We never actually know what’s happening inside another person—not even the person we love. We don’t get access to their inner world. We only get the evidence: words, actions, gestures, tone, the way they look away or don’t look away.
We might think we know what something means.
We might guess.
We might have a track record—we’ve known this person for years, decades even.
But still we’re reading surface-level signals and trying to translate them into internal truths.
And sometimes they don’t even know what’s going on inside themselves.
We’re all mysteries, even to ourselves.
So we fill in the gaps
The mind doesn’t like empty space.
It interprets silence.
It completes patterns.
If your partner sighs, doesn’t answer your text quickly, or seems distant—you notice. Your nervous system notices.
And if you don’t know what’s happening in them, you’ll start guessing.
They're upset with me.
Did I do something?
Why do I feel this tension?
And those guesses don’t come from their inner world.
They come from yours.
This is where things get dangerous
Because now you’re constructing a narrative.
You’re writing a story about what’s happening between you,
but it may have very little to do with reality.
They may be tired.
They may be stressed.
They may be lost in something completely unrelated to you.
But your nervous system might decide:
This means something.
And once your story takes hold, you start behaving as if it’s true.
Two people, two stories
This is how couples drift.
Not always through big betrayals or dramatic fights.
Often just through quiet assumptions.
You’re living in one story about the relationship.
They’re living in another.
Neither of you wrong, necessarily. Just separate.
Out of sync.
And once you’re in different realities, it becomes hard to meet each other.
Hard to feel understood.
Hard to feel close.
There’s a way back
It sounds simple, but rarely is:
we have to ask instead of assume.
What’s going on for you right now?
I’m noticing I’m starting to make up a story—can I check something with you?
I felt distance today, is that accurate or am I imagining it?
It’s not about interrogating each other.
It’s about being curious.
Curiosity is how we come back into the same narrative.
It’s how we remember that we’re partners, not opponents.
Two people, looking at the same situation together, instead of apart.
We can’t know each other’s inner world
But we can learn to invite each other in.
We can learn to speak what’s true inside of us.
We can learn to ask instead of assume.
And when we do that, we write the story together.
The same story.
The real story.
Side by side.