A GAME-CHANGING RELATIONSHIP RULE:

That opens the door for grace, forgiveness, repair, and a stronger connection.

Valentine's Day is around the corner so I’ve been working through my thoughts on relationships and what makes them successful.

I have only been married for a little over a year, so I am not going to write this from the perspective of, “I have all the answers.” When it comes to marital advice, I realize you should ask people who have been married for like fifty years. It's also just really fun to listen to people who have been married for a long time talk about what makes their marriage work.

And that’s the word it always comes down to: work.

I recently went to a dinner to celebrate the 50th Wedding Anniversary of my aunt and uncle. They have always been an inspiration to me for what a true partnership looks like and how doing the work in your relationship is not always easy, but it is always worth it.

My aunt and uncle, Patrice and Bill Reynolds. Married for 50 years!

But everyone knows marriage takes work, that's nothing new. I want to talk about something else.

Something I recently discovered and how the practical implication of it just might be a game-changer for your relationship. It caused a huge shift in my own thinking when it comes to my relationships.

When I heard it, it was like all the lights went on and I was like, “WHYYYYY have I never heard this before???” Because my relationships would have been so much better off if I’d heard this sooner.

I’m talking about the 70/30 rule.

I heard about this in an interview with psychoanalyst Dr. Galit Atlas, where she discussed a study (done in the 80's) that showed infants and their caregivers are “mismatched” 70% of the time.

For example, when a baby cries, a mother responds in the “right way” only 30% of the time. (That is an oversimplification of the research, but it makes the point.)

Which means that as parents, we spend the remaining 70% of the time working on repairing the connection. (If you are a parent of a teenager, that feels so very true, does it not?)

Dr. Atlas went on to say that she felt that rule applied to relationships in general. Not just in parenting, but in friendships and romantic relationships, as well.

Here's what this means in a nutshell: I am going to screw up 70% of the time in this relationship. And so are you.

Getting it wrong 70% of the time sounds kinda disheartening at first, right? But, I actually think this is GREAT news for a couple of reasons.

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First, it means I can stop holding my relationship to such an impossibly high standard that is unrealistic, unattainable, and unfair to my partner.

When we hold our partner to those unrealistically high standards, we are setting them up for failure. I see this happen all around me. I see it happen in my own relationship, sometimes...

Sometimes, I think I even see it coming, and watch for my partner to screw up. Then, like a twisted self-fulfilling prophecy, I get a kind of satisfaction out of being right.

If you know what I am talking about, then you know it’s not actually satisfying at all. Because it means I am disappointed and upset, which causes distance between my partner and me.

The funny thing about screwing up in relationships (and by funny I mean fully hypocritical), is that we want instant forgiveness when we do it. We want grace for ourselves. But we don’t give grace quite so freely to others as we expect to receive it.

Defensiveness in relationships is super common. We don't love owning up to our mistakes, so we look to pass the buck.

That's because we humans tend to suffer from a lack of humility. The definition of humility is having a modest view of oneself. But I like how C.S. Lewis describes it better. He said that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less." - C.S. Lewis

I believe with all my heart that if we thought less about, "Am I getting what I need? Am I being treated how I deserve in this relationship?" and instead thought more along the lines of, "Am I giving my partner what they need? Am I treating them the way they deserve to be treated?" then our relationships would be so much happier.

But, only if both people think this way. It cannot work if only one person puts in the work.

That's when the resentment builds and distance starts to grow. One person feels they're doing all the heavy lifting, and so they just stop. "You're not giving me what I need, so I will withhold from you what you need." And two can (and usually do) play at that game.

So, the vicious cycle is on a never-ending loop. Until the relationship itself ends.

That's why I think this 70/30 rule can really be a game-changer for relationships.

It can be a reset button. Because if I know that I am going to get stuff wrong 70% of the time, and so are you, then my goodness, perhaps we ought to stop being so hard on one another!

This is where the advice of “believe the best in each other” comes into play. Which, to be honest, got kinda confusing for me after thinking about the 70/30 rule.

How am I supposed to believe in your best when I now know you're gonna make mistakes 70% of the time?? I'm not great at math, but those odds feel a bit discouraging...

Except when I remember it applies to me, as well. So, even though I know we are both going to get things wrong a lot, we can still make the choice to believe that we are both trying our best.

A quick note about that word, "believe." When I say we should always "believe the best" in our partners, I mean this must get out of the realm of intellectual theory and into our actions and into the way we live and treat one another. We must intentionally cultivate an honest and authentic belief in one another.

I can tell myself I believe the best in you all day long; but if I punish you with my actions and the way I treat you when you make a mistake, then what good does my “believing” do for us then?

This is what the Apostle Paul, in his most famous letter on love, was getting at when he said,

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” - 1 Corinthians 13:1

In other words, what you say, what you profess to believe, is meaningless if it’s not backed up by your actions.

Which leads me to the second reason I think this 70/30 rule is great news for relationships.

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Messing up 70% of the time means there are SO many opportunities for forgiveness, repair and growth.

These are actions that lead to increased closeness.

Think about it. When you screw up, in any arena in life, not just relationships, that’s how you learn and improve, right? But only if you change your behavior in response to the mistake.

It’s the first pancake rule.

The first pancake always sucks. I don’t know where that idea originated from, but if you’ve made pancakes, you know this is gospel truth. Maybe the pan is too hot or you’re just not in the groove yet, but after that first spoiled pancake, the rest of the batch is just right. You’ve got the timing right and you’ve learned from your mistakes and changed your approach. And now, you’re a better pancake-maker.

It’s a similar idea for all areas of life, really. Mistakes are informative and lead to growth when accompanied by changed behavior.

When I make a mistake at work, not only am I pretty much guaranteed never to let it happen again; but also, I am now aware of that particular scenario and what to do to avoid it in the future. My company is actually better off for my having uncovered the issue. And now, I am a better employee.

This same truth applies to relationships. My mistakes in past relationships have made my current relationship far healthier. And now, I am a better partner.

What I am trying to say is that sometimes it takes a screw-up to learn that there is an issue under the surface that needs to be addressed and repaired. And it’s in the actions of addressing and repairing that growth happens.

We think of growth in terms of increasing in size. Like plants. Ones that start small, if cared for properly, will grow and thrive. But plants that are neglected will wither and die. Relationships are like this.

The key is in understanding that not everything we tend to will grow in a positive way. We have to be careful about what we are watering. Because resentment, anger, expecting the worst; if we water any of that, it’s gonna grow, too.

I know the cliche “the grass is greener where you water it,” is so lame. But it’s true all the same.

So, we have to decide what we are going to water.

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I opened with talking about how relationships are work. And this is part of the work: acknowledging that we will very often be mismatched in our relationships. Maybe it wont be 70% of the time, but it will be a lot more than we prefer to admit.

Which, to be honest, I find to be such a relief!

I now believe that one of the most helpful relationship hacks is in absolving ourselves of the notion that things should be perfect most of the time. Understanding that it’s actually the other way around opens the door for more grace and forgiveness and repair.

But acknowledging and understanding this reality is only the starting point of the work. The difficult task is in implementing this belief into our behavior and actions. And in the actual forgiveness of past wrongs and hurts.

So, now that we know we will get it wrong more often than we get it right, how should we respond? How do we do the work?

Well. I am going to explore that in my next post.

I have only just discovered this data so I want to see how it plays out and what it means for my relationships, and I will report back.

Because I want to propose that we don't have to accept the 70/30 rule as a forgone conclusion. I want to explore what we can do to improve upon that 70%.

For right now, I hope we will at least try to release the unrealistic expectations we place on one another, knowing that's an impossible standard for anyone to meet.

And I hope we will begin to look for opportunities to repair, to forgive, to grow closer, and forge stronger connections in all our relationships, as we give one another more grace than any one of us deserves.

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Interview I mentioned with Dr. Galit Atlas was from Glennon Doyle's podcast: Listen to the Podcast