Valentine’s Day
I abhor the season. Flowers. Chocolates. Dinners. Fancy-nancy, overrated, season of “love”.
Valentine’s Day brings to mind the awkward giving of flowers, the crinkle of plastic when you walk, girls carrying identical bunches of roses on the street, and men having the hardest time of all to decide how to please their girlfriends. In Malaysia, it means dressing up even if you don’t feel like it, squeezing your car through the horrendous traffic with 373,512,405,890 other couples, arriving at the restaurant (only if you’ve had the presence of mind to place a reservation) to be placed at a tiny, rectangular table only 10 centimeters from the other couples next to you (either way), and having identical meals served at almost-choreographed intervals. I almost admire the brilliance behind it all, the ka-chingness of it all…just leave me out of it.
Now, psychologists are the rare breed that have received training in the matters of human complexity. They are required to be sharp, understanding, empathetic, knowledgeable, and wise. All at the same time! That’s a tall order. How would they behave towards their other half then? Do they possess better relationships and have greater intimacy than the rest of us?
My take is that: Partners are the secret pillars to psychologists’ well-being.
In today’s Valentine’s article, I give you…the five pet peeves of psychologists’ partners. If you are one such partner, I say its time to commiserate!
1) It’s hard to get them to listen to grave matters after a long day of listening to their clients.
After a long day of sessions…Trust me on this. Psychologists do not want to listen, dissect, and decide on serious matters when they return home for the day. As a result, partners can feel lonely when they are unable to approach their other half for emotional needs at any given time. Most psychologists schedule their days to avoid burnout; they have “administrative” days to catch up on reports or give classes, and these are days they are less likely to return home emotionally fatigued.
Urgent matters notwithstanding, why not light the candles, make dinner unpredictable (Breakfast for dinner! Recreate a dish from the 15th century!), and just talk about nonsensical day-to-day humor or remind them why you love them. If it’s too hard, just do it on Valentine’s Day then.
When I was working as a counsellor, it was hard for me to listen out of office hours. Whenever someone went into a spiel that sounded as if I was back in sessions, I felt aware that my brain was “switching off”, and I created emotional distance right away. It was hard to be open and available at that moment, which meant that my friends were at a disadvantage because they did not get to connect completely with someone who could respond whole-ly (I hope they never realized). On the other hand, it could also be related to the load and line of clients I was seeing at that time. I am still reflecting and trying to work on this.
2) There is something called “too much validation”.
This is something I got from a Youtube channel called “The Psych Show” (it’s a really good channel, managed by a clinical psychologist instead of the usual quacks). In a special segment, the psychologist’s wife said that she sometimes felt that there was too much validation coming from the psychologist; while all she wanted was a different perspective. Talk about overdoing it.
As someone studying to be a psychologist, I am guilty of that too. It’s too hard to keep separate from years of training to respond empathetically, keep emotions under check, and ensure that loved ones enjoy the “service” of excellent communication. I hear this from peers as well: are we being too much of a counsellor/therapist in our relationships? Do our partners really want such a person in the relationship? I have recently come into light of the consequences of this behavior: when you affirm, analyze, and conclude on behalf of someone, you might just be robbing them of the precious opportunities to acquire better communicating skills themselves!
3) They may not be the better communicator, or parent, or spouse.
As the “elite” (debatable) group involved in psycho-education (the process of telling people they have been wrong for most their lives; I enjoy doing it), it is almost a given that these people should be able to handle anything that comes into their lives! If they are coaching clients on parental behavior, the process of change, effective communication, shouldn’t they be awesome and wonderful at it in their personal lives? Moment of truth: No. I bet their partners are right behind me on this.
The line of thought is the exact opposite of those who barge into sessions and demand: “Who are you to tell me what to do? Have you ever experienced divorce/childcare/addiction/depression yourself?” Well, psychologists don’t need to be a drug addict or prostitute to treat these clients, they are trained in matters of therapeutic interventions and psychological treatment. Ergo, just because they are trained to provide psycho-education and evidence-based treatment on various issues, they are not experts of every issue that crops up in their own lives. When a psychologist has personal issues, he or she is encouraged to speak to their supervisors or get treatment themselves! Shocker? Not that much of one. Let them off the hook a little!
4) They are higher educated, but not much smarter.
It has been the standard that more females than males acquire higher education; more females than males enter the field of psychology, and therefore they are more likely to have higher educational levels than their partners. Therefore, are the psychologists the “smarter” ones in the relationship? Maybe academically, but that’s just about it. Their training does not make them better suited to organize, make decisions, helm household duties, remember details, or in short, do everything. This is where their lovely partners come in.
Partners may be sharper, more agile, organized, laidback, proficient in soothing tempers, nurturing, and many other wonderful gifts that make people…people! The gist is that education does not make people smarter. Although I am sure top graduates sometimes want people to think that way…
5) At the end of the day, they are human too!
This is the part where I tell partners: continue to be the great pillars of support that you guys are! You are the rearview mirror to their cars (not the backseat driver, ahem), the tempered glass to their iPhones, the sambal ikan bilis to their nasi lemak, the makeup remover at the end of a long day (the ladies will know how important it is!), and last but not least: the other half that completes them. They are just humans.
Humans who happen to be psychologists as a career are just like you and me. They have tempers. They tell white-lies to their relatives who asks “Am I looking fat to you?” They gossip about their next-door neighbor. They get discouraged after a poor evaluation at work. They get scared when problems look too big to handle. They cry. They laugh. And then they go back to work.
ka-ching: the sound of money; sambal ikan bilis: chili paste made from anchovies (it tastes as good as it sounds yucky); nasi lemak: fragrant local dish capable of making waves internationally if someone accidentally insults it.