Relationships
Other people are the largest object in the not yours box, and the one hardest to accept as such. You control what you give, how you speak, what you tolerate. You do not control whether it is returned. This topic works on that line without turning it into indifference.
44 exercises and cases on relationships, from the Stoic practice of sorting what is yours from what is not.
Cases in this topic
Cuts in this topic
Take the situation apart. Each piece goes in one box; there is no third option.
The situation
Your adult child has not returned your calls for weeks.
Yours
- How often you call and in what tone.Entirely yours, and the only dial on the whole panel. The question is not whether you may call, but whether you call to make contact or to collect a debt.
- Whether you voice your worry without wrapping a reproach in it.The same sentence can be an invitation or an invoice. Which of the two you send is yours to decide, and the other person hears the difference unfailingly.
- Whether you keep the door open without attaching conditions.This is the posture you wait in, and it is yours, again every day. Keeping the door open is not the same as giving in.
Not yours
- That he does not call back.The behaviour of another adult. All the pain sits here, and here is exactly where you have no say.
- Whether he approves of the choices you made.His judgment. You can explain, you cannot assign. And as long as you need his approval, you have handed him a key to your peace of mind.
- How many other people he does speak to.A fact about his life, not a statement about your worth. Reading a ranking into it means charging yourself a grief nobody handed you.
The reasoning. The temptation is to put the whole situation in the other person's box and wait. Cut it in two and three things turn out to be yours today: your frequency, your tone and your conditions. That is little, and it is exactly enough to make the difference between a door that stays shut and a door left ajar.
The situation
Your partner has been short with you for weeks and says nothing is wrong.
Yours
- Whether you ask once, calmly, and then let it rest.
- Which story you make out of the silence.
- Whether you keep doing the ordinary things.
Not yours
- Whether she tells you what is going on.
- That it makes you insecure.
- What the cause is.
The situation
At a birthday party a relative says something that silences the whole table.
Yours
- Whether you respond to the content or to the humiliation.Two very different conversations beginning at the same moment. The first can settle something, the second can only escalate.
- Whether you change the subject and take it up separately later.A birthday is rarely the place to have it out. Postponing here is not ducking but choosing time and place, and that choice is yours.
- Whether you carry it in your tone for the rest of the evening.The remark lasted four seconds. Whether it colours the whole evening is decided by you over the next two hours.
Not yours
- That he said it.His mouth, his moment, his judgment. It is out and it does not go back in.
- Whether the rest of the table says anything.Everybody usually waits for somebody else. That nobody intervenes says something about the awkwardness and nothing about their view.
- Whether he meant what you heard in it.You will know when you ask, and that can wait. Of the same sentence there are usually two versions, one of them assembled in your head.
The reasoning. Two things happen at the table at once: something is said, and something is done to the atmosphere. The first is his, the second is half yours. The cut takes the sharpness out by showing that you do not have to choose between swallowing it and fighting it out; there is a third route that exists only on your side.
The situation
Your partner comes home in a foul mood and takes it out on you.
Yours
- Your tone, giving room, and your boundary.Listening for a moment or giving space for a moment, that is your choice in the moment. And if taking it out on you becomes a habit, the boundary you draw is your choice too.
- Whether you are still carrying it later.The mood lasted an hour; how long it lives on in your head is up to you. Whoever replays it at night has had the evening twice. Let his hour be his hour.
Not yours
- Your partner’s mood and where it came from.The cause probably did not even lie with you, and you cannot repair it; whoever takes somebody else’s mood into management rarely gets thanked for it.
The reasoning. Their weather, your house. You do not have to calm the storm to decide how people speak in your rooms.
The situation
At the family party your uncle starts on politics again.
Yours
- Joining in, redirecting, or kindly standing up.Not every extended debate has to be accepted; declining an invitation is also an answer. The party is not a debating stage, unless you decide it is.
Not yours
- His opinions, and his need to share them.Those are not repaired between the cake and the coffee, and they do not have to be. An uncle with positions is weather, not a work assignment.
- What the rest of the family thinks of you not joining in.Whoever stands up or redirects sometimes gets branded the spoilsport. That label is stuck on at the table, not by you. Keeping the peace by joining the fight is the strangest trade of the party.
The reasoning. He sets the topic on his side of the table; you decide whether an opponent is sitting on yours.
The situation
Your adult child makes a choice you disagree with.
Yours
- Saying honestly what you think, once, and then staying available.
- The question whether this indicts your parenting.
Not yours
- His choice, and how it turns out.
The situation
Two of your friends have fallen out and both come to you for support.
Yours
- Not becoming the go between, and staying the same person with both.You may say that you love them both and will not stand between them. That is not cowardice; it is the only position that still exists afterwards.
- The urge to decide who is right.You do have an opinion, and it presses harder with every phone call. But pronouncing a verdict turns a friend into a judge, and judges are left with no friends afterwards. Being right may itch; scratching is optional.
Not yours
- Their conflict, who is right, and their pace of repair.However tempting mediating is: the quarrel is theirs, and who is right is not decided at your table.
The reasoning. The quarrel has two owners and you are neither; what you own is the friendship that must be left afterwards.
The situation
You are invited to something you really do not feel like attending.
Yours
- Your answer.Go wholeheartedly or decline kindly. The middle road you usually take, saying yes and going in a bad mood, surrenders two things at once: your evening and your sincerity.
- The story you need in order to be allowed to refuse.You look for an excuse big enough, because “I do not want to” feels too bare. But whoever only dares to refuse with an invented obligation teaches his surroundings that his no requires evidence. A kind no without a verdict on the party is complete.
Not yours
- That you were asked, and what people expect.The invitation and the expectation around it belong to the giver. Being asked creates no duty; it creates a choice.
The reasoning. The invitation was their move; the answer is yours, and half answers do not exist, they only cost double.
Propositions in this topic
True or false? The answer is given; the reasoning behind it comes with the exercise.
- TrueYour disappointment springs from your own expectation.
- FalseYou can change someone if you just insist enough.
- FalseIf a loved one is angry with you, it is your job to take the anger away.
- FalseNot being invited says something about you.
- FalseIn a recurring argument, the other person has to change first.
- TrueYou can love someone without wanting to steer him.
- TrueYou have two ears and one mouth, so as to listen more than you speak.
- TrueTreating the other person as a neighbor rather than a stranger is a choice you can practice.
Situations in this topic
Each situation below is already sorted: yours, not yours, or both. That sorting is the exercise.
- Not yoursA friend has not responded to your message for days.
- YoursWhether you assume he is angry or simply ask.
- Not yoursYour partner comes home in a bad mood.
- Not yoursYou are not invited to a dinner.
- YoursWhether you step into the same old argument or choose a different tone.
- Not yoursYour child or loved one makes a choice you disagree with.
- YoursWhether you send the first text after a silence that has lasted too long.
- Not yoursSomeone breaks off contact without explanation.