When partners have different narratives about their relationship
Sarah sees their relationship as "finally finding peace after years of chaos." For her, their quiet evenings together represent security, stability, and the deep connection she's always craved. David experiences these same quiet evenings as "slowly suffocating" — he interprets their decreased social life as evidence that the relationship is becoming stagnant and unfulfilling.
Same relationship. Same evenings. Completely different stories.
When partners live in different narratives about their relationship, the gap between their realities can feel unbridgeable. These aren't just disagreements about what happened last Tuesday — they're fundamental differences in how each person makes meaning from their shared experiences. And that makes complete sense, because our lives are built of many stories that interact with each other and form a network of experiences and memories.
Every person enters a relationship with their own backstory. Your childhood experiences with attachment, your previous relationships, your cultural background, and your family's relationship patterns all contribute to the narrative lens through which you view partnership. These backgrounds, ingrained in us, might navigate the ways that we talk to our adult partners.
Consider finances, a common source of competing narratives. If your family struggled with financial security for many years of your young life and you survived by learning how to budget and live modestly, you might have a story that is written about survival, responsibility with money, and thinking very hard about each decision you make. Your partner may have had a completely different background and his life story may never had the chapter of needing to learn how to manage money in a careful manner.
When you suggest eating out, you're offering connection and enjoyment. When your partner suggests staying in, they're protecting your shared future. Both responses make perfect sense within each person's story — but when these stories compete without acknowledgment, hurt feelings inevitably follow.
Here's what often happens when couples have competing narratives: each partner tries to convince the other that their version of reality is the "correct" one. This creates what therapists call "problem-saturated" conversations — discussions where the focus becomes proving who's right rather than understanding how both stories can coexist.
Marital conflicts are caused by narratives full of problems that change cognitive processes and coping strategies by shaping the identities of couples. When Sarah insists their relationship is "perfect as it is" and David argues it's "missing something essential," they're no longer talking about their actual relationship — they're defending competing narratives about what relationships should look like.
The exhaustion that many couples feel isn't from the disagreement itself — it's from the constant energy required to maintain conflicting stories while trying to live in the same relationship.
Competing narratives become toxic when they start to define identity rather than describe experience. When Sarah's story becomes "I'm the one who knows how to appreciate what we have" and David's becomes "I'm the one who sees what's really missing," they've moved from having different perspectives to having incompatible identities.
This is where narratives do not allow the person to think about horizons, results, and events that include his/her merits, and enslave him/her in dominant stories that overwhelm all other narratives. Each partner becomes so invested in their version being right that they lose sight of the fuller, more complex story of who they are together.
Signs that your relationship stories have become competitive rather than complementary include when you find yourself thinking "if only they understood" repeatedly, when conversations about your relationship feel like debates, or when you notice you're gathering evidence to support your version of events.
The most healing conversations often happen in the space between competing narratives — not in the place where one person's story wins, but where both stories are allowed to exist and inform each other.
Narrative couples therapy can be used to expand experiences and possibilities through the reconstruction and retelling and rehearing of new stories. This doesn't mean compromising your truth or pretending differences don't exist. It means getting curious about how your partner's story developed and what valid concerns it addresses.
When Sarah understands that David's desire for more social connection comes from his story about relationships requiring growth and exploration, she can honor that without abandoning her own need for stability. When David recognizes that Sarah's appreciation for their quiet life comes from her story about finally feeling safe enough to rest, he can value that without sacrificing his need for expansion.
Couples in healthy relationships don't have identical stories — they have stories that acknowledge and make space for each other. This requires what narrative therapists call "unique outcomes" — moments when you step outside your familiar story and notice something different.
Unique outcomes are the moments where the experience was unusual, in other words, absence of the problem. For Sarah and David, a unique outcome might be the evening when Sarah suggested trying a new restaurant, or when David expressed genuine appreciation for their quiet Sunday morning together.
These moments matter because they provide evidence that your stories can evolve. You're not trapped in the narrative patterns you've always known. People can re-create their lives actively and continually, and this includes the stories you tell about your relationship.
Living with competing stories requires developing what we might call narrative flexibility — the ability to hold your own story while remaining curious about your partner's. This isn't about having no boundaries or losing your sense of reality. It's about recognizing that there is no objective truth in relationships, only the subjective truths that each person creates from their experience.
Some questions that support narrative flexibility include asking your partner what their reaction tells you about what matters to them, exploring what story from their past might inform their current perspective, or wondering together what new story you might be trying to create as a couple.
Sometimes the competing narratives in a relationship aren't complementary because one or both stories are genuinely problematic. Stories that consistently cast one partner as the victim and the other as the perpetrator, narratives that leave no room for growth or change, or stories that require one person to abandon their core values aren't healthy foundations for relationship.
The turning point in the narrative interviews may come at the time when clients decide to continue living according to their story that is full of difficulty or when they create another story. Sometimes the most loving thing couples can do is acknowledge that their current stories aren't working and commit to authoring new ones together.
Your relationship story doesn't have to be perfect to be worth honoring. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone else or follow the plot lines that society expects. What matters is whether the story you're living together reflects your actual values and leaves room for both people to grow.
Competing narratives in relationships aren't a sign of incompatibility — they're a sign of two whole people with rich inner lives trying to figure out how to be together. The goal isn't to eliminate the differences but to find ways for your stories to inform and enrich each other.
That sounds incredibly complex, and sometimes it is. But it's also what allows relationships to remain dynamic and interesting over time. When you can hold space for your partner's story while staying connected to your own, you create the possibility for love that honors the full humanity of both people — hurt feelings, competing narratives, and all.