The Metro is a great place to people-watch. A few days ago, I watched a young adult male and his girlfriend in what must’ve been their normal interaction because they both seemed OK with how they treated each other. At least no one visibly protested. His voice - condescending, borderline bullying her. Her attitude - dismissive. She took a picture of them and must’ve posted it somewhere on social media. He grabbed her phone and berated her for it. She looked through him and said nothing. He deleted the picture and threw the phone back into her lap. She grabbed it and went back to staring at it, her long nails clicking away at the screen like he wasn’t even there.
At the next station, they approached the door. He put his arm around her and kissed her on the head. She wrapped her arm around his waist and kissed him back on the cheek. The door opened, and they spilled out, walking two feet apart like they had nothing to do with each other. He swaggered, looking over the crowd. She put her hands in her pockets, moving forward in her own world.
What I had just witnessed was a movement from disrespect to affection without any visible acknowledgment of what happened. To me, it screams emotional immaturity.
He might have had a legitimate objection to having his picture posted. We don’t know whether she posted it, whether he had previously asked her not to, or what the disagreement meant to them. But a legitimate privacy concern would not justify humiliation or grabbing her property.
He failed to handle their disagreement with respect for her personal autonomy. Belittling, intimidation, and controlling behavior are warning signs of emotional abuse. Although my glimpse cannot establish the overall pattern of their relationship, I am willing to bet this happens frequently between them. She had no reaction, as if she was tuning him out. It leads me to believe that she’s experienced this before and is quite used to it. Sadly.
In general, the behavior we tolerate is the behavior we allow, and therefore, we’ll have to keep living with it. As usual, the devil is in the details.
Perhaps she has resigned herself to his outbursts. Perhaps she’s avoiding escalation in a public setting and will address him later. Perhaps she feels emotionally overwhelmed. I will never know. But given how freely he acted, I am left suspecting that he’s experienced few meaningful consequences for his actions, if any.
The kisses might have expressed genuine affection, routine, reassurance, appeasement, or an attempt to reconnect. I cannot choose confidently which. But I can say with confidence that I did not witness an apology, not even an acknowledgment of bad behavior.
When we become affectionate again without addressing what happened, or simply become comfortable enough to stop addressing it, what do we think will happen to the affection over time?
For people in his shoes, how much affection reciprocity can they expect from a person they belittle, and for how long? Also, how does their view of the other person change over time because of the way they treat them?
For people in her shoes, how much affection do they want to give when they feel disrespected and mistreated? Why stick around?
So little information and yet so many questions. Relationships are messy. They get even worse when the adults in them never grew up.
“Growing up” is a process of acquiring and expanding our capacities. The first is recognizing that other people have autonomy and that we must negotiate our interests and theirs with dignity and respect. We learn to consider other people’s experiences and perspectives. When what we want and what they want leads to a conflict, we must learn to tolerate frustration and not always getting what we want, when we want it, as we want it.
We also need to learn to separate people’s actions fro
m their character. A good person can easily do something stupid or just something we don’t like. We must learn that we can dislike what they did without necessarily punishing them or lashing out. We have other options for handling that dislike, such as talking it over.
Growing up means you’ve learned to take responsibility for your actions instead of blaming the other person, deflecting, and making excuses. But perhaps the hardest capacity to acquire is the capacity to repair any harm we’ve done, even inadvertently. Apologizing and making amends go with the territory.
So why do some people reach adulthood without developing those capacities, and what keeps them from doing so?
Taking responsibility and repairing harm require tolerating an uncomfortable view of ourselves. So, for some, maintaining their self-perception matters more than how others feel, however short-sighted this might be. For example, an apology requires more than knowing what to say. It requires acknowledging that we did something we might prefer to think we’re incapable of doing.
So, to avoid feeling ashamed or uncomfortable, we double down on self-image and defend our actions, or ignore them altogether. Suddenly there’s context. You were tired. They were annoying. You’ve told them a hundred times. They know how you feel about having your picture posted. Surely, they bear some responsibility for your reaction?
This is where growing up gets uncomfortable. Can you have a legitimate complaint and still admit that you handled it badly?
This requires the capacity to hold two truths at the same time. You can feel hurt and behave badly at the same time. You can have a valid objection and raise it the wrong way. You may not have intended a specific outcome and still have to apologize for it and do the repair work afterward.
Basically, adults know how to be accountable even when uncomfortable. Children throw tantrums.
Interestingly, someone can be exceptionally capable in the rest of their life, pay the bills, raise children, manage the household, and do well at their job, and consider that adulting. Meanwhile, they can be immature in close relationships and wrongly assume that getting older will make them better.
Competence in one part of life doesn’t settle the question of how we handle ourselves in another.
To get a sense of your own maturity, consider what happens when someone disappoints you, disagrees with you, or tells you that you hurt them. A friend declines an invitation. A partner wants an evening alone. A colleague corrects an error or pushes back on your ideas. How do you feel and what do you do?
You are allowed to occasionally fail, as long as you otherwise act the adult part right. When you do stumble, do you revisit the incident, hear the other person, and change your behavior? That’s what adults do and how they learn from their mistakes. No one is perfect, and life surprises us in creative ways.
There is a cost to not even trying. Consider a relationship where one person repeatedly has to choose the right moment, soften the complaint, absorb the outburst, initiate reconciliation, and explain why something hurt. While they manage the other person’s reactions, what room remains for their own frustration and needs? If it sounds unfair, that’s just the beginning of it. Exhaustion and resentment appear sooner or later, as closeness and vulnerability fade.
This brings me back to the Metro. I don’t know what that young woman felt. But the scene raises a question about what being close to that guy might require of her. How much does she brush off? How much does she wish she could say? And does he ever stop to ask?
What would need to happen after that kiss for respect to accompany the affection?
He could start by acknowledging what he did without waiting for her to explain why it was hurtful. He could apologize without adding a “but you…” or expecting her to immediately warm up to him. They might have to discuss posting pictures.
She will need to decide whether his apology means much, especially if she’s heard it before. He has to convince her through his actions next.
I hope they talked after they left the train. Maybe they did. But I’d be more interested in what happens the next time she does something he doesn’t like. Can he be upset with her and still treat her with respect?
This applies to all of us. I know it’s easier said than done, and I struggle with it myself, especially when the stakes are high, or the person in front of me comes with a lot of context. But the effort is worth it, and it pays off in the form of better relationships and better connection.
Know someone in a relationship like the couple on the Metro? Forward this. It might start the conversation they can’t start themselves.
You can find Scripts For Difficult Conversations in the Perks, which are included in your paid subscription and can also be purchased separately.
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