In a Good Relationship, It’s the Third Person That Matters

Nope, this is not an article on polyamorous relationships. It’s actually about pronouns.

Nope, this is not an article on polyamorous relationships. I’m not qualified to even approach that one. Would not know where to start. Although what I’m going to talk about applies to all relationship types.

Six years ago, my wife and I started presenting for Retrouvaille, a program for troubled marriages. We are not qualified counselors. The primary qualification is going through a Retrouvaille program and coming out the other side still married.

Apart from the more structured presenting, we informally talk to a lot of couples. We don’t try to address their problems, but we do listen for parallels to our own issues and talk about what we did to either get past them or what we do to keep working on our relationship challenges today.

After one long conversation that lasted close to an hour, the other couple went back to their room and I turned to my wife and said, ‘What was that woman’s name?’ Neither of us knew. We had to look in the registration list to figure it out. A person in a supposedly committed relationship had referred to his spouse over a dozen times and never mentioned her name.

It seemed like a small thing, but I started to pay attention to it. Through Retrouvaille, and through our everyday social interactions I talk with a lot of couples. I noticed a trend. Couples (gay or straight) in healthy relationships use each other’s names. Or they use pet names that may be a bit syrupy to the rest of us but reflect underlying love and respect for their partners. When things are strained in a relationship the other partner becomes a He or a She or a They. It’s almost as if they are using the third person to distance themselves from the other.

I’m pretty sure it is an unconscious act. But it matters. It’s also easier to criticize in the third person. If you don’t believe me, try not using the third person the next time you and a friend are complaining to each other about your respective partners. You’ll find it severely truncates the duration of the bitch session, and that’s not such a bad thing.

So even though Retrouvaille presenters are not marriage counselors, I do bend the “no marital advice” rule when I hear one spouse constantly refer to the other in the third person. Repairing a broken relationship requires a lot of personal change. I hope I’m giving them one change that isn’t too onerous but has a big payoff.

My Mum was a schoolteacher, and it would always bug me when she corrected my grammar. If I referred to my sister as ‘She’ my Mum would always come back with ‘She is the cat’s mother,’ please use your sister’s name. Little did I know Mum was giving me solid relationship advice.

Photo credit — Eric Ward