In relationships, just as in investing, finding good long term bets is one thing, sticking with them for long is totally another. In fact, the latter is the real deal. Just like investments have drawdowns, relationships have drawdowns too.
Life is too short, money is finite. If you are stuck with bad people or bad stocks, you must get rid of them asap. However, if you’ve found good people and good stocks, they are worth persevering with – the drawdowns must be endured.
I’ve observed many times from a neutral position, relationships between two people (married couple, close friends, business partners etc) , say A & B, getting progressively sour. Simplistically put, this is how things unravel…
Stage 0 – Random events occur between A & B all the time, during various interactions between the two. They say all sorts of things to each other all the time. They also communicate with each other through their actions or body language all the time. There are occasional communication gaps – the difference between the message sent by one and received or interpreted by the other. Most of the time, these differences get ignored or average away.
Stage 1 – This time, the differences don’t get ignored or averaged away. A says or does something which inadvertently hurts B. It could be a silly joke, or a casual comment. It could be even some minor irritant in behaviour done for the 100th time, but one time too many, so as to trigger a tipping point, beyond which B feels hurt. Important thing to note here is that A did not deliberately want to hurt B. She is not aware of the fact that she has inadvertently hurt B.
Stage 2 – B has taken the hurt to her heart. Unlike, other minor incidents, which got ignored or averaged away, this one has got stuck (reason does not matter). B carries the rancour with herself all the time. The resentment keeps brewing inside B, while A is totally unaware.
Stage 3 – At some stage, B erupts in some kind of a rude reaction. From B’s perspective, this reaction is fully justified as a response to A’s initial act. “After all, it was A who started it all!” B mumbles. The trouble is that A is unaware of her initial act and the hurt it caused. To her, the rude reaction from B, comes as a bolt out of the blue. She’s shocked to the core, befuddled by the strange act by B. To A, this reaction by B is not a reaction, it is an unpleasant act, just like what her own action was to B in stage 1.
Stage 4 – Now both A & B carry grudge in their heart. Both are either oblivious to their own fault, or consider it as a just response to what they have been subjected to.
Stage 5 – From here on, starts a vicious cycle of reactions, each subsequent reaction being larger than the previous one, feeding on the ever growing resentments. A keeps accounting for all of the B’s faults, while either being unaware of her own faults or considering them as disproportionately small and fully justified reactions. B does the same. As they keep adding to each other’s faults, their resentment keeps multiplying. As a system, the cumulative resentment between the two must be multiplying with some kind of Power Law.
Stage 6 – The system simmers for a while, until it finally erupts. They two either distance themselves or indulge in a fight – verbal or otherwise.
Notice that both A & B are nice people. However, they have stopped feeling that way about each other; and this feeling was very minor in the beginning, but over a period of time and several iterations, it compounded into a major one. Each of them individually feel that they are victims of some deliberate act from the other. Both are oblivious of their own mistakes, or consider them as disproportionately small and just reactions. The relationship between two otherwise very nice people gets soured.
This shouldn’t happen, but happens anyway. The relationship gets caught in a vicious loop of a cumulative causation cycle, and blows a molehill out of proportion into a mountain. This is preventable. The process should and could have been nipped in the bud; at Stage 1 itself; but that slightly later…
Let’s take a quick digression into Mathematics & Psychology and pick a joint lesson from there – Base Rate Neglect. It is a disregard for long term base rate information, for a specific individual information.
There is a long term Base Rate, trending upwards. This can be growth of a company, share price or relationship. The downward swings are the slowdowns in business, drawdowns in share prices, and minor hiccups in relationships. We often get swayed by specific, recent aberrations and react to them. This turns out to be a mistake as the long term base rate catches up subsequently. By then it is too late, because you chose to lock in at the set back – you no longer own the business or the shares; the relationship is spoiled beyond repair.
New we come back to A & B. Their relationship can be and should be prevented from getting sour.
Every person is different in nature and nurture. There are bound to be minor differences, unpleasant instances, unwelcome behaviour, minor disagreements or minor repetitive irritants in personalities. The quirks are bound to be present not only in the other person, but in you as well. The repetitive irritants would accumulate not only in you but also in the other person because of you. As long as the person you are dealing with is overall good and worth maintaining relationships,You need to tell yourself that what happened in Stage 0 is either an aberration or a minor irritant, and must be ignored and taken in the stride. The aberrations or irritants are very small in early stages; they can be nipped in the bud then & there. If you allow them to fester and compound in a reactionary game of Tit for Tat, it blows out of proportion in later stages and is very difficult to ignore then.
In all relationships with our friends, partners, spouse, siblings etc, we should keep the base rate in mind. In the long course of life, there are bound to be some bad episodes, as long as we are dealing with nice people, we should stick with the base rates.