Take it off the menu

I went to the pub the other day and I was looking at the menu for what to eat. All my usuals were jumping out at me, steak and chips, BBQ pork ribs, hamburger with onion rings, big, juicy, fatty, and delicious! My eyes dropped down to dessert and I got excited about the chocolate brownie and ice cream as well! Then my friend leaned over and said, “if you ever want to lose some weight, you are really going to have to take some of those things off your menu.” It was true of course, but I wasn’t ready to hear it.
 
Sometimes the realisations that we have about our relationships are similar. We think back over an interaction we had with someone we care about and think - where did that come from? Or, that felt stink, I wish I didn’t say or do that. You might realise, or get told, that there are things that you need to take ‘off the menu’ if you want to stay in a relationship or stop hurting someone. It’s a normal and healthy thing to reflect on the things that are on your menu, and whether they are helping you or hurting you, and whether your partner is happy with the menu of behaviours in your relationship.

Developing a menu of behaviours

Many of us, for lots of different reasons, develop behaviours that start to creep into unhelpful or harmful behaviours in our relationships. We have all developed a menu of things we do or say in our relationships. These include how we react when we feel uncomfortable or notice painful feelings, thoughts, conflict, stress, or tensions turn up in our relationships. What’s on our menu usually develops throughout our early life when we test out different strategies to get what we need. Whether this be to get our parents’ attention, play with the toy that we want, or get our parents to agree to us going out to a friend’s party. We all have needs to feel loved, cared about, wanted, and free to do the things we enjoy. We also crave certainty, predictability, to feel safe and secure. Most of all we crave significance - we want to be significant to another person and we want to be certain about that connection.

It’s normal for us to want to have our needs met, and so we develop a menu of behaviours to get these met. The problems arrive when we start to focus on our needs so much that we fail to make sure that our partner is also getting their needs met. We may also begin to have fears that our needs might stop getting met, or we are going to lose the good thing we have with our partner. Sometimes our partner will tell us that they aren’t happy with what we are doing or saying. Sometimes we have to notice these patterns ourselves before they do any damage. Some of this might sound familiar:
 
“I don’t want you to go out with your mates tonight…I’ve had a long week and just want to chill with you…you always go out with your mates instead of spending time with me.”
 
“Who were you talking to just then? Sounded like a guy. What did he want?”
 
“I’m not jealous or anything but if you wear that to the gym you are going to get lots of unwanted attention.”
 
“You always say that…it’s not my fault you are scared…you just need to harden up.”

You might start to ask yourself the question, ‘How come I said or did that?’ Or perhaps you have noticed that some of the ways you are talking to your partner, or the questions you are asking, don’t seem right. It’s normal to seek understanding of what is underneath what you are saying or doing, and it’s important to notice, to question, reflect and act.

When we care about someone a lot and enjoy the love we give and get in a relationship, it is normal to feel strong emotions when we feel threatened that this might stop or disappear. We might begin to feel fear or anger when it feels like something good is going to stop, or that someone is no longer meeting our needs in the way we want. It’s important to learn ways to deal with these strong emotions or thoughts so that they don’t result in us using behaviours to restrict, manipulate or control our partners. It’s ok to feel, it’s not ok to let those feelings lead to harmful actions. 
 
So, what can we all do when we notice these things creeping into our lives, or when we’ve been told that we need to take some things off the menu?

Breathe

One of the simple and helpful things we can do is breathe. Breathing deeply ‘into our stomachs’ can help us take a second to think and then respond. Sometimes we might need to step away from our partner, or the conflict, to breathe. We might say something like “I’m feeling overloaded in this conversation, I’m going to take five and then can we try this again.” There are heaps of helpful breathing videos on YouTube - go have a look and find one that works for you. Sometimes something as simple as splashing water on our face can help us stop and think.

Talk to your partner

A helpful skill to learn is how to talk about conflict or tensions within your relationships without trying to control or manipulate the other person so we get what we want. It’s important to notice when we are expressing our needs in a way that takes away choice of the other person. A helpful approach can be to use the method below:
 
1.    I feel _________________________________________.
2.    When you _____________________________________.
3.    Because _______________________________________.
4.    I need ________________________________________.
 
For example, we might say: I feel angry when you say you don’t want to stay at home for a movie night because I am really craving some quality time with you. I need to come up with a plan together so that we can spend some quality time together at a time that works for both of us.
 
We can control whether or not we express our needs and how we express them. We cannot control whether or not others meet our needs.

Talk to someone else

It might also be helpful to ask ourselves, ‘who can I talk to about this to help me understand?’ We could tell them about what we are noticing in how we are acting. Ask them for advice about how they deal with big feelings. Or we can ask them how they have succeeded at changing what was on their menu of behaviours.

The great news is that we can create a new menu - a different menu - a menu that the people around us like, and enjoy, and want to come back to again. We can create a menu that will keep us healthy, keep our relationships good, and help us move on from mistakes when we make them. 
 
Change can be difficult, the more we reflect on what strategies, and the ways of being that we have developed to cope with whatever came to us when we were growing up, and perhaps from previous relationship experiences, the more we can identify what things need to be off the menu. We can identify what behaviours and thought patterns are harmful to us and our relationships. And just like a diet, sometimes we might feel like slipping back into the old menu items, but we can’t - there aren’t any cheat days - we can’t return to the old menu if we really care about our health and the health of those around us.

There are many things we can do by ourselves, and with the people around us who we trust. However, if you or someone you care about is needing more formal support or help, you can text ‘love better’ to 234, visit youthline.co.nz for webchat or DM them on Insta. They can provide confidential free advice about how to get further support. The mental health helpline is available by texting 1737, or you can visit Change is Possible for more support.

Sometimes getting feedback is hard. Sometimes noticing things about ourselves is hard. We might not be ready for it. However, we have the power to choose. We can stick with the old, tired menu choices that we’ve been using all our lives, or we can choose to take some things off the menu and choose a new menu - one that works for us and our loved ones.