“Joy” by Mimi Stuart ©
Live the Life you Desire
“I’ll just enjoy our time together and not worry about where this goes.”
Worrying about whether someone likes you will not make you more likeable and the evening more enjoyable.
If you enjoy the moment, however, then there will be nothing to regret, whether this is your only date or the beginning of a long relationship.
by Alison Poulsen, PhD
Read “Does she like me? She doesn’t text me like she did at the beginning.”
“Mother Teresa” by Mimi Stuart ©
Live the Life you Desire
It takes tremendous will power to change our unwanted habits and behavior. One way to boost your will power is by imagining what your future will be like after five or ten more years of criticizing your partner. Not only will your partner feel demoralized, you will feel terrible about yourself, which means you’ll have an unhappy marriage that might end in divorce.
If you have children, you will want to avoid being a rolemodel of disrespect and misery. Otherwise, your child will likely learn to emulate either your attitude of contemptuous disapproval or your partner’s downtrodden subjugation and acquiescence.
The Deathbed Perspective
Imagining the future puts urgency into your actions on a daily basis. The clear awareness that life is limited brings into focus the significance of each fleeting moment and the importance of avoiding unkind behavior. When you imagine yourself on your deathbed, you realize that time is precious and that the way you live every day greatly impacts the vitality of your life and relationships.
While a critical comment here or there may not change the relationship, the accumulation of recurring criticism will dramatically impact your long-term relationships, your health, and your enjoyment of life. A bitter relationship and a miserable life are often the result of an accrual of belittling interactions and negative communication. It takes will power and discipline on a daily basis to practice the habits that will allow you to achieve a sustainable, loving and meaningful relationship.
Love as Intentional
After the initial infatuation between two people, love is not simply a feeling that will magically maintain itself over the long-term. Ongoing love requires intentional loving energy and respectful action. Keeping the fact that life is fleeting in your conscious awareness can motivate you to avoid being reactive and negative in your interaction with loved ones. By keeping in mind the long-term effect of mindless negative habits, such as belittling your spouse, you will feel motivated to change these insidious habits.
When tempted to criticize, stop yourself and think, “If I continue to treat my partner with contempt and criticism, our relationship will become loveless, stifling, and full of resentment. No one is perfect. I will only criticize when I can do so from a position of love and in a positive life-enhancing manner. I’ll know if I’m doing it right by the response I get from my partner.”
Criticism vs. Dialogue
I am not suggesting that you ignore problems. Constructive problem-solving and compassionate dialogue are different from negative criticism. Constructive dialogue builds upon acceptance and compassion, while negative criticism limits our ability to connect and find creative solutions together.
The deathbed perspective causes us to focus on what is possible in our lives and relationships. If we take a moment to imagine ourselves at the end of our lives, our older self would probably tell us not to squander a minute, but to live each day wholeheartedly and courageously, to move forward in the face of fear, and to remember that it is the small actions and non-actions that make up who we are.
When you stay aware of what is at stake, you can develop better relationships while adding meaning to your life. A great life is not accidental but is built from the many courageous steps we take to become the person we want to be.
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action. Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
~Mother Teresa
by Dr. Alison Poulsen
Reference and Recommended: “The Tools” by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels.
Read “Changing Relationship Dynamics.”
Read “Giving Advice: ‘She never listens to me.’”
Read “Inner Critics attract Critical Partners: ‘Why does my partner criticize me all the time?’”
“Aborigine” by Mimi Stuart ©
Live the Life you Desire
Clinging and smothering behaviours are the unsavoury consequences of a deep-set existential, almost mortal fear of abandonment and separation. For the codependent to maintain a long-term, healthy relationship, she must first confront her anxieties head on. This can be done via psychotherapy: the therapeutic alliance is a contract between patient and therapist which provides for a safe environment, where abandonment is not an option and, thus, where the client can resume personal growth and form a modicum of self-autonomy. In extremis, a psychiatrist may wish to prescribe anti-anxiety medication.
Self-help is also an option, though; meditation, yoga, and the elimination of any and all addictions, such as workaholism, or binge eating. Feelings of emptiness and loneliness – at the core of abandonment anxiety and other dysfunctional attachment styles – can be countered with meaningful activities (mainly altruistic and charitable) and true, stable friends, who provide a safe haven and are unlikely to abandon her and, therefore, constitute a holding, supportive, and nourishing environment.
The codependent’s reflexive responses to her inner turmoil are self-defeating and counterproductive. They often bring about the very outcomes she fears most. But these outcomes also tend to buttress her worldview (“the world is hostile, I am bound to get hurt”) and sustain her comfort zone (“abuse and abandonment are familiar to me; at least I know the ropes and how to cope with them.”)
This is why she needs to exit this realm of mirrored fears and fearsome mental tumult. She should adopt new avocations and hobbies, meet new people, engage is non-committal, dispensable relationships, and, in general, take life more lightly.
Some codependents develop a type of “militant independence” as a defense against their own sorely felt vulnerability (their dependence.) But even these daring “rebels” tend to view their relationships in terms of “black and white” (an infantile psychological defense mechanism known as “splitting”.) They tend to regard their relationships as either doomed to failure or everlasting and their mates as both unique and indispensable (“soulmate”, “twin”) or completely interchangeable (objectified.)
These, of course, are misperceptions; cognitive deficits grounded in emotional immaturity and thwarted personal development. All relationships have a life expectancy, a “sell by”, “good before”, or expiry date. No one is irreplaceable or completely interchangeable. The codependent’s problems are rooted in a profound lack of self-love and an absence of object constancy (she regards herself as unloved and unlovable when she is all by herself.)
Yet, clinging, codependent, and counterdependent (fiercely independent, defiant, and intimacy-retarding) behaviours can be modified. If you fear abandonment to the point of a phobia, here’s my advice:
Compile a written, very detailed “mission statement” regarding all the aspects of your romantic relationships: how would you like them to look like and how would you go about securing the best outcomes. Revisit and revise this “charter” regularly.
List your 3 most important mate choice criteria: what would you be looking for in a first date and without which there will be no second date. This list is your filter, your proverbial selective membrane. Revisit and revise it regularly as your taste and preferences change.
Conduct a thorough background check on your prospective intimate partner. Go online and Google his name; visit his social networking accounts; ask friends and family for information and an appraisal of his character, temperament, and personality. This preparatory research will put you in control and empower you. It will serve as an antidote to uncertainty and the anxiety attendant upon it.
Next use the “Volatility Threshold” and the “Threat Monitoring” tools.
The “Volatility Threshold” instrument is a compilation of 1-3 types of behaviours that you consider critically desirable (“deal-makers”) in your partner. Observe him and add up the number of times he had acted inconsistently and, thus, reversed these crucial aspects of his behavior substantially and essentially. Decide in advance how many “strikes” would constitute a “deal-breaker” and when he reaches this number – simply leave. Do not share with him either the existence or the content of this “test” lest it might affect his performance and cause him to playact and prevaricate.
As a codependent, you tend to jump to conclusions and then “jump the gun”: you greatly exaggerate the significance of even minor infractions and disagreements and you are always unduly fatalistic and pessimistic about the survival chances of your relationships. The “Threat Monitoring” tool is comprised of an inventory of warning signs and red flags that, in your view and from your experience, herald and portend abandonment. The aim is to falsify this list: to prove to you that, more often than not, you are wrong in predicting a breakup.
In general, try to act as though you were a scientist: construct alternative hypotheses (interpretations of behaviours and events) to account for what you regard as transgressions and bad omens. Test these hypotheses before you decide to end it all with a grand gesture, a dramatic exit, or a decisive finale. Preemptive abandonment is based more on your insecurities than on facts, so make sure to test your hypotheses – and your partner – in a variety of settings before you call it a day and before you prophesy doom and gloom.
This “scientific” approach to your intimate relationship has the added benefit of delaying the instant alleviation of your anxiety which consists of impulsive, ill-thought actions. It takes time to form hypotheses and test them. This lapse between trigger and reaction is all you need. By the time you have formed your informed opinion, your anxiety will have abated and you will no longer feel the urge to “do something now, whatever it may be!”
Armed with these “weapons” you should feel a lot more confident as you enter a new romantic liaison. But, the secret of the longevity of long-term relationships lies in being who you are, in acting transparently, in externalizing your internal dialog and inner voices. In short: if you want your relationships to last, you should express your emotions and concerns on a regular basis. You should knowingly and willingly assume all the risks associated with doing so: of exposing the chinks in your armour; of your vulnerabilities and blind spots being abused, exploited, and leveraged; of being misunderstood, even mocked. But the rewards of being open with your partner (without being naive or gullible) are enormous and multifarious: stronger bonding often results in long-lasting relationships.
Early on you should confer with your intimate partner and inform him of what, to you, constitutes a threat: what types of conduct he should avoid and what modes of communication he should eschew. You should both agree on protocols of communication: fears, needs, triggers, wishes, boundaries, requests, priorities, and preferences should all be shared on a regular basis and in a structured and predictable manner. Remember: structure, predictability, even formality are great antidotes to anxiety.
But there is only that much that your partner can do to ameliorate your mental anguish. You can and should help him in this oft-Herculean task. You can start by using drama to desensitize yourself to your phobia. In your mind imagine and rehearse, in excruciating detail, both the worst-case and best-case scenarios (abandonment in the wake of adultery versus blissful marriage, for instance.)
In these reveries, do not act as an observer: place yourself firmly at the scene of the action and prepare detailed responses within these impromptu plays. At first, this pseudo-theatre may prove agonizing, but the more you exercise your capacity for daydreaming the more you will find yourself immune to abandonment. You may even end up laughing out loud during the more egregious scenes!
Similarly, prepare highly-detailed contingency plans of action for every eventuality, including the various ways in which your relationship can disintegrate. Be prepared for anything and everything, thoroughly and well in advance. Planning equals control and control means lessened dread.
Read Guest Author Sam Vaknin’s “I Can’t Live Without Him/Her.”
"Barnegat-Lighthouse" by Mimi Stuart ©
Live the Life you Desire
“I warned her. But ultimately we all have to make our own choices in life.”
It is difficult to watch a loved one repeatedly jump into situations that are bound to cause suffering. At some point we have to let go of the urge to manage other people’s affairs, even when it’s obvious that someone shouldn’t lend money to their dead-beat boyfriend once again, for example.
We certainly can have a positive impact at times, but ultimately we can’t control the choices other people make. While we can be available as a friend, people are responsible for themselves.
Individuals are in charge of their life choices, and often learn from their mistakes. As a friend, we can seek the delicate balance of giving loving advice and accepting the other’s freedom of self-determination.
Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse.
~Japanese Proverb quotes
by Alison Poulsen, PhD
"Impact—Out of the Sandtrap"
by Mimi Stuart © Live the Life you Desire
Have you ever surprised yourself by lashing out at someone you’re not angry with?
If a woman is angry that her husband is too career focused, but she isn’t able to talk to him about it, she may find herself criticizing others in her life instead, such as her career-focused girlfriend.
Her subconscious knows that she’s acting inappropriately. In fact, she may be quite proud of her friend’s successful career. Yet she just can’t help herself.
The vehemence of her criticism does not have much to do with her friend. Perhaps it feels too risky to take up the issue with her husband because she fears losing him. The power of her attacks may be expressing her fears about her crumbling marriage.
Her feelings may be ambivalent and difficult to sort out. Perhaps, she doesn’t really want him to become less career-focused. Or she may fear that even IF she and her husband spent more time together, they would not enjoy being together. Her anger thus gets focused on a safer target—her girlfriend.
The Unconsious
When we are taken by surprise by something we say or do, it’s because an unconscious part has suddenly expressed itself. Such outbursts reveal a struggle between our conscious and unconscious desires and fears.
Displacement is the act of associating one thing with another. You direct an unconscious feeling, such as anger or blame, on somebody or something other than the original offender.
Our fixations and outbursts reveal our internal conflicts, which indicate precisely where we have the greatest opportunity to grow. When we ignore the eruptions of the unconscious, we can bet that they will come out in even more disruptive ways. Through becoming aware of our unconscious we see how we can work on becoming more whole human beings.
Solution
In this situation, after apologizing to her friend, the woman should find a way to talk openly and compassionately to her husband. Usually it’s best to express ambivalent feelings without sounding controlling or critical.
For example, “I find myself feeling disappointed that we don’t spend more time together because of your career focus. Yet, I’ve never brought it up to you, because I know how important your job is to you. Maybe there’s a way that we can still spend some special time together without your jeopardizing your work.”
by Alison Poulsen, PhD