'What is the congruous coping skill that you have, and what issue is it an adaptation to dealing with for both of you? So how do you need to grow?'
Yeah, it's pretty cryptic as is, huh?
The first thing about relationships is that we fall in love ONLY with people who are exactly as screwed up as we are, with the same issues… only we habitually deal with them in opposite ways. If you can see this pattern, you can often find ways out. I’ll give a couple of examples so you can start to get the pattern.
Ok, having the same issue but opposite ways of dealing with it means that, for example, my husband (H) and I both have a problem with anger. He feels and expresses anger a lot – when he was young he was a brawler, he’ll habitually turn almost any negative feeling (fatigue, irritation etc.) into anger. While he doesn’t get into fights any more, he does behave in angry and intimidating ways regularly. I never express anger. I barely even feel it I am so good at repressing it. When I try to talk about it I go all gooshy and cry and look weak. Or if I do manage to stay composed, I just don’t seem angry. Weird huh? So this is a problem, because he can’t know when he hurts my feelings or does something that makes me mad, and I can’t tell what he’s feeling when he’s feeling bad, and I just want to get away. Bad bad dynamic, as you can tell. So we both have problems with anger, and I retreat from it and he wears it like a parka. The solution is to develop the skills to talk about how we are feeling and what we need. More on that, after the examples.
Here is another example: I had a friend in a relationship where both of them had issues with control/confidence. She was impossibly passive, indecisive, couldn’t make decisions or follow through on things. She was just wishy-washy to the extreme because she was uncomfortable about being in charge of her life. He was also uncomfortable being in charge of his life, but compensated in the opposite way – he was controlling to the extreme. He wanted her to do what he wanted her to do when he wanted her to do it. He didn’t want her to talk on the phone, or go out, or decide what was for dinner. And it was comfortable for a while… (a perfect fit, right?) but then after not having to make her own decisions for a while she got rested up and thought it would be nice to decide some things for herself. And he freaked out! Of course it could happen the other way too, he gets rested up enough from being in charge and then doesn’t want to make the decisions, and the SHE freaks out! Ideally, of course, they should both get better and move toward each other at the same pace, so she gets interested in making more decisions just as he is getting tired of making them all and no one freaks out. But that hardly ever happens.
Here is a third example. Both H and I have “martyr” scripts – they go more or less like this: “I work so hard, and never ask anyone for help. No one thinks to ask me if I need help, they just expect me to be there for them. And when I do ask for help, no one is willing to help me. It is so unfair. No one appreciates me, or what I do. I work my tail off and no one even says ‘thank you’ or notices my efforts.” I respond to this by shutting down emotionally, getting resentful and working harder and being super effective – then collapsing. He responds to this by ceasing to do the work in question, getting angry and being less effective and less effective and just keeping going. An ugly ugly dynamic. The martyr thing is truly poisonous for any relationship. So we both have issues about our effort being appreciated. I feel resentment and produce notable results (which I get no satisfaction from.) He feels resentment and anger and spins his wheels and gets exhausted (which is also not too satisfactory.) Again, an ugly dynamic. The solution here is, pretty simple to say, and not so easy to do. We each have to learn how to communicate our appreciation of the other in a way the other person “gets” and then we both have to learn how to pace our work in healthy ways that balance effort and achievement. And we both have to be very very very committed to NOT thinking the martyr script – because it is the equivalent of putting on “poop colored glasses” (the opposite of “rose colored glasses.”)
It is generally a lot easier to recognize this pattern in our friends’ relationships than it is in our own. Trust me, its there. It is kind of hard to believe (or it was for me, I’m perfect after all
J.) But once accepted, things can change for the better.
The thing about each of these patterns is that at their roots are basic needs that all people have. I started out being surprisingly bad at identifying “needs” I am a bit better, although I still look up “basic human needs” lists on the internet regularly to remind me what they are. Here are a few categories (in italics) and examples:
Physical needs: Air, Food, Movement, Touch, Rest, Sexual Expression, etc.
Play/Spiritual Communion: Beauty, Harmony, Inspiration, Order, etc.
Interdependence: Acceptance, Closeness, Emotional Safety, Honesty, Love, Trust, Understanding, etc.
These are important to identify because once we know what the needs of each person is, it becomes possible to identify practical ways to meet the need. So putting the things together we can identify a pattern of conflict – where we both have opposite ways of dealing with the same issues – then talk about what our individual needs are, that are not being met, and then figure out ways to meet our own needs, and (hopefully) contribute to meeting each others’ needs too.
So for H and I the trick with the anger turns out to be noticing little day to day irritations and worries and not letting them build up. When we get out of the habit of thinking “minimizing” thoughts “Oh that’s ok, I’ll just….” Then we can notice what we each need. We each try to stop ignoring how we feel/what we need (as our parents taught us to) and instead practice noticing our own needs and trying to take care of our own needs
and giving the other person the opportunity to respond to them (neither of us read minds, after all.) All without
demanding that the other person take care of us. I know, I know, this sounds crazy right? (or maybe not, I don’t know
J.) Identifying and eliminating the martyr script has helped ENORMOUSLY. My friend and her husband never did get their dynamic figured out and eventually she left him.
L.
The whole thing is complicated by the fact that our subconscious (for lack of a better term) is working like mad to give us opportunities to heal emotional wounds that we got from our parents... hence the question about your father - most young women are working out "daddy issues." It is spooky how exactly the partner we choose will re-create the dynamics we had with our parents (the off again/on again pattern of attraction with boyfriends is a pretty good example.)
Ok, enough for now!
