Do You Have a Frozen Image of Your Partner?

Source: Steven Lek, Wikimedia Commons

Of all the many ways to sabotage intimacy in a relationship, few things are as destructive as having a frozen image of your partner. It simultaneously locks them into a negative picture in your brain, insults them, and pushes them away even as you claim you want them to come closer.

What is a frozen image and how do we know if we’re creating one? Here’s one of the easiest clues: Whenever you start a sentence with the words “You always…” or “You never…” and finish the sentence with some kind of explicit or implicit criticism, you are holding them in a frozen image. “You always clam up whenever I try to talk to you.” “You never show me you care about me.” “You always criticize me.” The list is endless. The results are consistent: You cast your partner onto a negative island and make it impossible for them to come off, even if they want to try after hearing such statements.

Why do we do this and how can we stop? There are several reasons frozen images can develop in a relationship, and they can get more and more fixed the longer they’re in place. Usually, they start after we feel we’ve been hurt in some way: It starts as a way to protect ourselves from further injury.

If we say our partner “always” acts in a certain way, or “never” in another, we can at least feel a measure of security and control in the relationship. We know them and who they are, so at least there won’t be any surprises on that score.

But imagine what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that kind of projection, or perhaps you can remember being told such things yourself. It can cause confusion, anger, and uncertainty. “What a minute,” you might think. “Is that really true? Am I really that bad?” The answer is no, you are not that bad, your partner is not that bad, and none of us is “always” or “never” one way or another, certainly not in a negative sense.

How to melt such frozen images? How do we learn to see our partner more fully? The first step is to catch yourself in the act: Be on the lookout for the words “always” or “never” coming out of your mouth when thinking about or speaking to your partner. (And yes, a frozen mental image we just think but don’t say out loud is also a problem for our relationship.)

The next step is to swap out the words “always” or “never” for “sometimes”, as in “You sometimes clam up when I try to bring up a difficult topic” or “You sometimes withdrawal when I say I’d like to talk.” You will feel when using the word “sometimes” a softening inside, versus a hardness with the words “always” and “never.”

The next step is replacing your certainty about who your partner is with curiosity and, with that, asking a question rather than making a definitive statement. As in “Sometimes when I want to talk to you about a difficult topic, it seems you start to pull away. Is that true?” Can you feel how much more inviting that will be to your partner when you approach them in this way?

And the final step is to take personal responsibility: What are you doing that is making this happen, and is there anything you could do to change it? “Is there a way I can bring up tough topics that will make it easier for you to respond? I don’t want to push you away when I bring these up. I’m only doing it so that we can be closer.”

If your goal is to create intimacy in your relationship, you need to make sure you’re not doing things to sabotage that. Try these simple steps and see if they make a difference. I’m not saying it’s “always” this way, but it certainly is sometimes.