The Great No-No

The Great No-No

If you picked up this book because of difficulties in your own relationship, then your simple act
indicates two important things about you. First, it signifies that you’re feeling some pain. I’m not talking
about the obviously physical just-cut-your-finger kind of pain. I’m talking about the kind of pain that
hurts somewhere in your spirit. But even though your pain is spiritual, it can still be described in physical
terms. If your relationship is in acute crisis then the pain may feel sharp and piercing. Or if your
frustration is chronic then the pain may feel like a dull ache or perhaps an empty, hungry kind of
sensation. Another possibility is a stifling, suffocating kind of feeling. You may associate it with your
chest, your heart, the pit of your stomach, the back of your neck or even your head. But wherever you
feel it, whether it’s subtle or intense, you’re still feeling some form of pain. You may also have the
disturbing sense that your life wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. You started this marriage with
dreams that you hoped your relationship would fulfill. You wanted love, respect, and a soul-mate with
whom you could share life’s experiences. You not only wanted to be nurtured, but you wanted to be
appreciated for being the loving person you always knew you could be. You wanted the opportunity to let
your love unfold and now you fear that the opportunity is passing you by.
The second thing indicated by picking up this book is that you still harbor hope. Maybe it’s not a
lot of hope. Perhaps it’s just the tiniest fraction of hope. However, it’s still hope. After all, this isn’t a
book about divorce or suicide. And you’re probably also hoping that this book will offer you tools that
are effective. You want this help to be practical because you’re concerned about results. You’re probably
tired of skimming the plethora of self-help books that speak of the eight principles of this and the six rules
of that and yet still leave you with unsettling questions of how to get to from here to there. Questions
like: “HOW can we work on emotional intimacy when all we do is fight?” or “HOW can we rebuild this
relationship when all I ever get from my partner is the feeling that I’m never enough?!” You want
practical interventions for these kinds of problems.
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This book will be practical. You can expect to learn the following:
• Strategies to build love and affection in your relationship
• Exercises to bring you and your partner into closer intimacy
• The real hidden dangers to your relationship that most people don’t know
• Common myths that hinder your relationship
• Destructive relationship patterns such as enmeshment, conflict avoidance and the delinquent
helper syndrome
• Six types of conflict including three that can actually help your relationship
• Strategies to manage conflict more effectively
• A strategy for structuring finances in a way that reduces conflict
• Methods to keep your relationship in balance in order to maintain passion
• Exercises to strengthen the healthy parts of your personality that support your relationship
In this book you can thoroughly learn all of these things. Your perspective and understanding may
become crystal clear. And even if your vision does become clear, and even if you do see your past
mistakes as well as a new and better path, even if all this happens and you rely on this knowledge, but
only on this knowledge to help you, then you will probably fail. That’s right. I said “fail.” Not that I
want you to fail. In fact I’m going to do my very best to help you to succeed. But if you rely only on your
insight and knowledge to help you, then you will probably fail because the biggest obstacle we all face in
emotional intimacy isn’t our ignorance. It’s our fear. And we usually fear ourselves most of all.

The biggest obstacle we all face in emotional
intimacy isn’t our ignorance. It's our fear.
And we usually fear ourselves most of all.


If you’re going to successfully improve your marriage, then you will need more than insight and
knowledge. You will need both courage and faith to help you face whatever it is that you fear most about
yourself. In addition to teaching you new behavioral strategies, this book will help prepare you for the
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emotional challenge ahead. Most self-help relationship books shy away from this topic. A few exhort
you to get your external life in order and focus on your interests or behavior. That’s OK advice, but I’m
more concerned that you get your internal life in order. Relationship change strategies usually fail a
person who is emotionally unprepared. In fact, most surveys of couples in marriage counseling indicate
that only one-third of them report significant improvement. My interpretation of this disappointing
percentage is that most people unknowingly sabotage their attempts at marital improvement and they do
so because of emotions they don’t understand or even recognize. The reason why these emotions are so
enigmatic is because we don’t want to talk about them. We’re afraid of them. We collectively keep each
other in the dark because we all act as if these emotions don’t exist. The emotions to which I’m referring
are shame and the fear of shame. And an interesting thing about shame is that, like mold, it grows in the
dark.
If there were ever such a thing as a worldwide conspiracy it would be this: That no one wants to
admit that we are all influenced by fear throughout our everyday existence; that along with the more
positive emotions of love, curiosity, sensuality, and the desire for pride and self-actualization, we are
similarly motivated by the fear of shame that both nips at our heels and narrows our vision of opportunity.
But a conspiracy involves people getting together to covertly communicate. What do we call it when
people are secretive about something and they covertly discourage communication? An “un-conspiracy”
or a “reverse conspiracy”? Somehow, those don’t quite get it. For want of a better name, I’ve resigned
myself to calling it “The Great No-No.”
At this point, let me invite you to get a more personal feel for this subject. The following self-
exam lists personal challenges that we all experience. The items are framed in the second person plural
“We” instead of “You” because I don’t want you to feel individually targeted as if the rest of the human
race doesn’t struggle along with you. If you’re feeling especially adventurous you might ask your partner
to take the exam too and then compare your answers.




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The “No-No” Self-Exam

Instructions:
Make a copy of this self-exam so you can write on the copy. For each item, write in a “0”, “1”, or
“2” to indicate how frequently or how relevant each item pertains to you. Do not leave any fields blank
and use the following key:
0 = Never or irrelevant 1 = Occasionally 2 = Frequently or very relevant
_______ We don’t try something new because it might feel “silly”
_______ We keep focusing on responsibilities because they seem
all important
_______ We don’t take time out to wonder and explore
_______ We consider fun to be unimportant
_______ We hesitate to pursue our heart’s desire because of other
people’s opinions
_______ We don’t request a “favor” from our partner because it
might be turned down
_______ We accuse our partner of being selfish or insensitive so
that we don’t have to make a request
_______ We only comply with our partner’s expectations and
don’t initiate our own plans
_______ We don’t take time in our day to daydream about
possibilities
_______ We raise our voice while arguing
_______ We focus on how to change our partner instead of how
we want to be
_______ We try to show how independent and strong we can be
_______ We focus on our partner’s forgiveness instead of devising
a plan for correction
_______ We refuse to acknowledge a mistake even though we’re
aware of it
_______ We wake up in the morning and initially feel uneasy and
anxious for no reason
_______ We make pride the most important thing in our lives
_______ We insist that our partner must change before we do
_______ We don’t tell our partner when we’re angry because it
wouldn’t be nice
_______ We try to make our partner love us by sacrificing what is
important to us
_______ We make approval more important than truth
_______ We let obligations control our time and we don’t
schedule any time for enjoyment
_______ We use sarcasm against our partner
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_______ We dredge up old resentments as weapons
_______ We invade or refuse our partner’s privacy
_______ We fail to establish our own privacy
_______ We hold onto unrealistic hope in a truly abusive
relationship
_______ We hide lying or dishonest behavior

_______ Total (Sum up the column when finished)
The purpose of this exercise is to let you confront some of your own defenses, not for you to
obtain a score. However, I know that some of us have a proclivity towards measuring things. Therefore,
let me interpret the following. If you score 5 or less then you are exceptionally free from shame. If your
score is above 40 then you’re experiencing a lot of defensive inefficiency. Your life may be disrupted in a
number of spheres. Most people score between 10 and 40.
All of the items in the preceding self-exam involve our fear of shame. We fear and try to avoid
the shameful sense that we’re unimportant and undeserving. Shame takes different forms, but in this
context it’s the pain of feeling that we’re somehow less than we’re supposed to be. While guilt is a
negative feeling about what we do, shame is a devaluation of who we are. It’s about whether we perceive
our very existence as being important. And this fear of shame plays out on a totally symbolic level. In
our civilization we no longer fear cave bears and saber-tooths. Instead, we fear a loss of stature in our
own self-evaluation. Because this self-evaluation isn’t about physical reality, what we’re really afraid of
is something symbolic. We fear the symbolic meaning of a mistake or a poor performance. We’re afraid
of the negativity in a disapproving glare, a sarcastic comment, a forgotten date, a raised eyebrow, or a
bored sigh. We’re vulnerable to the personal devaluation inherent in a raised voice, an irrelevant
interruption in the middle of our talking, inequity in our relationships, having another person tell us how
we feel, the lack of pursuit by a person who says they still love us, and especially, the experience of not
being asked about what we want or how we feel.
Most of us don’t fully appreciate how much the fear of shame operates in our lives. One reason is
that we don’t like to admit to others anything about ourselves that doesn’t enhance our popularity.
Neither fear nor shame is a hot commodity in the interpersonal status market. We want others to view us
as always being motivated by positive emotions. Nobody wants to talk about or acknowledge the
negative feelings. And when we adopt a distorted popular image of what being human should be, we
often fool ourselves about how we really are. We want to fit in. We want to be normal. We don’t like to
admit, even to ourselves, that we have feelings of vulnerability. The irony in this situation is a truth that
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sounds like a weird distortion of Roosevelt’s famous admonition about fear. Only this one goes: we’re
afraid of our shame and ashamed of our fear.

We're afraid of our shame and ashamed of our fear.



Another reason why we’re unaware of this fear is that the feeling can be very subtle. It’s usually
not the experience of strong terror. It’s more often a subtle anxiety that leads us to react quickly before we
even become aware of it. Think about whether you’ve ever experienced the following:
• You didn’t apply for a position or opportunity because you thought you might fail even
though there was a possibility for success. (Probable dynamic: You were afraid that failure
would give you the shameful feeling that you didn’t deserve what you wanted.)
• Another person directly expressed their deep affection to you. You became uneasy and
changed the subject. (Probable dynamic: You were afraid that you wouldn’t be able to say
or do the right thing in return. You were afraid of feeling the shame of an inadequate
emotional performance.)
• You didn’t pursue a private interest of yours because your partner wanted you to stay
home. You really didn’t want to stay home but you didn’t want to cause any friction.
(Probable dynamic: You were afraid of your partner’s wrath and/or accusations of your
“selfishness.” More importantly, you were afraid of having to utilize your anger in a
conflict situation. You were afraid that your own anger would make you appear “ugly,”
“selfish,” or “unloving.”)
• At the end of the day, you think about taking your coffee cup to a private place to relax
and think. However, you quickly change your mind because you have more important
things to do. (Probable dynamic: If this happens very occasionally, you may just have
pressing responsibilities. If it happens more frequently, you’re probably afraid of letting
go of responsibilities because they’re your defense. Your activity helps you to avoid
feeling shame. Although you tell yourself that relaxing would be too indulgent, you’re
actually afraid to stop feeling proud of your accomplishments. You feel driven to
accomplish things because you’re afraid of otherwise feeling unimportant or inadequate.
Many people start feeling depressed and unimportant if they stop frenetic activity.)
• When you sometimes get up in the middle of the night, you think about how quickly time
is passing in your life. You feel some of your losses more acutely. You fear your eventual
death and you wonder about the overall meaning of your life. However, you never get
around to sharing these thoughts and feelings with your partner. (Probable dynamic:
You’re afraid of talking about these feelings and sounding silly or weird. You’re afraid of
your partner’s possible reaction if you do share them. You’re afraid that they might
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confirm that you’re abnormal or perhaps intellectually inadequate for attempting such a
weighty discussion.)
• You’re feeling taken for granted in your relationship. You indict your partner for a long
list of past wrongs. You demand for them to change instead of requesting that they sit
down with you for some planning sessions. (Probable dynamic: You covertly fear that
you’re too dependent. You’re afraid that being too dependent makes you weak and
defective. Therefore, you don’t want to appear weak by making a request. By making
demands, you get to view yourself as strong. By indicting your partner for past
transgressions, you get to feel superior as well. More importantly, you protect yourself
from having to experience your personal request being ignored or refused. Demands don’t
hurt as much if they’re rejected. A request that is ignored, forgotten, or refused is more
likely to stir up the sense that you expected too much for yourself. After all, it seems that
if you were truly important to your partner, they would have been more responsive.)
• You indict your partner for not being sufficiently available to the children. You omit the
fact that you especially want your partner to be available for you. (Probable dynamic:
You’re ashamed of your dependence again. You’re afraid of a more obvious and therefore
painful rejection compared to the subtle one you’re already experiencing. While it’s true
that you’re concerned about your children’s welfare, it’s also true that the children are to
some extent being used as surrogates for your own needs. You’re afraid of feeling
ashamed if those needs were to be exposed and somehow ridiculed.)
• You want your partner to “help” with the household responsibilities. You’re critical of
him/her not helping enough. (Probable dynamic: It doesn’t occur to you that you’re
holding onto authority by delegating tasks. You’re unaware That you’re treating your
partner as a subordinate. You resist the loss of authority that would come if you and your
partner were to negotiate task ownership as equals. After all, it seems that the household
should be your domain. There’s a subtle threat of covert shame if you were to give away
some of your control. Your partner’s different performance standards might negatively
reflect back on you. Besides, you don’t like giving up your pride in organizing all aspects
of your household.)
All of these situations involve the fear of shame. It’s subtle and usually operates well beneath our
awareness. What’s more relevant to the current discussion is that our fear of shame inhibits our ability to
change our behavior or negotiate changes from our partner. If our relationship were a car, then our fear of
shame would be the emergency brake stuck on hold. We might move forward, but it would be slowly and
with great resistance.

If our relationship were a car, then
our fear of shame would be the
emergency brake stuck on hold.

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In the following vignette, these dynamics are revealed in a case example that happened to coincide
with my writing on this topic. It’s a good illustration of how the fear of shame can influence our
interactions far beyond our awareness. Read about Jim and Marie’s argument and see if you can see any
of yourself in their story.

Anatomy of a Quarrel

Jim and Marie came for marriage counseling to increase communication and to help Jim with his
anger management. Jim acknowledged that he had a short fuse and that his raging was sometimes
excessive. This was probably accentuated by his tall imposing physique. He was able to keep his anger
in check for his upper management position but didn’t do nearly so well at home. In contrast, Marie was
a rather quiet and petite school teacher. She had emotionally distanced herself from Jim for the past
several years. The couple had been married twenty-two years and had three children, two of whom were
still living at home. There had been no separations, no violence, and no history of affairs. After a half-
dozen counseling sessions, the couple reported their relationship and communication had improved.
During one of the later counseling sessions, Marie reported a recent quarrel that had occurred like
this: the whole family, except for the oldest son, had been together for their big Sunday dinner. Jim and
Marie were both upset about having recently discovered that their oldest son had lied to them. Their son
had taken a loan from them under false pretenses. He did not have a job as he had previously led them to
believe. During dinner, Jim ranted and raved about the situation. Although Marie was similarly upset
about the news, she was also concerned that their other two children were present. For her, Jim’s angry
venting was spoiling a ritual for family cohesion. Having already learned a new tool from counseling, she
asked Jim to come with her into a different room so they could speak privately. Marie then told Jim that
his anger was excessive and that it was spoiling the dinner. Jim protested that he was entitled to his
feelings and she shouldn’t demand that he give them up. Marie persisted in telling him that she wanted
the family to enjoy their dinner without further turmoil. When they returned to dinner, Jim was quiet for a
while but eventually lapsed back into his angry venting. After dinner, Jim and Marie continued to quarrel.
However, there was now a new dimension. After dinner, Marie had tried to escape Jim’s anger by
retreating to another room, but Jim followed her and kept up his diatribe. Marie then tried to escape to yet
another room, but again, Jim followed her and kept on ranting. Even though Jim was criticizing their
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oldest son, and not Marie, she had had enough and didn’t want to hear any more. The quarrel ended only
because Marie had to leave the house to drive one of the children to an event .
During the counseling session when Marie and Jim were describing their recent quarrel, I made
some interesting observations. One was that Jim didn’t want to talk about the issue of Marie’s right to
retreat from his anger. When I kept raising the issue, Jim’s facial expression was that of bored disgust.
He frequently diverted attention back to the subject of his son’s deceit. This was a seemingly
unintelligent response from a man who works in a human relations field. I wondered what was really
going on with him. Marie then brought up the fact that Thanksgiving dinner was coming up soon and she
didn’t want a repeat performance of Jim’s anger at the table. I invited Marie to work that out with Jim
right there in the session. She then turned to Jim and bluntly stated that she didn’t want the issue of the
oldest son raised at all during Thanksgiving dinner. She then turned back to me as if she had finished
what I had asked her to do. At that point something became clear to me and I asked her about how she
had negotiated for Jim’s cessation of ranting during the initial dinner incident. When she had him off
privately in the side room, did she actually ask him for a commitment? Marie’s first response was one of
confusion. After a bit more discussion, she finally admitted that,“no,” she had not asked Jim for a
commitment. I then asked Marie to turn toward Jim and actually ask if he would agree to refrain from
angry expressions during Thanksgiving dinner. Marie halted and turned back with a bewildered look on
her face. The ensuing dialogue went something like this:
“This is hard. I’m afraid I’m going to be hurt if he actually says he’s going to do something and
then he doesn’t. That would be really painful.”
I replied “Yes, I imagine that might be true. And you don’t feel as vulnerable if you merely state
your expectations or throw them at him, do you? You feel a lot more vulnerable asking him for
something when there is the possibility that you might be rejected. I would guess that if he rejects your
request outright, you’d take it like a personal rejection – or am I wrong about that? Tell me if I’m
wrong.”
“No, you’re right. That’s how I would feel.”
I continued: “That’s really a kind of fear. It’s subliminal but your reaction just now indicates that
you don’t ask for a commitment because you’re afraid. Do you think that the same fear was operating
that night after the dinner incident? I mean you didn’t actually ask for a commitment then either did
you?”
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Marie leapfrogged ahead a giant step at this point. We had had previous discussions about the
possible influence of her uninvolved parents when she was a child.
“You know it makes sense but I guess I really didn’t realize it at the time. Remember we talked
before about how when I was growing up my parents really ignored me. I didn’t ask for anything back
then either. I couldn’t. There was no use.”
I tried to give her support. “And it helped you to survive. It really fit back then. It helped you
survive it without getting overwhelmed with pain. For a little child, feeling rejected is almost like feeling
annihilated. But that was then and this is now. Go ahead and ask Jim this time. Ask him about
Thanksgiving dinner. Give him an opportunity to get involved with you.”
Marie proceeded to do a commendable job of asking for a commitment. Of course by this time
Jim was really primed. He even articulated back to her his detailed commitment to avoid expressing
anger during Thanksgiving dinner. Marie was pleased.
The next part of the session focused on how Marie had originally complicated the original
argument by confronting Jim about his anger’s intensity. I pointed out to Marie that Jim’s poor timing in
ranting during dinner was a valid issue. However, why was she evaluating its intensity? I confronted
Marie and told her that Jim had been correct in one respect. He accurately perceived that she was trying
to invalidate his feelings. When she did that, she ruined her chances for successfully confronting him
about his timing. Marie was perplexed. She asked if it really was all right for him to get so angry and
loud.
“Did he attack you at all? Did he hit you or threaten you? Did he use sarcasm on you?” I asked.
“No,” Marie replied.
“Well, if the two of you had been alone and he wasn’t intruding on your privacy and there was no
dinner to be disrupted, then would you have been OK with his intense anger? You know, if the two of you
were just privately discussing your son?”
She replied, “I really don’t know, probably not. I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable when he
gets like that. Is it really OK for him to get like that? I really don’t know. I’m not sure I really know
what is normal or what I really should expect.”
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Marie’s comment about not knowing normalcy was a surefire indicator that she was struggling
with her past. We talked about her family background: that her parents yelled and sometimes got violent,
that her mother often hit her, and the near absence of loving attention from either of her parents. Marie
agreed that she associated Jim’s intense anger and loud expression with the lack of safety she experienced
as a child. We discussed how some people are relatively comfortable around their partner’s intense anger
because they’ve never experienced violence. She eventually accepted the interpretation that her parents’
violence had left her over-reactive to her husband’s non-violent anger. Marie and I discussed how she
would need to accept her husband’s anger. She would also need to learn how to retreat from Jim in
situations where she felt too uncomfortable.
The remaining piece of the puzzle was Jim’s tendency to follow and intrude on Marie’s privacy
when she wanted and needed to retreat. Even if Marie could accept that Jim had “a right to his feelings”
(as he termed it), Jim still intruded on Marie’s privacy when she would try to retreat during future
episodes. At this point, I figured that Marie’s preceding disclosures might have made Jim less defensive.
I decided to try a new tack.
“Jim, what’s the story on your following Marie when she’s trying to calm herself down?”
Jim thought for a moment before replying. “I just didn’t want to leave it before she could
understand. I could tell from what she was saying that she didn’t understand the situation. I didn’t want
to end our discussion with a lack of understanding.”
“But Jim, at that point she was no longer listening. She was hearing your anger and reacting to
that instead of your ideas. You would never have gotten her to understand by continuing with your
ranting, especially by violating her privacy.”
“I know, I know. But you asked me what was going on back then and I told you. I had this very
strong frustration that I wasn’t being understood. I just couldn’t leave it like that.”
I took a chance. “So you couldn’t leave it because that’s a very painful feeling, an almost
unbearable feeling for you ….to not be understood about something you feel strongly about….and then to
be left, maybe that plays in there too. How about it Jim? How about the possibility that you’ve felt that
before?” I watched Jim closely because something about his demeanor indicated we were onto something
important. I continued pressing. “Where does that come from? Who used to do that?” Jim’s sudden
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stillness and inward gaze confirmed my hunch. “Who was it Jim….who was it?” I waited and was
determined to say nothing until Jim answered me.
In the tension of the moment, Marie’s patience abandoned her first. She blurted out the answer for
her partner, as is all too common among couples in counseling: “It’s his dad! He used to tell me his dad
would yell and scream and then leave home for days at a time.”
By now, Jim was beginning to mobilize. He also probably didn’t want his wife to continue talking
authoritatively about his most vulnerable subject. He echoed Marie:
“It was my father. He was a bad drunk and he’d just take off for days, usually after he got real
mad about something.” He nodded while saying this, then became silent and continued with an inward
looking kind of expression with his eyes not focusing on anything around him. He remained still while I
picked up the conversation.
“Let me guess at something Jim. Back then, could you talk to him at all? Could you ever get him
to understand you?
Jim’s facial expression was saying a lot. In addition to the change in his facial coloration, the
telltale glint of welling tears was beginning to show along his lower eye lids. By now his voice had
become more “breathy” from painful emotion and the tightening in his diaphragm.
“No… I never could get him to listen…especially when he was angry. Everything came down
from him but nothing could go back the other way. I didn’t dare….not when he was angry. He was a real
rage-aholic. An alcoholic and rage-aholic, too.
“So Dad would rant and rage and he would act in such a way that you could never felt understood
by him….and then he’d up and leave you. Is that how it was? Did I get that right?”
Jim didn’t answer. He just sat there, teary-eyed, looking miserable.
I continued. “It’s a heck of a coincidence, but you know it’s really not a coincidence, don’t you?
I mean, you can’t stand for Marie to leave you without your being understood. It has both elements there.
You can’t stand it when you’re not understood and you can’t stand to be left. So you try to avoid that old
awful feeling that you are worthless, unimportant, and like a nothing, but you avoid it in a desperate kind
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of way. You continue raging and you don’t allow Marie to have her privacy to collect herself. Tell me if
I’m off-base.”
Jim replied very solemnly: “No. You’re not off-base. In fact, I think you’re hitting the nail right
on the head. I just never looked at it like that before. He continued to reflect. After a while he
concluded, “I’ve got a lot to think about.”
The rest of the session flowed with understanding and cooperation. We all now had a common
model for what had really transpired during the day of the infamous dinner quarrel. The blaming had
stopped and both Jim and Marie were now more receptive to each other. It was obvious that we had
opened up issues for each that they would be examining for a long time to come. Before they left, I gave
each of them an assignment to practice certain self-suggestions. I wanted them to consolidate their gains.
A lot of additional work would be required but we had established a good start.
The reason why I present this little vignette is to further clarify the biggest obstacles one faces
when attempting to change their own emotionally-rooted behavior. There’s a good metaphor to help you
with your understanding. Imagine that most of your relationship behaviors are like plants that have roots
extending way down into deep emotions. You can’t see all the roots but they’re vitally important to what
happens up above on the surface. In Jim and Marie’s case, what can we conclude about some of their
obstacles? Let’s take that same question from a different angle. Let’s suppose both Jim and Marie were
not in counseling and were trying to improve their communication on their own. The central questions
would then be the following:
What feelings would Marie have to endure if she were to start asking Jim to commit to suppressing his
anger in certain situations?
1. What feelings would Marie have to endure if she were to start asking Jim to commit to
suppressing his anger in certain situations?
2. What feelings would Marie have to endure if she were to start accepting that it’s often OK for Jim
to express his intense anger?
3. What feelings would Jim have to endure if he were to start accepting that it’s OK for Marie to
disagree and “not understand” his position?
4. What feelings would Jim have to endure if he were to start accepting Marie’s retreat from his
anger and her withdrawal to her privacy?
Taking it from the top, I would answer the questions like this:
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For #1 (Marie asking Jim to commit to suppressing his anger in certain situations): Marie would
have to wade through her fear that Jim would either refuse her request or possibly even ignore it. But it
wouldn’t be the actual refusal that she would fear. She would be afraid of triggering her old shame of
feeling unimportant and worthless. She had originally felt that way about herself when her parents were
self-absorbed and oblivious to her need for attention. She had worked many years to become a
worthwhile and important human being. She didn’t want her worst fears confirmed: that she’s still the
same little girl who isn’t worth being noticed. It’s important to note that even with full knowledge of her
fear’s origin, she will still have that fear. That’s because insight and awareness don’t prevent the
triggering of painful shame in a person’s memory. The latter is a neurological event. Insight can help
modulate the feeling but it doesn’t prevent it. So, the simple version of my explanation is that Marie
would have to endure the discomfort of subtle fear. The technical term is “anxiety,” but it’s still a type of
fear.
For #2 (Marie accepting that it’s often OK for Jim to express his intense anger): Marie would
have to endure fear from two sources. One is that she would fear the re-emergence of feeling inadequate
and defective like she did when her mother became violent. As a child, she made heroic efforts but could
never be good enough to prevent the violence. By the same childish logic, she was never good enough to
stop her parent’s destructive fighting. For Marie to begin to accept Jim’s intense anger, she might start
feeling the same old shame that she is inadequate to bring about love and harmony in her family. Even
with new conscious knowledge that anger has a valid place, Marie would have to endure discomfort. She
would still be afraid that her feelings of defectiveness might re-emerge.
For #3 (Jim accepting that it’s OK for Marie to disagree and “not understand” his position): Jim
would have to endure the fear that he’s not sufficiently important to be noticed. He would have to endure
the covert fear that he’s once again letting himself be treated as an insignificant victim. As a child, he had
to hide his thoughts and opinions. He couldn’t afford triggering his father’s rage and disappearance from
the family. During these early years of hiding his symbolic self, Jim accumulated a great sense of
weakness and unimportance. Now as an adult, he unconsciously fears the re-emergence of those old
feelings. To start accepting Marie’s disagreement would stir up the fear that she’s ignoring him just like
his father did. And that would stir up the fear that he’s still weak and unimportant.
For #4 (Jim accepting Marie’s retreat from his anger and her withdrawal to her privacy): By now
you can probably infer the answer from our past examples. Marie’s withdrawal serves to stir up old
emotions from when Jim’s father disappeared for days. For Jim to start accepting Marie’s privacy, he
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would have to covertly be afraid of feeling worthless and powerless. As a child, he felt worthless and
powerless to prevent his father from abandoning the family for long stretches of time. It’s not surprising
that Marie’s withdrawal into privacy threatens to trigger Jim’s old shame. Jim is afraid of feeling that old
pain. Again, it’s probably not a conscious and obvious fear. It’s probably a vague kind of anxiety. For
Jim to be more accepting of Marie’s privacy he would have to wade through that anxiety.
Now let’s bring all of our discussion and all of these dynamics down to a simple conclusion. For
Jim and Marie to successfully change their conflict behavior they’ll each have to endure fear and anxiety.
It’s like the popular adage: “No pain, No gain.” As Jim and Marie change their behavior, each will be
afraid of being overtaken by parts of themselves they’re trying to leave behind. Knowledge, insight, and
effort won’t be enough. They’ll also need courage and faith. The rest of us are no different in that regard.
At this point you may be thinking something like “Wait a minute. I didn’t get beaten, I didn’t
have parents who raged, and I didn’t have a parent who left for days at a time. My parents loved me and
treated me well. All of this fear and shame stuff really doesn’t apply to me.” If this is what you’re
thinking, then you’re only partially correct. You’re probably not as encumbered with old traumas as
many of the people who show up for counseling. But you’re only partially correct because it’s only a
matter of degree. All of us (except the purest of psychopaths) pick up shame along the way.
I presented Jim and Marie’s case here only because their dynamics were so simple and obvious.
For many of us, the origins of our shame are subtle. We may have had the most perfect parents, yet we
were still exposed to smaller traumas. We may have been exposed to the teasing of playmates, the
occasions when our parents were too depressed or emotionally depleted to notice us, and times when we
failed miserably to meet the expectations of our family and friends. We may also have unconsciously
adopted the shame of our parents. Our parents may have been so ashamed of certain emotions that they
never risked expressing them. For example, they may have been so afraid of anger that they never
disagreed, argued, or forcefully negotiated among themselves. Perhaps they were loving parents but they
never touched or verbally expressed their affection. They may have felt so undeserving that they never
took off time from work and responsibility to have fun. Throughout childhood we can’t avoid vicariously
picking up some of our parents’ shame. The other way we pick up shame is from the history of our own
relationships. Over time, spousal looks of disapproval, eye-rolls, criticisms, interruption of our sentences,
and other minor intrusions can build up accumulated shame in our system if we let it happen. This
relationship shame can trigger and combine with core shame from our childhood. The process can be
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gradual and very subtle, but powerful. In fact, it’s powerful enough to knock our relationships out of
balance.
The concept of balance is crucial if you’re going to understand how to maintain a thriving
relationship. This book will teach you how to keep such a balance. It will also teach you some of the
things that you can do to successfully counter its greatest saboteur: your own inhibition and fear of
shame.

Labels: marriage difficulties

posted by Robert Heard at 4:10 PM