Hyde And Seek

I feel that my boyfriend brings out my best self: loving, sweet, productive. In my failed marriage, my ex seemed to bring out my worst self: unstable, selfish, lazy. It's almost as if I'm a different person with my boyfriend. But how different can I be?

--In A Better Place

Okay, so you sometimes daydreamed about your naked ex and the things you'd like to do to him -- like painting him all over with maple syrup and throwing him into a pit of starving fire ants. To understand what's different with your current boyfriend, consider that the relationship is an environment -- one that influences your behavior just like a physical environment. (Alaska in January calls for a snowsuit, not a bikini and your rainbow unicorn water wings.) There's a term for the sort of relationship dynamics that bring out your best self -- the "Michelangelo phenomenon" -- coined by social psychologist Caryl Rusbult and her colleagues. The name was inspired by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo's belief that there's an ideal figure hidden within each block of stone and that it's the sculptor's job to chip away the pieces around it until it's revealed. They find that in a relationship, two things foster your bringing out the best in each other. One is that your partner "affirms" your values -- meaning that your partner is aligned (enough) with what you care most about. (This doesn't mean they want exactly what you do; they just need to respect you for going for it.) Second, they engage in behaviors that encourage you to move toward your "ideal self." This might mean urging you to acquire new skills or, at a cocktail party, asking you about the dog-walking drone you invented while you're standing next to that trustafarian with the tech-funding hobby. Rusbult and her colleagues observe that when individuals in a relationship improve and grow -- especially through their partner's encouragement -- it makes for a better relationship and happier partners. Conversely, when their partner is unhelpfully critical, controlling, and at odds with who they are and what they want, the relationship suffers, as do those in it. Ultimately, if you say "I barely recognize who I am with this person," it should be a good thing -- not one that leads to TV news clips of your bewildered neighbor: "We're all just shocked. She seemed so nice, so normal. I guess she just...snapped."