Technological infidelity - new ways of avoiding conflict and why it's so damaging.

AI partners are on the increase, and while we might think they make life better they're really making everything worse.

Some people’s idea of an attractive partner.

As a form of emotional infidelity, using AI to simulate a romantic partner avoids the need to meet surreptitiously in car parks, and saves on the cost of a cheap hotel.

My daughter sent me a study which finds that 15% of young adults who are dating, engaged or married, regularly use AI chatbots to talk about things they would be better off discussing with their real partner.

‘Thought it might be useful at some stage’, she writes.

I hope that her observation is connected to my work rather than a suggestion for ways in which I might widen my social circle.

One of the most interesting findings in the study is that 88% of regular users hide their behaviour whilst simultaneously claiming that their partner wouldn’t be upset if they found out. They state that it’s easier to be vulnerable with AI, and wished their human partner behaved more like their AI partner.

The central paradox in the research is that the use of AI romantic partners correlated heavily with an increase in reported relationship satisfaction, especially physical intimacy, but reduced relationship stability and communication quality.

It’s interesting to note that, despite the long term consequences, we might find our partners more attractive in the bedroom if we didn’t have to put up with their annoying individuality the rest of the time.

In the same way that ‘the ick’ might be avoidance dressed up as discernment, that indiscriminate use of therapy language looks like avoidance pretending to be insight, and the tendency for corporates to claim virtue whilst avoiding the human cost, the findings from this research suggest we’re not immune to avoidance masquerading as connection.

If we really are developing the belief that relational connection can become more satisfying when you control both sides of the conversation, real human connection will be gradually dismantled, until we end up in a pseudo-comfortable but ultimately dissatisfying echo chamber of our own thoughts.

Later, I receive a long written question from an EAP client that requires a written answer, so often a process that feels woefully inadequate, stripped of its fundamental human ‘to and fro’, and leaving in its wake far more questions than answers.

The client is having doubts about her relationship and the tiny disagreements that build into days long conflict, followed by periods of heavy silence without resolution.

She bemoans her partner’s mild, laid back manner, confused that his hardworking and dependable nature, aspects that originally attracted her and powerful evidence that he’s done nothing wrong, now feel like such a turn-off. She’s worried at the thought of losing the relationship and the implications on finance, childcare and stability, whilst powerfully drawn to the idea of being with someone new, and the excitement and novelty that represents.

She feels guilty, numb, sad, and obligated, painfully discontented whilst wondering if she ought to just be grateful for what she has.

I sense her teetering on the precipice, at the edge of confronting something she’d rather avoid.

While I’m thinking about how to respond, my daughter is making her lunch and appears with a substantial falafel and hummus wrap.

‘I don’t know how I’m going to eat this without it falling apart.’

In the kitchen, the chopping board is strewn with lettuce shavings, bits of pickled chillies, a pool of hummus, and various dirty knives and spoons.

Without thinking, I start to tidy.

‘Why am I doing your clearing up?’ I call to her.

Her reply is muffled by a mouthful of wrap. ‘I dunno.’

‘I always seem to be clearing up. Why don’t you do it?’

‘Because I’m eating.’

‘So if I left it, you’d do it?’

‘Of course I would.’

I have no reason to believe this is not true. She lives alone and would soon run out of plates if she’s lying.

‘Don’t read too much into it, Dad. Perhaps you just like clearing up.’

‘I’m trained to see more into things, that’s my job. Perhaps I need to see a therapist, although I’m not in therapy at the moment.’

‘What about the old guy?’

‘Ken. Do you mean Ken?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t call him an old guy, it’s really disrespectful.’

‘How old is he?’

‘He’s 83.’

‘I haven’t seen Ken for a while. To be honest, I thought he might be getting dependent.’

‘You thought your therapist was becoming dependent on you?’ she asks with a tone of incredulity I find uncomfortable.’

‘Yes. He seemed to want our sessions to continue even though I said I wanted to take a break. It was hard. I felt I was disappointing him. I hate disappointing people. I probably needed to talk about it.’

‘But you found it tricky to tell him you were worried about disappointing him, so you stopped going.’

‘It sounds bad when you put it like that.’

Getting up from the table, she joins me in the kitchen, holds out her plate, and says, ‘Clear that up will you?’

As I sit down to reply to my client about her difficult relationship, I’m thinking about my therapist, Ken, and how much value I got from our relationship even when I wasn’t conscious it was happening.

Perching awkwardly on his perennially uncomfortable Chesterfield sofa in the unassuming faceless office complex where he had his rooms, I’d stare out at the graveyard while he sorted through a pile of envelopes for my notes.

Not the actual graveyard I looked out on, but a graveyard nonetheless.

Sometimes, we’d talk about music or poetry, but then he’d invariably hit me with a question I hadn’t expected that cut through everything I hadn’t realised I’d been feeling, pulling me back from safety into what Schnarch called ‘the crucible’.

Schnarch said that relationships challenge us to balance two apparently incompatible needs. First, our desire to feel securely attached and connected. Second, our need to act with autonomy and protect our independence as a single entity.

He argued that the friction, conflict and vulnerability inherent in long term relationships creates the heat under the crucible in which the two people inside it change form and grow in ways that would not be possible if they were freed from its relentless heat.

By avoiding the inevitable friction of a real relationship, we optimise away the existence of the very thing that changes us, helps us to grow and is inherently its most challenging but greatest value.

I sit to compose a reply to the client, the recent exchange with my daughter still in my head, colliding with the study about AI intimacy and the increasing ease with which we can avoid conflict only to have it pop up somewhere else in ever more significant ways.

I write,

‘Have you told your partner that you feel uninspired and bored, and that he sometimes frustrates you?’

‘Have you given yourselves the chance to explore what you find challenging about one another in the hope that you might deepen your connection rather than loosening it?’

‘When you express anxiety at starting again with someone new, those thoughts are your friends. They are guiding you towards doing the honest and difficult work of addressing the issues in your relationship head on, so that you can work out where your future lies, together or apart. Whichever it is, confronting the truth is likely to leave you both in a better place than you would otherwise be.’

When I’m finished, I call Ken to see if he has any spaces.

(As always, any references to clients are changed substantially enough to protect confidentiality, or made up by me whilst being based in real client experience.)

‘Sideways’ is on holiday until next month but you can access the entire archive wherever you get your podcasts. Some people have listened to every episode, which is quite an achievement. Others use us to fall asleep, which we also consider a privilege.

That’s all for this week. Thanks for being here, I appreciate you.