How Big is Your Picture?

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Wander through any of the major electronics chain stores and you’ll see at least a dozen gigantic TV screens.

The technical definition of “gigantic” is a TV screen you can stand against and not touch the diagonal corners with your outstretched fingertips. It’s a TV screen so large you wonder who buys these things, because no one you know has a living room the size of a barn.

TV screens that large aren’t meant to be viewed, they are meant to be inhabited.

One doesn’t view them in a barn or a living room, one doesn’t view them at all. One steps into them. They are as large as they are so that you, the viewer, loses a sense of being a viewer altogether. You don’t view those screens, you become a participant in them.

They are made not so that you will get the big picture. They are made so that you will get into the picture and forget that it’s just a movie, just a screen, just a picture made of moving blips of colored light.

The same thing happens when the problems in a marriage outgrow the pleasures.

Whenever the “issue(s)” loom large for you and your partner, you can lose your sense of perspective. You can stand right next to the problem and stretch your fingertips as far apart as possible searching for some way forward, some mere crevice of a finger hold that would give you leverage on a solution.

If you’ve lost yourself in the problem, you can’t get the big picture.

Your problems will tend to grow, of course, as unsolved problems always do, and as they grow you are invited to step into them, to lose track of the boundaries, the edges, the limits to the problem. If you lose your sense of the big picture, you’ll keep going deeper and deeper into the problem. You’ll start seeing the problem as all there is to the relationship. You’ll get completely immersed in the problem, forgetting that there is much to the relationship that is not problem-based at all.

If you stand too close to the problem, you can fall through the looking-glass into Woundedland. You can start to imagine yourself as a victim, or a rescuer, or a persecutor, enacting that tiring triangle day in and day out, exhausting yourself with trying to solve the problem, trying to work on your issues, trying to get some resolution on your mutual concerns.

Going to a therapist can make the problem worse. Talking to a sibling or a best friend about the problem will almost certainly turn your mate into a monster, at least for the length of your narrative. It’s the focusing on the problem that makes the problem seem overwhelming.

Here’s a handful of hints for taking yourself out of the problem-picture:

1. Quit talking only about the problem. Mention things that feel good, that focus on fun, that direct attention to delight.

2. Pretend you are taking the whole family to Disneyland, you’ve spent a ton of money, and you are absolutely determined to have a good time. Set the expectation for it, fake it till you make it a reality, then relish the relief that comes as you focus away from flaws and failures.

3. Step back, literally, taking a step backwards when the conversation gets too heated. Use that step back as a reminder to yourself that you don’t want to attack your partner, no matter how angry you are. You want to cooperate with them in finding solutions, and you can’t get that done when you are leaning into their face.

4. Talk about what you appreciate in how your mate is handling things. Force yourself to find something. Make it a genuine compliment.

5. Remind yourself that once upon a time you loved each other euphorically, and remind yourself that you hope to once again.

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