Script editor

I have written before about internal scripts people have around holidays. The family gathering at which one imagines family members arriving on time, everyone enjoying a festive dinner, an appreciation of any decorations and then the tension and the disappointment and despair when it doesn’t go according to the imagined script.

We might factor into our script, based on previous experience that Auntie Flo may have a few too many sherries and fall asleep on the sofa, that neighbour Tim will refuse to use the correct pronouns, sister Ellen will ‘overshare’ and hyperactive 4-year-old Mary will break her toy train before it is out of the box. The trouble is that people don’t know the other’s script, they don’t know the ‘play’ let alone their lines so they can be puzzled and feel unfairly judged if they don’t behave according to our plan, our agenda.

This Easter I had a script. Our son would arrive, after a long coach journey at our rented holiday cottage refreshed and in good spirits and find his Easter egg in his room. He might have a nap while my husband and I continued to prepare a delicious roast dinner with two of his favourite desserts. He would join us before dinner for a glass of prosecco in front of a real fire and enjoy some ‘problem-free talk’.  We might show him the river at the bottom of the garden and then sit together for a longer dinner than usual and he wouldn’t take food up to his room.

The reality was that he arrived exhausted and hung over after clubbing until the early hours the night before and spent most of the weekend on his bed looking at screens. He joined us very briefly for dinner. When he wouldn’t join us for prosecco I could feel myself getting impatient, sad and so disappointed until a novel thought entered my head. I need a script editor. Edit the script. Change it so it fits with what is actually happening rather than what you want to happen.

It might seem obvious but I have never entertained this idea in this particular way. It is perhaps just a different way of being mindful and staying in the present but it amused me to think of hiring a metaphorical script editor, of having an imaginary employee available 24/7 and instructing them to “edit the script as a matter of urgency”. For the rest of the weekend and since then there have been several moments when I say to myself and my husband – “quick call in the script editor”. Of course, I am the one editing it but somehow the concept of another part of me doing it, an imaginary employee has made it easier.  

I think our son has also benefited from a calmer and more optimistic mother. I think about how I might use this with couples I work with as a relationship therapist and how many times one partner has a script that the other one is unaware of. For example, one I have also experienced myself is a parent going out for the evening to see a friend. They organise dinner for the family, something freshly made or in the freezer. They want them to eat healthily and maybe feel just a little bit guilty about leaving them so they imagine them gathered around this healthy meal they have supplied. The other parent and the kid’s script is fish and chips in front of the TV – a rare treat and guilt-free as the ‘going out parent’ will not be there to judge.

Instead of the parents discussing their scripts and negotiating a team approach ie maybe fish and chips with some vegetable crudites to start with, they imagine the whole scene with no consultation and huge rows can result when returning parents see the fish and chip debris all over the sitting room and their carefully prepared chickpea and spinach curry still on the hob. They can feel personally rejected, deeply hurt and also excluded from the ‘fun’. I haven’t done this yet but I plan to discuss some of my scripts with our son in future so he can help in the editing and then I protect myself from disappointment. He won’t have to feel he is letting anyone down and can enjoy his holidays or just the day-to-day the way he wants to but hopefully with some consideration for others.

Working with a relationship therapist can help partners share their ‘scripts’ and edit them according to need. To recognise we all have ‘scripts’ but that we need to accept no one is a mind reader and unless we are prepared to edit them according to circumstances and consider other's expectations we are setting ourselves up for disappointment and distress.