Criticism and Appreciation: How To Transform Your Intimate Relationships

First published on July 25, 2018

I once heard an expert on relationships describe criticism as abuse. I have heard many people speak of criticism as the scourge of our intimate relationships. Last week, as I was re-listening to Alison Armstrong's Understanding Women programme, I heard more clearly than before why criticism is such a powerful and important part of what drives us apart in our relationships. Alison is an inspiration, whose research on men has many men feel more understood than they ever have in their life, and whose work about understanding women have opened up a far deeper understanding and appreciation in me for the women in my life.

At the heart of Alison's work is questioning the assumption many of us make that the opposite sex are simply another version of our own (perhaps women seeing men as a hairy woman - often misbehaving - and men seeing women as an over-emotional man.) And questioning this assumption is certainly true in the way she talks about criticism.

One of the survival methods of women, as mostly the physically weaker members of the species, is to be incredibly adaptable. For much of our history, women needed men to physically protect them from the dangers of our environment. Some might argue that there are many occasions in the modern world where the physically stronger among us could do with standing up a little bit more. This adaptability - and a long-standing emotional need, carried by the cavewoman in many of you - means that you respond to criticism. It changes you, to keep you safe. This doesn't mean that it's good, or it changes you in a good way, but it does. And this causes problems in a relationship.

Because criticism can have such a changing effect on a woman, she may sometimes use criticism to try to change a man. She does this from an incredibly well-meaning place: it may be that the criticism would be leading him towards being a better person, or a better partner, or even towards him being happier. But here's the problem: criticism doesn't change men. It only creates distance. It only pushes him away, with a message of 'it's not safe to be here, she doesn't want me as I am'.

The other side of criticism, the thing which brings us together, whilst criticism pushes us apart, is appreciation. I remember when my relationship with Emma, my fiancee, started, seeing this starkly. I had come out of a long relationship which - for the last two years of it - included almost no appreciation, for me at least, and possibly for her, and I had beaten myself up furiously as that ended, noticing all the ways it was my fault. And the power of Emma's appreciation changed me - and still does, each time she appreciates me.

So women, appreciate your men. You don't understand what a difference this will make to him. Before you want him to do something, appreciate him for what he has already done (he's so much more likely to do the thing if you do this than if you don't, especially if you criticise him). Alison likens this appreciation to adding fuel to his fire. Whether it is for carrying shopping bags, for sorting something, for what he did with the children, for the work he does, for just being there with you. Appreciate him for who he is. It will bring you closer together, and will allow him to be the man you want him to be, the man you fell in love with.

And men, appreciate your women. Appreciate them for what they do, and do it as early as you can. Appreciate how nice she looks before you even leave the house, appreciate the work she has done, the things she has said, the things she has created in your home and in your work, as soon as you see them. Give her that gift, so she can relax with you, because before that, she may in an early evolutionary space: on edge, asking 'does he like this? Will he still protect me?'

But more than that, appreciate her for who she is. Appreciate her for the way she lives her life. Because this will change her, forever.

We have such an opportunity to make our relationships transformational, to make them the route by which each of us grows, learns and develops into the people we - underneath - want to be. And to gift that gift, through the way we live, to our children, to the people around us, to continue developing our amazing species.

And the opportunity is in our appreciation of each other. For what we do, yes, but also the appreciation for who we are.