I watched a hilarious clip from a show the other day that had me cracking up, but also made me think.
Two couples are sitting around a dinner table, everyone relaxed and chatting. Then one of the husbands gets thirsty. Instead of asking for water, he just… tap tap taps on his glass with his finger.
His wife immediately notices and smoothly reaches for the water pitcher, refilling his glass without even pausing her conversation. No big deal.
A few minutes later, the guy finishes his coffee. Tap tap tap on the mug. Again, his wife seamlessly refills it, still laughing at whatever story someone was telling.
You can see the other woman’s eye starting to twitch. The third time it happens – tap, tap, tap – she finally snaps.
“Really?!” she practically shouts. “That’s how you ask your wife for water or coffee? By tapping on the glass like she’s some kind of waitress?”
The whole table goes dead silent. You can practically hear everyone holding their breath. The husband looks genuinely confused, like he’s never considered this might be weird.
He turns to his wife with this innocent, almost worried expression. “Darling – do you mind that I tap on the glass when I want more water?”
She just smiled, completely unbothered, and said, “Of course not.”
The Stutter That Doesn’t Matter
I have a client who’s dating someone who stutters. It’s not severe, but it’s noticeable when he gets excited or nervous. Her friends heard through the grapevine that she is dating him, and they think they are doing her a huge favor by pointing out, in case she didn’t notice it herself, that he has a speech issue.
One friend keeps asking “Doesn’t it bother you? It would drive me crazy. What happens when he gets really stressed? What about when you’re out in public?”
But it doesn’t bother her. She likes him. She’s attracted to him. She enjoys spending time with him. She barely notices the stutter anymore because she’s actually listening to what he’s saying, not how he’s saying it.
Her friends keep pushing, though, like they’re trying to talk her out of it.
“Are you sure it doesn’t get annoying?”
“I couldn’t handle that.”
“What if it gets worse?”
She came to me after one girls’ night out, where they spent twenty minutes dissecting her relationship. “They made me feel like I was crazy for not being bothered by it,” she told me. “Like there was something wrong with me for not seeing this as a huge red flag.”
Why are they so invested in convincing her this is a problem? Because it would bother them?
They’re projecting their own discomfort onto her perfectly happy relationship.
The Off-Key Husband
I have another client whose husband loves to sing. Their Shabbos meals are always full of zemiros. The problem? He can’t carry a tune to save his life. Every Friday night and Shabbos day, there he is, enthusiastically leading the singing completely off-key.
One Shabbos, they had friends over for lunch, and there he was, happily singing, oblivious to the uncomfortable looks he was getting from around the table. When they were clearing the dishes afterward, her friend pulled her aside in the kitchen.
“Aren’t you embarrassed by how off-tune your husband sings? If it were my husband, I would never let him sing.”
It honestly never even occurred to her to be embarrassed. He loves to sing. His enthusiasm gets the kids excited to participate, and his joy is infectious – even if his pitch isn’t. But now her friend had planted this seed of doubt. Should she be mortified? Should she ask him to tone it down when they have company?
The Projection Problem
Every person has different triggers and different things that bother them. The problem is when we let others or society determine what we should get upset about.
People do this constantly – projecting their pet peeves onto others. Your friends will tell you what should drive you crazy, what you shouldn’t tolerate, what’s “normal” or “abnormal” in a relationship. Everyone has strong opinions about what you should find endearing versus what should irritate you, what should be dealbreakers versus what you should overlook, and what should make you proud versus what should embarrass you.
But the truth is, no one gets to decide what works or doesn’t work for you.
Your Relationship, Your Rules
There are so many things that the community decided are cringeworthy.
Those things that make people whisper behind your back or give you concerned looks like they’re worried for you.
Ask yourself this: Does it bother you? If the answer is no, then why are you letting other people convince you it should? Don’t let them create problems in your relationship that don’t actually exist.
Your relationship doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else. It doesn’t need to fit their template of what love should look like or how couples should interact. It just needs to work for the two people actually in it.
Trust Yourself
Stop letting other people dictate your feelings.
You’re allowed to not be bothered by things that would drive other people up the wall.
You’re allowed to find charming the very things that would make your friends run screaming.
You’re allowed to have your own tolerance levels, your own preferences, your own definition of what matters in a relationship.
People confuse their opinions with universal truths. They think “if it bothers me, it should bother you too.” The things that would make them uncomfortable, they assume, should make you uncomfortable too.
Their deal-breakers should become your deal-breakers.
Their embarrassment should become your embarrassment.
But your thoughts and feelings don’t have to align with theirs. What drives them crazy might be exactly what makes you happy.
So whether you’re dating or married – tune out the unwritten ‘rules’ of what should make you nervous, upset, or annoyed.
It’s your life to live.
It’s your rules to make.
Miriam
For anyone nodding along:
Are you dating someone and questioning whether something actually bothers you, or if everyone else’s opinions are just influencing you? Reach out – I’d be happy to help you sort through what your thoughts are versus what you’ve absorbed from others.
