Relationship- Bridge to the Soul

by Chris G Moon

  Whenever I push my wife away by fighting with her, I always feel terrible inside once the anger leaves me. I am guilty and ashamed, because in my fear I pushed away the most important person in my life. I sacrificed her to protect myself. And for what? The pain is still there inside me, waiting for another opportunity to make itself known. Fighting with my partner didn’t resolve anything; it just made us less trusting of each other, and less trusting of the love that brought us together. Instead of letting love heal our pain and bring us closer together, we let our anger drive us further apart. Imagine a tall glass of water. When you meet someone, that person is skimming the surface of the liquid; as you get to know him/her better, he or she begins to penetrate the surface, dropping down through the water. The closer you get to each other, the deeper the other person dives into your glass. Acquaintances stay close to the surface. Close friends go further down. But a significant relationship plunges down as far as you are willing to allow it. The deeper the person dives, the more she/he penetrates the masks and outer personas, more and more accurately uncovering your vulnerabilities. Once you both start to dive into the deeper realms, however, the vulnerable you and your vulnerable partner may not be so attractive.

  For many years I have likened relationships to a famous Clint Eastwood movie: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Only I take it one step further to The Sacred. When you first meet a significant person, mostly what you share is the good. During the Disillusionment stage, you begin to discover the so-called bad aspects of the other, as does she/he of you. At the tail end of this stage, leading into introspection, things often turn ugly. If you respond to the bad and the ugly in a healthy way, the beauty of the introspection stage will lead you to the revelation of the spiritual nature of your relationship. At first, however, we tend to react, rather than respond, to the bad. Instead of understanding, acceptance or forgiveness, we are often tempted by the easier road of…

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  ANGER

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  “Anger is a brief madness.”

  —Horace

  Anger is the essential ingredient to all Power Struggles, inciting us to actions such as ruthless attacks on our partner’s character, physical abuse, cold silences that turn the home into an ice palace, and all forms of loveless behaviour in between. It is one of the most widely accepted emotions in the world, and it is taken so seriously that few of us recognize that indulging in our anger or suppressing it in fear is futile.23 It is not creative, inspiring, encouraging, intelligent, life-enhancing or beautiful. Anger tends to exclude rather than include, and never brings peace to a conflict. Lastly, it blocks out any awareness of loving, caring feelings inside the angry individual. So why would such a useless energy be the weapon of choice in Power Struggles?

  I have come up with two reasons regarding why we choose to be angry at our partners. The first explanation is that anger helps us numb out any painful feelings inside us, overriding all other emotions and even physical sensations. As an example of how powerful a painkiller anger can be, I have a friend who would become so enraged that somebody once smashed a two by four over his head in a fight and he didn’t feel a thing. He just kept on fighting.

  The second benefit of anger is that it is very efficient in controlling the other person’s behaviour by making them feel guilty. When a person feels guilty, they instinctively become afraid of the forthcoming punishment, and we all know how easy it is to control people when they are afraid. Regarding John and Mary’s “battle of the messy bathroom,” John tried to make Mary feel guilty about the clutter she created. In that way he hoped to control her behaviour so that she would be more neat and tidy. Why? So that there would be no mess to trigger his pain around his sense of being insignificant. At the same time it might also satisfy his old need to be important. He might have unconsciously reasoned that if Mary kept things neat for him, it would confirm that he was important to her. Meanwhile, Mary tried to make John feel guilty about playing his stereo too loud. If he felt bad, he might leave her alone about the bathroom and she wouldn’t have to feel her pain of being insignificant. Both of them were using anger to block out their pain, and make sure the other didn’t threaten their vulnerability again. It’s beyond my understanding what makes us think anger will accomplish these things, but what’s more amazing is how often we will keep resorting to anger when it is so obviously a useless tool for gaining happiness. The most important thing John and Mary’s anger blocked them from seeing was that at the root of the fight was a pain that both shared. It was the exact same pain of feeling unimportant. Like my colleague’s friends Ron and Betty, life was giving John and Mary a chance to revisit an old wound that had given birth to so many mistaken perceptions that they had about themselves, and nurse that wound with compassion and understanding.

  On the surface, it usually seems like the two combatants are on opposite sides, but all conflicts are motivated by one pain that is common to both sides. Once the two sides see that they are dealing with the exact same discomfort, the conflict begins to dissolve into understanding. Unfortunately, the willingness to face the pain is often a lot less accessible than the anger that is so easy to call upon for protection.

  In a Power Struggle, anger can assume three modes of expression: attack, withdrawal, or passive aggression.

  Attack is the overt, explicit expression of anger that can manifest as criticism, accusations, blame, threats, physical assault, ultimatums or just plain name-calling. However it comes out, there is no doubt that the person is angry, and wants you to suffer for the pain they believe you are causing them. I was once on vacation in Hawaii with my girlfriend, and we were deeply embroiled in a Power Struggle of the first magnitude. We did nothing, it seemed, except attack each other from morning until night. She would say that my bathing suit looked stupid, and I would retort that her entire being was stupid. She would attack my ability as an outdoorsman (“Don’t you have the brains to put up a simple tent?”), and I would attack her driving . She would insult my love making, and I would attack her driving. She became disgusted with my social ineptitude, and I told her that her driving sucked. What I lacked in imagination I made up for in sheer volume. The fighting reached critical mass when we were driving down a winding mountain road one rainy evening. We had been arguing off and on for about eight hours, when my girlfriend got an especially good shot past my defences. I was driving, so I was totally without an ingenious comeback. I was left with nothing else to do but slam on the gas pedal, turn to her and scream at the top of my lungs. At exactly the same moment she decided to scream at me. We were doing sixty miles an hour down a wet winding mountain road, screaming wordlessly in each other’s faces. We had run out of words, but we hadn’t run out of anger. To this day I don’t know how we didn’t get killed.

  Later I realized that what we say when we are attacking someone is of little relevance. We use the words to be hurtful, while logically justifying the attack, but the attack itself isn’t logical. It is simply violence used to defend ourselves. All attacks are carried out in self-defence.

  Withdrawal is a quiet form of anger, and my past favourite. Do not be fooled by the partner who is sitting quietly while the other violently rants and raves. There can be as much violent intent in silence as there is in open assault. In the example of Betty and Ron, it may have seemed on the surface that Ron was just some poor husband who had to suffer the tirades of a nagging wife. However, Ron was using a mixture of rebellion and indifference to fuel his wife’s rage, and petulance to make her look like the bad guy with him as the innocent victim.

  Withdrawal used to be my favourite weapon because it was so versatile. I could withdraw and pout to show my partner how cruel she had been to me, thus making her feel bad about herself. I could withdraw and maintain a cold angry look, to inform my partner that I was angry but she was not worth wasting words on. My non-verbal message was “Just screw off and die.” I could also maintain a withdrawal
pose of cool indifference; I could look right through the person, my blank face coldly stating that her existence was of no importance to me anymore and she could never hurt me again.

  Another great one was my “beaten into withdrawal” look. I would sink into a dark cloud of depression, informing my partner and the world at large that I had been wounded enough by their heartless cruelty—so please, just leave me alone to suffer. Whatever method of withdrawal is used, the external result is always the same: a wordless distancing of yourself from the person who seemed to cause you pain.

  Passive aggression is a form of guerrilla warfare. You pretend to not be terribly bothered by the other person’s behaviour, but your remarks are infused with subtle criticisms, sarcasm, judgments, teasing or complaints. Another expression of passive aggression is to act extremely hurt, even to the point of tears, but never outright accuse the other person of deliberately hurting you. Your obvious portrayal of the innocent victim will leave your partner feeling like a villain or bully; and since you’re not actually accusing them of doing anything wrong, they don’t know what to defend themselves from. For instance, let’s look at a situation with a couple named Jamal and Mavis. Married three years, this is the second time that Jamal has forgotten Mavis’s birthday. When he enters the house, Mavis is wiping her red eyes with a tissue, and blowing her nose:

  Jamal: What’s the matter, honey?

  Mavis: (sniffling) Nothing. I’m all right.

  Jamal: Did something go wrong at work? Is it because I’m late coming home? I told you the meeting was going to run late, remember?

  Mavis: It’s not any of that. (sniff) Really, I’ll be okay.

  Jamal: Well tell me what it is. C’mon, please…

  Mavis: It’s nothing, Jamal, Really, it’s not important.

  Jamal: Well, okay. If you’re sure then—

  Mavis: It’s just that it was my birthday today, and I thought we could go out for dinner.

  Jamal: Your birthday! Oh no, not again!

  Mavis: Yes, the second year in a row. But really, I understand you’ve been really busy at work, and you have a lot on your mind.

  Jamal: I’m really sorry, baby. But look, let’s go out on Saturday and celebrate your birthday, huh?

  Mavis: I can’t, I promised Mary I’d help her move on Saturday.

  Jamal: How about Friday?

  Mavis: No, I don’t want to take away your poker night with your friends. No, let’s just forget it. I’ll get over it. [Just as Jamal gets up to put away his coat, Mavis adds] Just give me a few days.

  Jamal: [sitting back down] Honey, let me make this up to you. Please!

  Mavis: There’s nothing to make up, Jamal. I understand — you had an important meeting. That’s all there is to it. It’s only my birthday, it’s no big deal.

  Jamal: [hanging his head] I really feel like shit.

  Mavis: [allows herself a small, secret smile]

  Now you may be asking yourself after reading this, what’s the big deal here? Jamal was a jerk for forgetting Mavis’ birthday, and she was letting him know as nicely as she could. And that is the whole key to Passive Aggression. It almost never appears harmful on the surface, but if you look closely at the intent, you will see that Mavis was hurt. To protect herself from feeling deeper pain, she chose to secretly attack her lover, reducing him to the same status as excrement. That way she makes her pain his responsibility, so that she doesn’t have to deal with it. Although this does not look like the classic Power Struggle, such as we see on films and TV, it is still an attempt to avoid pain and control the other person by making him/her feel guilty. And that is a key intention behind anger: to make someone else feel guilty, and therefore responsible for the pain that you are feeling inside yourself. It then becomes their responsibility to make you happy.

  In the long run it doesn’t matter what form of anger you employ or have employed against you. If you feel angry, that anger is an attempt to insulate you from the pain beneath. If we could be honest and look at the pain, we might see that the old pain is asking us for acceptance, compassion and understanding. If we choose to attack or withdraw from our partner, we may not have to feel the pain, but we will not heal it or the limiting beliefs it fuels in us.

  Finally, there is one more reason that anger is such a popular tool when old pain, disguised as conflict, begins to arise. Anger allows us the marvellous opportunity to experience…

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  BEING RIGHT!

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  “Would you rather be right or happy?”

  —A Course in Miracles

  As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t feel very powerful in a certain situation and you want to avoid experiencing the discomfort of inadequacy or insecurity, nothing beats being right for a quick fix. All you need to do is criticize, blame, judge, or “make wrong,” fuel one of these attacks with your righteous rage, and you’ll be pumped up with adrenaline in no time. You immediately feel like Clark Kent after he’s walked into a phone booth and donned the funny long johns. I remember a time when I was chastised by a friend for something I did that was obviously wrong.24 The more he berated me, the worse I felt, and soon I was little more than a quivering mass of guilt and shame. Now these feelings are probably two of the least personally acceptable of all feelings, so needless to say I was in a wretched state. Suddenly, he made a slip, and my survival instincts leapt at the opportunity to weasel out of my pain. He started with the phrase, “As sure as the sun rises…” but before he could further berate my incompetence, stupidity, and selfishness, I angrily interrupted: “The sun doesn’t rise, stupid! The earth rotates! If you’re going to have an intelligent conversation, at least say something that makes sense. All you’re doing is making up stuff as you go along!” I continued in that vein for a couple of minutes, gleefully enjoying the feeling of righteousness while overwhelming the guy with my intellectual stick handling. Soon we were no longer talking about my mistake; instead I had him defending his own character deficiencies, most of which I was making up on the spot.

  When you are trying to avoid your pain, just make yourself right about something—anything—that can make someone or something look wrong. If I can make my partner wrong, I can make myself right. Feeling right overrides the pain while my anger can keep my pride fuelled and my awareness hovering above any uncomfortable feelings. And don’t worry about that old saying: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud.” If the gods try to destroy you, just get mad and make them wrong. Righteousness can even keep the gods at bay.25

  It’s been my experience that the flames of anger will die out in a few minutes unless you are feeding them with gasoline. Therefore you have to keep finding things wrong with your partner, and justifying your attacks on him/her with more righteous rationalizations.26 But that’s a small price to pay to stay safe from the guilt, shame, and pain you have been carrying around for years. Your righteous anger can maintain your ignorance right up to death’s door if you want it to.

  Of course, if you want your relationship to actually function and flow in a loving, healthy direction, you may want to consider being responsible for your anger. It’s not as safe as hiding behind your righteousness, but taking the risk of 100% accountability will allow you to face your anger without throwing it on someone else, and discover what important feeling that anger is keeping you from experiencing. Being willing to peacefully confront the important feelings within you, no matter how uncomfortable, gives you the chance to reach even deeper, to more peaceful, loving feelings. It has been my experience that simply giving any feeling my full attention, no matter how painful it is, alleviates the pain and transforms the feeling into a more suitable experience. To do this consistently, a commitment is called for. I call it…

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  THE LOVE INTENTION

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  “Love will find a
way.”

  —Proverb

  A basic premise in modern-day therapy is that, at any given time, and regardless of the circumstances, human beings are always doing their best. On the surface it may not appear to be the case, but all the clients I have met who were going through tough times always had in their hearts a desire to bring peace to the situation. This heart’s calling—often an unconscious desire—I call the Love Intention. The Love Intention is inspired by the urging of the Soul to learn how to truly love ourselves and each other. If we become aware of this intention, which exists in all situations, we have a chance to see the pain we are experiencing as an opportunity to grow beyond our present limitations. Without this understanding of pain’s purpose, every time it arises in our relationship it will throw us into a struggle for control by fight, flight, freeze or faint. When old pain is coming up, disguised as a difference of opinion, our subconscious patterns and beliefs might drive us, for instance, to say something nasty and stomp out of the room. On the other hand, the Love Intention would have us rise above that impulsive nastiness and be responsible for our discomfort, withholding blame or accusation and expressing words of understanding. In this way we become more peaceful, accepting individuals.

  In the heat of a fight, it is always difficult to remember that the discomfort we are experiencing has its roots deep in our past. Yet it is vital to always remember that we are never upset for the reasons we think, otherwise we will continue to make our partners our enemies.27 But why does it only come up with certain people at certain times? If it has nothing to do with our present relationships, why is it interfering with our lives now?