I am a relationship therapist. Something new is happening in relationships.

Questions about debt hovered over another couple I worked with. He had recently cheated on his wife. They were generally very supportive of each other, but after learning about his transgression, she was terribly upset and confused as well. Their attempts to talk about what happened came to nothing. #MeToo rhetoric was woven into their discussions, acting as a superego, shaping and inhibiting what they could even think. She said she felt the lessons of the movement told her not to forgive but to leave him – “Especially now, when a woman is wronged, you get out.” It was hard for her to know how she actually felt about it. At first he could not separate remorse from fear. He was terrified of getting into trouble and guilt prevailed. His voice was lowered as he looked at me intently, concerned about how he would be perceived: “There are a lot of men in this industry right now who have taken positions of power and are using them to have sex with people.”

They were both white and understood their privilege and apologized for it. She often undid her own complaints – “I’m floating out” – by having the thought, “Oh, poor cis white woman.” He also felt uncomfortable. He talked about reading the news “of another black or brown person being killed. And it’s like I kind of feel – well, I feel guilty, to be honest, sitting here. The lessons of the Black Lives Matter movement can initially generate such crippling guilt and shame that people become defensive and stop thinking fully. But over time, I’ve found, the ideas can inspire deep psychological work, prompting people to consider the damage done, the question of who should be involved, and the difference between virtue signaling and deeper concerns. These are difficult and important lessons that can be transferred to intimate relationships. In this case, the husband described a new understanding of the ways he wielded power at work: “Wait a minute. Have I been an ally? Was it just optics? These insights even extended to his way of speaking about his transgression. He had rationalized his behavior by saying that his wife was not giving him the attention he needed. But moving beyond what the couple called “optics,” he now asked himself for a more thorough account of what his cheating was really about, and how it affected his wife. He explained how lonely he was when she traveled; he felt abandoned and discarded, a feeling deeply familiar to him from childhood. It was hard for him to acknowledge his vulnerability, but it opened up a series of honest conversations between them. “I’ve convinced myself she doesn’t desire me,” he said. ‘I’m not the popular guy. I’m not the strong man.” He linked those feelings to insecurities he felt as a teenager, when he was chronically teased by kids at school because he was considered effeminate.

This new non-defensive way of talking allowed her to understand how his transgression hit her where she felt most insecure, and he could see it sparking remorse and forgiveness between them. She described how it had become easier for both of them to “check” themselves for their impact on the other person and quickly “notice or apologize.” In one session, she said with a smile: “You were a jerk to me yesterday, and a few hours later you apologized. You acknowledged that you took your frustration out on me there because I was an easy target. He realized that he stopped skimming off ways he hurt others: “I was really just thinking about therapy and the Black Lives Matter movement that have made me acutely aware of the words that just came out of my mouth, and the realization that she reacted negatively to that, instead of me just going, “We’re moving on because that’s awkward.” It is now necessary to address it.” He continued, “Did I just upset you? What did I do just to upset you?’”

Couples work always goes back to the challenge of being different. Differences can arise around philosophical questions such as what’s important to dedicate your life to, whether it’s ethical to have babies while a climate crisis is brewing; or it could be closer to home, such as whether it is acceptable to have a sexual fantasy about a person who is not your partner; or even as seemingly trivial as the correct way to load a dishwasher. Whatever the problem, differences can become a point of crisis in the relationship. Immediately the question arises who is right, who gets his way or who has a better grip on reality. Narcissistic vulnerabilities about self-esteem appear, which then generate an impulse to devalue the other. Partners try to resolve such deadlocks by digging in and working hard to convince the other of their own position, further polarizing them.

The challenge of being different is perhaps most easily seen when we think of racial differences. This was certainly true for James and Michelle. Michelle was a calm, soft-spoken, somewhat reserved African-American social worker, and James, a police officer at the time, was a petite, wiry white man whose face didn’t give much feeling. They came in with classic conflicts around division of labor and different parenting styles, and then the pandemic hit. Quarantined, working remotely and homeschooling their 3-year-old son, they started arguing over Covid protocols. Michelle was aware of how Covid was devastating black communities and wanted to be careful. James, along with his fellow police officers and his conservative parents, thought the concerns were overblown. Discussions about how race shaped James and Michelle’s experiences and ideas routinely ended in deadlock. When Michelle tried to bring up the subject, James insisted, “I don’t see color,” and said he didn’t know what she was talking about. During our sessions, Michelle sounded hopeless: she wanted him to understand how traumatizing Covid had been for black people. But she was frustrated by his inability to recognize real differences, as if everyone were of the same race. “He has this ‘I don’t see color’ mentality.” She expanded on his thoughts: “‘I don’t want to hear what you have to say, because that’s not how I think.'” That point of view “clearly angers me,” she said. James shrugged, expressionless. Michelle described the furious experience of trying to break through a barrier: Her husband was unaware that whiteness was a perspective that limited what he could imagine or comprehend.