I've realized that I tend to offer my best behavior to people outside of my inner circle. With strangers I am more likely to clean up after others, put effort into my appearance, assume people have the best intentions, maximize others, take up little space, be conscientious, and get over myself. These are automatic behaviors around people I'm not confident around, whereas I am more comfortable expecting better of those in my inner circle because I consider that group to function as a team of high functioning individuals who strive to improve.

I've started behaving with Man the way I do with people I don't know as well. I'm more quiet and take up less space, especially when he is more stressed. I pick up after him and before him. When making low-risk decisions about things together, I put my preferences on the back burner and when he wants me to take the lead, I am deliberate. When he says something less than uplifting yet harmless, I deflect my own emotions.

In a way, these shifts very disarming. Am I being inauthentic, and is it harmful? I worry about that. Am I painting myself into a corner, making myself into something that isn't true that he will come to expect and I will become exhausted by trying to maintain? The "women are to be seen and not heard" mentality chaps me... from time to time I'm uncomfortable being seen. If there is something I need to say or ask, I need to voice it. I want to become more intentional and stronger, not minimized. I'm also wary that he will think I'm checking out or becoming less invested... that he will think I'm treating him like a stranger without the "intimate privileges" of my voice, energy, and honesty. And sometimes I think I can feel him being a little... unsettled, maybe?

Then I think about the numerous little senseless arguments that we used to have and how they haven't happened nearly as often lately. I think about how my feelings used to get hurt, and they don't so much anymore. I find myself resting in the stillness that these behaviors have fostered. I think about how I'm more graceful under pressure with strangers, and how the running narrative of irritation with things in day to day life is quieter.

What are your thoughts? Experiences? Advice? Critiques?