Introduction
I came across the idea that "when you're young, you should soak up everything like a sponge and take it at face value."
You take in all kinds of people, ideas, works and experiences, at least for a while. At the time they look like unrelated scraps, but later they shape who you are.
Reading that, I figured my own "sponge phase" ended around my third year of university.
But when I thought about it more, that wasn't quite right.
I still take things in at face value first. I don't process what someone says only at the surface. I keep digging:
Why do they think that?
What assumptions would lead to that conclusion?
What is consistent inside their own head?
What are they afraid of?
What are they trying to protect?
So the sponge didn't disappear.
It's closer to this:
The sponge that absorbs got analysis, auditing and editing functions added on.
This ability has a side effect, though.
When I understand someone too well, I tend to turn into their one-man project manager (PM, the person who plans and drives a project):
- putting their feelings into words for them
- sorting out their problem for them
- coming up with the solution for them
- even managing the follow-through
Lately, with work, family and friends, I've been able to just hand back a guess:
"Is it something like this?
If not, tell me.
The rest is up to you."
But I don't know whether I can do the same with a romantic partner.
In this article I'll sort out my sponge side, the best way to understand another person, the line between understanding and doing it for them, and the chance that I slide back into being a one-man PM in a relationship.
1. The sponge phase didn't end. What happens after absorbing changed.
I used to soak things up with no defenses
Up to around my university years, my thinking went like this:
That sounds fun.
So there's that way of thinking too.
Maybe that's right.
Let's just try it.
I took things in pretty much as they came.
That's not a bad thing.
While your values and your standards for judging things aren't set yet, taking a lot at face value widens how you think.
Books, music, work, romance, friends, travel, failures, hobbies.
You can't know whether something suits you until you let it in.
I still "take it at face value, then take it in"
Even now, the first step is the same:
Step inside first.
With music, I take in a composer's worldview and how the melody moves, quite deeply. With ideas about work, I work out what problem that person is actually looking at. With advice about love, I think about how the other person's feelings and values hold together inside their own head.
So saying
"My sponge phase ended in my third year"
isn't accurate.
The accurate version is:
I moved from a phase of just soaking things up without defenses to a phase of breaking them down, testing them and rebuilding them after absorbing.
Now I'm a "high-performance sponge with an analysis machine"
My current process looks like this:
Take it at face value
→ understand it from the inside
→ look for the assumptions
→ structure the cause and effect
→ check it against my own experience
→ decide what to keep and what to drop
→ rebuild it for my own use
I haven't stopped absorbing.
If anything, I can now process what I've absorbed.
This ability kicks in strongly when I'm trying to understand another person, too.
2. I try to understand the other person's "operating system", not just their words
I don't stop at what they say on the surface
When someone says:
I want a wedding.
I want kids.
I want a new car.
I want to quit my job.
I just didn't like it, somehow.
I don't take the words as the whole answer.
I also think about:
Why did they come to think that?
Whose expectations are influencing them?
What does this person want to get?
What are they afraid of losing?
Is this wish temporary or long-term?
Does it fit with their other values?
That means trying to understand not their conclusion but the operating system (OS, the underlying way of thinking) that produces it.
I run their OS inside me, temporarily
Even for an opinion that's hard to grasp from my own values, I try to reproduce their internal logic:
If you hold that assumption, then yes, it comes out that way.
With that worry, I can see why you'd want that option.
With that experience behind you, no wonder you said that.
I take their worldview into myself and run it for a while.
Then I separate things:
I understand it.
But I don't agree.
I get the feeling.
But I'm not taking over the burden.
If I can do that, it's a much more accurate kind of understanding than simply agreeing or disagreeing.
3. The best approach is "digging with hypotheses, while keeping a boundary"
You don't have to fully merge with the other person
To understand someone, you don't need to be swallowed by their feelings.
If they're anxious, you take on the same anxiety. If they're angry, you step into the same anger.
Once you get that far, the line between you and them gets blurry.
What you need is this:
Imagine their inside.
But keep yourself and the other person separate.
Analyzing only from the outside isn't enough either
On the other hand, if you only analyze from outside:
This person is that type.
The cause is this.
The fix is this.
it can drift away from what they actually feel.
You can't pin down another person's heart from your guesses alone.
So the most stable way is this:
Step inside them to form a hypothesis, then hand that hypothesis back to them so they can correct it.
Hand it back with "Is it something like this?"
For example, say someone tells you:
I want a wedding because my parents want one.
You offer a hypothesis:
"So it's less that you want a wedding yourself, and more that you're afraid of disappointing your parents?"
If they say:
"Maybe, yeah."
the understanding deepens.
If they say:
"No. I actually came to want a wedding myself."
you revise the hypothesis.
What matters is that I don't decide what's inside them on my own.
I offer the hypothesis, but the final answer goes back to them
This way, all of the following hold at once:
- I try to understand them deeply
- I help them put things into words
- I don't treat my guesses as facts
- Their own decision stays theirs
- I don't carry everything myself
In one sentence:
"Is it something like this? If not, tell me. From here on, it's your project."
4. Understanding and doing it for them are different things
I do understand
Understanding means:
- hearing their background
- guessing at their feelings
- sorting out their assumptions
- offering the hard-to-put-into-words parts as a hypothesis
- knowing their constraints
I don't do it for them
Doing it for them means:
- deciding what their feelings are
- defining their problem for them
- working out every way to make their wishes happen
- taking over their share of the burden
- taking responsibility for their decision
- fixing everything whenever they complain later
These two are quite different.
Understanding someone doesn't make their problem my assignment.
I used to slide from understanding into being a one-man PM
I used to move along like this:
I want to understand them
→ think about why they feel that way
→ put it into words for them
→ sort out the issues
→ draft alternatives
→ plan how to carry it out
→ own the result
Once you get that far, it's no longer empathy. It's project management.
The other person brings wishes and complaints. I implement. In the end they approve or reject.
That isn't a partnership.
Lately I can stop partway
With work, family and friends, I've become able to stop at:
"I'm guessing it's like this.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
The rest, you think through yourself."
This isn't coldness.
It respects their own self-understanding and their right to decide for themselves.
If I finish everything on my side, they lose the chance to think for themselves. I also get worn out. In the end it's bad for both of us.
5. "The rest is up to you" isn't neglect. It's handing the assignment back.
It doesn't mean I don't care
Saying "the rest is up to you" can sound careless.
But what it really means is dividing up who does what:
I'll help with understanding up to here.
From here on, you think it through.
If it's shared, we'll think about it together.
If it's only yours, it goes back to you.
I give their problem back to them
For example, say someone tells me they want to quit their job.
I can offer a hypothesis:
"Maybe it's not so much the relationships, but that the evaluation criteria are vague and nothing you do gets recognized, and that's what hurts?"
But I don't have to decide all of these for them:
- whether they really quit
- where they go next
- how they cover their income
- when they make a move
They think it through. If needed, we talk it over together. But I don't take over their life.
I give it back after understanding, so it isn't sloppy neglect
This is different from cutting someone off with "Not my problem" without listening to anything.
First I understand. Then I offer a hypothesis. I leave room for them to correct it. Then I return the assignment to its owner.
This is:
a boundary drawn after empathizing.
6. With work, family and friends, I've gotten to where I can do this
At work, roles are easy to divide
Work comes with:
- who's responsible for what
- authority
- deadlines
- deliverables
- who makes the call
So it's easy to split things like this:
This part is mine.
That part is theirs.
The final decision is the boss's.
Even when I understand someone's circumstances, I can work without taking everything on.
With family and friends, I see that it's ultimately their own life
With family and friends too, it's become easier to do this:
I'll listen.
I'll offer a hypothesis.
I'll give advice if asked.
But the one who decides is you.
Even if I'm a little worried, I can hand their problem back to them.
So the ability is already there
In other words, it's not that
I have no ability to draw boundaries.
With work, family and friends, I've been doing it quite well lately.
The question is whether I can keep it up with a romantic partner.
7. With a partner only, I might slide back into being a one-man PM
With a partner, the fear of losing them comes along
Problems with a partner come with feelings like:
- I don't want to break the relationship
- I don't want to be disliked
- I don't want them to leave
- I don't want to lose the future
- I want to protect my safe place
- I don't want them to suffer
The stakes in the outcome are higher than with work or friends.
So I start thinking:
If they can't sort it out, I'll sort it out.
If the problem won't get solved, I'll solve it.
If the relationship looks like it's breaking, I'll fix it.
Love and project management get mixed up
Wanting to cherish a partner is not the problem.
But once it becomes
cherishing them
= solving all of their problems
the one-man PM job begins:
- reading their feelings
- guessing their real intentions
- designing the conversations
- drafting alternatives
- calculating costs
- setting schedules
- even coordinating with their parents
- and finally handling their complaints too
If I carry all that, I'm not a partner. I'm the operations manager.
In trying to protect the relationship, I wear it out
Acting as a one-man PM moves things forward in the short term.
In the long term, though, it turns into:
Why am I the only one thinking about this?
What is the other person responsible for?
Wouldn't it be easier alone?
The work I took on to protect the relationship ends up draining it.
8. A checklist for keeping the boundary even with a partner
When I have a partner, what I should check is not
whether I can understand them deeply.
I can already do that.
What I should check is:
whether, after understanding, I can give their problems back to them.
Check 1. After offering a hypothesis, am I letting them do the thinking?
After saying
"Is it something like this?"
am I filling the silence by finishing the whole thing myself?
Am I leaving them time to think?
Check 2. Are they offering alternatives too?
On a shared problem, is it a situation where:
- only I create the options
- only I sort out the conditions
- only I propose how to split the burden
Are they also coming up with things like:
This is what I want.
For that, I'll take on this part.
How about this plan?
Check 3. Am I treating their anxiety as my responsibility?
Their being anxious and my being responsible for removing that anxiety are two different things.
I stay by their side. I listen. I reassure them.
But I don't take over the part where they handle their own emotions.
Check 4. Am I separating shared projects from their own projects?
Shared projects
- housing
- marriage
- children
- large expenses
- moving
- life planning
Their projects
- their own job
- their own friendships
- their own hobbies
- the extra cost of their own added wishes
- sorting out their own feelings
Shared projects we think through together. Their own projects go back to them.
Check 5. Has the fear of losing the relationship erased my exit criteria?
If the other person keeps doing things like:
- only stating wishes
- offering no alternatives
- raising complaints after the fact
- not taking on any of their own burden
- escaping the conversation with "we just don't fit"
then deepening my understanding further won't solve anything.
The problem may not be a lack of understanding but a lack of ability to run things together.
9. The final form that suits me
What I need is not to lower my empathy.
It's not to throw away the sponge side.
It's not to stop digging into other people.
What I need is this:
Understand deeply.
But check my guesses with the other person.
Take in their feelings.
But give their problems back to them.
Design only the shared parts together.
In one sentence:
I understand the other person's OS. But I don't take over maintaining and running it.
This is the most "me" way of doing it.
Summary
My sponge side didn't end in my third year of university.
I'm still doing this:
Take it at face value
→ take it in
→ dig into the other person's inside
→ structure their assumptions and feelings
What changed is what comes after.
I used to find it easy to take over everything after understanding:
putting it into words
→ sorting out the problem
→ coming up with solutions
→ carrying them out
Lately, with work, family and friends, I can say:
"Is it something like this?
If not, tell me.
The rest is your project."
My empathy hasn't shrunk.
I've become able to separate understanding from responsibility.
That's the change.
With a partner, though,
- the fear of losing them
- love
- the future
- the wish to protect my safe place
all come along, so I might slide back into being a one-man PM.
What I should watch for in my next relationship is not
whether I can understand them.
It's:
whether, after understanding, I can give the two of us' problems back to the two of us, and their problems back to them.
And the other person needs certain abilities too:
- sorting out their own feelings by themselves
- putting their own wishes into words
- taking on their own share of the burden
- offering alternatives on shared problems
- raising concerns beforehand, not after the fact
The way I'll work in the end is this:
"Is it something like this? If not, tell me.
Up to here, we think together.
From here on, it's your project."
This isn't coldness.
It's a boundary that lets me treat both myself and the other person as whole individuals while still understanding them.
