What Relationship Conversation Level Do You Suck At?
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My partner texted me this morning: “As always, Todd being S’s sherpa.” (No need to reveal names.)
To understand what that means, you need some backstory. A week ago, I told S about four levels of conversation that exist in relationships.
Level one is logistics. Who is picking up the groceries. What time the reservation is. Whether the flight lands at 9 or 9:30.
Level two is the world beyond the two of you. Politics, a podcast episode, something a coworker said that bothered her.
Level three is where feelings enter. What scares you, what you want, the thought you had at 2 a.m. that you were afraid to say out loud.
Level four is the conversation about the conversation. Meta-commentary on the relationship itself. How you fight. What patterns keep showing up. Where the two of you are headed and whether the direction feels right. The basics include check-ins such as how are we doing? All answers must be longer than grunted words (Good! Eh! You know!).
Most couples function sort-of-kinda-adequately at levels one and two. They manage schedules and exchange opinions and assume that means they know each other. They are pen pals with a shared mortgage.
When I laid this out for S, she turned it into a joke. She started calling me her Sherpa. As in, I am the person guiding her from level one and two into the thinner air of three and four. She adopted the framework instead of resisting it. She was playing with the model and surprisingly was not threatened by it. That single position told me more about her than six months of level two conversations could.
This morning’s text was her way of saying she misses me, framed as a joke - . our shared language. But her translucent skin was sitting right there on the surface for anyone paying attention.
That text operated on all four levels simultaneously. Only today, while writing this, did I realize where these four levels came from….I didn’t realize how useful this would be in my relationships and I promise, you will feel the same.
