by Bruce Tift
CORE VULNERABILITIES: THE EMOTIONS WE REFUSE TO EXPERIENCE
In my clinical work, I challenge codependent dynamics in a variety of ways. I often present a fair amount of education at first about the dynamics of codependency. I talk especially about the mutuality involved in codependent dynamics, as most partners come into therapy blaming one another for their pain and disappointment. Pointing out the mutuality of their drama seems to help transition the couple toward personal responsibility. I explain the unconscious agreements the couple is perpetuating, including “hiring” one another to be the location of their own difficult and disowned emotions. I often reframe intimacy as inherently disturbing. Provocative, rich, and meaningful, yes, but also painful and irresolvable. I challenge the fantasy that there is such a thing as a life without disturbance. When I present these types of views, I’m not thinking the couple is suddenly going to change their behavior. Instead, I hope to engender an experiential dialogue. Each can watch their impulse to blame their partner, while hopefully recalling our discussion. “Gosh, I remember that Bruce said I might actually be hiring my partner to behave exactly this way.” Over time, it starts to invite a little bit of doubt around our familiar explanations.
I will often offer some general explanations for codependent dynamics based on the developmental view. I suggest to clients that, growing up, most of us had very healthy motivations to disconnect from any feelings or experiences that felt unworkably disturbing and unsafe. I suggest that now as adults, most of us continue—without awareness—to devote large parts of our lives to the effort to not feel those feelings. Paradoxically, however, this means we end up putting exactly those feelings at the very center of our psychic organization. And by not bringing these difficult emotions into our daily life, our ability to work with them does not mature. Over time, our initially accurate healthy avoidance becomes an inaccurate phobic avoidance, which has a self-perpetuating quality. We believe that we’re refusing to experience these feelings because they’re a problem, not realizing that they appear to be a problem because we refuse to experience them.
As adults, these difficult emotions that we refuse to participate in become what we experience as our core vulnerabilities. And in my experience, most couples get together with a very deep resonance between their core vulnerabilities. For example, two people with similar abandonment histories will connect, both living with this sense that they are continually in danger of being left. But actually, they already feel like abandoned persons; this very painful feeling has usually been with them most of their lives. But they’re each unconsciously pretending that abandonment is something that might happen in the future. This allows the fantasy that if only I do this or that, if only my partner would do this or that, then I won’t have to experience these horrible feelings. But because each person already lives with this particular pain, they really “get” each other. Although they share this deep unconscious resonance, neither is yet willing to have a conscious relationship with this core vulnerability.
As discussed previously, what usually happens is that the partners work with this common issue in opposite or complementary ways. One may have the strategy of, “Well, nobody’s going to be there for me, so I guess I have to do all of the work. If I want a relationship, I will have to be the one who connects. I have to keep on trying. I have to pull emotional engagement out of my partner.” Their partner, mysteriously, may have the strategy that, “Well, no one’s there for me, so I guess I’d better be self-sufficient. It’s stupid to extend to other people, because I know I’ll be hurt and disappointed. My partner’s so needy that I’d better keep my distance.” So now you have a couple in which one person has the style of always trying to make connection, and the other the style of being self-sufficient. This allows both to argue endlessly about their stylistic differences. The self-sufficient person can feel like the other is being smothering, inappropriately dependent, or controlling: “Why are you always wanting more? You’re never satisfied.” The connecting person can feel uncared for, exhausted by being the only one doing the work of the relationship: “Why are you always on the computer instead of spending time with me?” Actually, both are unconsciously agreeing to maintain a sense of problem in the relationship. Each can feel that the other is the problem, and this serves as evidence for why we can’t include all of who we are in our intimate relationship. Who’s going to show their most vulnerable and sensitive issues when they know that they’ll feel criticized or rejected? What I would suggest to this couple is that they are ritualizing their relationship in a way that justifies to each their refusal to go into their own immediate, most disturbing emotions. Unfortunately, by focusing on their complementary styles, they keep their attention at the level of their differences. But it’s what they have in common—their very similar core vulnerabilities—that will potentially allow mutual empathy and that could become the basis of a genuine friendship.
If helpful, I might also offer a more Buddhist view of how we cocreate these familiar dynamics. To the extent that we feel unsafe, overwhelmed, not protected as children, we must construct a “sense of self” as protection from an unworkable experience of openness. This is necessary and healthy when we are powerless, dependent young beings; but because this constructed self does help us, it tends to become internalized as character structure and carried into adulthood, when it is no longer necessary and helpful. By then, most of us have associated our survival with this familiar sense of self, and as biological beings, most of us will instinctually put survival as a higher priority than quality of life. Because of this association, if we were to challenge our sense of self, we would need to be willing to work with the anxiety and panic that seem to signal that our survival is at risk. Most of us are trying to avoid anxiety, not welcome it.
From the perspective of immediacy, it’s not really a question of how our history may have shaped this familiar identity drama but, rather, of how we are able to maintain this drama in the present when there’s no longer any real evidence that it’s necessary. In relationship, we are invested in experiencing our partner as constantly proving that these survival strategies are necessary and justified. “See! I knew that nothing I do would be good enough, so I’m not going to even try.” “See! I knew that you’d never be responsible, so I do need to do all the work for both of us.” We perpetuate this constant “case” for our familiar sense of self in several ways. We continually cocreate life circumstances that appear to confirm the accuracy and need for our identity drama. In relationship, this is a powerful factor—first in our choice of partner, and later in our ritualized ways of relating. We also provide evidence with our interpretations of our experience. “My partner agreed to watch the kids, but I know he doesn’t really want to.” As another strategy, we’re constantly making use of selective attention, though usually not consciously. If I’m invested in my drama of self-sufficiency, I will pay attention to ways I can’t count on my partner and ignore ways in which my partner supports me.
To free ourselves from our identification with our conditioned history and from our investment in a familiar sense of self, we may need a conscious, embodied relationship with exactly the feelings we’ve dedicated most of our lives to avoiding. Again, here I’m presenting a view that is incompatible with the codependent idea that our partner is the cause of our pain or should be the solution to it. I challenge any language or patterns of thinking that allow clients to position themselves as victims and their partners as perpetrators. When we’re engaged with codependent dynamics, we’re invested in the fantasy of being a victim. As I said earlier, this is a very aggressive attitude toward life. Our culture doesn’t identify the victim position as one of aggression, yet that’s what it is. It usually involves blaming others and making claims that we need their help in order to be okay. At the same time, it requires the victim to frustrate any attempts at actual help. In that way, it’s actually quite a sadistic position. I often label it as such with my clients, which, I hope, makes it increasingly unple
asant for them to continue referring to themselves that way. Once again, I am not talking about someone who has actually been victimized and needs our help or protection; rather, I am talking about someone who maintains the identity drama of victim.
INTRODUCING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Beyond education, I begin to introduce the view of personal responsibility. Most of us at this stage are still quite resistant to this practice, so it’s just a beginning, an introduction to the work, which is central to the personal stage of relationship. As a concrete example of personal responsibility, I challenge the tendency people usually have to describe their experience in terms of their partner or the relationship. I frequently invite my clients to use “I” language rather than “we/you/he/she” language. Instead of saying, “You’re always interfering when I’m trying to parent,” I might suggest, “I don’t say no to you effectively because I’m afraid of conflict.” When people are involved with codependency, there’s a strong temptation to try to understand what’s going on from the position of “we” or one’s partner. It’s an unconscious reflection of the effort to be one emotional unit, rather than tolerate being emotionally separate persons.
Because blame is such an important function in these dynamics, serving to deflect attention from the reality of one’s own experience, I present blame as actually a disguised victim drama. When we claim that our partner is responsible for our difficult feelings, we’re positioning ourselves as a powerless, and usually resentful, victim. We’re saying the other person is the cause of our state of mind, which implies that the other person must be the solution. We’re powerless to make the change we want—we’ve done everything we can. Our partner has to change in order for our state of mind to improve. But we have no power to make our partner change. This insures that we can continue to believe that we want to change but are unable to do so, which is the basic theme of the prepersonal stage. We are perpetuating our experience of relationship learned as children, often desperately wanting things to change but having no power to make this happen. When clients are ready to begin looking into their experience of blame, I often suggest that, as an emotional experiment, they say out loud to their partner, “I love you, but I’m not here on the planet to be who you want me to be or to take care of your feelings for you. And I guess you’re not here to be who I want you to be or to take care of my feelings.”
As another experiential introduction to personal responsibility, I often invite clients to put into words their actual priorities, as opposed to their fantasized priorities. As I suggested to Bradley in the last chapter, I might ask a connecting-style person how it might feel to say out loud, “Apparently, purchasing security is a higher priority for me than my integrity.” For a separate-style person who discounts dependency needs, I might say, “Apparently, riding my bicycle is a higher priority for me than making my marriage work well.” These statements are usually uncomfortable, especially when said out loud, but they usually reflect that person’s actual behavior. I don’t suggest that they are making the wrong choice but that they will probably act more skillfully if they’re aware of the choice they’re really making.
PRACTICEOUR FAVORITE COMPLAINTS
Most of us have a list of favorite complaints about our partners—or perhaps our parents or siblings. These hurts and irritations are very reliable; we can always pull them out in a conflict or use them to defend ourselves. But maybe these complaints are actually serving an emotional function. It may be helpful to investigate this possibility. This exercise will help you do just that.
Choose a favorite complaint. It could be superficial: “My partner never puts the dishes in the sink to soak.” Or deeper: “They make everything a higher priority than our relationship.” Then imagine that you may have an investment in this problem continuing. Your mind will deny this, but just try it out as an emotional exercise.
Let’s use an example: “No matter what I do, it will never be enough; he’s never satisfied.” First, examine the position this complaint seems to leave you in. “Why try? Obviously, this relationship isn’t about my needs getting met. I’ll never get the recognition I want. He’s not giving me what I want, so I don’t have to give him what he wants. I’ll go through the motions, but my real satisfaction will be from work or friends or activities.” And so on.
You may see that all of these responses have a common theme: they justify your withholding of your full participation in the relationship. They are actually serving as unconscious boundary functions, probably because you have not yet allowed yourself to have overt conflict, to assert your needs effectively, with your partner. And until you are willing to bring healthy aggressive energy into your relationship, you may actually have an investment in this complaint about your partner continuing.
So bring to mind a favorite complaint about someone important to you. Examine your response. What position does your complaint justify? What would you be forced to feel if this problem were solved? What if there were no reason to withhold what feels most vulnerable from this person?
To explore further, reverse the ways in which you prove to yourself that your familiar survival strategies are necessary. For a week or two:
1.Change behaviors: Behave as if your partner were your best friend, was on your side, as if you were appreciative of their trying their best.
2.Change interpretations: Whenever you realize you’re interpreting your experience of your partner as a familiar complaint, practice new ways of understanding that present their behavior as an expression of their health and their good intentions.
3.Change attention: Focus on what you appreciate about your partner, on all of the evidence that doesn’t support your complaint.
Obviously, this is an emotional practice, a way to challenge what may be an unconscious process. It’s not a suggestion that you become naive and ignore actual problems. But you may find that you actually have powerful investments in enabling and continuing exactly the “problems” you like to complain about.
CONSTRUCTIVE CONFLICT SKILLS
Almost by definition, a couple engaged in codependent dynamics is invested in maintaining a sense of irresolvable conflict. For this reason, I spend quite a bit of time addressing constructive conflict skills. What follow are several techniques I have found to be helpful in working constructively with the energy of conflict. Note that the intention of these techniques is to take the heat out of conflict, which is not always attractive in the moment. Many couples have an unexamined attitude that emotional intensity is synonymous with intimacy, so the coolness of this approach seems counterinstinctual. For this reason, these techniques don’t work for everyone. But I have found they can be helpful when the couple is willing and interested.
Taking a Break
Perhaps the most fundamental skill in conflict is to learn that we are not obligated to participate in it. We always have a choice. This actually requires an unlearning from our young experience in which we were obligated to take part in whatever was happening. This is often the first technique I coach a couple to use. The practice is simple: When either person has the sense that a conflict is becoming hurtful or possibly destructive, it is their right—and even their responsibility to the relationship—to call for a break. The deeper understanding is that: “I need to take a time out when I begin to have difficulty dealing with my own emotional reactivity.” This works best as an agreement between both persons, but it remains a personal practice even without the other’s cooperation. If our partner is unable or unwilling to disengage, we still have the choice to leave the room (or even the house), end the phone call, or do whatever we must do, even if it’s inconvenient.
As an agreement, the break is immediately respected, with no further discussion or processing. I’ve found that it works best for the person asking for the time-out to be responsible for checking in later and to tell their partner, before they leave, when they will check back in. This helps reassure the partner, who may feel “left,” and makes it less likely the break will b
e used as an avoidant tactic or as punishment. It is usually best to discuss using this technique as an experiment beforehand, when things feel friendly or at least neutral. Trying to negotiate agreements in the middle of an emotionally reactive episode is rarely productive.
Removing the Emotional Energy
If the couple is willing to experiment, I invite them to consider using only behavioral negotiations—problem-solving language—for a period in any and all of their conflictual communications. This means removing all emotional language and, as they are able, emotional energy from their conflicts. Of course, this doesn’t mean not talking about feelings with each other; it just means waiting to do so until things are friendly. Sometimes there is no choice but to discuss feelings when things are difficult. In that instance, the practice is to agree on a set (short) period of time in which each person can express feelings with no interruptions, questions, or discussion from the other and without any expectation that this is about solving anything.
When trying to deal with practical issues of immediate daily life—finances, parenting, time together and apart, scheduling, and so on—which often involve conflict and anxiety, most of us unconsciously piggyback these immediate concrete issues onto our long-term emotional vulnerabilities. The current issue is used as a vehicle for expressing our long-standing hurts and resentments. In codependent dynamics, these conflicts are used as an opportunity to ventilate the pressure that has built up from our refusal to relate to our difficult feelings. There is unlikely to be any resolution to these feelings if we’re unwilling to be aware of and work with them; therefore, when we join our real practical issues to irresolvable emotional issues, it’s rare that the practical issues will be resolved. I’ve found that it works best to separate our conflicts about concrete life issues from our feelings that are triggered by these issues. This means disciplining ourselves in our conflictual communications to not share how we feel, refer to history, give examples, or explain. We just ask our partners if they would be willing to behave in a particular way. We make a request.