Submitted to The Practice Corner:

So it’s three months since we broke up, and Saturday he calls me and asks me to lunch.  And I’m feeling stronger and curious about how it would feel to see him again, so I say yes.  We go to lunch and he’s really nice and I’m enjoying myself.  After lunch he asks if I want to take a walk on the beach and I think, what the hell, so far so good, so again I say yes.  And again he’s really nice and I’m enjoying the attention.  So somehow we end up back at my place and he ends up staying the night.  Also the next night.  And now I want him to leave, but the old fear is back – I don’t want to make him angry at me.  So I tell myself tomorrow’s Monday and he’ll have work and leave on his own.  But Monday he takes the day off, and when I go to work he stays at my place.  Then I talk to him by phone and he tells me he’s doing my laundry for me.  “Please don’t,” I say, because he always does it wrong.  Then I come home and find he did it anyway and put all my hang dry delicates in the dryer.  “I asked you not to,” I say.  And now he goes off, screaming and cursing, just like he always used to.  This always happens, I do something nice and you don’t appreciate me, you think you’re perfect, you’re just a critical bitch, and so on.  But this time it’s different.  “I want you to leave now,” I hear myself saying.  I’ve never said that to anyone.  Inside I’m shaky, but I sound surprisingly calm.  He stops screaming, looks at me like I’m speaking Martian.  “Leave now,” I repeat.  He starts to argue.  “Just leave,” I say, louder.  He leaves. 

Afterwards I realized what all this was: a test.  He was testing me to see if his old tactics still worked.  Maybe I was testing myself by seeing him again.  Whatever.  I passed.

~ Shared by R.M. (8/16/14)

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The Practice Corner is an occasional series of true (but cleverly disguised) stories told by readers working actively to free themselves from compulsive controlling. Read more here.

Healthy relationships depend on faith — not religious faith, or faith in one’s partner, but faith in relationship itself.

Having such faith means seeing relationship as an essentially safe place capable of meeting your needs.

It’s not unusual to lack this sort of faith. Growing up in a dysfunctional family teaches children to see relationship as confusing, unreliable, even dangerous.  As adults these kids tend to approach all subsequent relationships burdened with distrust and fear.

But faith is essential.  Since no relationship is perfect, there are times when every relationship hurts us or disappoints. These times are torment for the faithless, since they have no way to persuade themselves that things will improve.

Not all control addicts look alike.  Some employ narcissistic tactics — directing or demanding or complaining or nagging or criticizing or bullying or coercing.  Their theme song is Me First.  And some rely on codependent tactics — agreeing or pleasing or pretending or appeasing or apologizing or avoiding. Their theme song is Whatever You Say or Please Don’t Be Mad.

When these two types get together the result is a Split-Level relationship, which often resembles that of bully and victim. It’s easy to miss the underlying fact that, despite the different tactics, what you’re seeing is two scared people desperate to control each other.

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From Bert’s Therapy, Session 11:

My parents didn’t like me much.

 Read the rest here.

Narcissists are hungry blind people. Hungry, usually, because they didn’t get something they needed as kids — attention or acceptance or approval or affection. Blind, because they’re so busy trying to get themselves fed that they forget other people have needs too.

Pathological narcissists do a lot of damage. But you don’t have to be one to behave narcissistically.  You only have to close your eyes and act like you’re alone in a relationship.

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From Bert’s Therapy, Session 10:

Life’s just like chess.

 Read the rest here. 

Oaks and birches are strong in different ways.  Oaks are thick, rigid and unyielding. Birches are slender and slighter, but supple, tough and whippy. High winds can uproot and kill an oak, while a birch can flex its way to survival.

Which sort of tree do you want to be when you grow up?

God, grant me

enough memory

to remember

the Serenity Prayer,

and enough brains

to apply it.

It was Einstein who defined insanity as doing the same thing and expecting different results.  Any therapist working with couples sees this definition enacted over and over.  Partners will insist on repeating behaviors which experience has proven to be either futile or destructive — controlling, coercing, criticizing, nagging, blaming, guilting and shaming, for example.  Then they wonder why they still feel so frustrated, helpless and crazy.

The primary cause of relationship failure is unfinished business from the past — unresolved conflicts, unhealed wounds, unexpressed feelings, unmet needs. Both partners have them.  Both partners carry this unconscious baggage into their relationship, where it contaminates how they see and feel and react to each other. We all do this, without exception.  The relationships that survive and flourish are those able to face this psychological fact and work with it honestly and bravely.

Certain emotional needs seem to be governed by a law of diminishing returns. The more I value comfort, for example, the less comfortable I tend to be.  The more I crave safety, the less likely I am to feel safe. The more I need to feel in control, the less in control I’m going to feel.  And the more desperately I chase after happiness, the further away happiness seems.

Some families are unconsciously organized to meet the needs of the parents, not the children.  Called narcissistic families, they typically teach kids that they’re responsible for the parents’ happiness, that their own needs and preferences come second, their feelings are unimportant, emotional honesty is selfish, self-care reflects disloyalty to the family, and that ultimately relationships are not to be trusted.  In short, there’s no more efficient way to confuse a person’s emotional life than raising him/her in a narcissistic family

To the extent a relationship — any relationship — requires you falsify who you really are, that relationship is unhealthy and not to be trusted.

Therapists who work with families know that unhealthy ones tend to draft their members into roles meant to offset the family’s dysfunction.  Like the Hero, whose unconscious job is to make the family look good, and who does this by overachieving and trying to be perfect.  Or the Scapegoat, whose unconscious job is to alert the world to how screwed up the family is, and who does this by self-destructing.

The tragedy of such roles is that so long as you occupy one you can never be happy. You can never be yourself, never make your own choices, never recognize your own needs and feelings.  You’re not a person.  You’re a living sacrifice.

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From Bert’s Therapy, Session 7:

So?  How do you feel?

Read the rest here.

Intimacy means being yourself with another person and allowing them to do the same with you.  As alternatives to control go it’s the toughest to practice, since it depends on practicing the other two alternatives — surrender and responsibility — as well. Intimacy’s hard emotional work for everyone.  For control addicts it can be downright terrifying.  But it’s also as good as relationships between human beings ever get.

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From Bert’s Therapy, session 6:

I’ve decided I don’t like therapy.

Read the rest here.