The Caricature

Something happens in relationships that most people don’t notice until it’s already taken hold. It doesn’t arrive suddenly. It drifts in quietly, layer by layer, until it reshapes how you see your partner. You think you’re looking at them, but you’re not. You’re looking at a version you’ve built over time.

I call it the caricature.

The caricature isn’t your partner. It’s the reduced sketch you carry inside you — a simplified, distorted version made from accumulated frustrations and hurts. At the beginning of a relationship, it doesn’t exist. You see the other person in full colour, with nuance and complexity. You assume the best. You leave room for ordinary human fluctuation.

But unmet needs, repeated disappointments, and unresolved hurts leave a residue. From that residue, the caricature forms. Slowly, unconsciously, it begins to overlay the real person. Their words are filtered through it. Their gestures are interpreted by it. You respond to the distortion rather than to the human being in front of you.

The caricature narrows your partner down to a handful of traits — usually the ones that wound the most. “The one who never listens.” “The one who always criticises.” “The one who doesn’t care.” Complexity collapses. Nuance disappears. And because the shift is gradual, you never notice the moment of replacement.

Once the caricature sets in, everything gets interpreted through it. A sigh becomes criticism. A pause becomes selfishness. A question becomes rejection. Desire fades, not because attraction died, but because it no longer has a real person to land on. The caricature even fills in motives: “She said that because she doesn’t respect me.” “He did that because he doesn’t care.” Assumptions harden into truth.

When couples struggle, they often bring me their caricatures and ask me to validate them. But the real problem isn’t that the partner has flaws. The real problem is that they’ve stopped being seen at all.

And this part matters: the caricature isn’t your partner’s fault. It forms because the mind likes shortcuts. It simplifies complexity to make life easier. But in relationships, that shortcut becomes a trap.

So what breaks the caricature?

Interpretive generosity.

Interpretive generosity is the choice to resist easy conclusions about your partner’s motives or intentions. It’s the deliberate act of allowing them to be more than the narrow version pain has constructed. It doesn’t erase real behaviour; it restores perspective. It interrupts the automatic meaning-making that turns every disappointment into evidence of defect.

The caricature is corrosive because it distorts perception. Interpretive generosity is corrective because it lets you see again. And once you can see the person — not the sketch — the relationship finally has room to move.