The Fake Yes – by Dr. Gary W. Lewandowski Jr.

The last time you and your relationship partner had an argument, how did it end?

Did you agree, or just get tired of disagreeing?

Most couples never ask that question. They’re just happy they’re done arguing. That’s why they keep having the same fight over and over, while never realizing it’s all coming from the same place.

The irony is, it’s not like you haven’t talked about these issues. Whether it’s about how you spend money, parent the kids, discipline the dog, or deal with the in-laws, you’ve discussed it plenty.

The problem is what happened at the end of the conversation wasn’t agreement. It was a “fake yes.” This isn’t on just one of you. It’s a two-person job. You’re both in on it. You both let it look like the real thing.

The fake yes is what’s making your relationship worse, not better.

One of you hands them out. The harder question is why the other person keeps taking them. You already know which one you are.

Both of you said yes. But you meant two different things by it.

The fight is their phone. You told them you feel alone at night, them scrolling and giving you one word answers, the two of you in the same room but not together. You mention it, your partner agrees, “You’re right, that sounds good, I’ll be better.” You heard: Phone away while we’re hanging out. They heard: I acknowledged that the feelings are valid, we’re done here.

Three days later the phone is back. You bring it up, furious that your partner broke the agreement, and they genuinely doesn’t know what you’re talking about. They’re not lying. They agreed you were sad. You agreed to nothing you can point to.

Nobody checked, and worse, you handed them the yes without knowing what it meant.

Two people finished a conversation. Neither one truly had it.

That’s a fake yes. You said the same word and closed different deals.

Some people hear yes as an agreement to behavior change, while others use yes to show “I heard you.” Not agreement, not a commitment, just the sense of having been seen and understood.

To gain clarity, ask more questions before getting to yes. “What’s actually bothering you here?” and “What am I missing?” helps both of you understand what the other person really means.

Then the one that really closes the gap: “What are we agreeing to here?”

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Sometimes your partner looks so hurt during an argument that continuing to disagree feels cruel. So you stop disagreeing. Not because they changed your mind. Because you couldn’t stand being the reason they felt that way for one more second.

The holidays. You want your own traditions, or at least to alternate years instead of driving three hours to see your partner’s mother every December like it’s law. You bring it up. Their face falls. “She won’t be around forever.” That’s it, conversation over, because now holding your ground feels like hurting their mom. You say it’s fine. You spend another Christmas somewhere you didn’t pick, building on the resentment that started last year.

Sorry, but you need to own it. You said yes. You didn’t share your feelings. You didn’t give your partner a chance. You just went quiet about the part of you that still disagreed. Of course it’s still in there, waiting for the next opportunity to resurface, usually at a worse time than this one.

Not all compromise is equal. Compromise that comes from wanting to give is one thing. Compromise that comes from guilt, obligation, or fear of what happens if you keep talking is another. The second kind predicts more tension, lower life satisfaction, and higher breakup rates (Impett et al., 2005; Whitton et al., 2007).

That’s a fake yes.

Instead, realize that you can disagree, without being disagreeable. Seeing things different doesn’t make you mean, rude, or combative. Share your perspective with kindness, “I can see this matters to you. I’m still not there. Can we talk about our options?”

So much of our reluctance to have tough conversations is the assumption that things will turn ugly. With the right skills, they don’t have to.

You’ve likely heard the expression, “Done is better than perfect.” That might work for cleaning out your basement, but it’s a bad strategy for disagreements.

You’re hours in and you agree because you’re done, not because you’re convinced. Everyone’s lived the money version. It’s 11pm, you’ve circled the same argument for an hour, they want the truck or the expensive vacation, you think it’s a mistake, and you hear yourself say “fine, let’s do it, I don’t care.” Because what’s the point? This isn’t going anywhere and any resolution beats no resolution. You also don’t want to keep it going because that would make you the difficult or dramatic one. So you take the “L” and give up.

Right now, many of you reading this are silently nodding along or thinking to yourself “makes sense, I’ve been there.”

You’re also making sacrifices that only you see. People miss roughly half the sacrifices their partner makes (Visserman et al., 2019). Half. Every swallowed objection you’re carefully filing away, they aren’t filing. They can’t. This particular type of fake yes also feels really good in the moment. You get relief, and the hope that everything returns to normal again by tomorrow. Nothing actually gets resolved. It gets absorbed and builds up over time. A Neil Strauss suggests, “Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.”

Instead, refuse the fake yes and schedule a real resolution. “I’m too fried to decide this well, and if I say fine right now I’ll resent it by Thursday. I’m not agreeing. I’m tapping out for tonight. Let’s bookmark this until tomorrow.”

It feels worse in the moment, because you’re not getting full resolution. But, it’s the only way to build toward an authentic yes you don’t regret later.

Everyone wants to be better, and everyone says so. I’m going to eat better, exercise more, and floss daily. Sure you are.

You want to, but the implementation success rates are inevitably low. The same happens with relationship conflict. You argue about the chores. Both of you are drowning with work obligations, the kids, the house, the parents, and life. Everyone is stressed, tired, and snippy. Yes, you both need each other’s support and agree to be nicer to each other. The ceasefire successfully holds through the weekend, then Monday comes. And you’re right back at it.

Both of you sincerely meant your “yes, I’ll do better” in the moment you said it. That’s what makes this one sneaky, it doesn’t feel fake at the time. The issue is the follow through. Time passes and any improvements were short-lived, and you’re back in the same pattern. But now it feels worse because this time you both had good intentions and still ended up nowhere.

Good intentions are counterproductive in a sneaky way. Once you recognize your own good intentions, you give yourself credit “look at me planning on doing the right thing.” That feels good. So good in fact that implementing your intention doesn’t provide much of an additional boost. So you let it drop. Unfortunately your relationship only benefits from actual behavior changes.

Trying is an empty promise. “I’ll try to remember.” “I’ll try to do more next time.” You can only try for so long before trying becomes the thing you do instead.

They’re all fake yesses you both believed.

Don’t accept, “Let’s both of us do better” as a resolution. Get specific. What are the specific things you need to do or change? What’s the specific next step? What’s the timeline? Tomorrow? Monday? These types of questions set the behavior in motion.

There’s a name for what you’re doing with a fake yes. Psychologists call it self-silencing (Jack & Dill, 1992). It’s when you suppress your feelings, opinions, needs and identity to keep the peace. You’re trying to be generous. You tell yourself you’re being easygoing, taking the high road, or being the bigger person. Good story, but it’s not true.

Here’s what it actually buys you. In a study of over 200 couples, when one partner self-silenced, both partners reported worse communication and more frustration (Harper & Welsh, 2007). Not just the one going quiet. Both. The behavior designed to prevent conflict manufactured more of it. Not only that, when couples avoid the conversation that would actually settle conflict, seven weeks later they report worse communication, less happiness, and less dedication to the relationship (Clifford et al., 2017). You may not feel it now, but experience the consequences later.

A fake yes doesn’t keep the peace, it allows conflict to persist. The fake yes solves the problem just enough that it doesn’t feel completely terrible, just bad enough to notice.

Psychologist Dan Gilbert calls this the region-beta paradox (Gilbert et al., 2004). Things that are really bad trigger action. Things that stay merely unsatisfying don’t. If your job is hell you quit. If it’s mildly disappointing you stay for longer than you should.

Lateness is the classic. They run fifteen minutes behind on everything, so you’re late to everything, and you’ve mentioned it maybe twenty times a year. Too annoying to ignore, too minor to blow up. So you suck it up and the pattern survives. The fake yes allows the source of conflict to survive. It’s irritating, not intolerable. It ruins a date night, but not the marriage.

Instead, learn to call it out clearly, “I know this is minor, and that’s exactly why we never fix it. But, I’d rather handle it now before it grows into something bigger.”

It’s also important to acknowledge that you’re not always the one giving a fake yes. Sometimes you willingly take a “yes” that you know isn’t sincere. Your partner relented, you knew it wasn’t real, but you took the win anyway. Accepting their fake yes lets you keep believing the change is still coming.

If you push for a real yes, you might get a real no that requires a real resolution.

Underneath each fake yes, is the same missing piece. Rather than work for an authentic yes, you settle for the appearance of agreement.

To give and receive a real yes, you first need to clarify the problem from both sides, out loud, in words each of you would use. Next, understand the resolution, meaning you can both repeat it back without editing. Then, commit to a specific behavior, because “I’ll do better” is not a behavior and “I’ll text you when I’m running late” is. Finally, reconnect. Real agreements come from a place of love and respect. People who love each other will disagree. Make it clear that there aren’t lingering resentments.

Three useful words that fit in at any step: “Tell me more.” Curiosity before conclusions is always a good idea.

The payoff isn’t only fewer fights, though you’ll get those too. It’s that a relationship works when both people are really in it, opinions and all. Every fake yes leaves a little of you out of the conversation, until your partner is loving someone who agrees with everything. Say the real thing, and say it with kindness, and you get to be fully present with the person you chose. That’s the whole reason to be with someone.

Hope this helps,

Dr. L

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References

Clifford, C. E., Vennum, A., Busk, M., & Fincham, F. D. (2017). Testing the impact of sliding versus deciding in cyclical and noncyclical relationships. Personal Relationships, 24(1), 223-238.

Gilbert, D. T., Lieberman, M. D., Morewedge, C. K., & Wilson, T. D. (2004). The peculiar longevity of things not so bad. Psychological Science, 15(1), 14–19.

Harper, M. S., & Welsh, D. P. (2007). Keeping quiet: Self-silencing and its association with relational and individual functioning among adolescent romantic couples. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 24(1), 99–116. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407507072601

Impett, E. A., Gable, S. L., & Peplau, L. A. (2005). Giving up and giving in: The costs and benefits of daily sacrifice in intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(3), 327–344. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.3.327

Jack, D. C., & Dill, D. (1992). The Silencing the Self Scale: Schemas of intimacy associated with depression in women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 16(1), 97–106. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1992.tb00242.x

Visserman, M. L., Impett, E. A., Righetti, F., Muise, A., Keltner, D., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2019). To “see” is to feel grateful? A quasi-signal detection analysis of romantic partners’ sacrifices. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(3), 317–325. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550618757599

Whitton, S. W., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2007). If I help my partner, will it hurt me? Perceptions of sacrifice in romantic relationships. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26(1), 64–92. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2007.26.1.64

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Note: Please forgive any typos or errors. Non-AI writing has its imperfections. Consider it the patina of a personal touch.