A Key Insight Into Why People You Love Might Be Flaky For Reasons Different Than You Think

A Compassion-Inducing Insight To Help Us Understand Each Other

We had an agreement, my partner and I. I would sacrifice spending Thanksgiving (Indigenous People’s Day) with my family to be with him and our friends. I would go to Boston where he lives to host Thanksgiving and maybe go to Plymouth for Indigenous People’s Day. In exchange, he would spend Christmas in California with my family.

After 3 1/2 years of knowing each other and a year of dating, that Thanksgiving was our first holiday together, and it was spectacular. I’d never had all-you-can-eat oysters and lobster for this kind of holiday, but living near Cape Cod has its benefits. Being so close to Plymouth rock, I felt right up close and personal with the inner conflict around a holiday that has always been my favorite and is now unveiled as something we should mourn instead of celebrate. Amidst the emotional confusion, I was able to envision a future of more holidays together with my new partner, and it felt like a relief. I couldn’t wait for Christmas.

The next morning, we were cuddling in bed when I expressed how much I was looking forward to sharing our California Christmas rituals with him. He’d never seen how adorable my little Northern California beach community is when we all huddle together at the local English pub to bring instruments and voices and jam on Christmas carols around the hearth and a pint on Christmas Eve. I’d never made him my late mother’s bacon wrap ups or fondue on Christmas, and he’s never gotten to pick one present from under the tree to open early with us. Even though my environmentalist parts get triggered every year, I still couldn’t wait to show him the Christmas house where the electric bill is so high they have a Go Fund Me page. Having lived in Boston for 25 years, he’d surely never gone for a polar bear plunge at the local nudie beach on Christmas Day. My imagination was running wild with delight.

That’s when he told me he had accepted his hospital’s request for him to work the week of Christmas. They’d had trouble finding coverage, and as the medical director, he was their “Give it to Mikey; he’ll eat anything” guy. He’d been putting his job over family commitments for years and was revered by hospital administration for always being on call for their needs. It didn’t even occur to him how canceling Christmas would impact me and my family.

I cried when he told me, the ugly kind of cry, all snotty and weepy. He looked bewildered, like I was some kind of strange animal and he was a detached anthropologist, trying to figure out my bizarre animal behavior.

Why wouldn’t I want him to make all that extra money, he asked me? Didn’t I understand they paid double during holidays? All the women before me apparently wanted the money more than they wanted his presence, he explained, as if that would settle everything. He obviously hadn’t figured out how little money motivates me.

I was disappointed, sad, and grieving him not being with us, and I was angry that he had broken his promise. He didn’t seem to understand at all why I was “overreacting” (his word, not mine.)

When we unpacked it in couple’s therapy, my partner expressed something that never would have occurred to me, and I was shocked to realize that he might not be the only one who feels this way. What he revealed burst my heart wide open and a flood of compassion poured out onto us both. We didn’t get over what felt like a betrayal to me instantly, but over the past year, we’ve unpacked the Thanksgiving insight in countless ways. It keeps surprising me how deep it goes and how ingrained it is.

I thought back to all the people who’d flaked out on me and let me down over the years, and I wondered if I had been missing a core insight that could have helped me have more compassion for others and less grief in my own system. If I’d known what he shared with me in therapy, maybe I wouldn’t have personalized other people’s lack of reliability, inconsistency with plans, and tendency to let me down. So I thought I’d share it here, in case none of you realize what might be driving some people’s flakiness, unreliability, and apparent lack of commitment around plans.

(*I’m putting the rest of the story behind a paywall, since my partner and I are both okay sharing the story but both of us want to protect the sensitivity and privacy of the story and keep it away from Google searches. Please support this page if you feel inspired to do so and want to hear other stories we might not want broadcast all over the internet but which we’re telling because we suspect others might learn from our relational insights.)