BENGALURU : Imagine this: You are sitting down post dinner on your couch, watching your favourite Korean soap or the latest MasterChef or whatever else on the living room TV, just relaxing in the pleasant daze of a lovely dinner. Your partner is sprawled out on another couch. Normally, you would just spend the hour chilling, making small talk or sharing commentary about the show you are both watching till it is time to sleep. Suddenly, you notice your partner tentatively palpate some part in their body, looking worried. You see your partner do it over and over again, and you recognise that there is something happening there that is bothering them about their health they have not shared with you as yet.
What would you do?
Would you just watch from your couch and wait for them to tell you what is going on, or would you sidle up to them, and try to look for yourself what it was that seemed to be bugging them? Would you gently try to get your partner to talk to you, or would you call out harshly and ask, “Hey! Stop messing with your body like that! Is there some problem?” or would you look at them sternly, till they blurt out whatever was troubling them?
And then, if they confess to whatever was worrying them, would you scoff at it, dismissing it as yet another hypochondriacal episode, scold them for playing doctor, or get worried with them and cajole them to meet a medical professional? Or, would you listen to them and connect with them about their worry, reassuring them that you are there for them, that you want to help, and that you trust they will tell you what they need?
When we suspect something might be an issue with our health or our partner’s, our reaction can range from willful denial, to fearful action, to wailing inaction, to sniffling surrender and anywhere else within that matrix of fearfulness and action orientation. We might be fully in child mode, wanting our partner to be parent, loving or authoritative, or we might be in full-on adult mode, cold, methodical and systematic. The more serious the concern, the more intense the reaction. Sometimes, for what we see as a common thing, we might react quite casually, but if we catch a lump or something else that seems more concerning, we might be totally different.
It is not easy to know how to show love and care in these situations when nothing has been really diagnosed, especially when we think we might react very differently in the same situation and even see the partner’s reaction as silly, childish, stubborn or unnecessarily dramatic.The question to ask ourselves is simply this: Should we react the way we would, or the way our partner would like us to? Can we love the way the partner needs us to at the time, or are we stuck in our own ways?
To give what is needed is often so much richer than to give what we can.
(The writer is a counsellor with InnerSight)