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Yesterday in our treatment group for abusive partners, Joe told us that his partner Lynn had come home from work agitated. He’d been watching television and she started trying to talk to him. He said he hadn’t wanted to engage because he’d just worked a long day and needed a break. He said that when she’s in a bad mood he feels like he can’t get anything right.
Lynn continued to try to engage him, getting increasingly distressed. Finally, he said, she slammed out of the room and didn’t speak to him for the rest of the night.
The other men in the room were showing signs of coming over to Joe’s position that Lynn was obviously trying to pick a fight until Chris, another man in the room, asked Joe what she’d been trying to talk about with him. “Her mother is in the hospital,” Joe said. “She’s been pretty upset about it.”
In our work with abusive partners, we often see that how people tell their story to themselves and others is strongly related to how they manage their behavior.
Joe thinks that Lynn is too nice and too sensitive and that her mother takes advantage of these qualities. He claims to like her mother but his perspective is that she’s in the hospital because she smokes and drinks and doesn’t manage her diabetes well. He resents how much time Lynn spends taking care of and worrying about her mother. He feels like Lynn’s mother has them on a rollercoaster and he is tired of it.
Lynn was raised as the only child of this single mother. She knows her mother is an alcoholic and she’s been fighting for years to get her to stop smoking and drinking and to start exercising. This is her mother’s third hospitalization this year and the doctors are warning that they may need to amputate her foot. Lynn is finally starting to understand that her mother, who never took very good care of her as a daughter, is now likely never going to be well enough to care for herself, much less Lynn. This has left Lynn full of grief.
Joe is also the child of an alcoholic single mother but where Lynn's mother was neglectful, she could also be warm, funny, and affectionate. Joe's mother was critical and explosive when she was drunk, which was most of the time, and only rarely attentive to his needs. Joe's mother did make a number of short-lived attempts to stop drinking over the course of his childhood and Joe eventually stopped hoping that she'd ever change. She is still drinking and Joe sees her only on rare occasions and is defended against his hurt and sadness about their relationship.
When Joe reported for treatment with us he recognized that his pattern of shutting down and pushing Lynn away was killing his relationship. He wants to do something different but in the moment of conflict, he reverts to old ways of thinking.
With the help of the group, Joe is trying to develop the ability to remember the following in the midst of conflict;
1. Some piece of Lynn’s hurt and annoyance isn’t about Joe
Lynn seems moodier than usual at home. Sometimes she wants to be close to Joe and other times she’s critical and snappish. In the moments that she’s being irritable with Joe, it isn’t necessarily personal--she’s grieving and scared but also angry that her mother couldn’t ever take care of her. In a broader sense, her distress is not entirely or even mostly about Joe. It may not feel fair to Joe but here it is, leaking out in their relationship. Joe has a couple of options. He could take it personally or he could remember that she’s having a hard time, take a deep breath and be kind.
2. Some piece of it is about Joe
It is true though that Lynn is actually hurt by Joe. She has started to anticipate that any time she wants to talk about her mother, Joe will become critical and withdrawn and that hurts. If Joe wants to be close to her he needs to hear that whether or not he approves of her mother, Lynn wants his support and care--which up until now he has not been offering.
3. Joe will be okay, even if it hurts
Joe gets quite anxious when Lynn is angry with him and is quick to attribute to Lynn the intention to cause him harm. Joe’s alcoholic mother was harsh and could be mean when she was drunk and angry.
When Joe was a child his mother did crush him and overwhelm him and this developed a fear in him that the people he love will do the same when they are angry. As a result, in moments like this his impulse is to defend himself, sometimes by walling himself off and sometimes by going on the attack. The truth is, however, that Lynn is not a particularly harsh person and really doesn’t want to annihilate him. Joe needs to understand this as a reaction to his early experience, not to his current situation. He is no longer that small child incapable of escaping or stopping his mother’s verbal attacks. Experiencing Lynn’s anger may hurt the adult Joe, but it will not obliterate him.
4. Joe can tell himself a different story that will help him to behave well
If Joe hears Lynn’s complaints with an attitude of “She’s weak and that’s why her mother is taking advantage of us and now she’s just taking it out on me,” then he is bound to be unkind. But if he tells himself that she’s really just sad and can tolerate the idea that she may be right, that maybe he hasn’t been supportive, then he has a better opportunity to respond with kindness.
5. Joe can work to avoid getting rigid, harsh and defensive.
When Lynn gets angry with Joe, he gets scared even though he isn’t necessarily aware of it. Years of living with an unpredictable and frightening parent left Joe hypervigilant or “wired” to notice small signals that as a child could mean that he was imminently at risk of feeling overwhelmed or attacked. As an adult, Joe’s body still reacts to his fear in the form of adrenalin production, an increased heart rate and muscle tension. To protect himself from those feelings Joe launches defenses against Lynn that include pushing her away and shutting down.
A harsh response is likely to hurt Lynn, further aggravating their situation. If instead Joe could focus on a warm, connecting response, over time Lynn is likely to notice the change. As she comes to trust that Joe will no longer withdraw or punish, she may also find herself relaxing. This in turn holds the promise of making things easier for Joe in the future.
6. Joe can notice what he is feeling, use precise language to describe those feelings and then take care of himself
If Joe is able to notice in the beginning of the incident that he’s scared or anxious, he can do a couple of important things. He can notice whether he is actually in danger, he can try to calm himself down, and he can communicate with Lynn about what’s going on. Something like this: Joe noticing that his breathing is becoming shallow, thinks, “Oh, I’m anxious right now” and takes a couple of deep breaths before saying to Lynn, “I think I got anxious just a second ago and didn’t hear what you were trying to say. Can I have a second to get myself a glass of water and then I’ll come back and we can talk?”
7. Joe can learn to recognize that Lynn is often doing the best that she can
It’s probably true that Lynn wasn’t asking for connection in the best possible moment or in the sweetest, most beguiling way. Joe can either get hung up on that, or he can turn off the television, turn to her and warmly and kindly invite her to tell him what’s on her mind.
8. Joe can view these moments as opportunities to develop skills
Joe has almost 40 years of experience protecting himself from conflict by walling himself off, stuffing down his feeling, and then periodically exploding. All of these ideas and skill sets are new for him. He is going to have to practice and to be prepared for the fact that he may feel awkward or not do it well.
For too long Joe has operated as if his patterns of thinking and reacting are fixed, unchangeable. And the truth is that changing patterns in adult behavior is hard and takes a lot of effort. But adults make successful, lasting changes in their lives all the time. It simply takes effort, a lot of practice, and often solid support. Joe now has the support. It is up to him to keep choosing to put in the effort and the practice, and whether he does so is a good predictor of the future health of their relationship.
