Sometimes there are posts written by those in the recovery field that are excellent and worth repeating. Here is one such post by noted author and blogger, Steven Stosny.
Anger in Marriage: Failure of Compassion and the Rise of Contempt
Most marriages end in a whimper, not a bang. The final rupture is not caused by too much anger or abuse or infidelity. Rather, most marriages die a slow, agonizing death from too little compassion.
Compassion is sympathy for the hurt or distress of another. At heart it is a simple appreciation of the basic human frailty we all share, which is why the experience of compassion makes you feel more humane and less isolated.
Compassion is necessary for the formation of emotional bonds. Think of when you were dating someone you eventually came to love. Suppose you had to call that person and report that your parents had died. If your date responded with, "Well, that's tough, call me when you get over it," would you have fallen in love with that person? Chances are, you fell in love with someone who cared about how you felt, especially when you felt bad.
Most of what you fight about now is not money or sex or in-laws or raising the kids. Those are common problems that seem insurmountable only when you're hurt. What causes the hurt, i.e., what you really fight about, is the impression that your partner doesn't care how you feel. When someone you love is not compassionate, it feels like abuse.
As compassion decreases, resentment automatically rises, making common problems insoluble. If unfettered by the better angels of our nature, resentment inevitably turns into contempt.
Contempt is disdain for the hurt of others, due to their lower moral standing, character defects, mental instability, ignorance, or general unworthiness. Contempt is powered by a low but steady dose of adrenalin. So long as the adrenalin lasts, you feel more confident and self-righteous in blaming your bad feelings on some defect of your partner. But you also feel less humane. And when the adrenalin wears off, you feel depressed.
Both compassion and contempt are extremely contagious and highly influenced by projection. If you're around a compassionate person, you're likely to become more compassionate. If you're around a contemptuous person, you're likely to become more contemptuous, unless you make a determined effort to remain true to your deepest values. If you project onto others that they're compassionate, they are likely to become more considerate. If you project contemptuous characterizations, such as, "loser, abuser, selfish, lazy, narcissistic, irrational, devious, etc.," they are likely to become more so.
By the time couples come to our boot camps for chronic resentment, anger, or emotional abuse, they have developed entrenched habits of protecting their respective vulnerabilities by devaluing each other. They try to justify their contempt with "evidence" that the partner is selfish, lazy, narcissistic, crazy, abusive, etc. Mutual contempt makes them both feel chronically criticized and attacked, although neither really wants to attack the other. They feel like victims and rationalize their bad behavior as mere reactions to the awful behavior of the other. Their defenses so automatically justify their resentment and contempt that they cannot possibly see each other.
Neither can they see that their resentment and contempt have cut them off from their deeper values and made them into someone they are not.
Once defenses become habits, they run on automatic pilot and resist change through insight. They will likely recur in any future relationship that stirs guilt, shame, and anxiety, that is to say, any close relationship.
The only way out, whether the couple stays in the relationship or not, is to focus on compassion - not to manipulate change in the other - but to feel more humane and to reconnect with their deepest values.
The problem is that most couples are afraid to embrace compassion once they've been hurt.
How we cope with our feelings is vital. We work hard during our recovery to embrace all our emotions and learn to give our partner the space to do the same. Our recovery emboldens us to be compassionate partners as we walk our chosen path.
Showing posts with label defenses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label defenses. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Know Thyself... and be less angry!!
Why do we feel infuriated when we disagree with our partner over important issues in our relationship? When we disagree, why do we instinctively feel that we are right?
When events spiral out of control in our relationship we may become angry. We may feel as though our partner is on the attack. There is frustration and disagreement between ourselves and our partner. We may feel as though our partner is being unfair and unreasonable. Our defenses are primed. We may become unable to keep ourselves in a logical frame of mind. We may succumb to the temptation of playing the blame game.
All these defensive postures are designed to keep us from recognizing what is at the core of our anger. We are feeling vulnerable. We may not be certain that our partner is incorrect. On some level we may doubt the veracity of our position. We may feel that our partner has made their point well and we are too invested in our own position to admit that another possibility exists.
All these possibilities run through our head as we argue and debate our point with our partner. We both feel strongly. We each defend our positions well. We cannot sway the other to our side. At the close of our disagreement we may feel angry. We are entrenched in our position and blame our partner for their inability to see our point of view. But... the same could be said of us. We are at an impasse.
If we are able to put our ego aside, allow ourselves to eliminate blame from the equation we might be able to see our situation in a calmer more centered way. If we were able to view the facts in a dispassionate manner we might be able to avoid the confrontation. Both of those statements sound nice... but we are emotional, feeling, human beings. We can no more put aside our feelings and respond in a dispassionate manner than we can decide not to breathe any longer.
The answer is to recognize what is going on within ourselves... to acknowledge our own vulnerabilities and limitations. To know ourselves well enough to be able to be honest in our self appraisal. If we can accomplish this task we are in a much better position to be rational and compassionate during disagreements.
When events spiral out of control in our relationship we may become angry. We may feel as though our partner is on the attack. There is frustration and disagreement between ourselves and our partner. We may feel as though our partner is being unfair and unreasonable. Our defenses are primed. We may become unable to keep ourselves in a logical frame of mind. We may succumb to the temptation of playing the blame game.
All these defensive postures are designed to keep us from recognizing what is at the core of our anger. We are feeling vulnerable. We may not be certain that our partner is incorrect. On some level we may doubt the veracity of our position. We may feel that our partner has made their point well and we are too invested in our own position to admit that another possibility exists.
All these possibilities run through our head as we argue and debate our point with our partner. We both feel strongly. We each defend our positions well. We cannot sway the other to our side. At the close of our disagreement we may feel angry. We are entrenched in our position and blame our partner for their inability to see our point of view. But... the same could be said of us. We are at an impasse.
If we are able to put our ego aside, allow ourselves to eliminate blame from the equation we might be able to see our situation in a calmer more centered way. If we were able to view the facts in a dispassionate manner we might be able to avoid the confrontation. Both of those statements sound nice... but we are emotional, feeling, human beings. We can no more put aside our feelings and respond in a dispassionate manner than we can decide not to breathe any longer.
The answer is to recognize what is going on within ourselves... to acknowledge our own vulnerabilities and limitations. To know ourselves well enough to be able to be honest in our self appraisal. If we can accomplish this task we are in a much better position to be rational and compassionate during disagreements.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Why am I So Afraid of FEAR?
FEAR... False Expectations Appearing Real. That is quite an acronym. Fears can be real or imagined. Staring into the face of a sabre tooth tiger and fearing for your life is quite real. Most of the fears we face today occur when we have insufficient information available to make an informed decision. We don't know all that we need to create a full picture so we fill in the blanks with our own experiences. Unfortunately our experiences may not apply to the situation at hand. We finish the painting, but alas we didn't start it and don't know the outcome the artist had in mind. Instead of completing the Mona Lisa, we end up with Dogs at Cards.
Fears can cause a multitude of problems in relationships. An example: When faced with an upcoming family gathering involving meeting new people for the first time, one partner may feel insecure. The insecurity may be based in low self esteem. Fear may take hold and as the event approaches the fearful partner may become ill and unable to attend. If this pattern manifests frequently in the relationship the other partner may eventually become angry and accuse the ill partner of not liking the family. A lack of understanding may cause a failure to communicate that the underlying issue is a fear of not being accepted.
It can be quite difficult to verbalize fears. Many of us experienced fear and trauma at an age where verbal language was not within our grasp. Two year olds have just learned how to ask for food or a toy. They do not have the words to discuss feelings. When caretakers frighten children with strong emotions of their own, such as anger or rage, children may become traumatized. Even five year olds rarely have the available verbiage to talk about emotions. If our caretakers were busy taking care of siblings, tending to a sick parent, going to work everyday and doing chores at home, going to school or just watching TV all day, no one was available to help us translate emotions into words. If our caretakers are the ones reacting with strong emotions, yelling often or becoming violent, there is no safe place for a child to take their emotions and get comfort and explanations.
By the time we have the needed vocabulary we are approaching twelve or thirteen years of age. At this point we have learned much about expressing feelings from our family of origin as well as our friends. Feelings may be unacceptable if our home is dysfunctional. Our experience with friends may make it uncool to talk about feelings. We may enter into adulthood almost illiterate regarding emotions. We have emotions, but may not be able to find the words to describe our feelings. This makes processing emotions quite difficult. We need language to allow our thinking brains to integrate our emotions into our selves.
This inability to join words to feelings leave us unable to tolerate strong emotions. We feel extreme unmanagability when strong emotions arrive. We react with our defenses to squelch the uncomfortable feelings. We have not learned how to process strong emotions and we are frightened by their intensity. As we learn which words to attach to the emotions we feel, our thinking brain can process them. We can integrate this new knowledge into our inner selves. Then next time the same strong emotion occurs we can be ready with our words. Our thinking minds can logically process the feelings for us creating increased self esteem and a feeling of control over our reactions.
This is vital for long term health. In order to create balance in our daily lives we must be able to process our emotions with our thinking minds. To rely on our reactive mind to guide us through the maze of feelings through our lives is inadvisable. It may leave us open to bouts of uncontrolled basic emotions, such as rage. These strong unprocessed raw emotions can be terrifying to witness, both for the one experiencing the emotions as well as for their partner.
The external view of raw unprocessed emotions appears uncontrolled and extremely frightening. Especially to a small child, unprocessed raw feelings may be traumatic. We want to avoid passing down our issues to the next generation. We have a grave responsibility to learn the words we need to process our emotions into feelings that we understand. Through our recovery work we have learned tools we can use to deal with issues, such as feeling overwhelmed or angry. Once our emotions have been processed into understandable feelings we can practice self care. Through using our tools we increase our self esteem and feel capable of controlling our strong emotions.
Fears can cause a multitude of problems in relationships. An example: When faced with an upcoming family gathering involving meeting new people for the first time, one partner may feel insecure. The insecurity may be based in low self esteem. Fear may take hold and as the event approaches the fearful partner may become ill and unable to attend. If this pattern manifests frequently in the relationship the other partner may eventually become angry and accuse the ill partner of not liking the family. A lack of understanding may cause a failure to communicate that the underlying issue is a fear of not being accepted.
It can be quite difficult to verbalize fears. Many of us experienced fear and trauma at an age where verbal language was not within our grasp. Two year olds have just learned how to ask for food or a toy. They do not have the words to discuss feelings. When caretakers frighten children with strong emotions of their own, such as anger or rage, children may become traumatized. Even five year olds rarely have the available verbiage to talk about emotions. If our caretakers were busy taking care of siblings, tending to a sick parent, going to work everyday and doing chores at home, going to school or just watching TV all day, no one was available to help us translate emotions into words. If our caretakers are the ones reacting with strong emotions, yelling often or becoming violent, there is no safe place for a child to take their emotions and get comfort and explanations.
By the time we have the needed vocabulary we are approaching twelve or thirteen years of age. At this point we have learned much about expressing feelings from our family of origin as well as our friends. Feelings may be unacceptable if our home is dysfunctional. Our experience with friends may make it uncool to talk about feelings. We may enter into adulthood almost illiterate regarding emotions. We have emotions, but may not be able to find the words to describe our feelings. This makes processing emotions quite difficult. We need language to allow our thinking brains to integrate our emotions into our selves.
This inability to join words to feelings leave us unable to tolerate strong emotions. We feel extreme unmanagability when strong emotions arrive. We react with our defenses to squelch the uncomfortable feelings. We have not learned how to process strong emotions and we are frightened by their intensity. As we learn which words to attach to the emotions we feel, our thinking brain can process them. We can integrate this new knowledge into our inner selves. Then next time the same strong emotion occurs we can be ready with our words. Our thinking minds can logically process the feelings for us creating increased self esteem and a feeling of control over our reactions.
This is vital for long term health. In order to create balance in our daily lives we must be able to process our emotions with our thinking minds. To rely on our reactive mind to guide us through the maze of feelings through our lives is inadvisable. It may leave us open to bouts of uncontrolled basic emotions, such as rage. These strong unprocessed raw emotions can be terrifying to witness, both for the one experiencing the emotions as well as for their partner.
The external view of raw unprocessed emotions appears uncontrolled and extremely frightening. Especially to a small child, unprocessed raw feelings may be traumatic. We want to avoid passing down our issues to the next generation. We have a grave responsibility to learn the words we need to process our emotions into feelings that we understand. Through our recovery work we have learned tools we can use to deal with issues, such as feeling overwhelmed or angry. Once our emotions have been processed into understandable feelings we can practice self care. Through using our tools we increase our self esteem and feel capable of controlling our strong emotions.
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