There are few things quite as frustrating as being misunderstood by someone whose opinion matters to us. We explain ourselves, correct the details, clarify our intentions, and sometimes return to the same conversation long after it has ended. We imagine what we should have said or how the other person might finally understand. Perhaps our spouse believes we are selfish, a friend thinks we are unreliable, or someone in our family remembers an event in a way that seems painfully unfair. We may become so occupied with correcting their understanding that the relationship itself begins disappearing behind our efforts to restore the person we believe ourselves to be.

At first glance, this looks like an ordinary concern with reputation. We want people to think well of us, and naturally we would prefer not to be misunderstood. But our desire for recognition is hardly limited to vanity. It belongs to the very formation of our sense of self. Long before we could describe who we were, we were already being recognized by others. Our earliest caregivers delighted in certain behaviors, worried about others, and began describing the person they imagined us becoming. We learned something about ourselves through these relationships, discovering what appeared lovable, admirable, troublesome, or disappointing. We came to recognize ourselves through the ways other people recognized us.

This gives our relationships an extraordinary importance. We do not simply want to be loved by another person. We may want to become the person we imagine that other person most fully desires. Someone learns to become responsible because responsibility brings admiration. Another becomes agreeable because disagreement seems to threaten affection. Someone else becomes the independent one, the entertaining one, or the person who never needs anything. Over time, these arrangements become familiar enough that we begin mistaking them for the entirety of who we are. The person we imagine another wants becomes the person we most want to be.

The trouble is that we cannot finally know or control what another person desires. Their expectations may be contradictory, and their understanding of us will always be incomplete. A parent may admire our independence while resenting our decisions. A spouse may love our generosity while wishing we would stop making sacrifices they never requested. Someone may know us intimately while continuing to misunderstand something that feels essential to our experience of ourselves. Yet we may continue searching for the recognition that would finally confirm that we have become the person we were supposed to be.

The first Step of Alcoholics Anonymous begins with an admission of powerlessness over alcohol and the unmanageability that addiction has brought into life. This is a serious acknowledgment of the difficulties involved in substance dependence, not merely a metaphor for ordinary human uncertainty. But in my book 12 Steps: Do They Go Up or Down?, I also consider another kind of powerlessness that appears throughout our relationships: we are powerless over the image others have of us.

We can influence another person's understanding through our actions, but we cannot determine what they will believe. Someone may continue remembering a version of us that we desperately want to correct. We can apologize, make restitution, listen, and change our behavior, yet they may remain unconvinced. Their experience belongs to them, including the parts we would prefer they understood differently. This does not excuse us from responsibility. It asks us to distinguish between taking responsibility for our conduct and attempting to control the conclusions someone else draws about us.

This distinction becomes particularly difficult when our character is challenged. Someone tells us that our generosity felt controlling, and we respond by insisting that we have always been generous. A spouse says they felt lonely, and we begin explaining everything we have done for the marriage. We become so concerned with establishing that we are good people that we struggle to hear what the other person is actually saying. Sometimes the urgent need to restore our reputation interrupts the very repair that our relationship requires.

Character is different from reputation. Reputation concerns the person others believe us to be, while character becomes evident through how we actually live. We may be misunderstood while acting responsibly, or admired while behaving in ways that cause considerable harm. Character cannot be established through one explanation or a particularly convincing defense. It emerges through repeated choices, including those that no one witnesses and those for which we receive no appreciation.

This is where the first Step begins moving downward. Rather than climbing toward a more impressive image of ourselves, we begin relinquishing the impossible responsibility of controlling how we are seen. We do not become indifferent to others or pretend that recognition no longer matters. We continue wanting to be known and loved, although we may become less dependent upon another person's acknowledgment to establish that we are worthy of living.

I am powerless over your image of me. I can care about what you experience, take responsibility for what I have done, and remain curious about what you see that I cannot yet recognize. But I cannot make your understanding of me become the final account of who I am. Perhaps the freedom is not in finally being seen correctly, but in discovering that my life can continue without requiring everyone to see me as I had hoped.