The Couples Tool Kit
Working together as a team of three — by Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., Specialist in Couples TherapyArchive for Uncategorized
Sick & Pissed: 10-23-11
Sick & Pissed: My visit to the “infirmary” yesterday revealed a young lady on the red couch, still stuffed up and anxious about her ROAR training, focusing mostly on the new vocational life skills staff person who has to train with her today at 11:00 a.m. I am typing this at 10:58 with the hopes that the gals got off to a good start.
A Rotten Combination: The trajectory of the conversation had the typical downward slid which occurs when our daughter had an interaction that left her insulted and bossed. “She put pressure on me to get ready. I hate that.” Her apartment-mate, seated nearby on the same couch, (she always chooses the chaise end, our daughter plops herself in the center) sympathized, adding that she has had the same experience with the unfortunate new staff person. Things became more and more heated, tears and anger, with residential staff comforting, mate consoling, and solutions offered as to how she can manage the training the next day while suffering from the rotten combination of a cold and a staff person with whom she is super pissed off.
Adios: I left and later that night checked in to find out how the lass was doing. Better. She apologized for her behavior. Staff think her venting a positive. But I know how it can last for hours, feed on itself and not respond to efforts by others to reflect her feelings and offer strategies until it runs its course. Tantrum is another term for it, triggered by the powerlessness she was feeling confronted by conflict: “I know I need to do the training” versus “But I don’t want to do it with her.” We did find strategies that offered her comfort, so my presence was no longer needed, if needed at all. (We could postpone training but as mentioned in previous post, she has waited three months for this moment.)
ABD Rocks: At 12:30 I will call and see how the training went, if she went, and how she did with the vocational staff. ABD is on the ball. They are ready to move in if this new pairing does not work (that of the two clients and the new staff person). I was able to reach the powers that be on a Saturday afternoon, and the residential coordinator went over there last evening. Can’t ask for more than that from your service provider, nope.
Follow-Up: Our daughter did not pick up her cell phone when I called over to the apartment so I have not been able to get a first-hand report on the training. However, according to the residential person in charge, she did go off with the vocational staff without a fuss, completed the training, and though feeling super stuffy, felt good about it. Communication issues reared their ugly head but I will focus on that more tomorrow. I am eager to hear from our daughter regarding how she felt about the training, was she proud of herself for overcoming her difficulties and accomplishing the task at hand? I hope so. Fingers crossed.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011
Angelfish: 10-18-11
Swim Lesson At Last: Tonight our daughter will have her first semi-private swim lesson with Angelfish, and Cindy Freedman, the talented occupational therapist who welcomed our daughter as a volunteer last Spring. Cindy’s talents are known far and wide. My fingers are crossed that our daughter will allow the Angelfish magic to take hold, and that she will take her dog paddles and half crawls to another level. Most importantly, that she will receive the aquatic therapy that she has been missing for years.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W, 2011
Our First Separation: 8-20-11
A Weekend Away: We left the area for the first time since our daughter took residence in her adult independent living abode. Yesterday afternoon my husband and I headed for his home state of Maine. Our daughter had virtually no reaction, certainly no concern. Her only request was that we purchase a stuffed chocolate lab from The Black Dog store in Portland, the one with the bandana. I complied, but with a nagging concern that this was the usual compensatory payment for our freedom.
How To Say No: Whenever our daughter asks for something material, my unfortunate knee jerk reaction is “sure.” Frankly I think this is not only wrong but also weird. This unfortunate habit began many years ago as a product of desperation. Attempts to get her to cooperate with even mundane requests involved humoring or seducing her. Consequences and veiled threats had little impact. Convincing her to go to an activity such as swimming or dance, the doctor’s or a friend’s, often meant agreeing to take her to the mall afterwards. She loved to shop, which got her out of the house. This method of extracting her from isolation from society was costly on many levels. But the price of allowing her to cut herself, and indirectly us, off from the larger world was astronomical.
NO Works: It is my weakness now. I can say no to requests and our daughter no longer throws tantrums or refuses to cooperate with life’s simple chores. She grasps the general notions of “money is tight.” Her school trained her in saving for outings and distinguishing between needs and wants. Mom seems to be the slow learner. Some guilt/love instinct blots out my rational brain with the milk of motherly excess. Does the little mermaid guess that or is she just knee jerking too? With that chocolate lab episode I projected that she would feel abandoned, left out of our journey north. Pure projection. She had no interest in coming with us and had made that clear to me earlier in the week.
Budget With Love: New Rules for mom. Now that we are neighbors with regular contact, I need boundaries regarding gifting our gal. Boundaries that will curtail the knee jerk to gratify. Rule Number One: Pause Before You Project.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011
The Alphabet Soup of Adult Special Needs: 4-14-11
Acronyms Abound: The category of housing that meets our daughter’s needs is a relatively new designation referred to as a CRS (Continuous Residential Support – different from a traditional group home/CLA “Community Living Arrangement” as CLA’s are licensed, and funding is different. The CRS “allows for more self-determination”.
PRAT (Program Review….)is the body that will make the determination on needs based funding; PRAT involves a scoring based on needs. I do know that we had a role in determining that scoring as did our daughter and that it is perhaps the most significant component in the funding process as it measures “level of need”.
URR Review (Utilization Review): This is a new one to me but I know that our URR review is delayed until 5/10…which is holding up the works. Apparently the URR and PRAT balance needs with funding budgets in the state.
DDS: DDS, or Department of Developmental Services changed its name from Department of Mental Retardation (DMR), in the state of Connecticut, as well as in other states. “Retard” or “mental retard” has become a popularly accepted term of humiliation and butt of jokes which has contributed to this shift. (For a great discussion of the “r” word, see this Slate article.)
ID: Intellectual Disabilities: The most significant and toughest acronym of them all, ID.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011
Acknowledging The Coupledom: The Domicile in Which The Relationship Resides
The Number 3: The number three plays a powerful role in human dynamics, both as a positive and a negative. For the threesome that composes a triangle, where one is often missing in the dialogue, the number three can take on heinous characteristics. For the play date, it can convulse into gang warfare. However, in the language of self-awareness, the number three is an asset: as in three eyes, two to see out, the third to see in. As in three ears, two to listen out, one to listen in. For the decision stalled, the awareness that “there is always a third option. In the relationship, the number three refers to that third entity, The Coupledom, the sum of two that creates something new.
Managing Life as a Coupledom: At the heart of couples therapy is the quest for help in managing The Coupledom. How do we protect and strengthen that formation, strung together by ribbons of romance, shared interests, and glue gunned down by offspring, mortgages, extended family and friends? There it is…this rather ungainly, not necessarily coordinated entity that needs the flexibility to bend with changing times and the imperfections of its members…while retaining its integrity. Whoa, quelle challenge.
Acknowledgement: The first task of couples therapy is to recognize the existence and the importance of this third entity. Typically a couple comes in presenting a description of conflict “between two people”. The you/the me. The relationship is in a somewhat tangled state of disharmony. Implicit: there is an ailing member in the household; however, the discussion sounds dyadic, two people at odds. Lost in the dyadic difference is The Coupledom whose very birth was a product of this dyadic collaboration, and whose very survival might be threatened because of this dyadic difference. How ironic.
Elevating The Coupledom: Is It Something Greater than Its Parts? There is no shortage of difference in perception or experience. Two people who form a team will eventually face conflict. We are wired to be different. Our epidermis is not shared: our heart pumps within our own chest cavity; our lungs draw in common air but then process it through our unique internal system. We are bounded by our bodies, though our hearts may try to convince us that we are one with another. Not so. Does that mean that we must subjugate our uniqueness, our needs, our desires, our integrity for the “state”, the communist notion: no individual ownership……communal extinguishes individual. Not exactly and heaven forbid. What it does mean, as with sperm joining egg, is that something new has been created that needs tending and involves some sacrifice to survive. The sticking point here, as with the product of that joint venture of sperm and egg, is, “mutual sacrifice”….the equal sacrifice of both parties. Not the exclusive sacrifice of one for the betterment of all.
Achieving the Almost Impossible: The “how to” of elevating The Coupledom, that domicile wherein the relationship resides, above the individual, requires a grasp of the power and usefulness of this concept. The entity exists, is created and can be destroyed. However, recognizing its existence is half the battle.The terminology “the relationship” falls short; sounds ordinary; and misses the power of a domicile, a structure that contains, holds, embraces the creation of two; as in a King/Queen/dom with its treasured castle and protective moat, minus the hierarchy. Consequently when the desires and demands of the individuals shake the foundation, the pillars supporting this edifice may begin to crack, slender fissures spreading little webs of weakness. Normal. But overtime, those fissures pool together and widen the cracks. Rapid and resolute repair services are in order.
The “How to” of Survival of the “us” takes the form of allowing each individual air, the right to breathe in and exhale, to have thoughts and verbalize feelings, opinions and desires unique to them. When conflict emerges, when the emissions of one conflict with the emissions of the other, with anger, hurt and threats, the third option must be put into play.
Examples: If the manner in which children are disciplined, money is spent or not, in-laws visited, sexual contact occurs or doesn’t and holiday plans are made, unleashes intense conflict with opposing ideas of what is good, right and should be, then we go outside of the box, to the third option. What haven’t we thought of yet? Stretching beyond the usual and predictable. That might mean shaving off some of “my way” to allow in some of “your way”. It might include giving up my favorite colors in that room, for yours, and bringing them in to that other room for me. It might mean traveling somewhere I never had interest in, because you do: and next time you do that for me: and the third time we pick a place neither of us ever imagined we would like, but want to try it, together, to share something new. For The Coupledom to grow beyond the reach of the individual……to stretch wider than the combined reach of each of their arms, Wow! That is the joy in the journey. We become more, not less, not the same.
A Masterpiece in The Works: This Coupledom deal is as creative a process of living as anything can be….a canvas on which both partners place paint, take turns with brush strokes, shapes and color choices…together chose designs, apart make designs…create a masterpiece that only these two relationship artists can do.
A Team Of Three: The road to Coupledom Happiness is often strewn with the me and the you and not the us. If you need help to find your way, check in with an expert: sometimes the number three is the solution, if you work as team. Good luck.
© Jill Edelman, M.S.W. , L.C.S.W. 2010
Is Our Child Gay? The Coupledom Grapples With “Difference”
A Child Is Lost: I had already begun to draft this post with the focus on parents faced with questions regarding their developing child’s gender preferences when the news of a suicide at Rutgers University made the headlines.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Tyler Clementi and all the youngsters who fall beneath the wheels of an out of control vehicle of hatred and bullying that our society does not yet know how to stop from destroying what is innately precious, all our children: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/us/04suicide.html?ref=tyler_clementi
Parents Have Notions: No child is born or brought into a family free of parental and societal expectation. Perhaps amongst the most powerful is gender development. If a young child displays atypical interests, boys playing with dolls, girls who prefer tough sports and action figures, their parents may find themselves watching anxiously from the sidelines; even restricting non traditional gender play. The dynamics between parents and child influence how this developing human being ultimately feels about him or herself. It can also put a strain on The Coupledom.
Strongly Held Views Of What Is Acceptable: Counter to romantic notions, parental love does come with strings attached. And those strings, in no small measure, are laden with belief systems. Whether based on religion or societal norm, (hard to separate these out) parents see each child’s unfolding through the lens of their beliefs. Gender development with the long-range view toward sexual preference is scrutinized at any point that the expected norm is not followed. Parents whose religion has taught that same-sex relations are sinful or perverted, will be particularly panicked when the boy chooses dance and the girl eschews dolls. Parents who pride themselves on their liberal perspective towards “difference” might find themselves challenged too when a child displays mannerisms that appear more jock than girl, more femme than boy.
Ballet For Boys; But not all couples panic. Some realize that their child is young, developing and who cares anyway. Others applaud and celebrate the budding talent, no matter conventional associations. One mom described with pride and awe, her young son’s skill experimenting with eye make up and nail polish coupled with an astonishing gift for clothes design, fashioning tissue paper and fabric dresses for his sister’s Barbies. Another couple marveled at their four-year old son’s passion for dance and though Karate was pursued as well, ballet won, hands down, for this talented young fellow. So precious was this child’s development that the mom kept a diary highlighting his choices, his training, the unfolding of his art.
For other families, boys who do not conform to the conventional norms of play and appearance raise the hairs on their parents’ heads, and possibly quite a few eyebrows.
Girls: Girls are given more latitude: tom girls can be tough and sporty. They can take Karate and be seen as cool. But they too may be teased or taunted even by a mom who wants her daughter to be interested in “pretty” or “femme” and is angry when the young girl chooses everything jock. Rather than marvel at the power and independence of such a female, disapproval and embarrassment may be the message that mom or dad conveys to this child
The Bonsai Solution For The Coupledom: Are these fears always spoken? Probably not. Instead action may be taken. Perhaps a parent gives away the sister’s Barbies; refuses ballet classes to their son; insists their reluctant daughter find new friends; drags the son out of the house Saturday afternoons to shoot baskets when he’d rather practice the violin. Nimble parental fingers start to apply infinitesimal wires of restraint to young roots to insure that they grow in the proper direction.
“But How Do You Know If Your Child Will Grow Up To Be Gay?
You Don’t: Whether boys do plies or create a line of clothes for dolls, or girls throw baseballs like boys, or outrun their brothers does not mean anything. Peter Martins and Baryshnikov, world-famous ballet dancers and choreographers, are straight. Chris Evert is straight; Billie Jean King is gay. Is every girl on the Husky’s incredible basketball team lesbian? Are all Olympic female runners gay? Does Ralph Lauren have to apologize because he designs clothes and sheets and is straight? Is a female supreme court justice lesbian just because she is single, brilliant and powerful. Of course not.
Parents, It Is Not Your Job To Know: Guess what, only your child can know, will know, and should know when the time comes, what their sexual preference is. Respecting that journey of discovery is essential to good parenting. It is their discovery, not yours. And usually that discovery begins with the onset of puberty and may be solidified even later, perhaps in the freshman year of college, where separation from home aids exploration and discovery. For Tyler Clementi and others who may be embarking on just such a discovery, the world can be a very cruel place.
The Coupledom Conflict: When one parent finds the unique trajectory of their child’s development acceptable and the other parent is less enthusiastic, does the child pick up on this difference? One building block of self confidence installed; another just removed. Hard not to feel it. Conflicting parental messages will confuse and hamper the development of a child’s self image, a vulnerable, impressionable entity throughout childhood and adolescence.
Facing The Fears And Keeping Your Eye On The Ball: Here is a giant head’s up. What is important here is not manipulating the story (or the child) so that the “ending”, their sexual preference, is “happy” and meets your criteria for normal and acceptable. Nope! What is key here is following with encouragement and support the unfolding of a human being, from generic male or female infant to unique and distinct adult.
Take This Concern To A Higher Level: If something your child does or doesn’t do, spells difference to you, talk it out with your partner, find an expert and air your concerns. Check in with your belief systems before you fling them out at your developing child via disapproval or manipulation. Avoid triangulating the child or responding to pressure from “well meaning” relatives. Together seek solutions.
Your Child Is Still Unfolding: The jury is out on what direction their sexuality will take. And only they will know and should know, when they are mature enough and free enough to know. Attempts at imposing some directional on that process is like taking a sunflower, trimming its petals and plucking out bits of its big brown center, so that it may resemble a mum, because you think mums are more in season. Won’t work, just mutilates.
Your Input: All our children have challenges growing up in this world. At least at home, where it all begins, the integrity of their unique and individual self can be respected and celebrated by you, their parents. Parents can’t control everything, but they can work hard to control this.
Here is a link to a video for all kids and adults that speaks to the enormous challenge of being “different” in our world: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/showing-gay-teens-a-happy-future/
©jill edelman, M.S.W, L.C.S.W. 2010
Women are Frightened But Men Are Not Listening: The Disconnect in The Coupledom
Women Know Something That Men Need to Know: When a friend mentioned that her teenage daughter’s driving instructor suggested she relax her shoulders, complimented her appearance and bemoaned the fact that his job restricted personal revelations, the mom’s antennae went sky-high. It soared when her daughter added that her girlfriend had similar inappropriate moments with said instructor. The teen’s father discouraged the mom from calling the driving school for fear that the driver would lose his job. The daughter too worried that she would cause his termination. An argument both of perception and procedure ensued.
Women Are Not Like Men; They are Vulnerable to Men: A couple sits in my office reviewing a painful exchange in which the wife ascribed a well-intentioned action of her husband’s to a typical male cheating behavior. Her husband was hurt and shocked. Another couple battles issues around the husband’s plan to attend a holiday party with work colleagues which triggers fear in the wife of male bonding over the shared humiliation of their wives or girlfriends. She imagines them attending topless clubs, visits with lap dancers. The husband protests his innocence and is frankly bewildered by his wife’s notions. A girlfriend describes a haunting memory of a sister’s molestation decades ago by the husband of the couple who worked and lived in their home. In the middle of the night her sister screamed for help after the man, drunk, entered her room, and climbed on top of her. No one believed her at first, “it was just a dream”, until they spotted a bit of his shirt in her balled up fists.
Day After Day Women Beseech The Men in Their Lives to Understand How Vulnerable They Feel! The wife of the well-intentioned husband later revealed a history of an older married man and family acquaintance who repeatedly stalked her while on her way to classes. This behavior went on for some time until she gathered the courage to tell her father who met up with her one day to escort her to those same classes. Then the stalker stopped, the “family acquaintance” stopped stalking.
All Too Real: What well-meaning husbands, dads and boyfriends don’t get, because they are males, is that most women have had experiences such as these earlier in their lives, when young and vulnerable…. males trying at best to take advantage of them, scare them, humiliate them, and worse do physical and sexual harm to them. Decades ago, single and living in Manhattan, I began to receive cards in the mail of an explicit sexual nature, unsigned. I went to the police who took the information down and asked for suspects to match the handwriting. I had no suspects but came up with one mildly offbeat fellow that I had dated. The police reassured me that this was the lest threatening of possible stalking behaviors.
The Deja Vu of Vulnerability: Shortly after, I began getting phone calls in the middle of the night. Needless to say they were horrible, frightening and sexual. It was only when my sick correspondent described seeing the window washers’ scaffolding outside my window that I realized this fellow lived in my building. I was on the sixteenth floor and the only structures equally high and facing me were the Roosevelt Island cable cars several blocks south. Then the bells rang and the light bulb went off. My neighbor! We shared a wall and rode the elevator together, a married man who looked at me in a very creepy way. This connection was intensely frightening but when the phone rang late that night, I answered and said, “I know who you are and if you contact me again, I will tell the police”. He never called or wrote after that but daily, as I wended my way through life’s many doorways, I and so many other women, carry in our handbag of concerns the certainty of young girls’ and women’s vulnerability to menacing males. It may be a subtle menace, an intimidation never consummated, yet the threat lingers in the air as odoriferous as oil spill and just as deadly.
Multiple Examples: Young women, adolescent girls and even younger, frequently become the target of male behaviors that range from taunting and teasing on the street or in classes, to serious violations and rape. I would bet almost every female I know can recite incidents ranging from being fondled inappropriately, men exposing themselves on subway cars, lurid comments whispered in passing, or taking a driving test, men barring passage from one room to another to show off their dominance. Young men and old do not typically have these experiences. Yes, older women can and do take advantage of younger fellows (as do older men) but the incidence is far less. The superior strength of men over women, particularly young women and girls who are frightened and uncertain of their rights or their perceptions, is a variable so different between the species that it is as if women were Martians and men were from the moon. Different planets of experience and sensibility.
The Coupledom: The message for the Coupledom is that men need to listen when women talk about their concerns for themselves and their daughters in a world where other men, not their dads perhaps or their brothers, but others, are menacing, intimidating, humiliating and frightening. Men may be puzzled and hurt by their wives and girlfriends stereotyping remarks or insulting innuendos, and understandably so. But with some exploration, reasons for these attitudes can be unearthed. It is not soothing to be told that your fears are unfounded, or your perceptions unearned. It is not reassuring to be viewed by your partner as “over reacting” or “hysterical”. WOMEN KNOW! what men don’t know or don’t remember or cannot identify with; that OTHER MEN CAN BE DANGEROUS, CAN BE INSULTING AND DEMEANING to the women and daughters they love and want to protect.
“Making waves” is not the thing to be feared.….protecting a stranger’s job at the expense of being sensitive to a teenager’s vulnerability alone in a car with some fool who is either showing off or is a true predator, is the real danger. What is to be feared is to not listen, to not hear, to dismiss and diminish the significance of the concerns, the “heads up” of the moms, the feeling of “awkwardness and discomfort” that a young girl may find hard to define or too embarrassing to make significant. What is to be feared is to mock your wife or girlfriend for her sensitivity to television shows and movies that show men demeaning women to get laughs or show dominance. Women know what this can lead to. Women know because they have been there. And how do those well meaning but misconceived reactions and strategies by well-intentioned husbands and dads effect the Coupledom? Badly!
Empathy and Walking in Each Others Moccasins: This is not about women as victims. This is about repairing a disconnect As with all things Coupledom, empathy is key here. Men imagine what it is to be female in this world. Walk around a bit in shoe sizes too small, as a 12 year old, a 16 year old, or a 25 year old girl or a 40 year old woman who has been all of those ages; think what it must be like. Picture what standing at a bus stop or waiting to use an ATM can feel like in those shoes. Wow! Your wife or girlfriend or daughter has gained herself the most important kind of male partner there is, the sensitive kind who gets it. To be clear, I am not supporting Purdah, locking girls up for fear of men, or paranoid reactions to every date or male friend. Not at all. I am talking about taking feelings and concerns and perceptions seriously, not using denial, mockery or detachment. Then, hopefully in turn, when the father, the husband, the brother or the boyfriend has concerns, the females in their lives can do the same, walk around in their moccasins. Though the shoes may be a size too big or too small, the message is always love.
©jill edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2010
More Gore: A Window Into Our Worries: And A Wake Up Call
A Litmus Test For All: Reactions to the Gore’s separation has provided a bit of a window into the thinking of males and females regarding the downfall of a 40 year marriage. Conversations and emails commenting on the separation reveal more about ourselves than about the Gores. As most of us are outside of the Gore circle, our projections onto this blank screen of an announcement are worth noting. They may provide direction to areas of concern and target possible “work” ahead on our current or future relationships.
The Gender Perspective: In the small sample available to me, I noticed that men seemed less worried about the termination of a long relationship than women. Perhaps their assumption is that this separation meets Al’s needs to walk on the wild side: hard to imagine but stranger things happen every day. Or that younger unions are in the offing…always a fundamental fantasy for the male gender, but not out of the scope of desire for females as well. One male friend suggested that Al was gay. A female friend posited that perhaps Al had tired of Tipper’s passivity and drug abuse. I pondered whether Tipper had tired of the robot wife role so often the bane of the political spouse. Much of the female perspective that traveled my way seemed worried, less able to see this as a good thing for the individuals involved. This led me to question, are women more afraid of ending a long marriage then men? Are women inclined to assume that the female has been retired for a newer model? Are men more likely to read this as liberation, women as rejection and isolation? Since “mutual” was the operative word, either partner could be viewed as the driving force, yet somehow women’s projections had a tonal difference, fear. Or are men simply less comfortable expressing fear, worry, or any hint of emotional dependence.?
The Upside and The Downside to Breaking Up: Women frequently describe the upside of the demise of a marriage or relationship as no longer having to take care of someone… welcoming the break in their sense of obligation to subjugate their needs for another…… Yet, a daunting piece of the downside for women is expressed in these conversations as well: the difficulty fitting into a couple dominated society post divorce or breakup, “the third wheel syndrome”, an affliction that I have never heard a man alone even mention. Therefore, when a couple of 40 years with no public displays of bad behavior, announces the intention to divorce, a subtle tremor may be felt under the surface of the Coupledom (that domicile where the relationship resides), with women perhaps more inclined to imagine a life beset with loneliness rather than liberation. Is there a cultural difference in divorce or are women just more expressive of concern, less inclined to deny that this could happen to their marriage too, and as I believe, as the guardians of their relationships, just doing their culturally assigned job to make sure that the relationship is OK.
Women as the Guardians of The Coupledom: Despite many successes in leveling the playing field of relationship maintenance, women still seem to be in the fore front of advocating for relationship help. At least, that is my experience as a clinician. In my opinion, the change is that now men are more willing to participate in the process of being “helped” than previously. It is also my experience that women are inclined to resent this role, feeling that they “care more” about the relationship and are hurt by that notion. I do not subscribe to the belief that the party motivated to seek out couples’ therapy, or quality time alone or other aids to relationship bonding, cares more. Rather, whether biologically grounded in evolution and/or culturally reinforced, women are still more likely to be the guardians of the nest, the relationship keepers, and men, no matter whether they wash dishes and change diapers (and most do these days) are still wired to be hunters, looking out the windows of their nest for prey/predators, rather than to the dangers lurking within. It is the woman, or whomever takes on the nesting functions in same gender couples, whose vigilant eye scrutinizes feelings, measures closeness, charts the emotional health and well being of the Coupledom. Though many men are astute and aware of psychological and emotional currents, they may be less programmed to use a highlighter to mark their concerns in the margins of their marriages and make the phone call to get help.
The Wake Up Call or Opportunity Knocks: In my opinion it matters less who points the light on the relationship and more that someone do so. Make use of this seismic quake of nuptial news to open up a dialogue with your spouse regarding the state of the marriage. Take the projections, whether they be fears or fantasies, out of the picture and replace them with real knowledge: how are we doing? Are we close enough, interested enough, stimulated enough, feeling cared for enough, have enough separate identity, enough shared joy, enough empathy for each other’s feelings, to sign on to another decade or two or three?. Tara Parker Pope’s New York Times article, June 4, 2010 “What Brain Scans Can Tell Us About Marriage” describes the work of researchers who study “the neuroscience of relationships……..the inner workings of long-married couples”. Brain scans of “happily married couples” revealed that when couples looked at photos of their spouses, parts of the brain associated with deep attachment showed activation, a measure of the “calm”, “security” and “contentment” that “deep attachment” brings to a couples’ lives.
“Deep attachment”: Unless you are attachment phobic (which would be worthy of exploration, and usually is rooted in fear of loss), can you imagine a more worthy goal to attain in your lifetime. The drive to protect and improve the Coupledom brings many a couple to my office, and I am always in awe of both members of the team: the one who initiates the call, the one who blows the whistle on the relationship and says, we need to talk. They are often not the same person. Men are responding to the whistle and making the call these days. If the women are often the guardians, the men are hearing the call and coming in with sleeves rolled up ready to do the work. It is impressive. I applaud the Coupledom that reaches for the gold ring of “deep attachment” on the carousal of marriage. What a ride.
©jill edelman L.C.S.W., M.S.W. 2010
Al & Tipper: Growing Apart Green
Why? The news that the Gores are splitting up may shock most of America but only because no one cheated? Well may be no one cheated but also cheating is not the only deal breaker in a marriage.
Speculation with The Goal of Prevention: For the purpose of raising awareness, and, with the aim of fostering prevention, I will explore possible causes to how a forty-year relationship can quietly dismantle itself. But before I do, let me say that ending a 20, 30 or 40 year marriage, when done with decency, though sad, is not necessarily something to be deplored. Instead, respect for a mature well thought out decision that doesn’t take down others deserves our applause.
Whose Sandbox Are We Playing In? For the last several decades, Tipper Gore has been the wife of a (VIM) very important man: “The Good Wife”. Apparently speckled throughout her reign was the telltale sign of depression battles, but little else has been revealed to suggest that she challenged the equanimity or ambition of her VIM. The woman behind the man, even if they are full frontal kissing, may feel she is always in his reality, his sandbox, his destiny. It is both an asset and a liability to be the partner to greatness and only a strong Michelle Obama type effort where psychological muscle is exerted to define one’s self and direction, can offset the losses of self that come with the package. Hilary learned to do this through humiliation and pain, and the recent helping hand of Barack who gave her a ticket literally out of the Bill orbit. Powerful partners require powerful partners but often seek out passive appreciative partners, who become shadow members to a great moment. The warning is clear: keeping your identity separate, and toned can work even when partnered with greatness or its alter ego, the burning wish to be a part of history.
The Drifting Away Phenomenon: Couples query, as the empty nest draws near “At the end of the day, what will we have in common?” Did Tipper and Al drift apart? Did shared goals dry up? Or did latent incompatibilities finally surface when there was little else to hide them? The message here is that couples need to work at staying somewhat tethered to the Coupledom, to each other. Independent activities and interests are vital, in my opinion, to the healthiest of Coupledoms, but equally important is the care and maintenance of shared interests and pleasures. And appreciation and support for the interests not shared. The maturing Coupledom needs to move beyond the very taxing but mutually impacting nesting activities to another level of collaboration that rests on the dreams of two people, not one, not four and not six.
How To Spend the Next 40 Together: A JOINT EFFORT. Primary is to flush out issues earlier and often. Nothing works better than dealing in the moment and with help. Letting conflict, hurt and estrangement fester and rot is the surest way to never reach 20, 30 or 40 years together. Did Tipper and Al get help at times? Very possibly. Does it always work? No. But young couples take note. The sooner one or both of you says, we are having some struggles, let’s talk, let’s work on this, let’s get help, the more likely that the next forty will be spent reaping the bounty of the first forty.
Please Note: The Coupledom is inclusive of all couples no matter gender make up.
©jill edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2010
Should Sandra Bullock Forgive Him? Forgiveness and The Coupledom: What Makes It So Difficult
To Forgive: According to the Oxford College Dictionary, second edition, 2007, forgive is to: “stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw or mistake.” Stop is the operative word here. Stop The Feeling. How to “stop” a feeling of such magnitude, as if all that was required was a red sign at the intersection of the heart?
The Forgiveness Challenge: In the Coupledom, the domicile of the relationship, where the business of trust is the core of the “arrangement”, forgiveness for an offense, a flaw or a mistake is no small matter. The Daily News headline article of May 22, Sandra’s Creep Speaks, describes a fellow (Jesse James) who does not inspire trust nor an overwhelming desire to forgive, even after rehab. However, outside of the tabloids, in the more mundane circumstances of everyday living, the black and white of forgiveness fades, and the gray matter of establishing criteria for trust requires a much more complex understanding.
Wounding Actions: When I speak of forgiveness, I refer not only to infidelity, though that is often blamed for the emotional shipwreck of many marriages. Instead, I incorporate all wounding actions: harsh words and behaviors; insults and oversights; repeated forgetfulness and indifference; drunkenness and all compulsive behaviors that impact the relationship; betrayals not exclusively sexual. In a relationship of duration, prominent hurts, the ones that sustain beyond the moment, need a process of acknowledgment and empathy for forgiveness to take place.
Forgiveness as an Action Word: The essential ingredient in forgiving is the belief that the perpetrator/partner “gets” what they have done…..in other words, that empathy and sincere remorse for the pain inflicted has been demonstrated over time. How does that happen? First, the hurt party needs to describe their hurt: ” When I found out that you lied, I felt so humiliated and rejected. We had an understanding I thought, that we would never…….do this”, or “When you continually embarrassed me in front of friends, telling them private stuff, I knew you didn’t care a bit about my feelings”. “When you pretended to love me, while really loving someone else.” “When you repeatedly refused to help me with the kids/with my financial woes, despite my distress, I felt totally abandoned”. A description of pained feelings, expressed openly, without shame, without attack, makes it more likely that true compassion and regret can be engendered in the heart of the hurtful partner. This is a challenge for the “perpetrator” who may avoid these conversations because they can’t stand the guilt they trigger. Protestations along the lines of “we have gone over this so many times” are typical attempts to ward off the pain of guilt. And instead of healing and forgiveness, this response leads to further wounding and alienation.
Seize the Forgiving Opportunities: They may come in the middle of the night, when someone cannot sleep. The tap on the shoulder, “wake up, we need to talk” can provide an intimate moment to listen without distraction, to put your empathy cap on, and imagine what it is like to be the other person, the hurt one. Trying to “identify” with your partner’s experience, even drawing from your memories of similar hurts, can be the seeds for genuine empathy and remorse. And only when empathy is reached and remorse sincere, can there be belief that the hurt will not be inflicted again.
The Difference Between Guilt and Empathy: No one likes to feel guilty. Guilt is one of the most uncomfortable human emotions that we mortals experience. It is designed to be so. Just as the cry of the infant makes the parent uncomfortable enough to emerge from a deep and cozy sleep to stop it, similarly guilt plays a role in making humans treat each other decently. It acts as a curb on cruelty. It’s absence, at its most extreme, can lead to the horrors and atrocities that ravage mankind. In the Coupledom, a partner may strive to minimize the impact of their hurtful behavior on their spouse, even ridicule their partner for being “so sensitive”, to reduce their guilt. Unfortunately, these actions are the undoing of any road to forgiveness. The better course is to tolerate the guilt, view it as a sign of being a caring person and hang in there to hear the partner’s hurt feelings, actively trying to imagine what it feels like to be hurt so. Only then can the empathy necessary to build trust emerge and be conveyed in an authentic, i.e. believable way. Sandra’s Jesse James can confess to the tune of thousands of dollars on air, but whether he has gone through the process of developing authentic empathy, even after some rehab, is, in this clinician’s opinion, doubtful.
Active Forgiveness: The forgiveness process unfortunately, is not a one shot deal. Spouses often weary of their partner’s need to bring up past injuries after they have supposedly been put to rest, all kisses and made up. No such luck. Forgiveness is a human process, like any other, not static but something that may need to be revisited periodically. Life provides “triggers” to the memory bank of pain, and neither the body nor the mind easily sloughs off hurt as a snake does it’s skin. Of course, undue preoccupation with past hurts may require examination and/or psychotherapy to understand their underpinnings. And sensitivity for the blamed partner who has been patient, empathic and changed, means not regurgitating the experience unnecessarily or for some secondary or unspoken gain or manipulation.
In the Supermarket Aisles of Life: “Why does my friend stay with a man whom she cannot forgive for an infidelity of fifteen years past?” This question was raised in the pasta aisle of the local IGA. What purpose does this “unforgiveability factor” serve for this friend and her partner, keeps them unmarried yet together, in a strange holding pattern of committed non-commitment?
If I Forgive You Then What? What is the danger of forgiveness? Is it “trusting again”, being vulnerable to yet another hurt, twice burned. Perhaps withholding forgiveness provides the illusion of impenetrability or the striving for personal dignity after humiliation. Does it give power to the hurt party, a superior stance or ace in the hole, the moral high ground, thought necessary to prevent future exploitation. Being hurt can feel undignified and efforts to reestablish personal integrity can be confused with maintaining an unforgiving attitude. Or is there some effort to control the spouse who did you dirt: is someone already condemned less likely to repeat the crime if not forgiven? Am I valued more if I remain unforgiving? Perhaps steadfastly insisting that your partner is untrustworthy can explain a fundamental ambivalence in oneself that can not be understood in any other way? In other words, can some of this be explained by the past/family of origin.
The Role of The Therapist: Both the forgiver and the forgivee have many questions to ponder. If self inquiry does not lead to useful insight and satisfactory resolution to the forgiveness dilemma, seek out expert help. A couple who can be both forgiving and forgiven will find great reward in a kinder, deeper and more compassionate life long bond.
Postscript: The Coupledom in all posts refers both to same sex couples as well as heterosexual couples.
©jill edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2010
