Hi, you're listening to Small Things Often from the Gottman Institute, where we talk you through research-based tips to help improve your relationships in five minutes or less.

Today's tip is about good and evil. Think we're going to review an Avengers or Star Wars movie? Not a chance.

Relationships aren't like the movies where the hero battles

against the villain. Movie characters like these are one-dimensional and depicted as totally good or

totally evil. In real life, people have nuance. No one is all good or all bad. Here's a newsflash

that we all have to keep in mind. The perfect person doesn't exist.

So take a look at your relationship. Have you been casting your partner in the role of hero or villain?

Either way, you're doing your relationship a great disservice. Take this example. Say you've texted your

partner in the middle of the day with some great news you want to share. You've sent the text and waited one minute, five minutes, ten minutes, and have gotten no response. Your anxiety starts to soar, and you begin to create stories in your head about why they're not responding. You think, are they ignoring me? Or are they

mad at me? Or maybe? Did they turn their phone off just so I couldn't get through? And then your

mind begins to race to all kinds of scenarios, and you become angry, fearful, and defensive,

drawing all kinds of conclusions as to why your text wasn't answered.

And then when they finally do respond, you're so angry you can barely speak.

And they have absolutely no idea why.

They are completely baffled and bewildered by your anger.

And here comes the argument.

If you relate, this may be due to something called NSL or negative sentiment

override. What does that mean? Very simply, it means that over time, for some reason, trust has been

broken, and you find it very difficult to give your partner the benefit of the doubt, which leads

to perceiving every action, even the neutral ones, as negative, which can drive the two of you doubt, which leads to perceiving every action, even the neutral ones, as negative,

which can drive the two of you apart. What's the antidote? Embrace ambiguity. That's right. Be open to

another interpretation of your partner's actions. Keep your eyes open to the gray areas.

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