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It takes a certain kind of bravery to speak out on behalf of a much-maligned group, so thank you, Mark Travers, PhD. This American psychologist has publicly detailed three reasons overthinkers make great partners. Finally, some justice for those of us whose brains don’t have an off switch, when we usually get such a bad rap (which we then lie awake at night endlessly ruminating on).
To us, overthinking isn’t even the correct term – it’s just thinking. Calling it overthinking suggests there are underthinkers, who must be a happy bunch, or perfect-level thinkers, who probably live by the Eleanor Roosevelt/Kung Fu Panda quote: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift – that’s why it is called the present.” An overthinker would hear that and panic, clearly, because were we meant to buy a present too? Is it going to be awkward now?
Travers says that rather than being neurotic cases it’s best to avoid, overthinkers are actually amazing catches. That noise you just heard was the sound of orderly queues being formed all across the globe.
He explains that overthinkers process conflict more deeply, in a bid to understand better: “Here’s the paradox: the person replaying the argument at 1am is more likely to forgive you than the person who went to sleep and forgot about it.” Nobody will be surprised to hear that forgiveness is one of the strongest predictors of long-term marital quality, as discovered in a longitudinal study tracking more than 200 couples. So that “never letting anything go” that your partner complains about? Genuinely saving the relationship. You’re welcome.
Writing on Forbes.com, Travers also posits that overthinkers are less likely to betray their partners. “The same cognitive loop that makes someone agonise over a text message they sent is the same loop that plays out when attraction to someone else arises,” he says. “Overthinkers, as a matter of habit, imagine the aftermath. They think through what betrayal would mean, in the moment and down the line. They feel the weight of the consequence before they’ve even acted on anything.” So we suffer all the guilt of the imaginary affair, and none of the pleasure. Sounds about right.
Overthinkers also get bonus points for noticing what most partners miss, as they are “almost by definition hyper-attuned to their environment. They pick up on shifts in tone. They notice when something feels slightly off. They catch the tension in a sentence that most people would let slide past.” Oh boy, do we.
Hopefully, this insight will give overthinkers confidence to let their freaky prefrontal cortex flags fly with their other halves. Often, saying what you’re mulling over out loud to somebody else provides reassurance even before they’ve replied.
Sometimes after I’ve finished talking my husband through the current cycle of what-if worry I’m trapped in, he is briefly rendered speechless, staring at me in awe. At least, I think it’s awe.
I overthink, therefore I am. Given enough time (three minutes max) I can turn even the most pleasant, benign interaction into a horrifying encounter that definitely caused offence, with wide-reaching dramatic ramifications. My latest strategy is, rather than enduring the torture of my mind having free rein, to send a message to the person, making sure they didn’t get the wrong end of the stick regarding whatever I either did or didn’t say. My hit rate is 100% so far, as in not a single human being has been offended – indeed, most have been bemused by the inquiry. I am determined no lessons shall be learned from this, obviously. Instead, I’m now anxious about all future interactions with those same people, since if I don’t send them a check-up message afterwards they will naturally assume I was happy with how our communication went. The solution has become the problem. Back of the net.
So if you’re the partner of an overthinker, consider yourself lucky. Although it may occasionally test your patience or be slightly draining, it turns out our careful consideration of absolutely everything is the glue holding the relationship together. And if it ain’t broke … we can still think of 10 million ways you could try to fix it. If you’re interested, just say the word.
