Don't make the mistake of trying to assess blame in the relationship. You be 100% responsible for your half of the relationship. That includes having sex with hubby. Hubby needs to be 100% responsible for his half of the relationship. That includes treating you with respect.
I take 100% of the responsibility for my half of the relationship, but I will not take responsibility for the whole relationship. That is where I need to set another boundary. I'm responsible for having sex with H and he's responsible for treating me with respect. I also think that he's responsible for having sex with me, and I'm responsible for treating him with respect. I believe that H and I could agree on what "having sex" means, but I'm not sure we can agree on what "respect" means. I remember a thread a while ago about respect and I was surprised to read that sometimes men and women define respect differently. I suspect this could become another point of misunderstanding between us.
Let me ask you a rhetorical question: You are in a room with a screaming baby and a basket of clothes that need folding. What do you do first? Which is the greatest and most immediate need?
Here's my answer: I would attend to the baby first. No matter what reason my baby might be crying, I would drop whatever I was doing and pick him up. I know there might be a different take if the baby is known to have colic or to spend much of its day screaming for undeterminable reasons. But from my own experience, with my own baby, I would pick him up. I would always tend to my baby's needs over housework.
But here's a question for you: does the baby represent the physical touch LL and the laundry represent, say, the quality touch LL or any one of the other four LLs? If so, then I don't see how they can be compared. A baby is human so it has needs, one of which is to be loved. A load of laundry has no needs. The laundry does not "need" to be folded in order to feel loved. I might say I "need" to fold the laundry, but that won't make me feel loved either. I don't see any negative consequences from ignoring the laundry to attend to the baby, other than wrinkled clothes.
However, when we talk about the LLs, we are talking about the needs of two human beings, not the needs of a baby versus a pile of inanimate objects.
That was a really nice discussion about boundaries!
MrsCAC,
Since you have been lurking for a good while, you may already know this, but I’ll review anyway. There are two schools of thought on relationship recovery. The conventional is based on “other” validation, such as IMAGO. The idea is to support one another, to acknowledge and validate your partner. Harely’s approach is based on this and I think it has a lot of merit. DB and Dr. Laura are also other validation approaches. Some of the advice given here is based on this idea.
Schnarch uses a self validation approach. Differentiation requires that each person validate themselves because depending on someone else is not reliable and can cause breakdowns in time of stress, just when validation is needed most. Boundaries, as Corri discussed, seem to be based on self validation, IMO.
Perhaps what Fearless calls relationships needs is another name for other validation and self needs is self validation.
CAC4,
Cobra: your FOO analysis may be correct, but I don't agree w/ any of your conclusions. I don't blame anyone for my career loss...it was nobody's fault, least of all, mine. I did everything right. I may be angry at "fate", but that's it.
How can you be angry at fate? That’s like saying you are angry because the odds did not work out in your favor. Chance was not on your side. What is there to be so angry about, and to hold that anger for so long? Your explanation does not make sense. It seems like an excuse, a deflection.
If anything, my parents treatment of me made me more independant...and I don't think anyone that knows me would describe me as "non-assertive".
This is a common response. I’ve heard parents say their kids don’t need all the mushy, emotional stuff, its better to dispense with the overprotective parenting and raise the kids to be “more independent.” Did anyone ever ask the kids if that is what they want? Would the kids even know? How can a kid who is conditioned to “not want to want” know that they do not want emotional support and security from the parents?
Your response is particularly troubling because it means you have come to BELIEVE the little lies your parents have perpetuated on you. You believe their view of the world is the correct one, you believe that you do not deserve to feel your own wants, that if you do, those wants will not be met. That is a narcissistic family setting.
I am sure you not non-assertive. You had to assert yourself to meet your needs because everyone else was busy meeting their own. No one bothered to meet any one else’s needs. If you are focused on only meeting your own needs, when and how would you ever learn to empathize with others? If you can’t empathize, how would you know if you ever hurt someone’s feelings? And if you don’t know that, how will you ever learn your own feelings?
Yet life is scary and chaos is all around you. After all, your parents want you to be “more independent.” The best way to protect your self and survive is to control your environment the best way you can. For some that might mean acting out, turning to drugs, or becoming very analytical, cool and controlled. That’s how Mr. Spock is made.
You’ve got some major FOO based issues, major denial and major repressed resentment toward your parents. I know. I used to be Mr. Spock too.
This second development of shame is harder deal with and from what I hear many companies are dealing with this issue with the Gen Y workforce. Employers are having difficulty because the employees do not, can not, hear criticisms in a useful way. Many were raised without ever hearing a criticism and therefore are struggling. This is not a healthy for anyone - employer or employee.
If you read the book “The Narcissistic Family” there is a discussion of the “perfect” family in which there are no arguments, everyone gets along well, no criticisms, just lots of effort to look good, put forth a good impression, and be that perfect person required to support that perfect family image. But his is just a different form or self delusion. It is narcissism just as much as the arrogant, self centered SOB.
Maybe some of those Gen Y kids suffer from having been forced to live up to that perfect family image and have little self knowledge. Like CAC4’s FOO, these kids spent their time trying to please others, the parents, who were actually shaming the kids into presenting the perfect image to sooth the needs of the parents. So once again, the kids lose.
Could you need to always please, find compromise and avoid hurt feelings have similar roots?
Quoting myself: ------------------------------------------------------ My point is that the "LL concept" used by a number of "experts", is flawed.
.......
I will likely start a flame war here, but my position is and has been that all needs are NOT created equal, BUT the overall needs of an individual inside a relationship is equal to their partner's needs. ------------------------------------------------------
Since this is going to create confusion and controversy, I will write about my statements in depth on my thread when I feel up to it. I don't want to hijack this thread.
Fearless, I think that Chapman and others are thinking in only 2 dimensions. "Maslow's Hierarchy", while also seriously flawed in my opinion, still presents a more realistic (loosely) representation of individuals/relationships than many currently popular theories. I have my own relational theory that I will cover later on my thread.
All the best, -NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
Since this is going to create confusion and controversy, I will write about my statements in depth on my thread when I feel up to it. I don't want to hijack this thread.
Good idea. I have a feeling we are much closer in opinion than it seems, although I am sure we have significant differences in many ways. I'd love to read a further fleshed out description of your theory.
I'll probably be off-line myself for a few days but I look forward to a continued discussion.
I hope you are feeling much better in a few days!!!
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
[b]Maybe some of those Gen Y kids suffer from having been forced to live up to that perfect family image and have little self knowledge. Like CAC4's FOO, these kids spent their time trying to please others, the parents, who were actually shaming the kids into presenting the perfect image to sooth the needs of the parents. So once again, the kids lose.
Could you need to always please, find compromise and avoid hurt feelings have similar roots?[/b
1)My best friend told me a few weeks ago that I was an unusual person for having such a LARGE sense of self-knowledge and while I am still searching, and always will be, I do feel like I am self-aware. I know enough to know that I don't know everything!
2) My family had no such illusion of perfectness. Nothing was really wrong; it's just that my family tended to be pretty blunt, open and argumentative. We also dealt with a lot of financial issues as a family while my parents lost their farm.
3) I do have a feeling of trying to sooth feelings especially for those I feel are unfairly attacked, don't have the means for defense, etc. My mom had a difficult time and I did want to take care of her but in NO way was it about a perfect image. My mom clearly stated to me that while she wanted my brothers and I to be successful for ourselves, SHE had no need for us to do anything specific for HER.
4) and most importantly, I do not have a need to always please. A need for perfection, in some areas, is not the same as a need to please in my case. I do look for compromise when possible although I do it for practical purposes of getting my needs met. And hurt feelings - why would I want to hurt someone's feeling if I do not mean to? Does hurting someone's feelings get a point across more clearly? I don't think so.
Cobra,
I appreciate your interest in my issues because it is useful to step back and look at them. I did talk to friends and family about the control issue and none of them felt that AT ALL.
I have noticed that over the past month any time I continue directing questions at you; you do not answer my questions but begin asking me questions. I am OK with that because I do not HAVE to know but I hope you will take some time and figure out whether you are doing that consciously or unconsciously.
Either way, I hope you also figure out why it is hard to look at these issues directly.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
What question did you ask of me? I recall some comment about shame, but I don’t always read all of your postings in detail so maybe I missed something.
As far as the shame issue goes, I think you were commenting that I seemed to react strongly to my W’s insinuation that I moved her purse when she had misplaced it, and tat reactivity might be evidence of shame issues? Let me say the answer is no. I had dealt with my shame issues on this board. They centered more on a shame based childhood from my mother’s narcissistic tendencies and her Japanese ancestry.
My reactivity with my W is not because of shame but because of my W’s tendency to project and my need to set a strong boundary to counteract that. The only issue on my side is to not go back to a situation where I feel I am walking on eggshells to keep the peace. She can do her part in helping to restore balance by recognizing that what she says has an impact on people and she has a responsibility to watch her words.
Before, her MO was to speak whatever was on her mind and put the responsibility on the other person to handle it “appropriately.” There was no consideration of her responsibility to be appropriate with what she said in the first place. So my conscious, purposeful reactivity toward her purse statement is to lay down a hard boundary that I intend to defend strongly. There is a difference between boundaries and reactivity.
