Nothing anyone says or does is because of YOU. What they are saying (or doing) is a projection of themselves and how THEY are feeling.
A generalisation but nonetheless true a lot of the time.
When Mojo's 2bx told her pink wasn't her colour he was projecting his jealously of her as a basically happy, basically hot woman that he hadn't a hope in hell of living up to. This is similar to the sort of thing my H has a tendency to do. He is doing it less and less because I have stopped asking him to live up to any expectations I may have had of him. (Well lets say I'm learning to stop). When Mojo told her 2bx he was LD rather than saying she was a greedy horny girl, she was telling him he wasn't living up to her expectations. And that made him react in lots of nasty defensive ways.
I have now completely decided in my M that I am responsible for my own happiness. This is my life and I have the responsibility to live it right. Whatever he does or doesn't do will be the things he chooses to do or not do, and he has the complete right and freedom to live his life his way too. I will give only what my H is willing to receive and take only as much as he is willing to give. Beyond that who knows, but I won't look to my H to provide entertainment for any excess energy I may have. If I want to go out and party hard, I'll go out and party hard. If I want to remodel the house, I'll remodel the house. If I want to get my rocks off I'll get my rocks off (somehow!). All of these projects are things that H is more than welcome to join me in if he wishes, but I'm not depending on him.
As I start to become more differentiated about things, that seems to be taking pressure off him and he feels less need to react in nasty defensive ways when he sees me having a good time when he's having a low time. If you love someone let them go. I am starting to see what that really means.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
If you love someone let them go. I am starting to see what that really means.
I'm really not disagreeing with you. In fact, I would say "letting him go" was the response I should have had to my 2bx's disagreeable defensive/offensive behavior. Actually, that's actually what I did do and when I "let him go" he left. The fact that he went psycho-fused when he found out that I was dating was just an ego reaction brought on by the swift and sudden removal of all his defensive layers of telling himself that I was too nerdy or too poorly wardrobed etc. to f*ck.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Disassociated: To deny any connection or involvement with somebody or something.
Immune: Not sensitive or susceptible to something.
I did not say that one should become disassociated from their partner in order to become immune to their compliments or put-downs.
I spent a lot of years on this one with the shrink; when we seek our partners' approval, we are 'fusing.' When their importance, whether in opinion or deed, exceeds our own... we are now needy, and well and truly fused.
Funny you should say that. My ex-H told me the other day that he keeps viewing our old videos (he is visiting with the kids and they are watching them together) and watching everyone interact and trying to remember what was going on at the time. He keeps looking for clues as to what happened (this is seven years later). He has decided that while he might not have treated me "badly" all the time, he didn't "treat me well" (potato, po - tahto). Meanwhile, he is still so fused with me that on his first visit with the kids in over a year he had to call to see if he handled something well with DD10. It was a garden variety parenting issue and he did just fine. The fusion didn't end with the divorce. It seems to have a life of its own. I hope your 2bx will do better.
As I was catching up on this conversation, a few thoughts occurred to me….
A truly differentiated person is immune to both compliments and put-downs.
I agree in theory, but have yet to see such a person. I do not think this exists in reality, except maybe a hermit in a cave. The only other possibility I can see is if BOTH partners are somehow “truly differentiated,” which I would think is even harder to find. Unless both people are truly differentiated, the less differentiated person will always try to pull the more differentiated person into some level of enmeshment for validation reasons. If the more differentiated person resists, then the lesser person might leave the relationship.
Another issue I saw was that this idea of fishing for compliments should be considered in the context of the roles of the two people. I would think an avoider would fish for compliments much less than a pursuer. An avoider like my wife sees display of affection (to me, not the kids) as weakness and asking for a compliment would be even weaker. Her idea seems to be that people should be straight forward and give compliments when they are due, which is code for “compliment me without my having to ask.” Not surprisingly, she has a hard time giving compliments to me, which falls in line with her reluctance to show jealousy. All part of the defensive system of shutting down emotions and putting up a show of strength.
I think a pursuer will ask for compliments more readily. For a pursuer to pursue, a certain compromise must be struck with the ego and the fear of abandonment. It can be humiliating to continually pursue another. I think this can cause the pursuer to develop a lower sense of pride and self esteem because of this - pursuit means suffering a certain amounts of rejection. So fishing for compliments may not be as compromising to the ego of the pursuer as it is to the ego of the avoider.
Whether we are talking about compliments, put-downs, jealousy, anger or guilt, all these emotions can be swayed by others, but in the end they are controlled by ourselves. Where the line is drawn on how much others should influence us is debatable, but as long as we interact with other people, there will be and must be some influence by them. Otherwise we become too differentiated versus our partner and the relationship won’t last. If this is what you want, then fine, but as Mojo noted, "Actually, that's actually what I did do and when I "let him go" he left." So what's my point? Find a balance.
Letting my H go doesn't seem to be resulting in him leaving. And I don't think it will. And that's fine - if he is comfortable in this R and is not causing me any discomfort then I really don't have a problem with that because it is the right kind of household for my kids to grow up in. Some of the time I do wonder whether many of our problems have been down to my fused behaviour rather than his. That my need for quality time and sex from him has come across as unattractively needy and made him feel sucked bone dry. Just has his need for AOS and WOA from me make me feel the same way.
On the sex side of things we seem to be working things out fine. His drive ain't up to mine - so what (shrug). I can manage, and if I can't manage then that's my problem and I need to do something about it. No I'm not talking about stalking men for sex outside my M, I'm talking about learning to MB and learning to use my horny energy in other productive ways. Really my H is perfectly happy to f*ck me about 2-3 times a week so if my drive sometimes feels higher than that then maybe it is abnormally high? And as a well differentiated person I need to be able to recognise that that is neither a problem for him nor a problem with him.
Maybe in future when I feel a little short on QT or PT I just need to ramp up the WOA and AOS, not see it as quid pro quo but see it as me taking care of myself. In that I know when I do that H usually responds in a good way. Ah HA! So maybe that's why we shouldn't feel resentful and ask "why do I have to be the one to...."
corri : It sounds really harsh...
Being immune to others approval could easily mean you are a jerk, or a sociopath. So the idea of it does come across as harsh. I think this is a path, it is a journey. I think there is a time for being fused and a time to become differentiated. A lot of us here keeping beating our breasts about the fact that we didn't figure any of this stuff out way earlier. I think we couldn't/shouldn't have necessarily. I think a little baby starts of 100% fused, needy and seeking other validation and I think we grow very gradually in our emotional differentiation with many bumps and hiccups along the way. If we become too differentiated too soon then sure enough we would be jerks. It is important for kids and younger people to seek approval from others, learning empathy and caring about the effect you have on other people is part of life's journey. We differentiate from our parents and leave home and start out on our own. But the next stage is to fuse with a spouse and provide a firm base for the raising of kids. That's the next biological stage - whether you want kids or not - so therefore it is the next psychological stage. Once that marital bond has been established we become ready to achieve the next stage in our differentiation process learning to grow further, to give our spouse more space and to ask for more space ourselves. The same ugly upheavals that occurred when we first differentiated from parents can happen again. Unlike parents spouses don't necessarily love you just anyway.
Hmm - makes you wonder too whether the adolescent experience has anything to do with the way we react to the mid-life experience.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
Being immune to others approval could easily mean you are a jerk, or a sociopath.
I don't necessarily think so... being immune to something doesn't mean you also give up a sense of personal accountability, or that it makes you egotistical, or any less empathetic.
For example, let's say you are an aspiring artist, and the art teacher you have, whom you admire and respect, says to you, one day, that you will never amount to anything as an artist.
We have all heard this example in one form or another, so I don't think I have to rehash the avenues one may or may not take, given this, or some similar scenario.
I think what I am driving at here is the expectation we place on outcomes. If I give you XXX, am I expecting you to act or respond in a certain way? If I have no expectation of outcome, how you choose to act or respond is going to have little affect on me.
There is no judgment here, folks. It is an observation, and to think that we can all do this, all the time, and win THE DIFFERENTIATION AWARD OF THE YEAR is not really my point.
It is catching YOURSELF in the act of moving in and out of it that I believe can lift a lot of the misguided blame we ALL throw at our partners... when we see that we have a lot more power and control over our situations than we perhaps initially thought.
How that happens or when it happens or why it happens... I don't really care... it'll happen to different people, for different reasons, at different times... or it won't.
It's in being able to see it AT ALL, and then once you do... what and how you do something with that knowledge that is the real kicker. Fran seems to be coming into some serious understanding of this general concept, and learning how to apply it to her particular situation.
We all understand that theory is a great and wonderful thing. We all understand that applying that theory in meaningful ways is something else.
My 'fishing for a compliment' line of thought, was but one example of how I think I understand this theory, and how I've misstepped in my own life. I think it is an easy one to get, and one most, if not all of us, have been guilty of... it's one I think is pretty easy to 'own.' In the act of 'owning' it, we are not labeled as a sexual pervert or egotistical sociopath.
I'm talking about learning to MB and learning to use my horny energy in other productive ways. Good luck with that. MBing does nothing to help the problem, and redirecting horniness, I would have no clue as to how a person could possibly do that.
