A Dictionary of Love

In our worst moments in couples, we tend to assume that our problems are unfixable, that we simply ‘don’t get on’, that we are the wrong sort of people to be together. Many of the communication problems in relationships that feel most painful to us seem, at such moments, to point to deep incompatibilities rather than to anything that could be patiently unravelled.

What we tend not to do is imagine that we have a problem of dictionaries; that our fundamental problem is that our partner and ourselves are – beneath the surface – following dictionary definitions that don’t align. We’re squabbling because we don’t understand what the same things mean for us; because we’re using the same words and terms without realising that each of us has an entirely different understanding of their nature.

We imagine, as we try to live with someone else, that there isn’t a gap in the way that we both define concepts like:

— Delays in Answering a Message

— Leaving the Bathroom Messy

— Spending Time with Friends

It simply doesn’t occur to us, having been wielding certain phrases and concepts one way since early adolescence, that we might have encountered someone who sees them very differently.

Different Meanings, Same Words

It appears self-evident to us that a ‘messy bathroom’ means: a bathroom whose owner has shown us no respect, who is vicious, unkind, uncaring and out to harm us.

It is totally natural – as natural as our understanding of the word chair or glass – that ‘spending time with friends’ means: a chance to rejuvenate, take the pressure off a couple and achieve some necessary distance before returning to cosiness once more.

What we are forgetting is the noble and arcane discipline of etymology, that is, the history and genealogy of language. It is the people we call etymologists who will carefully trace where a given word comes from: they will tell us, for example, that ‘window’ comes from the Old Norse word vindauga meaning ‘wind eye’, or that ‘clue’ comes from Greek klōthos, meaning ‘ball of thread’, after the thread Ariadne gave Theseus to escape the labyrinth.

The Roots of Communication Problems in Relationships

Standard etymology is all very well, but what we need, as much if not more of, is a form of emotional etymology: an effort to trace back words and terms to their sources in the lives of lovers. Couples need to see that they are fighting very often simply because they are using the same terms in different ways; and they need then – in order to have sympathy for each other – to see how their distinct usage came into being.

A habit of leaving a bathroom in a mess may not – in fact – in one’s own dictionary stem from a desire to harm. Maybe it emerged from a wish to escape a punishing parental figure who, while emotionally entirely cold, placed undue emphasis on etiquette and order.

Just as, in a neighbouring dictionary, the very same phrase might stand for shallowness and selfishness, for imitating the behaviour of a despised step-parent, it might be an emblem of disdain and cruelty.

All this points to what we should do in our arguments. Before we imagine what our partner means, before we settle on an explanation that involves insult and a desire to harm, we should do take care always to remember dictionaries. Many communication problems in relationships persist not because of bad intentions, but because of unexamined meanings. We should pause our fights to wonder if our partner isn’t simply mad or evil. They may just have a different dictionary definition in mind. We need to do one another the favour of some dictionary work: we should ask one another what a term means and then analyse how it came to have this meaning.

We may not be beyond comprehension at all. We just need to understand what is in our respective dictionaries – and why.