WANT RELATIONSHIP ADVICE FROM AN EXPERT? ASK YOURSELF.

no. this is not my car. I couldn't find the damned photos. Where the Hell are they?

 

How I came upon this theory.

You already know that I think too much. You may not know that I do much of it while driving. I was going to say in my car, but, what else would I be driving? Anyway, twice weekly I have to drive 40 minutes south which gives me enough time to think and possibly remember what it was I was thinking about before I get out of the car.

It’s no shock, that being female, I think about my relationship with my husband, and with my friends, and occasionally with myself. Oh, also with my family although I can’t really change those, because except all but one or two are deceased, so I’m not sure that figures in.

There are, and have been throughout the years, that I at least have been alive, countless call in radio shows, TV shows, and books. I wonder how much money is made from people buying books about how to fix, find, or forget, some relationship.  Oh yeah. And psychotherapy, counseling, psychics and horoscopes.

I ought to know something about it. I saw enough patients who were troubled by their relationships, or lack of them, and spent many hours listening and attempting to come up with helpful/healing, solutions. What I know is, that if people took the advice they got from whatever source they chose, there would be huge industry still cranking out more books.

THEORY:

People in relationship pain want relief. They go to many sources to get answers and yet, usually, nothing helps. This is because either they are going to the wrong source, or they really don’t want help. They want people to feel compassion for them and they want to vent and be told it’s the fault of the other person.

 

HYPOTHESIS:

If asking for relationship advice worked, people would take the advice and change. Most people, in enough pain, seek advice. If it’s from a person, they explain why the advice is wrong or say thank you, and continue doing what they’ve been doing. If it’s from a book, they underline things, take notes and put the book down and take no action. Therefore, since all change happens from within, the person they should be asking, is themselves.

Research design:

My findings are based on years of observation, personal interaction with family and friends and years of psychotherapy. The psychotherapy consists of being on both sides of the couch.

     

FINDINGS, OTHERWISE KNOW AS ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.

Have you ever heard or said these words? Yes, but? I’ll bet you have. My favorite thing about the word “but”, is that it allows you to say all sorts of wonderful things to someone else, and then negate them all with a little, slipped in, three letter word.

YES BUTT.......

Example conversations:

“If you break up with him, you can afford your own apartment, you have a good job, and you then have the opportunity to meet someone who will treat you well”. 

“I’d love a new apartment, but aren’t they really scarce? And my job is great, but what if something happens and I lose it? So if he’s not there as a backup, what will I do?” 

All of these statements are true. What did you think you were going to hear?

“From what you’re telling me, you are so depressed that can’t function. Your unhappiness seems to be coming from living with someone you no longer love, who has controlled you since you met and allows you no privacy and is constantly verbally abusing you. What do YOU want?”

“I hate it. I stay in my room and listen to loud music to drown him out. It’s been my whole life. It’s all that I know. I hate it when he talks to me like that. Sometimes I get so upset that I yell back and say terrible things. Then I feel worse. He can’t help it. He’s sick.”

That was a wonderful deflection. Don’t answer the question. Just continue to complain about what the problems are and keep doing that until the other person, well, either stops talking and just listens, or tries to break through the resistance.

You think I should do ...What?????

What’s clear is that is doesn’t seem like these people are on the same page. Maybe not even in the same room.  Why is that?

WHO DO I WANT TO CHANGE?

I recently read a quote and I hope I can remember it well enough to get the message across.

When a person blames another, he is not educated.

When a person blames himself, his education has begun.

When a person does not blame anyone, his education is done.

All of us believe we are right. I think that’s instinctive.

It may have been a great survival tool for our ancestors, but it’s not working so well in this time in our evolved lives.

Even if I am right? At what cost? I’ve talked before about how the only one we can change is ourselves. This may be a theme, but it’s also a truth as I see it.

This reminds me of a light bulb joke.

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?

None. The lightbulb has to want to change itself.

So, that brings me back to my premise, that you are your own expert and if you want advice on a relationship, you are the only one who has any answers.

How to go about being your own expert?

I’m a proponent of writing things down. Anyway that works for you. A story, a series of tales, a list. That’s not important. What is important is that you write down the details of all your relationships.

Where should you start? Well, I like to go back to the beginning. That works for me.

What was my relationship with my mother, father, and siblings? Those would be the first ones and perhaps the ones that could shed the most light.

Writing a saga is probably not what you need. The salient points will do. Was there conflict? How was it resolved? How was love shown? What were your interactions usually like? How did that relationship make you feel? Were you given too many or two few responsibilities? Were you allowed to voice an opinion?

There are many, many questions you can ask. These are examples.

oops. maybe I forgot this one. anyway. Just ask yourself questions.

Then you can move on to friends and romantic relationships. The questions should be similar.

OKAY. NOW WHAT?

This is the part where you start to look for patterns. I previously wrote about people pleasers in a former post. You would notice a pattern of doing what you were told by everyone so you didn’t cause waves. The reason doesn’t matter. The pattern does.

Did you get yelled at a lot? How did you respond? Do you find yourself in relationships where you are still getting yelled at and responding in the same way?

Look at the patterns that you find.

If you find that there are patterns in the relationships, you will be able to see what it is that YOU are bringing to the table. Even though the people we pick may appear to be so very different from our families, or our other relationships, the patterns of behaviors will be there. Generally, those are the problems we bring to the relationship and the ones we can decide about changing.

 

ONE OF MY OWN PERSONAL REVELATIONS.

About ten years ago my marriage had reached one of those really bad rough patches. We never had yelling matches or name calling, but we did argue and of course, it was quite unpleasant.

My husband changed. He decided that he wasn’t going to argue with me anymore. As he would say, “I know where this is going, and I’m not going down that road”. So, at the start of an argument, he’d just walk away and go into another room, or leave the house.

I was more than upset. I couldn’t believe that he would do that. It initially made me angrier, but then I noticed that what it was really doing was triggering anxiety. At times, it got so bad, I needed a valium.

I finally started to ask myself what was going on. There were two things that emerged.  When he cut me off, he triggered old abandonment anxiety that had plagued me since childhood. I had never learned to self soothe, so it would get so uncomfortable that I would feel trapped in my own skin. Once I was able to could recognize it, I was able to respond as an adult and not a child. He wasn’t abandoning me. He just didn’t want to fight or talk about something and that was all it was. I was able to calm myself after that without medication or having to go to sleep because I could recognize it. If I could recognize it, I could stop it from going any further. That was really big and very helpful.

The other thing I felt, was unloved. That took some looking at, as well. I thought back to my life at home when I was living with my parents.

Arguing was what we often did. It was frequent. It was how we communicated. More so with my dad and sister. My mom was more of the silent treatment type. I realized that in my nuclear family, our connectedness was through negative interaction and that I came to believe that, this was how love was shown. A bit disturbing, but that’s how it was.

I realized that when my husband wouldn’t communicate with arguing it made me feel disconnected and unloved.

After I put those things together, I understood my reactions to him and was able to stop running after to him to try to continue to argue.

I was able to stop feeling abandoned and unloved. And, we were able to communicate without getting into fights and bad places. We still don’t go down those bad roads. We disagree, but know when to just stop and let it be.

CONCLUSIONS:

Advice is usually given for free. And often, we take it at the value we paid. I don’t want advice. I want things to be different. Except, usually, I don’t want to be different, or do anything differently.

Knowing this. That’s the first step. If I’m willing to look at myself, and take responsibility for me, I can come up with answers to questions that I might not be willing to hear from someone else.

Or course, input from someone else is often important. The trick is knowing who to ask. Usually it’s the person we already know will agree with us. Not a good idea when you want to grow.  So, we need to find someone who doesn’t have a preformed notion and who we respect.

P.S.

Some years ago I read a Harville Hendrix book. I think it was called getting the love you need, or something like that. Being that it was really, long ago, I can’t say too much of what it was, although, what I’ve written may be similar in some way.

What I do recall was several questionnaires throughout the book.  Towards the end, you were asked to go back to different sections and take words you had written. In the instance I remember, the words would give you what you thought of marriage.  My words were, dead-end, death, trapped and some similar adjectives. I had never imagined that I had an image like that, but when I saw it, and thought about it, it was right on.

So, what do you think? Are you up to the challenge?

                                    Thanks for reading.