Are we having fun yet?

Hal Runkel, author of ScreamFree Parenting: How to Raise Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool, teaches that when we freak out with our kids and try to control them we give them only two choices: either comply or defy. In practice, it’s more accurate to say that we inevitably teach both. We teach our children to defy when we try to control them, and we encourage them to make it look like they are complying when we emotionally react to them for breaking the rules. The result is raising children who know how to break the rules while making it look like they are complying with them. Many of us who grew up with emotionally reactive parents learned our lessons well. The implications for how we treat “the rules” (and our spouses) in our marriages are profound.

How it All Starts

Growing up in emotionally reactive families is like growing up in a pressure cooker. Children are wholly dependent on their parents and when parents are rigid, controlling, mean, or manipulative a child’s brain goes into action. In the formative years, children’s brains grow neural pathways from repeated, emotionally intense interactions, whether positive or negative. These pathways are much like well-worn wagon trails with deep grooves. As we grow and then go through life, the paths we choose and the ways we interact are largely governed by these grooves. Our wagon wheels fall into what is familiar. When what is familiar is to defy while making it look like we are complying we create some pretty interesting dynamics in our marriages.

Normal Marital Sadism

I recognized this penchant for hiding the defiance in my own behavior recently. We were visiting my mother’s home, and we had just finished the dinner she’d prepared for us that included no less than 3 new recipes, all of which called for heavy doses of cheese and cream. I’m lactose intolerant. I’ve told her…many times. While cleaning up the table, I noticed a piece of gooey-cheese-laden potato my 8 year old dropped on the floor. I stood there staring at it, not so shocked, but definitely unnerved, by what I was thinking and feeling. No stinking way was I going to pick it up! She (my mother) could rot in hell for all I cared, and, in that brief moment, my stomach robbed of a promised meal, I hoped she would!  Leaving the little, dropped bit of potato on the ground was revenge, plain and simple. And it made me feel good.

You would be mistaken if you thought my insignificant little piece of rebellion an insult to my fellow miscreants across the globe. I wonder now how many little bits of potato I left for her as I was growing up. How many do I still leave? If the worst torture occurs one drip at a time, then that makes me quite the sadist.

Do I do the same thing with my husband? Of course I do. The phrase normal marital sadism (NMS), coined by David Schnarch, author of Intimacy and Desire, has taken on a whole new meaning. But don’t feel bad for my husband just yet. His version of NMS is as juicy as mine!

What’s your version of Chinese water torture? In what ways do you make it look like you are complying with your spouse’s wishes while dripping subtle (or not so subtle) screw you messages around the house? If you can’t find an answer just ask your spouse. I’m sure he or she would be happy to help you figure it out!

Meanwhile, here’s a helpful list of common ways people torture their spouses:

• Knowing you’re angry with him but denying it’s true
• Fading into the wallpaper instead of making decisions
• Lying when you know they know the truth
• Hanging around waiting for them to screw up and then pouncing on them when they do
• “Forgetting” things that are important to them
• Being late perpetually

I could go on…but I’m curious what you might add to the list!

I love your comments as always! No problem to comment anonymously!

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Miriam Bellamy, LMFT

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• Are you and your spouse legally married and at least 18 years of age?

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The survey will take each participant approximately 20 minutes, and survey responses will be anonymous.

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This study has been approved by the Clark Committee for the Rights of Human Participants in Research and Training Programs (IRB). Any questions about human rights issues should be directed to the IRB Chair, Dr. James P. Elliott, 508-793-7152, jelliott@clarku.edu. The study is being conducted by C.J. Fleming, M.A. and James Cordova, Ph.D. in the Psychology Department at Clark University. Please feel free to contact the researcher ( alcoholusesurveyemail@gmail.com ) or the research supervisor ( jcordova@clarku.edu ) with any questions or concerns.

Remember the latest Planet of the Apes movie? Remember Caesar’s first word? For those of you who don’t know, here you go.

Caesar\’s First Word

This is an essential moment in the movie (minus the cat, of course). Caesar is born. It is his first foray into selfhood. Caesar finds his “no” and he does it standing tall on two legs.

More often than not, our first word is “no”. In the beginning it seems to pack more punch than the word “yes” as we are not often met with much resistance from our parents when we are agreeable. It’s when we have a mind of our own, when we say “no”, that seems to cause the most grief.

Every family has their own stance on when their children say “no”. Sometimes it’s: “It’s OK to say no” (except when I can’t stand you making the “wrong” choice). Other times it might be: “Don’t you dare say ‘no’ to me” (I’ll show you who’s boss) or “It’s very important that you obey me, sweetheart” (but if you don’t do what I need you to do I will be crushed). Every once in a while you meet a family where the parents are better able to calm their anxiety about their child having a mind of their own, but it is not common.

The point being many of us have a lot of difficulty with saying no, women in particular. Finding your “no” is a great example of how to ground or center yourself in the midst of conflict. But, it’s not about screaming “no” to your partner or your mother or whoever. It’s about saying “no” to yourself. No more to second-guessing what you know. No more taking on more responsibility in your relationship than is yours. No more making everyone else happy at your own expense. Remember your first word in the midst of your next argument and see if it helps you settle down and get closer to that strong, flexible self.

Opposites Attack

Conflict is misunderstood. We either see it as a necessary evil or a terrible hindrance. It is rare to see conflict as the very source of the good stuff in life. Even if we get this conceptually, how many of us see conflict coming and then have our hearts swell with gratitude because we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it is an opportunity to reach the next level of happiness or calm? The truth about conflict came so simply out of the mouth of one of my clients when he was describing the mutual respect and growing passion he and his wife of 30 years had been experiencing. He said, “It all came from the adversity.”

James and Katherine raised their children, saw them launched, and found it was time for them to deal with each other, something they hadn’t done with much happiness or success for decades. James tip-toed around Katherine’s fiery temper except of course when he was articulating his own. Katherine exploded whatever bad mood she had upon James and she pushed him away at every turn. James described Katherine as a woman “not generous enough for even mercy-fucking” and Katherine described James as less than a man.

One year later they were sitting in my office feeling quite differently. James attributed their new-found happiness to the very conflict that brought them to my office. He no longer found his biting sarcasm as satisfying as it used to be. She no longer felt pushing him away was the empowered thing to do. They would not have found the best in themselves had they not dealt with the conflict deriving from the worst in themselves. Solution to conflict was growth. They wouldn’t have grown if they didn’t feel the need and conflict is what makes us feel the need.

-Sting

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

-Albert Einstein

I’ve seen the new Les Miserables for the second time now. The musical is an exploration of the loss of innocence…of what happens when the dreams we dream as children are torn apart, when we are asked the most perplexing question who do we choose to be when our backs are against the wall. I’ve been talking with many clients recently about their wish for life to be easier or for family members to be kinder. We’ve been talking about the anxiety of facing the fact that life isn’t easy and family members are not kind.

I met a wife once, desperate and miserable after four decades of marriage. Her husband had had multiple affairs, countless internet liaisons, and he let her know he had no intention of stopping. She preferred to deny what was right in front of her by asking me directly to tell her he couldn’t help it. She was hoping I might call him a wounded child or a sufferer of mental illness – ANYTHING but cruel. She wanted the darkness of her life to remain invisible, even unto herself. She wanted it to be invisible as much as her husband did. Her unwillingness to face the fact that her husband intended harm made her party to the problem.

Most of us, like this woman, get stuck in the anxiety or fear that facing cruelty in our very own families would be more difficult than keeping our heads down and playing it safe. But would it? In the short term, yes. In the long term, if we do not confront ourselves and our fears, we may end up with bigger consequences than we bargained for and much less time to work it all out.

But our nature prefers homeostasis, safety, and security. Pretending the dark side doesn’t really exist becomes necessary for us to keep the façade going. It’s in the fabric of our families and our culture. We are admonished frequently to look on the bright side (and ignore the subtle yet vicious jabs your spouse throws out). Be grateful for what you have (and pretend the terrible ways your mother treats you aren’t so terrible). You must live life on your terms (even if those terms short change or mess with those closest to you). With our culture’s (and often times our family’s) insistence on ignoring and pretending and covering up, dealing effectively with life becomes infinitely more difficult. Why? Because darkness cannot be fought if it is invisible.

This penchant for invisibility happens on a mass scale – the Catholic Church, the boy scouts, slavery, apartheid, the Holocaust, etc. – and it happens on a smaller domestic scale – emotional manipulation, mind-screwing, revenge. In Les Miserables, Inspector Javert covered up his evil by hiding behind the law, pummeling his victims with an insistence they follow the letter of the law while he ignored the complexities and dilemmas of human suffering and poverty. In families we cover up our manipulations and cruelties in a multitude of ways. Pummeling our spouses for sex is hidden under the guise of meeting each other’s needs. Never rising to the occasion or making a decision (in parenting or with in-laws or for where to go to dinner) is hidden under the guise of communication problems.

We are a species that values the shiny and beautiful over the not so glamorous genuine and substantive. We are all repeatedly called to action every time human tragedy or atrocity occurs. We are called to stop dithering around and to call cruel intent or lack of integrity what it is. Adam Lanza wasn’t a victim of mental illness. He knew what he was doing. Would December 14^th have been a different day if someone in his life had looked directly at the darkness around and in him? Maybe. Maybe…

Maybe if we can find a way to face the dark sides of our selves, our lives, and our relationships, perhaps we have a chance of changing the bigger, more violent acts in our world.

There will always be those among us who commit terrible acts of violence, just as there will always be those of us who wish to fight against it, or at the very least, like Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, those of us who will choose to live a life apart, a life without violence and filled with love. We cannot obliterate evil, but we can stop pretending we live in a safe world filled with people who never really intend harm. It starts at home. It starts with you.