"Trust". It’s one of those sacred words in relationship lingo that automatically projects an aura of goodness and wholesomeness. Conversely, "mistrust" seems to reek of evil and pathology. If you ever want to evoke visceral and mindless reaction from someone, just ask "Don’t you trust me?" Most people will reflexively and thoughtlessly reassure you that "Of course" they do. The won’t take the time to define the various ways in which they mistrust you as well. "Healthy mistrust" seems close to being an oxymoron like "military intelligence"…or "unhealthy trust." That’s unfortunate. It’s also the reason why a lot of people get hurt.
In my line of work, I find it sad to see so many people separating themselves from the tools necessary for their welfare. Mistrust, like fear and anger, has its utility. The trick is to know where and how. Think of it this way: Trust is really expectation. When we trust someone, we expect that he or she will behave consistently with what we envision. We expect good faith and responsibility in fulfilling commitments. But what happens when our expectations aren’t realistic? Let’s try a scenario:
You’re romantically (and sexually) involved with someone who recently has become separated. You’re aware that over the course of his or her previous marriage your partner had several affairs. Every time you raise the topic of commitment, your partner seems to divert the discussion and emphasize instead how much he/she really feels for you. You have little doubt about his or her passion. So why create problems with your mistrust?
Many of us naively fall into such a tar pit and helplessly flounder for years. It would be an oversimplification to say that we do so merely because we’ve been over-indoctrinated in trust. It’s probably more true that we childishly over-estimate the power of love as being able to surmount all obstacles. This kind of blind trust allows us to avoid having to make painful choices. However, it also prevents us from evaluating courses of action necessary for our own welfare. The question of whether or not to have sexual relations is especially important for this reason. Many of us have naively trusted that our passion will bring about commitment while we ignore the person’s stated desire for less involvement.
We may even ignore a long history of inconsistency and broken commitments. We "trust" that we can let ourselves become sexually and emotionally dependent before we realistically weigh the probable risks. Are we really so powerful that our mere hopes and desires can forge a new reality? In this assumption lies the seed of addictive relationships.
One of my most cherished tools has been the ability to give myself the permission to feel trust and mistrust, hope and fear, all with the same person. This permission-giving is not naïve. It’s not the unqualified permission for my "inner child" to play hopscotch on the busy freeway of uncommitted relationships. Instead, it is permission to be free enough from myth and taboo to see the way things really are. With this freedom comes clarity and with clarity comes safety. When my "inner parent" has responsibly attended to the realistic dangers, then I can maintain a more steady and realistic trust.
Perhaps you are one who would be better off by being more cautious in the early stages of a relationship. Instead of incurring a string of "betrayals," you might instead experience some "close calls." Giving yourself permission to avoid naïve trust can help you make the difference.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Letting Go of Harmful Relationships
SET AND KEEP FIRM LIMITS
First of all, let’s dispense with the notion of immediate "friendship." If you’ve been struggling with a destructive relationship, then you’re going to need more distance than that. Friendship is possible when both parties have fairly good emotional boundaries around what’s private and not common ground. Coming from a destructive relationship, those boundaries are going to need time to be regenerated. If you’re going to "separate", the harder task is to separate emotionally, not just physically. Casual leisure contact sends your unconscious the misguided message that the relationship will continue as usual. It will prevent you from getting on with the painful but necessary business of grieving over the losses. If you try to keep casual company with each other, you probably will begin to suffer "strategic amnesia" or another form of creeping denial regarding the reasons for the separation in the first place.
Another important reason for avoiding casual contact is that you probably will be very vulnerable to misplaced empathy. One of the biggest hooks back into a destructive relationship is the exquisite sense of guilt you can feel for causing the other person pain. If you try to turn your relationship into a friendship, you will be placing yourself in the immediate vicinity of the other person’s anguish. Your old pattern may have been to try to placate such feelings. Just because you’ve decided to terminate your romance doesn’t mean those buttons aren’t easy to push again. You just may not be that good at ignoring another person’s pain, especially when it seems that you could resolve it so easily.
So how long do you wait before planning friendly company with the other person? Maybe years. Maybe forever. Certainly a long, long time.
SHARE YOUR GRIEF WITH OTHERS
If you have stayed in a destructive relationship for any length of time, chances are there was something positive that kept you there. It may have only been hopes and dreams arising from early days in the relationship. It may have been something as simple as a sense of belonging. It will help you to be honest about what you’re losing. Many people think they have to focus only on the negative aspects of the relationship in order to keep their resolve. Actually, this strategy can backfire. By trying to convince yourself that the relationship only had negative aspects, you may actually be more likely to change your mind later on. By accepting that there are some positives that you will miss, your decision to separate will be more integrated and therefore more stable. Your decision will not be undone just because some of the positives have slipped back into your awareness.
A very powerful (but relatively known) truth is that IT CAN BE OK TO FEEL LOVE FOR SOMEONE WHILE YOU LEAVE HIM OR HER. Love does not conquer all but neither does hate. Your better strategy is to accept that you are a cornucopia of love, hate, and numerous other feelings about your relationship. Hopefully, your decision to separate was not just based on your feelings but also what you judged was the best way to take care of your self. If so, you probably will have some feelings of sadness and grief for the lost positives including love.
With who do you share? Certainly not with the person from whom you are separating. It would be a paradox to try to separate and yet allow yourselves to get emotionally closer by helping each other to grieve. Similarly, some friends may be too closely involved with the other person for you to keep separate in your unconscious. You are best off with safe, intimate friends who can help give you permission to grieve for the positive aspects of what that relationship gave you, even while it was hurting you terribly. In other words, your confidants will need to be mature and wise. If you don’t have any friends who meet these qualifications, then consider a therapist with a good reputation. Whatever you do, don’t try to do all the emotional work alone. You deserve to make it easier on yourself.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
First of all, let’s dispense with the notion of immediate "friendship." If you’ve been struggling with a destructive relationship, then you’re going to need more distance than that. Friendship is possible when both parties have fairly good emotional boundaries around what’s private and not common ground. Coming from a destructive relationship, those boundaries are going to need time to be regenerated. If you’re going to "separate", the harder task is to separate emotionally, not just physically. Casual leisure contact sends your unconscious the misguided message that the relationship will continue as usual. It will prevent you from getting on with the painful but necessary business of grieving over the losses. If you try to keep casual company with each other, you probably will begin to suffer "strategic amnesia" or another form of creeping denial regarding the reasons for the separation in the first place.
Another important reason for avoiding casual contact is that you probably will be very vulnerable to misplaced empathy. One of the biggest hooks back into a destructive relationship is the exquisite sense of guilt you can feel for causing the other person pain. If you try to turn your relationship into a friendship, you will be placing yourself in the immediate vicinity of the other person’s anguish. Your old pattern may have been to try to placate such feelings. Just because you’ve decided to terminate your romance doesn’t mean those buttons aren’t easy to push again. You just may not be that good at ignoring another person’s pain, especially when it seems that you could resolve it so easily.
So how long do you wait before planning friendly company with the other person? Maybe years. Maybe forever. Certainly a long, long time.
SHARE YOUR GRIEF WITH OTHERS
If you have stayed in a destructive relationship for any length of time, chances are there was something positive that kept you there. It may have only been hopes and dreams arising from early days in the relationship. It may have been something as simple as a sense of belonging. It will help you to be honest about what you’re losing. Many people think they have to focus only on the negative aspects of the relationship in order to keep their resolve. Actually, this strategy can backfire. By trying to convince yourself that the relationship only had negative aspects, you may actually be more likely to change your mind later on. By accepting that there are some positives that you will miss, your decision to separate will be more integrated and therefore more stable. Your decision will not be undone just because some of the positives have slipped back into your awareness.
A very powerful (but relatively known) truth is that IT CAN BE OK TO FEEL LOVE FOR SOMEONE WHILE YOU LEAVE HIM OR HER. Love does not conquer all but neither does hate. Your better strategy is to accept that you are a cornucopia of love, hate, and numerous other feelings about your relationship. Hopefully, your decision to separate was not just based on your feelings but also what you judged was the best way to take care of your self. If so, you probably will have some feelings of sadness and grief for the lost positives including love.
With who do you share? Certainly not with the person from whom you are separating. It would be a paradox to try to separate and yet allow yourselves to get emotionally closer by helping each other to grieve. Similarly, some friends may be too closely involved with the other person for you to keep separate in your unconscious. You are best off with safe, intimate friends who can help give you permission to grieve for the positive aspects of what that relationship gave you, even while it was hurting you terribly. In other words, your confidants will need to be mature and wise. If you don’t have any friends who meet these qualifications, then consider a therapist with a good reputation. Whatever you do, don’t try to do all the emotional work alone. You deserve to make it easier on yourself.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
The Paradox of Being Human
To many of us, the struggle for intimacy seems paradoxical. Most of us want to be intimate, to feel emotionally connected with another. At the same time, we want to be independent and self-sufficient. This conflict and tension is at the core of what it means to be human. To emphasize either need too much over the other is to tilt a person into a dehumanizing disequilibrium. If one only seeks a sense of closeness, one loses a sense of oneself as being loveable in one’s own right. If one is totally independent of others, he or she is probably best put behind bars for being a psychopath. I remember a patient who once impregnated the receptionist at the hospital in which I worked and then blew out of town after stealing a friend’s car. He was quite independent.
One of the biggest myths about relationships is that most break-ups occur because partners can’t get close enough or because they can’t communicate. This makes about as much sense as saying that most people die because their brains stop working. The coincidence is accurate, the causality is not. The paradox is that most break-downs in intimacy occur because partners are not sufficiently separate. By "separate’ I do not mean giving each other the cold shoulder or ignoring each other. I am referring to keeping one’s identity separate, valid, valuable, and whole without requiring the other partner to provide the missing pieces. If you feel unlovable and are too ashamed to admit it even to yourself, then you are likely to claw at your partner to restore your sense of worth. You will probably try to obligate your partner as if he or she were a parent, at the same time trying to change that parent. "If you loved me…" is a classic guilting maneuver in this fashion. Such intrusiveness, arising from enmeshed personal identities, is far more responsible for break-ups than mere communication problems. In fact, most communication problems in intimacy derive from enmeshment.
While enmeshment is the most serious threat to intimacy, a total emphasis on independence is stunting. For example, you cannot have a good sexual relationship without losing your boundaries and merging with the other. The French have an expression for orgasm: "la petite morte" which translates as "the little death." Without the death of ego or self-awareness, sex is much less fulfilling. Also, if there are no occasions when you can lean on the other person, you will miss a lot of the good stuff: the back rubs at night, the shared sorrow that helps reassure that you’re "OK", and other affirming reminders that you really are worth being cared for by another. Yes, it is important to learn to do it yourself. But it’s also important to be able to choose when to let another do it for you. The key word here is "choice". Without choice, you will lose the balancing skills required to maintain a healthy intimate relationship.
Balancing is a good metaphor for relationships. Paradoxically, each of us wants to move in opposing directions at the same time. We want to be independent yet we want to merge. We want to rely on ourselves yet we want to be nurtured and affirmed by others. This balancing act needs a lot of skill. Just as the high acrobat must keep his mass in motion to approximate balance, we also must stay in motion by constantly choosing our priorities among opposing needs. If we freeze into rigid roles, our intimacy is lost to the nets below. If we ignore either our need for separateness or our need for dependence, we lurch into disequilibrium. And so, we must keep on choosing, never quite settled, never permanently satisfied with the status of things. We can never finally resolve our paradox. But if we accept it and dare to keep choosing, we probably can negotiate the tightrope of intimacy.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
One of the biggest myths about relationships is that most break-ups occur because partners can’t get close enough or because they can’t communicate. This makes about as much sense as saying that most people die because their brains stop working. The coincidence is accurate, the causality is not. The paradox is that most break-downs in intimacy occur because partners are not sufficiently separate. By "separate’ I do not mean giving each other the cold shoulder or ignoring each other. I am referring to keeping one’s identity separate, valid, valuable, and whole without requiring the other partner to provide the missing pieces. If you feel unlovable and are too ashamed to admit it even to yourself, then you are likely to claw at your partner to restore your sense of worth. You will probably try to obligate your partner as if he or she were a parent, at the same time trying to change that parent. "If you loved me…" is a classic guilting maneuver in this fashion. Such intrusiveness, arising from enmeshed personal identities, is far more responsible for break-ups than mere communication problems. In fact, most communication problems in intimacy derive from enmeshment.
While enmeshment is the most serious threat to intimacy, a total emphasis on independence is stunting. For example, you cannot have a good sexual relationship without losing your boundaries and merging with the other. The French have an expression for orgasm: "la petite morte" which translates as "the little death." Without the death of ego or self-awareness, sex is much less fulfilling. Also, if there are no occasions when you can lean on the other person, you will miss a lot of the good stuff: the back rubs at night, the shared sorrow that helps reassure that you’re "OK", and other affirming reminders that you really are worth being cared for by another. Yes, it is important to learn to do it yourself. But it’s also important to be able to choose when to let another do it for you. The key word here is "choice". Without choice, you will lose the balancing skills required to maintain a healthy intimate relationship.
Balancing is a good metaphor for relationships. Paradoxically, each of us wants to move in opposing directions at the same time. We want to be independent yet we want to merge. We want to rely on ourselves yet we want to be nurtured and affirmed by others. This balancing act needs a lot of skill. Just as the high acrobat must keep his mass in motion to approximate balance, we also must stay in motion by constantly choosing our priorities among opposing needs. If we freeze into rigid roles, our intimacy is lost to the nets below. If we ignore either our need for separateness or our need for dependence, we lurch into disequilibrium. And so, we must keep on choosing, never quite settled, never permanently satisfied with the status of things. We can never finally resolve our paradox. But if we accept it and dare to keep choosing, we probably can negotiate the tightrope of intimacy.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
The Art of Negotiating for Space
"I need some space!" is a familiar expression to most of us, either from the giving or receiving end. I suspect that more women have heard this expression from men than vice-versa. This is probably because more men adopt the evader role in the pursuer-evader dance of boundary-troubled relationships. "Space" is the word that many of us use to describe the sense of being separate, independent, and most especially, not responsible for meeting another person’s needs and expectations. Actually, the desire for that sense of relief is very natural and healthy. It gets tiresome to have to work so hard and to be so considerate in a relationship. Unfortunately, many of us are so unskilled at negotiating for this relief that we eventually feel totally overwhelmed and engulfed. When this stage is reached, it is all too common for a partner to reach for drastic measures such as an affair, a long-term physical separation, or a total cancellation of commitment to the relationship.
The first step for creating a more flexible strategy is to realize that the "space" you’re seeking is not outside in the physical world as much as it is in your own head. A sense of being separate may be helped by being physically apart, but its really the sense of being separate from responsibility and its inherent loss of freedom that you desire. With this in mind, it becomes possible to negotiate for periods of time when you and your partner both understand that neither can expect the focused attention and consideration of the other. For example, it’s possible for one partner to negotiate for an afternoon or an evening when he/she will be focused on other friends or activities and during which he/she will not be emotionally available. This is not a difficult concept.
The second step for devising a better strategy is to give yourself explicit permission to separate emotionally. Many "co-dependent" partners expect this permission to come from the outside world instead of generating it themselves. Unfortunately, it won’t work that way and the engulfment stage is eventually reached with its predictable impulsive acting-out.
If you have reached steps one and two, it is very important that you use some tact in your negotiations for "space". Here are 3 useful guidelines that I have found to be helpful to couples:
1) Give as much advance notice as you can. Advance notice gives another person time to adjust expectations and to start his or her own emotional separation from you. It gives him time to plan how he will take care of himself while you’re unavailable, and he will be much less likely to feel abandoned.
2) If possible, try to allow your partner to have some say over when the period of separation will begin. Asking him or her if there is a better time period is one example. Following this guideline helps the other person to feel like an equal partner because his schedule is not being subordinated to yours without consideration. Pride is less likely to be injured.
3) It is especially important to suggest and negotiate a specific future time when you and your partner can come back together and be available to one another. Suggesting a future time, whether it’s in two hours or two days, is an effective way of affirming the other person’s importance to you and your commitment to the relationship. It will go a long way toward reducing the perception of abandonment if your partner hears that you are looking forward to being with him or her again.
The guidelines I have suggested are very general but they can make a dramatic difference. Unfortunately, tact does not develop immediately and repetition over time is necessary. If you are successful in refining these skills, you will be more likely to create your "space" within the relationship instead of breaking out of the relationship in order to find it.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
The first step for creating a more flexible strategy is to realize that the "space" you’re seeking is not outside in the physical world as much as it is in your own head. A sense of being separate may be helped by being physically apart, but its really the sense of being separate from responsibility and its inherent loss of freedom that you desire. With this in mind, it becomes possible to negotiate for periods of time when you and your partner both understand that neither can expect the focused attention and consideration of the other. For example, it’s possible for one partner to negotiate for an afternoon or an evening when he/she will be focused on other friends or activities and during which he/she will not be emotionally available. This is not a difficult concept.
The second step for devising a better strategy is to give yourself explicit permission to separate emotionally. Many "co-dependent" partners expect this permission to come from the outside world instead of generating it themselves. Unfortunately, it won’t work that way and the engulfment stage is eventually reached with its predictable impulsive acting-out.
If you have reached steps one and two, it is very important that you use some tact in your negotiations for "space". Here are 3 useful guidelines that I have found to be helpful to couples:
1) Give as much advance notice as you can. Advance notice gives another person time to adjust expectations and to start his or her own emotional separation from you. It gives him time to plan how he will take care of himself while you’re unavailable, and he will be much less likely to feel abandoned.
2) If possible, try to allow your partner to have some say over when the period of separation will begin. Asking him or her if there is a better time period is one example. Following this guideline helps the other person to feel like an equal partner because his schedule is not being subordinated to yours without consideration. Pride is less likely to be injured.
3) It is especially important to suggest and negotiate a specific future time when you and your partner can come back together and be available to one another. Suggesting a future time, whether it’s in two hours or two days, is an effective way of affirming the other person’s importance to you and your commitment to the relationship. It will go a long way toward reducing the perception of abandonment if your partner hears that you are looking forward to being with him or her again.
The guidelines I have suggested are very general but they can make a dramatic difference. Unfortunately, tact does not develop immediately and repetition over time is necessary. If you are successful in refining these skills, you will be more likely to create your "space" within the relationship instead of breaking out of the relationship in order to find it.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
Our Most Cherished Myths About Love
In working with many couples over the years, I have found certain themes to emerge again and again. Three of the most frequent themes are really myths about the nature of loving. As myths, they can be very destructive to intimacy. They lead to a misguided effort to create the illusion of love while ignoring the experience of love.
The first of these myths is that loving is giving. This is really just one step up from "love means never having to say you’re sorry." The truth is that loving is a feeling and nothing more. When we turn it into a transaction, we set the stage for us to lose contact with how we feel. Think of it this way. If loving is giving, then if we give more do we necessarily love more? Of course not. How many people reading this article are resentful because their sacrifices have not been appreciated? In reality, mature loving involves more receiving than giving. To love in a mature way we must learn to be attentive and to listen. We receive information from what the other person is telling us about themselves, their experience, and their feelings. Based on that information, we create a feeling within ourselves that is love. This is an especially alien concept to adult children from dysfunctional families because experience was such a devalued commodity within their original families. Many people, especially adult children from dysfunctional families, are taught that somehow they’re supposed to earn love from their parents. Now that they’re adults, it’s an easy extension to earn love from their partner by giving the "gift" of love. Which brings us to our second myth.
It seems a correct and common sense view that we give love. If so, how does that happen? Do we really give away a feeling? This common sense view does not hold up well to close scrutiny. It’s a particularly dangerous myth because it’s easy to use as a manipulation. For example: "Since I feel unimportant, then he’s obviously not giving me enough love." With this distortion, people with low self-esteem can project their dissatisfaction with themselves onto their partner. From the opposite side, the partner may conclude "Because she seems so unhappy, I’m obviously not giving her enough love." (No bias intended with the gender here. Turn it around if you like.) This commodity view of love depersonalizes it and removes it from the realm of experience. In reality, what we give to others is information about how we feel when we love. That information may be received or ignored, interpreted correctly or distorted, believed or discounted, appreciated or devalued. There’s no certainty as to how one partner will feel in response to the information that the other partner feels love. Very possibly, a partner may create their own feelings of being valuable but it’s not a certainty. It’s more accurate to say that love is something that we keep. We keep our feelings within us. They don’t jump outside of our skin. We may give off information but the feelings stay.
A third myth is that we "should" love our partner all the time. This myth ignores the fact that feelings are transitory. It’s also an especially dangerous myth because it sets the stage for turning the feeling of love into a responsibility and that doesn’t work. Many couples have sexual dysfunction around just this issue. If a partner buys the notion that he/she "should" always be interested in sex, then interest will usually atrophy. If you buy the obligation for feeling love, then that too will usually atrophy as a hollow-feeling role takes its place. The reality is that some moments you feel love for your partner, other moments you don’t. There may also be fairly long spans of time when a partner is incapable of love because of stress. That’s natural, it’s real, and it can also be temporary especially if both partners understand the episodic nature of love.
There are other myths about the nature of love but they will be saved for another discussion. What's most important is that we understand that love is a feeling. As a feeling, it's something we experience within ourselves in an episodic manner. When we depersonalize it into a commodity or a role, we set the stage for losing its power in our lives.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
The first of these myths is that loving is giving. This is really just one step up from "love means never having to say you’re sorry." The truth is that loving is a feeling and nothing more. When we turn it into a transaction, we set the stage for us to lose contact with how we feel. Think of it this way. If loving is giving, then if we give more do we necessarily love more? Of course not. How many people reading this article are resentful because their sacrifices have not been appreciated? In reality, mature loving involves more receiving than giving. To love in a mature way we must learn to be attentive and to listen. We receive information from what the other person is telling us about themselves, their experience, and their feelings. Based on that information, we create a feeling within ourselves that is love. This is an especially alien concept to adult children from dysfunctional families because experience was such a devalued commodity within their original families. Many people, especially adult children from dysfunctional families, are taught that somehow they’re supposed to earn love from their parents. Now that they’re adults, it’s an easy extension to earn love from their partner by giving the "gift" of love. Which brings us to our second myth.
It seems a correct and common sense view that we give love. If so, how does that happen? Do we really give away a feeling? This common sense view does not hold up well to close scrutiny. It’s a particularly dangerous myth because it’s easy to use as a manipulation. For example: "Since I feel unimportant, then he’s obviously not giving me enough love." With this distortion, people with low self-esteem can project their dissatisfaction with themselves onto their partner. From the opposite side, the partner may conclude "Because she seems so unhappy, I’m obviously not giving her enough love." (No bias intended with the gender here. Turn it around if you like.) This commodity view of love depersonalizes it and removes it from the realm of experience. In reality, what we give to others is information about how we feel when we love. That information may be received or ignored, interpreted correctly or distorted, believed or discounted, appreciated or devalued. There’s no certainty as to how one partner will feel in response to the information that the other partner feels love. Very possibly, a partner may create their own feelings of being valuable but it’s not a certainty. It’s more accurate to say that love is something that we keep. We keep our feelings within us. They don’t jump outside of our skin. We may give off information but the feelings stay.
A third myth is that we "should" love our partner all the time. This myth ignores the fact that feelings are transitory. It’s also an especially dangerous myth because it sets the stage for turning the feeling of love into a responsibility and that doesn’t work. Many couples have sexual dysfunction around just this issue. If a partner buys the notion that he/she "should" always be interested in sex, then interest will usually atrophy. If you buy the obligation for feeling love, then that too will usually atrophy as a hollow-feeling role takes its place. The reality is that some moments you feel love for your partner, other moments you don’t. There may also be fairly long spans of time when a partner is incapable of love because of stress. That’s natural, it’s real, and it can also be temporary especially if both partners understand the episodic nature of love.
There are other myths about the nature of love but they will be saved for another discussion. What's most important is that we understand that love is a feeling. As a feeling, it's something we experience within ourselves in an episodic manner. When we depersonalize it into a commodity or a role, we set the stage for losing its power in our lives.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
Wise Mistakes
For a good while, I’ve had to talk to numerous people about how to let go of harmful relationships. Getting out of harmful relationships has been a very hot topic in the press for several years. The topic seems relevant to the needs of many. However, there is a danger to such a negative outlook. With such a collective focus on avoiding or escaping from destructive relationships, it’s easy to overlook the natural and non-pathological ways that relationships often do not work out. Many times I have seen people blame themselves mercilessly for having pursued yet another ill-fated relationship, even when the relationship initially seemed to hold much promise. This self-castigation is especially prevalent among the people focussing on recovery from codependence issues. Like most self-blame, it’s destructive as well as unnecessary.
Too many people view relationships from a pseudo-scientific perspective: If you make a wise choice in a partner, then the relationship will work out (assuming you make the "right" moves as well). If you hold this belief as being your own, it may be laying the foundation for accumulating shame and low self-esteem. The problem is that relationship skills are probablistic at best. You can behave in "better" or "worse" ways to influence relationships but you cannot control them. They are NOT scientific and they don’t rely on exact procedures. There are no "right" choices! The myth of control is dangerous even though it seems reassuring on the surface. If you assume relationships can be controlled, then when one doesn’t work out you will likely conclude that you either did not make a wise choice in a mate (i.e. "dumb choice") or that you didn’t manage the relationship the "right" way (i.e. "dumb moves"). These messages accumulate more shame and evidence of your being a defective human being, even though your investment in the relationship may have been a good risk.
You are better off with a broader concept of risk within relationships. Instead of assuming that risk is just a matter of feeling vulnerable., you can also assume that you are operating on very limited information. You can assume that there is a lot about your partner that you cannot know, and perhaps a lot that they may not know about themselves. You can assume that you can’t perfectly predict how your partner’s feelings will change as the relationship evolves. You can assume that changing life circumstances may influence either your partner’s emotional investment or your own. In short, you can assume random and unpredictable influences over which you have little or no control. Which brings me to my main premise: That you can take wise risks for a relationship that doesn’t necessarily work out. Even though you may be disappointed with the demise of a relationship, your initial decision to invest may have been a wise one. This is especially prevalent when one person risks investing with another who is undergoing personal change following a separation or divorce. The newly divorced person may be wonderfully receptive, compassionate, and loving but he or she may be understandably avoidant of new commitments and may not have a stable vision of what he or she wants. Investing with such a person has many risks but also much potential. Will it be worth it? There’s no way to tell for sure. How much time do you have to find out? How important is a future commitment and how much do you want to emphasize the present? How vulnerable are you to the pain of possible disappointment? You may weigh these and other considerations when making a wise choice…and you may still be disappointed in the end. If you considered many of these factors, you don’t have to blame yourself for being dumb or pathological. You can instead appreciate your limitations in being able to predict the future.
So how do you know when you are making a "wise" or an "unwise" investment in a relationship? I would suggest that it is unwise to ignore easily obtainable information that can help your decisions. For example, not communicating with your partner can help keep you totally in the dark. The most unsound choices are made when you are ignoring information that you already have on hand. If you ignore a long and consistent pattern of frustrating behaviors by your partner merely because you keep hoping that he or she will change, then you are certainly exercising unwise choices. The bottom line is that unwise choices will involve unsound consideration of available information. Wise choices involve consideration of available but limited information as well as the real possibility that you may still wind up with having made a wise mistake.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
Too many people view relationships from a pseudo-scientific perspective: If you make a wise choice in a partner, then the relationship will work out (assuming you make the "right" moves as well). If you hold this belief as being your own, it may be laying the foundation for accumulating shame and low self-esteem. The problem is that relationship skills are probablistic at best. You can behave in "better" or "worse" ways to influence relationships but you cannot control them. They are NOT scientific and they don’t rely on exact procedures. There are no "right" choices! The myth of control is dangerous even though it seems reassuring on the surface. If you assume relationships can be controlled, then when one doesn’t work out you will likely conclude that you either did not make a wise choice in a mate (i.e. "dumb choice") or that you didn’t manage the relationship the "right" way (i.e. "dumb moves"). These messages accumulate more shame and evidence of your being a defective human being, even though your investment in the relationship may have been a good risk.
You are better off with a broader concept of risk within relationships. Instead of assuming that risk is just a matter of feeling vulnerable., you can also assume that you are operating on very limited information. You can assume that there is a lot about your partner that you cannot know, and perhaps a lot that they may not know about themselves. You can assume that you can’t perfectly predict how your partner’s feelings will change as the relationship evolves. You can assume that changing life circumstances may influence either your partner’s emotional investment or your own. In short, you can assume random and unpredictable influences over which you have little or no control. Which brings me to my main premise: That you can take wise risks for a relationship that doesn’t necessarily work out. Even though you may be disappointed with the demise of a relationship, your initial decision to invest may have been a wise one. This is especially prevalent when one person risks investing with another who is undergoing personal change following a separation or divorce. The newly divorced person may be wonderfully receptive, compassionate, and loving but he or she may be understandably avoidant of new commitments and may not have a stable vision of what he or she wants. Investing with such a person has many risks but also much potential. Will it be worth it? There’s no way to tell for sure. How much time do you have to find out? How important is a future commitment and how much do you want to emphasize the present? How vulnerable are you to the pain of possible disappointment? You may weigh these and other considerations when making a wise choice…and you may still be disappointed in the end. If you considered many of these factors, you don’t have to blame yourself for being dumb or pathological. You can instead appreciate your limitations in being able to predict the future.
So how do you know when you are making a "wise" or an "unwise" investment in a relationship? I would suggest that it is unwise to ignore easily obtainable information that can help your decisions. For example, not communicating with your partner can help keep you totally in the dark. The most unsound choices are made when you are ignoring information that you already have on hand. If you ignore a long and consistent pattern of frustrating behaviors by your partner merely because you keep hoping that he or she will change, then you are certainly exercising unwise choices. The bottom line is that unwise choices will involve unsound consideration of available information. Wise choices involve consideration of available but limited information as well as the real possibility that you may still wind up with having made a wise mistake.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
Message to a Daughter
If a new partner demonstrates fractured integrity so that future relationship problems are predictable, then it might make sense to reject such a poor gamble. The relevance of this logic was demonstrated when my daughter Heather was twenty years old. She came to me several days after her painful breakup with a second boyfriend in so many years. Heather looked straight into my eyes to underscore the earnestness of what she was about to say.
“Dad?” She said. “Will you teach me to not trust?”
At first I was nonplussed. It seemed a terrible request. Skepticism and cynicism aren’t my favorite attributes. But then I got an idea. Perhaps I could interpret her question to be less absolute. Then I might be able to give her a helpful answer. I asked for a few days to think about her question and she agreed. Several days later, I invited her to go out to our favorite Italian restaurant. After our dinner, I handed her a list of five guidelines to help sharpen her caution when selecting her future partner. Since then, a number of my clients have asked me for similar advice. I’ve given them the same guidelines that I gave her. If you’re contemplating a new relationship, they might be useful to you as well.
1) Quickly leave a new relationship if the person shows ANY lies of convenience. The biggest challenge is to resist your own desire to minimize and rationalize away the lies. If you don’t, it will probably be the biggest mistake of your life. Odds are that the person will be unfaithful over the coming years.
2) Don’t get married unless you and the other person have had three good fights. Until you see him get angry with you, you really haven’t seen his shadow side. If he doesn’t risk conflict, he will gradually distance himself out of the relationship. You want a relationship with someone who isn’t conflict phobic.
3) Team up with someone who can balance pleasure and responsibility. He needs to be comfortable being “healthily selfish.” He needs to love himself as well as you. If he can’t, you will eventually wind up being deprived along with him.
4) Prioritize character over passion. Select a partner who will “pay the price” for the sake of his integrity. You want someone who will struggle to be honest and consistent even when it costs him discomfort. Don’t rely on what the person says. Notice what he does when he thinks he’s unobserved. Don’t be seduced just because he is nice to you. There are many nice people who will show strong feelings for you but who will later betray you because they don’t have much character.
5) Don’t stay with someone who insists you don’t have the right to retreat into your own privacy. Privacy is an absolute right. If a new partner insists that you shouldn’t “abandon” him when you want to be alone, then he’s not accepting responsibility to stabilize himself like an adult. Adults don’t “abandon” other adults. We don’t have that type of responsibility for each other. We do have the responsibility to not abandon our children. If a partner insists that you shouldn’t “abandon” him, then he really wants a parented relationship and not an adult to adult relationship.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
What About This Business About Falling in Love?
Ahhh, that feeling! Your spirit soars. You feel like you’re being lifted higher and higher. If feels so good it must be right. Right? Maybe you’d better watch out for those cruel rocks below! How many of us have taken that flight, only to plummet to despair when our illusions are shattered. Perhaps the expression that you "fall" in love contains hidden wisdom that warrants attention. Falling is usually a passive act in which we don’t have much conscious choice about what is going to happen. We are victim to other forces beyond our control. Sometimes we land all right, sometimes not. Do you really want to remain so passive and trust in luck? Maybe so. But if you’re going to gamble, you’d better find out which way the dice are loaded.
The dice we’re talking about are the unconscious. Falling in love is really an extremely complex phenomenon that cannot be adequately described here. Let it suffice to say that there are usually unconscious motives interacting beyond the awareness of both partners. You don’t have to understand it. Call it your intuition and pay attention as to whether it works for you or against you in romantic relationships. Some of us may be brilliant thinkers and hold advanced degrees but we may have the lousiest intuition that leads us into one failed love affair after another. "Infatuation junkie" is one term for it. If you think your intuition has really led you into healthy, rewarding, enduring relationships, then go with it! Don’t mess with a process that works. But if your intuition doesn’t work….say you have a bent antenna….then consider another strategy.
Consider the alternative of climbing into love. It’s a lot more work and less glamour but the risks are far less and you can get there nonetheless. Consider the fact that the "in love" stage of relationships almost never exceeds three years and is usually much briefer. Being in love is going to be a short-lived phenomenon anyway. All romantic relationships must make a transition to a more mature form of loving if they’re going to remain stable after the "in love" stage. Perhaps it’s worth it for you to skip the risky part and move on to the stage where both of you must put in more effort. The reason why falling in love takes less effort is because it involves more fantasy than reality and fantasy is easy to manufacture. It’s more effort to maintain limits within the relationship while you ask yourself "Is this relationship really in my long-term best interest?" It’s more effort to reconcile how you both really are, warts and all. It’s far more effort to preserve mutual respect while you gradually explore your differences as well as your common ground.
Respect is a much under-valued commodity in relationships. It doesn’t give you the euphoria as does falling in love, it takes more effort, and it connotes more emotional separation between partners. However, some emotional separation is essential if your relationship is going to survive. Respect is the cornerstone of the more mature relationship that hopefully follows the in-love euphoria. A key point to take from this discussion is that you don’t have to fall in love in order to develop love. Respect is often a better starting point. From there, you may work your way to affection and from affection, to deeper intimacy as your trust grows more realistically.
Some of you may be wondering "Where’s the romance?" Take heart! Romance can grow just as well on a foundation of solid respect as it can on shaky infatuation. Many people assume that falling in love is the same thing as being romantic. Not true. Romance is something that can be actively created through choice and planning. Falling in love cannot. If you get romance confused with being the same thing as falling in love, you are likely to forget to plan your romance after the euphoric "in love" phase has departed. If you remember to plan those special times and special messages of affection, both you and your partner can enjoy a fulfilling and mature relationship.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
The dice we’re talking about are the unconscious. Falling in love is really an extremely complex phenomenon that cannot be adequately described here. Let it suffice to say that there are usually unconscious motives interacting beyond the awareness of both partners. You don’t have to understand it. Call it your intuition and pay attention as to whether it works for you or against you in romantic relationships. Some of us may be brilliant thinkers and hold advanced degrees but we may have the lousiest intuition that leads us into one failed love affair after another. "Infatuation junkie" is one term for it. If you think your intuition has really led you into healthy, rewarding, enduring relationships, then go with it! Don’t mess with a process that works. But if your intuition doesn’t work….say you have a bent antenna….then consider another strategy.
Consider the alternative of climbing into love. It’s a lot more work and less glamour but the risks are far less and you can get there nonetheless. Consider the fact that the "in love" stage of relationships almost never exceeds three years and is usually much briefer. Being in love is going to be a short-lived phenomenon anyway. All romantic relationships must make a transition to a more mature form of loving if they’re going to remain stable after the "in love" stage. Perhaps it’s worth it for you to skip the risky part and move on to the stage where both of you must put in more effort. The reason why falling in love takes less effort is because it involves more fantasy than reality and fantasy is easy to manufacture. It’s more effort to maintain limits within the relationship while you ask yourself "Is this relationship really in my long-term best interest?" It’s more effort to reconcile how you both really are, warts and all. It’s far more effort to preserve mutual respect while you gradually explore your differences as well as your common ground.
Respect is a much under-valued commodity in relationships. It doesn’t give you the euphoria as does falling in love, it takes more effort, and it connotes more emotional separation between partners. However, some emotional separation is essential if your relationship is going to survive. Respect is the cornerstone of the more mature relationship that hopefully follows the in-love euphoria. A key point to take from this discussion is that you don’t have to fall in love in order to develop love. Respect is often a better starting point. From there, you may work your way to affection and from affection, to deeper intimacy as your trust grows more realistically.
Some of you may be wondering "Where’s the romance?" Take heart! Romance can grow just as well on a foundation of solid respect as it can on shaky infatuation. Many people assume that falling in love is the same thing as being romantic. Not true. Romance is something that can be actively created through choice and planning. Falling in love cannot. If you get romance confused with being the same thing as falling in love, you are likely to forget to plan your romance after the euphoric "in love" phase has departed. If you remember to plan those special times and special messages of affection, both you and your partner can enjoy a fulfilling and mature relationship.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
Rethinking Intimacy
Intimacy. The holy grail of relationships. At least it seems that way for those of us who have searched long and hard for the "right person." I wonder how many of us really have gotten a clear picture of what we’re looking for. Where would we have gotten such a picture? From the cinema, from literature, from our parents? When I’ve asked people what they mean by the word "intimacy", the common reply is usually something about making one’s self vulnerable. Usually there’s no further explanation, as if the word "vulnerability" explains all. But does it really?
This is something to which I’ve recently given much thought. I’ve had to think about it because I found myself growing somewhat confused – confused about my growing comfort in relationships and my diminishing vulnerability. If intimacy is vulnerability, then I was definitely growing less intimate over the years. Either I was getting pretty lazy in my own personal development or I wasn’t fully comprehending something. The first possibility didn’t excite me much. But in addition to threatening my pride, it didn’t make much sense. Over the years, I’ve found myself gradually sharing more and more personal experience as I’ve become more self-accepting. In latter years, I’ve also received more affirmation from others that I’m intimate with them. So what gives? Why am I not quaking with terrible vulnerability?
It’s time to try out another definition. My personal belief is that intimacy is closely associated with vulnerability, but it isn’t exactly the same thing. Intimacy is sharing the truth about your experiential being – generally your desires and your feelings: the things that really define the core of who you are. When you do that, you tend to be pretty vulnerable if the other person runs you down. Most of us are much more hurt when our feelings are derogated than when our behaviors are criticized. This is especially true about our hidden desires for someone to nurture us. In an intimate relationship, this is the experiential truth that is most risky to show. When we reveal our dependence on the other person, criticism can feel devastating.
So when is intimacy not vulnerable? Perhaps there’s no way that intimacy can occur without some vulnerability. Maybe a five star psychopath would be able to reveal all of his desires without fear. That’s not possible for the rest of us. My own belief is that intimacy can be much less vulnerable, depending upon several factors. The first factor is that a person is able to use their own frame of reference. This means that the person is able to choose to rely upon his own authority for deciding that his desires and feelings are valid and important. If the person is derogated by another, it’s important that the person can quickly shift back to his own frame of reference for support.
The second factor is that his own frame of reference needs to be affirming and not derogatory. This usually has to be taught by good parenting or else later by good mentorship or therapy.
The third factor is more subtle. It has to do with emotionally letting go of the other person’s frame of reference. If we’ve been derogated and we shift back to our own frame of reference, then we’ve lost something. We’ve lost a sense of connection with that other person, and our desire for dependence has been frustrated. We’ve lost some hope that we can immediately experience that tender connection. When this happens, we can’t let go of the pain unless we have the capacity to mourn. When we have to pull back and rely on ourselves alone, it’s important to feel sad. Many of us do not do this well because we have a sense of shame about sadness. And because we’re blocked from feeling sad, we’re often blocked from pulling back into our own frame of reference. Healthy sadness is an essential tool for deepening intimacy. It allows us to lessen our risks because it allows us to separate emotionally when we need to.
So let me invite you to rethink your definition of intimacy. If intimacy is shared truth and not mere vulnerability, then we can be more hopeful. We can hope to grow in ways that give us more choices and fewer risks. We can grow in ways that reassure us that someone is truly there for us, even when the other person isn’t. We can hope to experience tender togetherness and be comfortable at the same time. Wouldn’t that be nice?
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
This is something to which I’ve recently given much thought. I’ve had to think about it because I found myself growing somewhat confused – confused about my growing comfort in relationships and my diminishing vulnerability. If intimacy is vulnerability, then I was definitely growing less intimate over the years. Either I was getting pretty lazy in my own personal development or I wasn’t fully comprehending something. The first possibility didn’t excite me much. But in addition to threatening my pride, it didn’t make much sense. Over the years, I’ve found myself gradually sharing more and more personal experience as I’ve become more self-accepting. In latter years, I’ve also received more affirmation from others that I’m intimate with them. So what gives? Why am I not quaking with terrible vulnerability?
It’s time to try out another definition. My personal belief is that intimacy is closely associated with vulnerability, but it isn’t exactly the same thing. Intimacy is sharing the truth about your experiential being – generally your desires and your feelings: the things that really define the core of who you are. When you do that, you tend to be pretty vulnerable if the other person runs you down. Most of us are much more hurt when our feelings are derogated than when our behaviors are criticized. This is especially true about our hidden desires for someone to nurture us. In an intimate relationship, this is the experiential truth that is most risky to show. When we reveal our dependence on the other person, criticism can feel devastating.
So when is intimacy not vulnerable? Perhaps there’s no way that intimacy can occur without some vulnerability. Maybe a five star psychopath would be able to reveal all of his desires without fear. That’s not possible for the rest of us. My own belief is that intimacy can be much less vulnerable, depending upon several factors. The first factor is that a person is able to use their own frame of reference. This means that the person is able to choose to rely upon his own authority for deciding that his desires and feelings are valid and important. If the person is derogated by another, it’s important that the person can quickly shift back to his own frame of reference for support.
The second factor is that his own frame of reference needs to be affirming and not derogatory. This usually has to be taught by good parenting or else later by good mentorship or therapy.
The third factor is more subtle. It has to do with emotionally letting go of the other person’s frame of reference. If we’ve been derogated and we shift back to our own frame of reference, then we’ve lost something. We’ve lost a sense of connection with that other person, and our desire for dependence has been frustrated. We’ve lost some hope that we can immediately experience that tender connection. When this happens, we can’t let go of the pain unless we have the capacity to mourn. When we have to pull back and rely on ourselves alone, it’s important to feel sad. Many of us do not do this well because we have a sense of shame about sadness. And because we’re blocked from feeling sad, we’re often blocked from pulling back into our own frame of reference. Healthy sadness is an essential tool for deepening intimacy. It allows us to lessen our risks because it allows us to separate emotionally when we need to.
So let me invite you to rethink your definition of intimacy. If intimacy is shared truth and not mere vulnerability, then we can be more hopeful. We can hope to grow in ways that give us more choices and fewer risks. We can grow in ways that reassure us that someone is truly there for us, even when the other person isn’t. We can hope to experience tender togetherness and be comfortable at the same time. Wouldn’t that be nice?
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
Misguided Hope
"Love is the most powerful force in the universe." Most of us actually believe that, if love is strong enough, it will create a healthy relationship in addition to changing the course of rivers and moving mountains. Forgive my indulgence in cynicism but the parallel is appropriate. For some relationships, a favorable outcome is about as probable. Many people are confused because the conventional wisdom about love is not very wise. The common assumption is that a strong love is an intense love and that the stronger the feeling, the longer it will last. Love songs proclaim "I want a love whose flame is hot enough to last." Unfortunately, the reality may be that you will wind up with a flash in the pan.
One of the most erroneous beliefs about relationships is that intensity creates consistency. However, if you want to predict consistency and persistence in a relationship, you are better off fining a mate who is generally consistent and persistent in all relationships.
It is always amazing to me that people will overlook the obvious available data and be seduced by the other person’s intense feelings. Most people who are in covert relationships with married lovers are making this mistake despite the lies, alibis, and broken promises. It’s as if the reassurance of an occasional romantic interlude stokes the fire of misguided hope: the hope that because you and the other person love intensely, he or she will behave differently with you than he has in the past.
The sad truth is that some forms of love may be both intense and lethal. Certain personality disorders are capable of producing the most intense forms of love, yet their relationships yield a much higher homicide rate. Many others are somewhat less pathological but are still capable of episodic loving with intense passion as well as leading the partner’s life to general turmoil.
There’s a flip side to this coin. In early childhood it’s natural to think that you’re at the center of the universe. If you don’t receive the attention, consistency, and nurturing you crave, then childhood logic dictates that you must be doing something wrong – or just not doing enough. For adults who were children of dysfunctional families, this type of thinking has been doubly reinforced by an emotionally impoverished environment.
In adulthood, it’s an easy transition to apply the same logic with a slight variation: if you’re doing enough to bring about some occasional intense passion in your mate, then a bit more effort can probably bring about his or her constant devotion. This line of magical thinking is one reason why a higher proportion of children from dysfunctional families find themselves addicted to hopelessly inconsistent relationships. It’s unfortunate that so many people have such badly calibrated gyroscopes.
My point of view is that people are not made truthful and responsible because they love someone. They’re truthful and responsible because they love truth and responsibility. Love develops alongside the integrity of character that already exists. You don’t have to pursue the misguided hope of trying to make someone more consistent with your love. Instead, you can use the power of your wisdom to select a mate who already has integrity. If your partner doesn’t value his integrity sufficiently, then no amount of intense romance is going to change that.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
One of the most erroneous beliefs about relationships is that intensity creates consistency. However, if you want to predict consistency and persistence in a relationship, you are better off fining a mate who is generally consistent and persistent in all relationships.
It is always amazing to me that people will overlook the obvious available data and be seduced by the other person’s intense feelings. Most people who are in covert relationships with married lovers are making this mistake despite the lies, alibis, and broken promises. It’s as if the reassurance of an occasional romantic interlude stokes the fire of misguided hope: the hope that because you and the other person love intensely, he or she will behave differently with you than he has in the past.
The sad truth is that some forms of love may be both intense and lethal. Certain personality disorders are capable of producing the most intense forms of love, yet their relationships yield a much higher homicide rate. Many others are somewhat less pathological but are still capable of episodic loving with intense passion as well as leading the partner’s life to general turmoil.
There’s a flip side to this coin. In early childhood it’s natural to think that you’re at the center of the universe. If you don’t receive the attention, consistency, and nurturing you crave, then childhood logic dictates that you must be doing something wrong – or just not doing enough. For adults who were children of dysfunctional families, this type of thinking has been doubly reinforced by an emotionally impoverished environment.
In adulthood, it’s an easy transition to apply the same logic with a slight variation: if you’re doing enough to bring about some occasional intense passion in your mate, then a bit more effort can probably bring about his or her constant devotion. This line of magical thinking is one reason why a higher proportion of children from dysfunctional families find themselves addicted to hopelessly inconsistent relationships. It’s unfortunate that so many people have such badly calibrated gyroscopes.
My point of view is that people are not made truthful and responsible because they love someone. They’re truthful and responsible because they love truth and responsibility. Love develops alongside the integrity of character that already exists. You don’t have to pursue the misguided hope of trying to make someone more consistent with your love. Instead, you can use the power of your wisdom to select a mate who already has integrity. If your partner doesn’t value his integrity sufficiently, then no amount of intense romance is going to change that.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
All in the Name of Honesty
How many times has each of us received an emotional wound followed by the justification, "I’m only being honest!" "Honesty" is like other sacrosanct words like "love", "unselfish", and "caring" that have the ability to put people’s forebrains to sleep. The mere utterance of the word has the ability to rationalize many behaviors that would otherwise not stand up to close scrutiny. If you are trying to learn how to better defend your privacy and stand up for yourself, then honesty is something you had best get real clear.
The biggest reason to get this concept clear is that if you don’t, it will be used against you! How? By implying that if you don’t tell all, then you’re being dishonest. It’s always amazing to me how many of my clients struggle with feelings of disloyalty to others because they harbor feelings that they haven’t shared. I don’t know how the myth has been propagated but it seems that it’s something of a sin if you haven’t shared all of your feelings. If sharing feelings is being honest, then not sharing your feelings is dishonest, right? Wrong. Or at least more often wrong than right. Not sharing your feelings may be tactful, or considerate, or maybe just plain careful. Here’s something that may help. Honesty is not the same thing as openness. Suppose you see something that reminds you of an old relationship while you’re with a new partner. Suppose you know your new partner is a bit insecure and somewhat prone to jealousy. You have several choices. One possible choice would be to tell all about your feelings for the previous relationship. That wold be both open and honest. Another choice would be to make up a small "white lie" like nothing was going on with you, even though your partner has noticed a difference. That would be closed and dishonest. However, a third choice might be to say that you experienced some old feelings that had nothing to do with the present relationship but that you don’t feel ready to share them. That would be closed but honest.
To confuse honesty with openness is to deny that third option for yourself. It’s that third option of being honestly closed that allows you to set necessary limits in many relationships. It’s also sometimes referred to as maintaining your privacy. For some reason, I find that this is especially hard for some people to keep clear in relations with their parents. For many young couples, not telling their parents details about their present romance may seem like a form of dishonesty. I usually get much resistance when I counsel that they can be closed about many details without being dishonest. Perhaps it’s because they don’t want to risk rejection if they’re honest about maintaining a separate private life.
Of course it’s possible to be closed and dishonest as well. If you secretly break an exclusivity agreement by having an affair, that’s a clear example. Sometimes the agreements haven’t been so explicitly negotiated and then we get into the gray areas…but that will probably have to be the subject of another article.
Another reason to learn to keep some feelings private is so that you can be less tempted to share your feelings as a weapon – all in the name of being honest. If we’re truthful with ourselves, all of us can remember times when we’ve hurt or manipulated another by sharing our "honest" feelings. You know how it’s done. First act like something’s on your mind but only vaguely allude to it. Then when your partner asks you what it is, you tell them that you really shouldn’t have said anything in the first place and it really isn’t anything important. That double message will really hook ‘em. Finally, when their curiosity has swelled to a feverish pitch, they’ll really press you. You finally have all the license you need and …SOCKO! Then share you feelings (and a lot of opinions about their shortcomings). "But you’re ooooooonly being honest!" If I sound a bit sarcastic, let me temper it a bit by saying that I don’t exclude myself from the ranks of the guilty.
A good word to remember in conjunction with honesty is "tact." Tact implies consideration for the other in what you’re doing. It means you have to think about how you’re doing something and the consequences that might ensue. Is it really safe for you to "let it all hang out" or is this a situation where privacy can protect? Do you really want to give that person so much access to your vulnerable feelings? Have they demonstrated that they won’t manipulate those feelings to bully you in the future?….OR…Are you going to share information that will likely hurt the other? Will the benefit from the other’s knowledge outweigh the pain that it will bring? Are you thinking of a compassionate way to share the information? Have you looked at your own anger and your desire to punish? These are all questions to help formulate tact. With tact, we have to exercise more choices. We don’t let our unconscious lead us to impulsive action while we rationalize it as being honest. We can have tact and we can have honesty too. We just need to be clear that honesty is not the same thing as openness and that the latter is a personal choice involving our privacy.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
The biggest reason to get this concept clear is that if you don’t, it will be used against you! How? By implying that if you don’t tell all, then you’re being dishonest. It’s always amazing to me how many of my clients struggle with feelings of disloyalty to others because they harbor feelings that they haven’t shared. I don’t know how the myth has been propagated but it seems that it’s something of a sin if you haven’t shared all of your feelings. If sharing feelings is being honest, then not sharing your feelings is dishonest, right? Wrong. Or at least more often wrong than right. Not sharing your feelings may be tactful, or considerate, or maybe just plain careful. Here’s something that may help. Honesty is not the same thing as openness. Suppose you see something that reminds you of an old relationship while you’re with a new partner. Suppose you know your new partner is a bit insecure and somewhat prone to jealousy. You have several choices. One possible choice would be to tell all about your feelings for the previous relationship. That wold be both open and honest. Another choice would be to make up a small "white lie" like nothing was going on with you, even though your partner has noticed a difference. That would be closed and dishonest. However, a third choice might be to say that you experienced some old feelings that had nothing to do with the present relationship but that you don’t feel ready to share them. That would be closed but honest.
To confuse honesty with openness is to deny that third option for yourself. It’s that third option of being honestly closed that allows you to set necessary limits in many relationships. It’s also sometimes referred to as maintaining your privacy. For some reason, I find that this is especially hard for some people to keep clear in relations with their parents. For many young couples, not telling their parents details about their present romance may seem like a form of dishonesty. I usually get much resistance when I counsel that they can be closed about many details without being dishonest. Perhaps it’s because they don’t want to risk rejection if they’re honest about maintaining a separate private life.
Of course it’s possible to be closed and dishonest as well. If you secretly break an exclusivity agreement by having an affair, that’s a clear example. Sometimes the agreements haven’t been so explicitly negotiated and then we get into the gray areas…but that will probably have to be the subject of another article.
Another reason to learn to keep some feelings private is so that you can be less tempted to share your feelings as a weapon – all in the name of being honest. If we’re truthful with ourselves, all of us can remember times when we’ve hurt or manipulated another by sharing our "honest" feelings. You know how it’s done. First act like something’s on your mind but only vaguely allude to it. Then when your partner asks you what it is, you tell them that you really shouldn’t have said anything in the first place and it really isn’t anything important. That double message will really hook ‘em. Finally, when their curiosity has swelled to a feverish pitch, they’ll really press you. You finally have all the license you need and …SOCKO! Then share you feelings (and a lot of opinions about their shortcomings). "But you’re ooooooonly being honest!" If I sound a bit sarcastic, let me temper it a bit by saying that I don’t exclude myself from the ranks of the guilty.
A good word to remember in conjunction with honesty is "tact." Tact implies consideration for the other in what you’re doing. It means you have to think about how you’re doing something and the consequences that might ensue. Is it really safe for you to "let it all hang out" or is this a situation where privacy can protect? Do you really want to give that person so much access to your vulnerable feelings? Have they demonstrated that they won’t manipulate those feelings to bully you in the future?….OR…Are you going to share information that will likely hurt the other? Will the benefit from the other’s knowledge outweigh the pain that it will bring? Are you thinking of a compassionate way to share the information? Have you looked at your own anger and your desire to punish? These are all questions to help formulate tact. With tact, we have to exercise more choices. We don’t let our unconscious lead us to impulsive action while we rationalize it as being honest. We can have tact and we can have honesty too. We just need to be clear that honesty is not the same thing as openness and that the latter is a personal choice involving our privacy.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
Beyond Equality
There is a useful term that one hears relative to investments but is rarely mentioned when discussing relationships. The term is "equity." We more often hear people discuss "equality" in relationships. Unfortunately, equality is not nearly as constructive a concept for guiding a couple to creative solutions. When people discuss equality in a relationship, they usually ignore a basic reality: people are not equal. They are not equal in that needs and desires usually differ. If a couple focuses too much on trying to make things equal, they will miss opportunities for trading off their differences for mutual gain. Instead of equal responsibilities and equal opportunities in a relationship, a couple is better off strategizing complementary trade-offs:
Jack Spratt could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean.
But in betwixt the two of them,
They licked the platter clean.
We all know that men are usually better at fixing tires and women are usually better at mending clothes. However, much more creativity and imagination are required to negotiate trade-offs such as different vacations or job relocations. The concept of equality has some connotations that do not encourage one to make strategic sacrifices. You make a strategic sacrifice when you willingly defer or give up a lesser interest of yours in order to enable your partner to pursue a major interest of his or hers. If you work it right, you can get your partner to make a similar sacrifice in the future that benefits one of your more important interests. In this way, both you and your partner come out ahead. Looking for constant equality in a relationship tends to limit one’s focus to the immediate situation. It also tends to limit one to advocating for self-interest alone, as if the relationship is a zero-sum game. The most useful connotation of equity is one involving time. You sacrifice and invest in the present so that you can profit at a later time. The concept of equality has no such connotation.
No doubt many readers of this article will abhor the notion of sacrifice after having felt victimized in past inequitable relationships. If you’re one of those people, please consider that what probably went wrong had more to do with faulty implementation. I have found that most people are very poor at explicitly negotiating reciprocity and would rather assume it. Unfortunately, if you only assume that your partner will reciprocate without getting an explicit commitment to do so, you will set yourself up for disappointment and resentment. Many people often will a) not remember when a partner is sacrificing a self-interest for one of theirs and b) not remember when a partner made a sacrifice in the past to benefit them. For these reasons, assuming your partner will notice and remember on his or her own is often naive. Establishing equity can require hard negotiating and bargaining. If you’re willing to relocate with a partner for his career move, it would be wise to extract an agreement that the next move after X number of years will be yours. If it’s not a reciprocal career move that you want, you can negotiate for something else. Maybe you want the next car. But get the agreement up front! If you don’t, it may be assumed that you went along with his move because you didn’t have much of a preference. In other words, your sacrifices (investments) will be minimized.
Of course, when we talk about sacrifice, we are talking about necessary sacrifice: the type that is required for either you or your partner to get something you want. For those of you who sacrifice yourselves with only magical notions that somehow it will benefit someone, there is a much more fundamental problem involved. If so, it would be handled best in a 12-step recovery group such as Codependents Anonymous or Adult Children of Alcoholics.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
Jack Spratt could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean.
But in betwixt the two of them,
They licked the platter clean.
We all know that men are usually better at fixing tires and women are usually better at mending clothes. However, much more creativity and imagination are required to negotiate trade-offs such as different vacations or job relocations. The concept of equality has some connotations that do not encourage one to make strategic sacrifices. You make a strategic sacrifice when you willingly defer or give up a lesser interest of yours in order to enable your partner to pursue a major interest of his or hers. If you work it right, you can get your partner to make a similar sacrifice in the future that benefits one of your more important interests. In this way, both you and your partner come out ahead. Looking for constant equality in a relationship tends to limit one’s focus to the immediate situation. It also tends to limit one to advocating for self-interest alone, as if the relationship is a zero-sum game. The most useful connotation of equity is one involving time. You sacrifice and invest in the present so that you can profit at a later time. The concept of equality has no such connotation.
No doubt many readers of this article will abhor the notion of sacrifice after having felt victimized in past inequitable relationships. If you’re one of those people, please consider that what probably went wrong had more to do with faulty implementation. I have found that most people are very poor at explicitly negotiating reciprocity and would rather assume it. Unfortunately, if you only assume that your partner will reciprocate without getting an explicit commitment to do so, you will set yourself up for disappointment and resentment. Many people often will a) not remember when a partner is sacrificing a self-interest for one of theirs and b) not remember when a partner made a sacrifice in the past to benefit them. For these reasons, assuming your partner will notice and remember on his or her own is often naive. Establishing equity can require hard negotiating and bargaining. If you’re willing to relocate with a partner for his career move, it would be wise to extract an agreement that the next move after X number of years will be yours. If it’s not a reciprocal career move that you want, you can negotiate for something else. Maybe you want the next car. But get the agreement up front! If you don’t, it may be assumed that you went along with his move because you didn’t have much of a preference. In other words, your sacrifices (investments) will be minimized.
Of course, when we talk about sacrifice, we are talking about necessary sacrifice: the type that is required for either you or your partner to get something you want. For those of you who sacrifice yourselves with only magical notions that somehow it will benefit someone, there is a much more fundamental problem involved. If so, it would be handled best in a 12-step recovery group such as Codependents Anonymous or Adult Children of Alcoholics.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
When Empathy Becomes Codependence
There’s a joke I once heard about codependence: How can you tell if a drowning woman, is codependent? Answer: Someone else's life passes in front of her eyes. Of course, the female gender holds no monopoly on codependence but I report the joke as it was told to me by a "recovering" person in AA. I tell that joke a lot when doing therapy, not out of disrespect but for its illustrative albeit exaggerated truth. Like drowning people who can't think of themselves first, many people focus on their partner's feelings and needs to the exclusion of their own.
Recently, it seems I have been seeing more clients who complain about losing their boundaries when another person is in acute pain. Many of these people also have trouble establishing boundaries in the face of anger but the real killer seems to be pain. It's almost as if, when the other person is hurting, no legitimate choice exists other than to assuage his suffering. This may involve reestablishing an unhealthy relationship, granting undesired sexual favors, or sacrificing independent interests in a far from healthy empathy. It involves identifying emotionally with the experience of pain but not assuming the responsibility for managing it.
Adult children from dysfunctional families have exceptional difficulty in distinguishing between healthy empathy and unhealthy responsibility for pain. In their original families, most were taught inadvertently to cross the empathy and responsibility wires. When a parent who is suffering emotionally depends on the child for support, the child eventually will learn to assume responsibility for mollifying the parent's pain. Children do not have clear psychological boundaries from a parent, and the sense of responsibility becomes ingrained before the child establishes those boundaries. Later on in adult life, it is quite natural for the grown-up child to repeat the feeling of assumed responsibility when presented with a partner's suffering. It then feels tremendously disloyal to ignore someone in pain.
In therapy, I have told many of my clients that feeling disloyal often is an indication of growth during the recovery from codependence. The reason is that loyalty to the original parent often is what keeps the codependent response in place. When one begins to consider one's own welfare first, it actually may conflict with the implicit parental rule: "You are responsible for tending to my pain first." To reject that rule, you may be implicitly rejecting the way you originally attached to your parent. You may have originally bonded with him or her through a sense of responsibility for "earning" his presence. To reject responsibility for managing another's pain, you may subconsciously have to push away your old "internalized parent." That's pretty heavy stuff and guilt is understandable.
If this is your struggle, I would suggest that you not try going it alone. In my experience, people do not let go of what has even marginally worked until they have something with which to replace it. Most people cannot subconsciously push away an "internalized parent" until they have established a more healthy internal ally. This is the job of good psychotherapy. I recommended that you consider this option if you repeatedly cannot be disloyal enough to consider your own welfare first.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
Recently, it seems I have been seeing more clients who complain about losing their boundaries when another person is in acute pain. Many of these people also have trouble establishing boundaries in the face of anger but the real killer seems to be pain. It's almost as if, when the other person is hurting, no legitimate choice exists other than to assuage his suffering. This may involve reestablishing an unhealthy relationship, granting undesired sexual favors, or sacrificing independent interests in a far from healthy empathy. It involves identifying emotionally with the experience of pain but not assuming the responsibility for managing it.
Adult children from dysfunctional families have exceptional difficulty in distinguishing between healthy empathy and unhealthy responsibility for pain. In their original families, most were taught inadvertently to cross the empathy and responsibility wires. When a parent who is suffering emotionally depends on the child for support, the child eventually will learn to assume responsibility for mollifying the parent's pain. Children do not have clear psychological boundaries from a parent, and the sense of responsibility becomes ingrained before the child establishes those boundaries. Later on in adult life, it is quite natural for the grown-up child to repeat the feeling of assumed responsibility when presented with a partner's suffering. It then feels tremendously disloyal to ignore someone in pain.
In therapy, I have told many of my clients that feeling disloyal often is an indication of growth during the recovery from codependence. The reason is that loyalty to the original parent often is what keeps the codependent response in place. When one begins to consider one's own welfare first, it actually may conflict with the implicit parental rule: "You are responsible for tending to my pain first." To reject that rule, you may be implicitly rejecting the way you originally attached to your parent. You may have originally bonded with him or her through a sense of responsibility for "earning" his presence. To reject responsibility for managing another's pain, you may subconsciously have to push away your old "internalized parent." That's pretty heavy stuff and guilt is understandable.
If this is your struggle, I would suggest that you not try going it alone. In my experience, people do not let go of what has even marginally worked until they have something with which to replace it. Most people cannot subconsciously push away an "internalized parent" until they have established a more healthy internal ally. This is the job of good psychotherapy. I recommended that you consider this option if you repeatedly cannot be disloyal enough to consider your own welfare first.
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriagehelpfak.html .
Anger - The Misunderstood Emotion
Anger. Isn’t that the emotion that wrecks relationships? Terrifies children? Provokes violence? How can anyone say anything positive about it? For many of us who have grown up in dysfunctional families, trying to appreciate anger may seem like extolling the virtues of migraines.
Let’s first start by dispelling some misconceptions. Anger is not violence. It is not screaming or yelling, and it is not sarcasm. These are merely mismanaged anger-driven behaviors. Anger is really just a form of emotional energy. It’s energy oriented toward protection and survival and we have it because it has helped our species to evolve. Fifty thousand years ago, it helped us to keep the jackals away from our prey. Today, we’re more symbolic. Anger now helps us to protect our self-concepts from injury. An important thing to know about anger is that it’s always driven by one of two possible emotions. Look under anger and you will always find either fear or pain. That’s useful to understand when you face an angry lover. Trying to understand the fear or pain of your partner can help you avoid the cycle of trading retributions. If anger is energy, then like most forms of energy it can be constructive or destructive. Atomic or electrical energies are highly toxic if unchanneled. Shielded and focused, they are very useful. So how can anger be useful? Do you think you can have a healthy intimate relationship without sometimes saying "No" or "please stop"? Where do you think you get the energy to oppose your partner’s wishes and risk their displeasure when your needs come into conflict with theirs? Many people have a naïve notion that intimate partners should be a perfect fit so that conflict doesn’t occur. That’s not the real world. In the real world, partners have conflicting needs every day and maintaining the relationship is a balancing act. What does useful anger look like? It doesn’t have to look like a rage or a tantrum. One example is when you ask your partner to stop doing something that bothers you. Another example is when you maintain the privacy of a relationship from someone else who is intrusively inquisitive. Useful anger often involves planning. For example, seeking relationship counseling can also be a healthy expression of anger. Working very hard to save a troubled business can be another form. All of these examples involve energy to preserve or defend; to defend personal comfort, to defend privacy, to defend a relationship, to defend a livelihood. Who would deny that it’s healthy to mobilize the energy to preserve or defend our self interests? Many people. Why? Because so many of us have seen unhealthy expression or enactment of anger.
If you grew up in an alcoholic or other kind of dysfunctional family, you probably have witnessed parents who expressed anger in what’s known as a "regressed" form. This means that when they got angry, they tended to become like tantruming children – and that’s very dangerous. Children don’t focus or channel their anger. They act it out without regard to consequence. Fortunately, two year olds don’t have the strength, the means, or the freedom to cause much damage. Try to imagine a highly verbal and mobile two hundred pound two year old throwing a tantrum. That’s what a regressed parent can be like. Those of us who have witnessed an alcoholic parent beat or demean our other parent, shoot the family dog, or leave bloody welts on our legs have probably learned early on that anger is ugly, dangerous, and unhealthy. We may also learn something else: that under no circumstances will we be like our angry parent. And so, we may learn to deny our anger and become as un-angry as possible. But this doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because without our anger we can’t maintain our boundaries during intimacy. It also doesn’t work because if we don’t welcome anger into our adult experience, then we also will experience our anger in a regressed form. There are many male readers of this article who fear that they will become explosive like their fathers. The sad fact is that in order to avoid their anger, they must also avoid intimacy… and do so.
Instead of viewing anger as necessarily ugly, let me suggest a view that allows the possibility for "beautiful" anger. What is beautiful anger? It’s anger that’s not designed to inflict pain but rather allows you to defend self-interest and thereby to risk intimacy. It’s anger that helps you to mobilize and say "No" when you need to. It’s anger that addresses the needs of that little child inside inside you and gives you the unconscious message "I’ll protect you and keep you safe." If viewed in this way, anger can be focused and channeled as an expression of self-love. Doesn’t that sound beautiful?
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
Let’s first start by dispelling some misconceptions. Anger is not violence. It is not screaming or yelling, and it is not sarcasm. These are merely mismanaged anger-driven behaviors. Anger is really just a form of emotional energy. It’s energy oriented toward protection and survival and we have it because it has helped our species to evolve. Fifty thousand years ago, it helped us to keep the jackals away from our prey. Today, we’re more symbolic. Anger now helps us to protect our self-concepts from injury. An important thing to know about anger is that it’s always driven by one of two possible emotions. Look under anger and you will always find either fear or pain. That’s useful to understand when you face an angry lover. Trying to understand the fear or pain of your partner can help you avoid the cycle of trading retributions. If anger is energy, then like most forms of energy it can be constructive or destructive. Atomic or electrical energies are highly toxic if unchanneled. Shielded and focused, they are very useful. So how can anger be useful? Do you think you can have a healthy intimate relationship without sometimes saying "No" or "please stop"? Where do you think you get the energy to oppose your partner’s wishes and risk their displeasure when your needs come into conflict with theirs? Many people have a naïve notion that intimate partners should be a perfect fit so that conflict doesn’t occur. That’s not the real world. In the real world, partners have conflicting needs every day and maintaining the relationship is a balancing act. What does useful anger look like? It doesn’t have to look like a rage or a tantrum. One example is when you ask your partner to stop doing something that bothers you. Another example is when you maintain the privacy of a relationship from someone else who is intrusively inquisitive. Useful anger often involves planning. For example, seeking relationship counseling can also be a healthy expression of anger. Working very hard to save a troubled business can be another form. All of these examples involve energy to preserve or defend; to defend personal comfort, to defend privacy, to defend a relationship, to defend a livelihood. Who would deny that it’s healthy to mobilize the energy to preserve or defend our self interests? Many people. Why? Because so many of us have seen unhealthy expression or enactment of anger.
If you grew up in an alcoholic or other kind of dysfunctional family, you probably have witnessed parents who expressed anger in what’s known as a "regressed" form. This means that when they got angry, they tended to become like tantruming children – and that’s very dangerous. Children don’t focus or channel their anger. They act it out without regard to consequence. Fortunately, two year olds don’t have the strength, the means, or the freedom to cause much damage. Try to imagine a highly verbal and mobile two hundred pound two year old throwing a tantrum. That’s what a regressed parent can be like. Those of us who have witnessed an alcoholic parent beat or demean our other parent, shoot the family dog, or leave bloody welts on our legs have probably learned early on that anger is ugly, dangerous, and unhealthy. We may also learn something else: that under no circumstances will we be like our angry parent. And so, we may learn to deny our anger and become as un-angry as possible. But this doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because without our anger we can’t maintain our boundaries during intimacy. It also doesn’t work because if we don’t welcome anger into our adult experience, then we also will experience our anger in a regressed form. There are many male readers of this article who fear that they will become explosive like their fathers. The sad fact is that in order to avoid their anger, they must also avoid intimacy… and do so.
Instead of viewing anger as necessarily ugly, let me suggest a view that allows the possibility for "beautiful" anger. What is beautiful anger? It’s anger that’s not designed to inflict pain but rather allows you to defend self-interest and thereby to risk intimacy. It’s anger that helps you to mobilize and say "No" when you need to. It’s anger that addresses the needs of that little child inside inside you and gives you the unconscious message "I’ll protect you and keep you safe." If viewed in this way, anger can be focused and channeled as an expression of self-love. Doesn’t that sound beautiful?
If you would like to hear my recommendations to people who have written in about their various relationship problems, go to my website at www.carycounseling.com/door/Prototype/marriageadvicefak.html .
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