Wait—Is That How You Really See Me? Perceptual Incongruence in Relationships (Part I)
In relationships, it can be comforting to know that there is a good-enough shared reality between partners, particularly about how each person is perceived. Without this, we are left asking, whose reality is real? Who am I? Who are you? It can be confusing and hurtful to discover that the way your partner views you is remarkably different from the way you view yourself. In a particularly disorienting twist, you might begin to doubt your own perception and view of yourself.
This experience, where people in a relationship have different perceptions of themselves in comparison to how they are being viewed by the other, is called “perceptual incongruence.” A recent study of 406 relationships found that the more incongruence in self-rating versus partner rating of one’s personal qualities (where partner rating was more negative than self-rating), the lower the relationship satisfaction, whereas congruence between ratings was strongly associated with relational satisfaction (George et al., 2020).
The merit of viewing your partner favorably has a long and venerable history in the lexicon of couples and relationship therapy. In the 1980s, psychology professor Robert Weiss coined the term “sentiment override” to describe a basic climate within a relationship of positive or negative regard for the other, particularly in terms of perceived intention (Hawkins et al., 2002). The relationship researcher John Gottman and colleagues took this idea a bit further, using the term “negative sentiment override” to describe a nearly global lens of ill intent and character that is typically present in a troubled relationship (Gottman & Silver, 2012). Similarly, the creators of Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP), discovered that negative mind-reading (assuming negative intent) contributed to relationship stress, whereas positive attributions (assuming positive intent) were relationship enhancing (Markman et al., 2010).
As a relationship therapist in the trenches, I’ve noticed that in distressed relationships, perceptual incongruence of the most distressing type is almost always present, with each partner viewing the other in a less positive light than the person views themselves.
To theorize for a moment (if theory isn’t your thing, feel free to skip this paragraph), this ability to perceive or “get” what is in another’s mind and what is in our own mind is called mentalizing, a process thought to be generated in a complex network of brain regions called the mentalization neural network (Luyten & Fonagy, 2015). Optimal, healthy mentalization allows you to understand your own mind and accurately imagine what is in the mind of another, while holding your perspective with flexibility. Being mentalized with accuracy and acceptance feels comforting, as though we are being fully seen by the other through a lens of warmth and trust in our basic goodness. In a sense, it’s a kind of healthy mindreading. Out of balance, mentalizing can be either too present (hypermentalizing) or too scarce (hypomentalizing), and it can be out of balance in other ways as well (Luyten & Fonagy, 2015; Sharp et al., 2025). Different cultures also vary in how much people expect that others’ thoughts and feelings are visible, understandable, or open to interpretation (Weinstein et al., 2022), which can also impact what feels like optimal, balanced mentalizing. Additionally, a history of developmental trauma often correlates with challenges in optimal, balanced mentalizing (Gorgellino et al., 2025).
In simple terms, while perceptual incongruence is common, it is distressing. When the perceived finds out their partner is viewing them in a less positive way than how they are viewing themselves, the perceived can feel hurt, shocked, confused, or even betrayed. Confusion and doubt can also ensue when the perceiver realizes that the perceived sees themselves and their intentions in a more positive light. If you are experiencing this in your relationship, read on to find out why perceptual incongruence can occur, and what can be done about it.
Read Part II of this series to learn more about why perceptual incongruence happens.
References
George, D. M., Wisdom, A., Linrud, A., Hall, S., Ballais, M., & Bermudez, K. (2022). The influence of self- and partner-enhancement, perceptual congruence and personal identity on relational satisfaction among married couples, dating couples and same-sex roommate dyads. Intechopen. doi: https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93913
Gorgellino, M., Kumar, G., Parkar, Y., Catalan, A., Fares-Otero, N., Debbané, M., Armando, M., & Alameda, L. (2025). The shadow of trauma: impaired mentalization in clinical populations–a systematic review. Psychological medicine, 55, e186, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291725100822
Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (2012). What makes love last? How to build trust and avoid betrayal. Three Rivers Press.
Luyten, P., & Fonagy, P. (2015). The neurobiology of mentalizing. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 6(4), 366-379. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/per0000117
Markman, H. J., Stanley, S. M., & Blumberg, S. L. (2010). Fighting for Your Marriage: A Deluxe Revised Edition (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Sharp, C., Barr, C., & Vanwoerden, S. (2025). Hypermentalizing: The development and validation of a self-report measure. Frontiers in Psychology, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1546464
Weinstein, N. Y., Whitmore, L. B., & Mills; K.L. (2022). Individual Differences in Mentalizing Tendencies. Collabra: Psychology 8 (1). https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.37602