T,
Your insightful comments bring up a lot of stuff for me...
Hi Longtire:
I have to admit that, although I am somewhat familiar with your story regarding your wife, I have little insight into your upbringing (usually the culprit, one way or the other, for an undeveloped respect for one's own voice).
I agree that my childhood family issues drive most of my problems. I'm starting back into therapy on Monday to work on those issues and whatever else comes up.
From my descriptions, my therapist believes that both my parents were depressed to some degree or other while I was growing up with them. My dad was invisible. He would come home from work and not really talk, or interact in any way. I remember him only either sleeping or watching television. My memories of my mother are of her being equally emotionally distant. In her case, though, she got angry quite a bit and "always" seemed on the edge of anger to me as a little kid. I never remember my parents talking about their feelings. When I would try to talk to them about my feelings I either got a disinterested "Oh, that's interesting" type of response or told outright "that's the way the world is, you'll just have to find a way to deal with it." I don't remember ever being held or soothed by my parents. When I asked about that my mother told me that "You just didn't want to be held." Huh?!? I was so shocked I didn't respond at the time. I wanted to be held, soothed and reassured by someone safe more than anything in the world. I would have given anything to have had that growing up.
The overall message I got growing up was that feelings were irrelevant and nobody wastes time paying any attention to them. I couldn't possibly ignore my feelings then, they were too powerful and always present (thank God!). So, the only way I could explain it was that I was an alien who didn't belong on this planet, since I had these feelings and couldn't ignore them "like other people did." It was not a game of pretend or a woe is me approach. I was really convinced that I had no place on this planet. Pretty heavy for an 8 or 9 year old, huh? This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. But, I believe this demonstrates a lot of the sources for me to pick up WRONG messages growing up in that envorinment.
It's only very recently that I've been able to truly and deeply appreciate my feelings as precious and valuable and to insisit that people around me not ignore or diminsh them. Sharing my feelings, thoughts and beliefs with friends and in forums like this has worked out very well. Becoming more assertive at work has worked out very well. Basically, speaking with my own voice has worked well in every setting so far, except my marriage.
I think that, although we have a right to be angry at adults that harm us from one adult to another, that anger HAS to be somewhat ameliorated and understood in its context, the context in which we, as adults ourselves, give tacit permission for mistreatment (and even invite it, at times) through our failure to recognize ourselves and our inner voices as valid, and our failure to let those inner voices be outer voices.
As promised, I don't take this philosophy into other threads on this board, but this is one of those situations where I think my preference for humanizing and de-labeling the harmful, adult other is useful. Not a polite gesture to save the feelings of the other, necessarily (though if the other is doing active work of their own, adviseable and humane), but useful in redirecting our attention to the "I" voice that is lacking in potency, unformed, or ignored.
As stated, the greatest and most shocking betrayal of all, in my adult experience with abuse and harm, was my own betrayal of myself.
I have been emotionally stuck for many many years trying to "work things out" with my wife. It was not until recently when I simply accepted the situation as it quite obviously is that I was able to really start thinking about what I wanted to do about it. The hardest thing I have had to work through with this is intense shame for not standing up for myself and continuing to put up with my wife's verbal and emotional abuse. I did indeed enable it to continue. Now I am able to see that I was truly doing my best, and appreciate my efforts and desire to improve the situation.
The most helpful thing I am doing is working through the forgiveness process toward my wife. I'm npretty far along and no longer feel angry and resentful toward her. I've started feeling compassion and love toward her. I can't tell you what a change and how much relief and freedom I feel putting all that down! I no longer blame her for the problems between us, but I do recognize where we are both at in our lifelong growth.
One of the strongest brainwashings she got as a child was to avoid talking, feeling, or thinking about anything that could lead to conflict (with her enmeshed mother), ever. Be perfect, or don't be at all. When I try to discuss an issue between us, she denies that anything even remotely like that ever happened and that there must be something really, really wrong with me to keep bringing up these hallucinations of mine. She refuses to enage in ANY discussion about it, since it doesn't exist.
I was stuck myself before therapy, but I was not stuck in such a tight loop and it still took a major depressive collapse to get me to start changeing. It is going to be extremely hard work for her to break this cycle of denial about her denial and make any progress. I don't think it will happen unless and until she hits rock bottom somehow.
I'm not angry at her for this anymore. I realize that she is hurting way more from her beliefs and behavior than she hurts me. I am now grateful to feel sorry for her and would help her out of this if I could figure out how. Unfortunately in the meantime, the verbal and emotional abuse from her continues. I am not only speaking up now, I am holding my boundaries with her, starting with confronting her hurtful words and actions when they occur, refusing to interact further without an apology for those words and actions, and leaving the marriage if she is unable to modify her behavior in a positive way. I have also realized and am sorry for giving her the message that her behavior is OK by staying and continuing to put up with it in the past.
I think in my case, as my mother was (and is still) not very adult, even in her role as parent, I became one of those "parentified little adults" early. Responsible for keeping an open mind, remaining objective, "forgiving" immature statements and actions, etc...exactly what we do for our children as we help them develop coping strategies and self-control/monitoring skills.
However, as a child, I did not have the power necessary to enforce intervention and punishment for misbehavior, nor did I have sufficient power to redirect maladaptive/abusive behaviors before they could fully occur. What I had was just what I have defaulted to in my adult relationships:
All the responsibility and none of the power.
I too became a parentified child. To avoid being the target of my mother's physical and verbal abuse, I became invisible and tried to keep my distance, not make eye contact (lot of work for me left here), not make noise, etc. Since my dad wasn't really there, I learned to put my birthday and christmas present together myself, since I could do it quicker and easier. I had a very conscious recognition one day that I didn't see any reason why my parents "kept me around." They never told me I mattered, was valuable or precious, or had anything worthwhile to say. From that point on I was consciously trying to take care of them so they didn't just dump me and get another one just like me. Hmm I wonder if there is some fear of replacement, etc. from my 2-1/2 year younger brother? Something else for therapy.
In my marriage and other relationships, I took the responsibility for things I had no power, control, or influence over. I did speak up about things I wanted and needed from my wife to be in an intimate relationship with her (safe words, open communication, physical touch). She simply denied that any such thing happened, or didn't happen as the case may be. Instead of leaving then, I got caught up playing the game of trying to show her that she was mistaken. Of course, I understand now that was just a game she uses to avoid responsiblilty and intimacy based on the crappy messages and brainwashing she got from her mother growing up. I did speak up, but because of her issues, she did not care. When she overran my boundaries, I didn't stand up for them and myself. I kept trying to fix things and make things better so that just wouldn't happen anymore. Keep in mind that until I got to therapy, I didn't know the difference and allowed myself to be around people who didn't communicate, since that's what I was used to at home growing up. No one had ever talked with me about healthy relationships, boundaries or protecting myself (quite the opposite, actually).
I am realizing lately that the problem isn't because I have been, realistically, unable to take any power or demand responsibility of another adult, but that I had no previous experience with doing so, the automatic, unexamined outcome being: Repetition of History, to a certain degree.
In essence, whatever the faults, flaws or behaviors of other adults in my life, the real bottom line problem is in ME. Not that I am a bad person or an emotional masochist, I am simply untrained in the art of mutual, equal and direct give-and-take - especially on the take side of things.
If I do not watch myself carefully, I "let go" many behaviors, events, gestures - large and small - that cause me to eventually become poisonously bitter and resentful inside, and because I never learned to confront a harmful person directly and matter-of-factly, to SPEAK UP LOUDLY AND CLEARLY, I end up directing most of those poisonous feelings inward (even though they should be directed outward), further making myself mute. At that point, I do not want to confront the ugliness inside of me.
All this could be largely avoided if I do not "let go" in the first place, if I refuse the parentified role, and I just draw lines in the sand - lines that focus on what I need, what I want, what I will and will not accept - and further, lines that I then fill with concrete, so they can't be capriciously erased - by me or anyone else.
"Will" is an important term there, I think. I "can", without question, tolerate and accept more than the average bear - much more. However, just because I "can" hike barefoot through miles of desert with little food and water and probably survive, does that mean I should WANT to? That I should take every opportunity to do so? NO! Not unless I'm one of those outward-bound types - which I'm not.
I think in the past, I have had a wierd, twisted little pride about being so patient, tolerant, understanding, tough, resilient, etc. Looking at it from today's place on the map, however, I don't feel especially proud. What I see now is that, by neglecting to take the inner voice for a public walk has caused me to create in myself a Victim - just as unattractive a label as N or anything else.
I see a lot of myself in your experience. I too have been proud of how stubborn and tolerant I was. I no longer choose to tolerate or be around people I need to be stubborn against when I can help it. In my experience, if I assert my boundary and the other person adjusts, that person is usually sensitive and caring enough to be around. If I assert my boundaries and the other person doesn't get it, I'll usually try again in a different way to make sure it was not just a miscommunication. If it doesn't work that time either, I avoid being around that person as much as I can. I'd much rather spend my limited time with people who can repect me and have something good to give back.
We are fortunate, in Western Culture (though equally if not more unfortunate in other ways), that we CAN choose to dispense with any adult person who refuses to listen and act when we speak up. However, if we are not speaking loudly, clearly and firmly - with strong belief in the statements our voices are making - we cannot expect other adults to show interest in or respect for what is unclear in our voices.
Most especially, if we are not listening to ourselves at all, how on earth can we expect others to hear and behave accordingly? If we state our most important needs and wants and demands softly, subtly and/or with room for negotiation, we've not really stated a thing.
Every time we repeat this sequence, we further teach others that we are mealy-mouthed pushovers.
I don't mean to say that everything we talk about should be firm, absolute and written in stone. Restaurants and movies are negotiable, as is paint colors or chandeliers or vacation plans, etc.
But where our dignity is at stake, we must learn to speak in absolutes - and we must first learn to speak to ourselves. As soon as we can get us to hear us, we will then be equipped to make others listen.
My thoughts for the day.
T
I aree that it is my responsibility, not just my right, in relationship with other people to speak up and let them know how I feel, what I think and what I believe. That's the way to let safe people get to know me. I recognize that not everyone is at a place in their life or has gained the wisdom they need to be safe yet. I agree that doesn't make them bad people to be targeted. However, I do think it is important to accept that they are not presently capable of having an intimate realtionship with mes right now, and hope better for them tomorrow.
