Struggling With Radical Acceptance

[Justmehere]

Radical acceptance is simply accepting things as they are. It doesn't mean never seeking to change them. Sometimes that is warranted, and sometimes radial acceptance involves accepting that some things can't be changed - and this can also mean accepting that a natural grief process must be ensured which means feeling angry and loss and working through it.

I personally struggle a lot with radical acceptance and I've read a lot about it. I recommend reading John Zabat-Zinn's book "wherever you go, there you are." It really helped me understand radical acceptance in a way that helped me feel empowered.

 

[joeylittle]

We can make a life worth living or cry every day about living the life we have found ourselves in.

Exactly.

It falls off the tracks when I think I can make that life worth living by getting my wife to see the simple, easily reached goal of mutual respect and concern and integrity. I can't let go of that goal, I can't trade it in for radical acceptance of the idea that I need to give up on making it happen and just willingly face the reality that it will not.

Nor do you need to accept that you are in a marriage that you don't want. I really like the way you put the goal - mutual respect, concern, and integrity. It's so complicated - but it actually sounds to me like RA would be useful for you in getting through the present moments of frustration - but then, you get to communicate with your wife from a less prescriptive standpoint, talk about the core issues as you've stated them above, and see how she is willing to be creative with you about solving the problem.

I think maybe, at this point holding onto the idea that she will do those things exactly the way you want her to do them - that might not be reality, given how often she's not followed-through. But there could be other, just as effective for you ways. You don't have to compromise on your goals for life. Ever. Just sometimes, we need a way to clear the fog or relieve the extreme pain so that we can think clearly again, and not act rashly...that's the right time to apply RA, but as a self-care thing almost. I think the way your therapist framed this might have included applying it to a situation where you actually CAN get to a better place - your marriage - but for the relief of your own pain, you could accept in the immediate that things are as they are. Neither one is ultimately mutually exclusive.

Marriage is hard. Someone I was in DBT with once, while trying to sort out her communication issues with her husband (much like yours, actually) - she said "Why do we always have to be the 'better' ones in these conversations?" We, meaning people who are in therapy for their own stuff. And the group leader said, "because all of us here suffer so much more severely when we cannot address our own needs".

I guess I'm trying to say, you will probably feel like, yet again, you are working harder than your wife JUST in terms of getting the conversation going one more time. But remember, it's because you do have needs that are different from her needs; and you are taking care of yourself by making sure you can solve how to get them met.
Or something. I miss DBT. Sorry I've been all soap-box-y. I really don't think I'm the all-knowing queen here. Just have spent a lot of time on the stuff.

@Justmehere, "Wherever you go, there you are" is such a great book. Thank you for bringing it up.

 

[user27357]

@joeylittle

hey, didn't I ask for help? you can get all soap boxey here any time you want, didn't I set up the box? You and your advice are exactly what I sought today. Everyones help, really. And so far it has been coming in in great waves of good advice and thanks to all of you for it. I still don't see it, but according to Marsha Linnehan I won't at first and I am still at first. I read that all and without going back and re reading I would guess that she uses the phrases "isn't easy" and "takes practice" like maybe fifty times.

I would have to say that my approach to all of the nasty little things that annoy me everyday is to just say "well, being here and doing this and facing that will always beat the alternative of being nowhere and doing nothing and facing nothing every time". I just need to learn to believe this when it applies to the really big stuff too. thats as close as I can get right now.

 

[Eleanor]

I have little to add to anything anyone has said, and they know way more than me. Here is what I got, for what it is worth:

People fall in love with other people who are at approximately the same level of screwed-upness but whose coping strategies are opposite. As far as I can tell this is invariably true and our capacity to recognize stuff in each other borders on the clairvoyant. Spooky.
The upshot is that if you kind of scotch-tape a couple together and squint they look like a single functional person! But... absent the tape and squinting there is trouble. And the trouble can be dealt with (when it can be dealt with) by both partners working on themselves to get themselves more whole and flexible than they start out. So if I cope with trust issues by having super rigid boundaries and my partner deals with the same by have totally fluid boundaries initially this will seem totally charming. Over time it will become intolerable. And the thing to do to stay together is for me to loosen up my boundaries and my parter to tighten up theirs. In my actual marriage I minimize, my H catastrophizes. The solution is for us each to do less of our own thing and be more like the other. That means we both move to more flexibility and less habitual responses.

I don't know how these dots connect in your relationship. But the dots always seem to be there to connect.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Honestly, I don't think that this is an issue that you should apply radical acceptance to. Over on the supporter boards there is always talk about non-communication from the sufferer end, and I always say that if the sufferer can't adhere to basic communication requests (ie saying "I need space" instead of simply ignoring) then the sufferer has no business being in a relationship. If your wife can't even adhere to basic requests for communication so that you'll simply know what's going on with your family and what sort of plans to make for dinner, then I'd say its time for couples therapy. I think you are taking all of this on perhaps because you are the "designated patient" ie the one with a diagnosis, so maybe you feel like you should change. Communication is the backbone of any relationship, and even if you weren't a sufferer, then this behavior would be unnerving. You shouldn't have to accept bad behavior when it affects your daily life this much. Don't take the blame for this and put blame where blame is due. You CLEARLY communicated a need to your wife, and she is ignoring your requests. I'm not sure what else you can do at this point, and that's why I say its time for couples therapy. If your wife still refuses to change, then you'll have to decide if her behavior is acceptable to you, and if not, then are you willing to end things over this. I suspect this truly is a major issue in your relationship as if you throw away communication, then 9 times out of 10 you might as well throw away the entire relationship (because at that time, what would even be the point?)

 

[scout86]

2) get used to the idea that I cannot make her change, I just have to know that a promise is a set up for disappointment and it is easier to lower expectations than to divorce and re marry.

I'm haven't read through the whole thread yet. (Today is another day when I'm having trouble making myself stay in one place and focus on reading through stuff.) You said this at least twice, though, and I'd like to suggest an adjustment. (Maybe someone else already has & I haven't ready it yet!)

I agree with you when you say you need to accept that you can't make her change. You can't. If anyone is going to change her, it's got to be her.
BUT, maybe SHE needs to learn not to make promises she's not going to be able to keep. I no longer promise I'm going to show up places "on time" when I know there's a reasonable chance, due to circumstances beyond my control, I'll be late, for example. I used to do that, a lot. I did it because people couldn't accept "I might be late." and it bothered me to upset them. It bothered me to upset them by being late too, but there was a least a chance I might avoid that. I finally reached the point of accepting "I am a person who is frequently late." and I live my life as such.
A promise is not necessarily a set up for disappointment, but some promises are unrealistic.

Feeling: I want to know my wife is safe and everything is going well in my absence

I'm not sure if that's a feeling or if it's actually more of a fact.

How does your wife feel about that? Does she understand how important this is to you, and the reasons for that? Is it your wife's responsibility to relieve your fears? (Simply asking that, not offering a personal opinion!) Is your wife concerned about her safety when you're gone?

I've never studied "radical acceptance". This is probably WAY off, because it's just a guess based on some stuff I've read here. I'm guessing that a "radical acceptance" approach to the situation you've described might be something along the lines of 1) You accept that you're concerned that something might happen to your wife while you aren't there. 2) You accept that, if something happens to your wife while you aren't there, there's nothing you can do about it. 3)You accept that your wife isn't as worried about this as you are. (I'm guessing that's the case.) 4) You accept that your wife isn't a person who prioritizes keeping track of her phone the same way you do.....

I don't think you have to actually LIKE any of that, just accept that it's "reality". It's probably good to have the most accurate picture of "reality" possible. Even at that, you probably also have to accept that we all have different versions of reality.

 

[ghotiff]

I might be coming at this from totally the wrong angle but you seem pretty open to receiving a range of divergent responses. Please disregard if it's not helpful...This comes from my personal view as a wife and that I could not both live the life I want and "always" be reachable on my phone.

I don't really get the need to hear from her to know she is safe. Nothing you can do will change that safety so how does knowing that for that minute she is safe change anything. Obviously it alleviates your immediate fears but what about 10minutes from then, won't the fear be back?

Wanting to know if she will be home for dinner, that for me is a far more understandable request.

 

[Chosen]

I personally think radical acceptance is a crock of bull. I watched a DVD teaching from Marsha Linehan on it.

From what I wrote down years ago, my problem with it is that it both removes responsibility and places too much responsibility at the same time.

For the bigger offenses against us, we're not supposed to say that "it shouldn't have happened," or "it's wrong," but we're supposed to say "it happened." While it is true that it happened, we as human beings have an innate sense of what the world and life should be like. There is a grieving process that happens when we are wounded or we see something happen that goes against the grain. Murder shouldn't happen. We were not meant to do that or to see it or to hear about it. It's traumatic. Our bodies are built in such a way that we need that time to cringe, to mourn, to acknowledge that it wasn't okay. Marsha's example in the DVD was that a person's young child (around 10) was riding a bike down a hill and got struck by a car, dying shortly thereafter. Marsha said that it would increase suffering by focusing on how it shouldn't have happened, and that the person just needed to accept and acknowledge that it did. To me, that's a crock of bull, and has no bearing on grief. Our bodies literally are made to need to grieve traumatic things. So in this case, we have too much responsibility placed on ourselves for how we respond and removes the responsibility from those who've wounded us.

For the smaller offenses against us, I think the way it's taught is that we're just supposed to place the blame within ourselves for feeling too much, or for having a desire to do something with our feelings.

In my opinion, Marsha wants to move us away from being fully human, with all of our different shades of emotions, to being more machine-like. To just take what happened and move on. It's a warped teaching and I think it does great damage to many people.

Forgiveness is far more powerful.

 

[scout86]

I'm not sure it's actually about "blame" though, is it?

Again, I'm not a student of this way of thinking. There are others here who are and they are better qualified to speak on the specifics. A lot of what they said has resonated with me, though, and sounds like a way I've found, of looking at things that helps.

What "happened to me" shouldn't have happened. I can accept that idea and also the idea that it happened anyway. I can accept the ideal of "justice" and also accept the idea that we don't live in a perfect world and justice is often elusive.

I hope this school of thought doesn't actually BLAME people for what ever it is they are feeling. I was under the impression that it suggested noticing the feeling, acknowledging the feeling, and accepting the feeling, but letting it go in a way that avoids getting hung up on "blame". In the example of the child, hit by a car and killed. You would acknowledge the event. You would also acknowledge the grief, anger, and what ever else. But, if you chose to STAY there. To go on, the rest of your life, raging over the injustice of the events, what do you accomplish? You torture yourself, to be sure. Also those around you. Do you change the events? No. The events are beyond our control, as are the thoughts, actions, and feelings of others. A better course of action, it seems to me, is to ask, "Now that I've gotten to where I am (regardless of how I got here) what should I do next and how should I do it?"

 

[joeylittle]

n my opinion, Marsha wants to move us away from being fully human, with all of our different shades of emotions, to being more machine-like. To just take what happened and move on. It's a warped teaching and I think it does great damage to many people.

I think it's useful to remember that she developed DBT specifically as a treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder - so, individuals with very little ability to regulate, emotionally or within their relationships. She herself has BPD, and spent most of her youth in an institution. When she figured out how to get control of her own mind, it led her to becoming a scientist in order to test and codify those cognitive and coping skills, so they could be organized into a treatment method that could help others.

So, there's an attack she has almost always on regulating extreme response to situations. I find the concepts useful when I'm having an extreme response and can't manage it; but I agree, it can seem very strict if practiced as fully as she recommends. For people with BPD, it's necessary to be that disciplined with it. The rest of us, it's just another bag of skills, you use them if they help, and don't if they don't. That's my take on it, anyway.

 

[user27357]

@ghotiff
Nah, she lives her life fine, she just doesn't think outside her current surroundings. Other people call me after hours of leaving her messages. There was a time that she was late for work, her friend called her without an answer or a return so she called me, I left work to check on her because so much time had elapsed and found her passed out from mistaking her morning for evening medication. Nowadays she has atrthritis and osteporosis so a fall could be a long painful day waiting for my return. Sometimes I just want to let her know I have to go into the city that night and she can join me if she wants.

And I worry about her on the road when I am home and she is not.

I might be coming at this from totally the wrong angle but you seem pretty open to receiving a range of divergent responses. Please disregard if it's not helpful...This comes from my personal view as a wife and that I could not both live the life I want and "always" be reachable on my phone.

I don't really get the need to hear from her to know she is safe. Nothing you can do will change that safety so how does knowing that for that minute she is safe change anything. Obviously it alleviates your immediate fears but what about 10minutes from then, won't the fear be back?

Wanting to know if she will be home for dinner, that for me is a far more understandable request.

But, not to be too confrontational, why is it OK to be concerned about her dinner arrival but not about alleviating my own fears and being able to eat calmly and in peace if I will be eating alone?

 

[Eleanor]

On promises and boundaries:

Promises are central to our social life generally and to marriage in particular. If a person cannot or will not keep their promises they are not (IMHO) marriage material. One way to look at/define a promise is a boundary we set for ourselves, and make public in a way that enables others to rely on us to do/not do and make their plans based on our assurance. When we break promises we not only harm others - in whom we've set up an expectation that they can count on us, and thus are entitled to be angry with us as we've violated a mutual boundary - but we harm ourselves by violating OUR OWN boundaries, by making ourselves liars. We infringe on our dignity as moral agents. We make ourselves less than fully human. This is inherently upsetting.

It is the work of maturing to find the limits on what we can and cannot promise, and one of the great deep harms of an injury like PTSD is that it CHANGES those limits, and makes one unable (at least for a time) to keep some of one's previous promises, and uncertain about what one can promise in the future. We must not promise what we cannot deliver.

So how to deal with the fallout of broken promises? (Or any serious moral breach?) There is, perhaps inevitably, a kind of righteous anger, a deep disappointment, perhaps even a sense of existential dislocation that happens. And it passes eventually, quicker if we don't... moralize. What I mean by moralize is something specific - moralizing in the way I mean it here means to obsess over the "shoulds" and "oughts" and persist in focusing on what isn't but might have been. What happened happened. After you've said "it ought not to be like that" and felt your way through that - you STOP THINKING THOSE THOUGHTS, and focus on what to do next. So, the professor is unfair. Ok. She is. Now what? So the dad let down the kid. Again. Ok. That's who he is, unless something dramatic changes that is what we've come to expect. Now what? What do I have to do to maintain my integrity and equilibrium in the face of the obvious limitations of this other person? Do I even want to continue the relationship? Do I have that option?

So I guess what I'm saying is that for me, I always have to look at all the options, from toleration to exit. AFTER I've been angry and figured out what is going on.

I probably don't really understand what the RA folks mean by "all the boundaries have to move into you." but it sounds like a generally bad idea because it would prevent an awful lot of what makes society possible. I don't know enough about BPD to know if this is a good strategy from that perspective....