, we have to start with ourselves.
Here are three common attitudes to change:
Fear of change
Lots of us feel scared, even paralysed by change, but not making a choice is still a decision and it might be the wrong one. It’s important to remember that mistakes and failures are necessary to grow.
Often, people will try to find a scapegoat instead of tackling the change (for example, ‘If only I lost weight/my nose was the right shape, my life would be great.’) Or perhaps they play ‘the regrets game’ – lamenting everything they should have done, rather than moving forward.
After six failed attempts at anything, it’s natural to think, ‘This is obviously not for me,’ but if we don’t keep going and find a different angle, we’ll never get to where we want to be.
To help expand your comfort zone, start by drawing a circle in the middle of a piece of paper and inside it, write some examples of the things you feel completely comfortable with. Around the outside of that circle, write down the things that you could do but that would require pushing yourself. Draw a larger circle around this and include what you would like to do but feel you can’t.
Keep drawing circles and adding the things you feel increasingly incapable of. Expand in small steps – once you achieve the activities in one circle and they become commonplace, you can move on to the next.
Not knowing what to change
Lots of people write to me describing feeling restless or dissatisfied, and this can be an indicator that change is afoot or needs to be. Equally, it might indicate a pattern of not being able to stick with anything.
If you’re feeling restless, perhaps you’re looking for a change to take place outside of yourself – the saviour of a Prince Charming or winning the lottery, for example – or maybe you’ve been ticking off a series of boxes or milestones that you think will pave the way to happiness. Either way, this passivity is unlikely to aid you in getting there.
Ask yourself: what comes to mind when you think about ‘engagement and excitement’? What do you think of when you hear the words ‘rewarding’ and ‘fulfilment’? Write your thoughts down and don’t reject any idea. Now look back at the ideas and see what sticks for you. By listening to our feelings, we can know what it is that we want, and this will help us feel more motivated to act.
Struggling with unwanted change
Sometimes change is thrust upon us and a relationship might shift from lovers to companions, friends to acquaintances, carer to cared-for. Some of the biggest changes to navigate are huge alterations in status – for instance, from married to widowed – but even if we expect change, it can still create a void within us (a common example is a parent experiencing their teenager separating from them for the first time – this can be a hurtful rejection but one that becomes less painful when they start to see it as part of the teenager becoming themselves).
We often make things worse when we give ourselves two things to cry about – for example, feeling sad and then telling ourselves off for feeling sad — which can make the initial change feel even more difficult.
Setting a timetable to let our feelings out can help us take control of the change or obsession, rather than it controlling us. Try scheduling the same 30 minutes of each day to weep, rage, mourn or reminisce (even if you don’t feel like it), and be strict. It sounds mad, but by doing this, we can allow ourselves to work through feelings in a safe space (the idea being that eventually you’ll reach that time of day and no longer feel the need to do it).
The Book You Want Everyone You Love* To Read *(And Maybe A Few You Don’t) (Cornerstone Press) by Philippa Perry is out now
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