The need to seek revenge on wrong- and evil-doers is as ancient as Mankind. But people attempt to address their grievances in three ways:
1. Punitive-moralistic
The aim of this type of vengeance is to restore justice and, with it, the victim’s view of the world as orderly, predictable, and causal. Perpetrators should be punished; victims should be soothed and elevated; and society should publicly acknowledge who is who and mete out opprobrium and succour respectively.
This type of revenge tends to devolve into an obsession (intrusive, uncontrolled thoughts) and compulsion (an irresistible urge to behave in a way that is sometimes inconsistent with one’s values or even true wishes, or incommensurate with one’s skills, needs, long-term interests, capabilities, or wherewithal.) It is unhealthy and, in the long-term, counterproductive as it taxes the victim’s time and resources; adversely affects her other relationships; renders her dysfunctional; and, ultimately, consumes her.
2. Narcissistic
Vindictiveness is the narcissist’s way of restoring his self-imputed grandiosity and of recuperating from a narcissistic injury. Having fallen prey to malfeasance or crime, the narcissist is proven to be gullible, ignorant, and helpless. This experience is humiliating and the circumstances of victimhood contrast sharply with the narcissist’s inflated view of himself as omniscient, omnipotent, brilliant, shrewd, and perfect. Only by bringing the culprit to utter ruin does the narcissist regain his sense of self.
Ask yourself if your bruised ego is the main reason for your indignation and spite. If it is, try to separate the elements of your conduct that have to do with your justified grievance and those that revolve around your unhealthy narcissism. Avoid the latter and pursue the former.
3. Pragmatic-restorative
With this type of revenge, the victim merely wishes to restore her fortunes and reassert her rights – in other words: to revert the world to its erstwhile state by acting against her violator decisively and assertively. This is a healthy, functional, and just way of coping with the pain and damage wrought by other people’s malicious and premeditated misbehaviour.
People who swing from one extreme to the other, from being pleasant and charming one moment to being angry and defiant the next often lack emotional resilience and autonomy. They tend to fuse emotionally both positively and negatively to others, behaving wonderfully when they feel good, and blaming everyone around them when things are not going their way. Their sense of self reacts to external circumstances, and their behavior fluctuates according to their unstable sense of self.
There can be many reasons for emotional volatility, including genetic influences such as bipolar disorder, parental indulgence that contributes to a lack of impulse control, dietary imbalance, narcissism, or brain trauma from injury or drug use. Regardless of the contributing factors, when we understand how we might affect, trigger, or play into the relationship dynamic with a volatile person, we can learn how to stop having to suffer at the whims of the temperamental people in our lives.
Emotional Fusion
Swings in mood are exacerbated by emotional fusion. The emotional merging together of two people often results in excessive attachment, manipulation, and reactivity. When two people are emotionally fused, there is insufficient emotional separation for either person to maintain a grounded and empowered sense of self. As a result, emotionally-volatile people tend to swing from being hyper-accommodating to recalcitrant. Autonomy and intimacy get replaced by a sense of isolation and oppression.
Problems with Emotional Fusion
1. Repression and Anger
The reason volatile people swing from good to bad moods is that the only way they know how to be “good” is to be completely accommodating of other people’s needs and desires. The problem with being overly accommodating is that you repress your own conflicting needs, feelings and thoughts.
Such repressed feelings can manifest themselves in depression, sickness or addiction, or they erupt unexpectedly in anger or self-sabotaging behavior. The inability to calmly and firmly withstand the pressure to acquiesce to another person or tolerate another person’s disagreement or disapproval often leads to anger, belligerence and sdestructive behavior.
2. Weak Sense of Identity
Excessive emotional fusion creates an increasing dependence on others, which will often result in self-loathing. From infancy onward, human beings possess the instinctive drive to become capable and autonomous. It is not egotistic for a child to say, “Look at me! I can throw the ball, paint a picture, tie my shoes.…” It feels good to be able to do something on your own.
Yet it can be tempting to allow others to do things for you or tell you what to do. Such dependence seems to make life easier, but also creates deep-seated resentment. Thus, emotional fusion leads to cycles of attack and capitulation, which cause bitterness and a diminished sense of self. The underlying problem is that neither person can maintain his or her sense of identity in the presence of the other.
3. Subject to Peer Pressure
When you accommodate others in order to get validation, you become subject to peer pressure, that is, you behave in order to gain the immediate approval of your peers. This can easily lead to engaging in behavior that is harmful to yourself or others.
4. Diminishing Boundaries — Fusion
With increased fusion, boundaries between people dissolve, and anxiety becomes increasingly infectious. Undifferentiated people, that is, people who tend to fuse emotionally to others, mistakenly assume that they are responsible for another person’s wellbeing. The expectation that they must “make somebody happy” ironically increases pressure, anxiety, and disappointment for both parties. It does not generate happiness.
We can only placate someone temporarily. While we can be kind and considerate, we cannot ultimately provide wellbeing to another person without diminishing that person’s independence and exhausting ourselves in the process.
Altering your role in a fused relationship
1. Disengage: Don’t Manipulate
Control your own behavior but don’t try to control the other person’s behavior. It takes two to become emotionally fused. Stay calm even if the other person throws a temper tantrum, tries to manipulate you, or withdraws suddenly. Those strong emotional reactions only have power if you give them power.
You may have to pull back, limit the relationship, or discontinue the offerings you provide, but don’t do so in a dramatic way. Actions taken without emotional heat are much more effective than histrionics in the form of pleading, lecturing, or giving the cold shoulder.
It is imperative to stop participating in the drama of trying to control, manipulate, or unduly accommodate the other person. If you become emotionally separate, that is, if you remain caring without becoming overly reactive or tied into the other person’s emotional state, the other person will lose the intense desire to provoke an emotional reaction from you. There will be less of an urgent desire to either please you or to rebel against you. In other words, their reactivity — whether smoldering hatred or sweet manipulation — diminishes when there is no dramatic emotional effect, including cold indifference.
Analogy
Think of a toddler’s temper tantrum. When parents bribe, plead, or make threats, they actually encourage more tantrums. The toddler, who is just starting to develop a sense of self, thinks “Wow, this is cool. Look at the commotion I am causing! I have power!” Moreover, the parents’ anxiety expressed by their frantic attempts to calm the child shows the child that the world is not so safe. Why else would the parents be acting so anxiously?
For those who lack self-empowerment, such as a toddler or a dependent adult, having power over others provides a substitution for the feeling of power over one’s own life. But it is a poor substitution.
2. Stop Tip-toeing Around: Don’t be Compliant
Resist the temptation to become compliant in order to modify the other person’s mood and wellbeing. State your requests or potential consequences in a matter-of-fact way. We want to be considerate of others in our interactions. However, we do not want to compromise our own lives by endowing emotionally-volatile people with too much power over our own wellbeing.
By not allowing other people’s anxiety to infect us, we remain more emotionally separate and objective. Our disappointment in others diminishes as we accept and honor our individual selves. Even if only one person becomes less reactive, the relationship will improve. Moreover, it makes it easier for the other to eventually own, enjoy, and be responsible for his or her own decisions, moods, and conduct. It will ultimately give the other person the opportunity to develop a substantial sense of self and empowerment.
Often people get sucked into their child or spouse’s power trip because they feel guilty for not having been a “perfect” parent or spouse — as though there were such a thing. This is a mistake. Trying to make up for past errors and omissions by submitting to your partner’s emotional manipulation hurts everyone involved. On the other hand, being caring yet emotionally separate allows people the freedom to take responsibility for their own lives.
Changing negative judgmental thinking into positive, though realistic, thinking changes the way you experience life and the people around you. Once you alter the lens you look through, the way you see others and the way they see themselves in your presence will change. They will improve the way they interact with you.
You will increase your inner peace when you redirect your view of people from their weaknesses to their strengths. By focusing on their positive qualities and understanding the challenges they confront, your experience of people will transform.
Deepen your view of people’s behavior:
A. “My wife is being a witch.”
B. “My wife is a caring person, but must be exhausted. I should give her a hug and then give her some space to unwind.”
A. “My co-worker is an idiot.”
B. “My co-worker might be annoying sometimes, but he has a good heart. He probably is just trying too hard to be liked.”
A. “My whole life has been a series of mistakes.”
B. “My life is an adventure. I’m living and learning, and I have a lot of stories to tell.”
Focus on the positive:
That which you focus on tends to intensify. Therefore, it is more fulfilling and productive to focus on people’s good points than to focus on their limitations. “Stop being so miserable and rude!” engenders more malice than courtesy. Depending on the circumstances, it’s more productive and kind to say something like, “I’m sorry you’re so upset. I’ll give you some space. / Please try to be more polite to me—you’re pushing me away. / Is there something I can do to help you?”
Look for clues to explain unfortunate behavior in others. Also look for what is special or good about others. People respond much more positively when you approach them with compassion and appreciation for their good points.
Should I think positively about abusive behavior?
Unfortunately, there are people who are truly abusive or annoying beyond the occasional minor transgression. There is no reason you cannot be understanding AND keep a distance from such people. Being energetically reserved or in fact creating physical distance and creating boundaries will protect you from abusive behavior and from getting angry and holding a grudge. In serious cases you may have to completely avoid any interaction to move toward peace and fulfillment.
Self-criticism:
We are often most severely critical of ourselves. Thus, we need to become more understanding of our own less-than-perfect behavior and mistakes. It’s easier and more pleasant to improve ourselves when our self-criticism is reasonable, moderate, and balanced with an appreciation of what is good about ourselves. When we change the lens through which we view ourselves we also alter the way we view others, gaining compassion for all of humanity.
You can even view and express suffering with an eye for beauty. Just look at the great comedians and blues musicians.
Trust is developed over time by observing a person’s behavior. A good indicator of trustworthiness is a person’s ability to resist immediate impulses. Take note of the following:
• Does she have impulse control?
• Is he able to resist short-term gratification in order to pursue long-term fulfillment?
• Does she flake out on promises because something more fun, lucrative, or interesting popped up?
• Did he fail to follow through because he just didn’t feel like it?
Generally, people who can control their immediate impulses in one area can control them in most other areas, an exception being for vastly different spheres of enticement. For example, some people care much more about their own physical sensations than the feelings of other people, or vice versa. So someone who might never succumb to an extramarital affair might give in to her weakness for indulging in chocolate, and vice versa.
Being trustworthy in a relationship means that we keep the trust of others sacred, knowing they are vulnerable if we betray them.
So rather than asking someone “Can I trust you?”, take note of their behavior. If you see that someone is impulsive, has cheated before, or tends to be dishonest in order to gratify their immediate desires, then it’s very likely that that person won’t be able to resist a similar set of temptations in the future.
Distrust should prevent you from counting on someone to behave differently from their past. Distrust should not lead you to live in a state of suspicious and fearful wishful thinking. So if someone’s behavior doesn’t lead you to trust them, avoid getting into a relationship with them where you need to trust them. Otherwise, you’ll live in a constant state of naïveté and disappointment, or fear and anger.
Unfortunately, sometimes people who are trustworthy can deviate from their norm. There are no guarantees in life. We have to be ready to handle whatever comes our way as best we can.
Yet, if someone’s past conduct indicates trustworthiness, don’t waste time living in a state of suspicion and fear. Give them your trust, while remaining aware. If someone has been trustworthy, enjoy the fact that you can trust him or her.
I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.
