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Make It Easy to Get What You Want in Marriage

By Steven Stosny on June 26, 2008 in Anger in the Age of Entitlement

After years of working with couples, I am still amazed at how very hard we make it for our partners to give us what we want. When we protect our vulnerabilities with self-obsession, usually in the form of entitlement, resentment, anger, superiority, or self-righteousness, our perspectives become narrow, rigid, and devaluing of others. The motivation then is more to punish than to get the original desire met. We'll make demands on our partners without regard of their likely reaction and in total rejection of their perspectives and vulnerabilities. In other words, we'll make it as hard as possible for our partners to do what we would like them to do.

Here's an exercise to gauge the extent to which you make it hard for your partner to do what you want. First, list what you would like to see more of in your partner's behavior, e. g., show more compassion, listen better, be more helpful, have more interest in sex.

Write how you make it difficult for your partner to show you more of what you would like. Examples:

"I make it difficult for my partner to be more compassionate by my lack of sympathy for why he/she is not compassionate at the moment."

"I make it difficult for my partner to be more interested in sex by constantly complaining and ignoring his/her needs for intimacy."

"I make it difficult for my partner to listen by talking at him/her, instead of having a conversation (a give and take of information of mutual interest)."

"I make it difficult for my partner to be more helpful by criticizing what he/she does when trying to be helpful."

Now think of how you could make it easier to get what you want.

To make it easier for my partner to____________, I will____________________

Example: "To make my partner more compassionate, I will try hard to understand and sympathize with his/her perspective, even if I disagree with it."

"To make my partner listen better I will listen better to him/her."

"To get my partner help more, I will appreciate his/her effort."

This approach will  not guarantee that your partner will cooperate with you, but it will greatly raise the likelihood. You can certainly reduce the resentment, anger, and emotional pollution in your home by recognizing your own blind spots and respecting your partner's vulnerabilities.

How to Improve Your Marriage without Talking about It

Comments

Make It Easy to Get What You Want in Marriage

Submitted by Anonymous on June 27, 2008 - 6:24am.

Dear Dr. Stosny,

I liked your above referenced article. And have read your books (loved them!) However, what if your partner has been showing very obvious signs of a personality disorder? In particular, BPD/Antisocial?

Im finding that my husband shows very clear signs of BPD and his fears of abandoment, my inability to meet any of his expectations because "his rules" change from day to day/hour to hour, and comunication is very difficult, even when validating his accomplishments as he is very cynical of compliments even when in earnist. His needs are neverending and is the typical "black hole of need" that I could never meet. I have started to set boundries. And this has led to the filing of a divorce that he states "I made him do" because of my limt setting.

Many troubled couples face some type of personality disorder within their marriage. It is very dibilitating for the non-BPD to be in a relationship with this type of personality and most have been tormented by the disorder that they are not able to think or feel straight any longer.

Do you provide any guidence within this scope of marriage difficulties?

Yours,

Frustrated and broken-hearted in NJ


It is never a good idea to

Submitted by Steven Stosny on June 27, 2008 - 11:59am.

It is never a good idea to diagnose your family members. Even if you are correct, and the odds against you being able to make an objective analysis are great, your "diagnosis" is more likely to be contemptuous than compassionate. Rather than diagnose your husband, look at the itneractive pattern between you. That you can change. You might consider doing the boot camp exercises in Love without Hurt together or separately, but you should both do them. If you can't make a live boot camp, there is a CD-ROM of narrated PowerPoint slides of the material.
Best wishes


PD's

Submitted by nqw61 on June 27, 2008 - 10:17am.

I have essentially the same question as Frustrated and Brokenhearted in NJ, only I believe my now ex husband has NPD. No matter what I did or didn't do, it was always wrong. I spent 14 years apologizing for my terrible shortcomings. He always put me down, but it was mostly stealth and subtle, but constant and persistent. I am a physician, grew up in a loving family, have wonderful friends, yet he managed to convince me that there was something terribly wrong with me. I couldn't understand why, knowing how much I loved him, and believing that he loved me (beliveing his words, not his actions) I felt so bad in the marriage. Three years ago he left and did not return. I found him living with another woman (his first cousin infact!!) We are now divorced.

He has blamed me of course! I have been devastated but really think that there is nothing I could have done. I truly have tried to understand what happened. I'm not interested in a blame game, only to understand.

Thanks for listening,

nqw


The compulsion to blame is a

Submitted by Steven Stosny on June 27, 2008 - 12:04pm.

The compulsion to blame is a measure of your ex's low core value, not yours. You can best get his abusive footprints off your soul by viewing the self-loathing that makes him irresponsible more compassionately. That will give you the power to heal yourself and open your heart to a more likely candidate in the future. Look at Love without Hurt at compassionpower.com.

Be compassionate to yourself.


Assumption of self-loathing

Submitted by Anon on June 28, 2008 - 11:12am.

I think we must be careful not to inadvertently put across the idea that 'self-loathing' lies at the core of ALL persons who engage in resentful and angry behaviour. This is particularly so when the abusive behaviour is non-typically violent (ie. cunning, manipulative, exploitive behaviour).

No doubt a good proportion of angry resentful behaviour stems from excessive anxiety, PTSD or other emotional regulation difficulties, and such persons can be well helped by HEALS and a compassionate approach.

However, a good proportion of abusers are also identified as narcissistic, and it must not be overlooked that studies have STRONGLY DISPUTED the idea that (beneath a grandiose self-concept) the narcissist has a negative self view.

The results of one such study (reported in the March issue of Psychological Science which can be read at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070227105207.htm) showed that narcissistic personalities do NOT uniformly dislike themselves "deep down inside." Essentially they do not dislike, let alone loathe themselves for dominating over others (as opposed to dealing fairly and sensitively.

Whilst compassion can be the healing balm for one type of abuser, it can amount to playing into the hands of another. Compassion can be submission to narcissistic personalities.

Such narcissistic personalities are often intelligent, articulate and charming, and they are adept at mimicking emotional and behavioural models. Consequently they are able to mimic the profile of non-narcissistic abusers who feel genuine self-loathing for their abusive behaviour and desperately wish to overcome it. The narcissistic abuser is therefore able to blend like a wolf in sheep's clothing in an abuser-healing group and may be virtually indectable if very skilled.

Its not shame, but opportunism, that stops this abuser admitting the truth of his behaviour. Yet, in a curious twist, he will readily MODEL shame (with all the credibility of a method-actor) if caught out in a lie. He disguises his opportunism as shame in order to evoke compassion over disgust - to endear rather than alienate his audience. He values and prides himself in his ability to use his intelligence and empathy to fool and dominate. His goal is to retain ground and all spoils and opportunities therein. If he's embarked on therapy to save his relationship, there will be spoils and opportunities he wishes to hold on to.

The narcissistic abuser must be acknowledged as distinctly different in many ways to non-narcissistic abusers. This is not to say that ultimately compassion may not heal the narcissist, but it would need to be in the form of outwitting and confronting the narcissist with reality.

Until there is an across-the-board awakening among therapists and indeed the community at large to narcissism, its nature and the need to confront the lies and distortions, the narcissist will simply be able to move elsewhere when no longer able to get away with it. Worse still, he may succeed in fooling everyone and stay put continuing to get away with the insidious abuse.

Untold damage is done to the minds of people exposed longterm to narcisistic personalities. Their lack of conscience permits them to cross lines without guilt or remorse, then further lie about this to shift blame away from themselves. Therapists need to be careful to not unwittingly get drawn into the narcissist's lies and distortions or compound things all round.

Partners of narcissists need to have an appropriate analysis of their situation, the clearest possible understanding of the insidious abuse that occurs and how to identify and deal with it. The partner must grow more adept at recognising manipulative attempts. Especially difficult are 'feigned' emotions and lies about deeper feelings and motivations, which may appear sincere breakthroughs when they are in fact just more cards up the narcissist's sleeve. To validate such is to play directly into the hands of the narcissist. The partner needs to learn to not allow herself to be intimidated away from appropriately questioning and challenging her partner.

I implore therapists to fully appreciate the need to identify different abuser profiles and having done so, to ensure their partners receive appropriate information and advice. It is all too easy for a wise, loving, compassionate person to relate to "self-loathing" at the core of an abusive partner's core and respond as if it were there.

The suggestion that 'self-loathing' lies at the core of all abusive people is highly questionable and can cause a very wrong view of matters. This in turn may result in the failure to make calls and draw lines early enough where a personality disordered (particularly narcissistic) abuser is concerned - that is before he or she has been unwittingly exposed to great mental and emotional damage, and fed his or her partner's illness at the same time.


Also think I'm dealing with NPD

Submitted by Brenda on June 30, 2008 - 10:07am.

I also believe my emotionally abusive husband is NPD and even though I'm trying to follow a compassionate approach, I think it actually makes both of us worse in our roles as abuser & victim. It seems the nicer I relate to him the worse he treats me. It's like he's able to get away with it, so he'll push it as far as he can.

Now that I know a little more about NPD, I'm feeling a little more empowered to help myself deal with the abuse, but I would like to know how I can learn more about narcissistic personalities and how to respond so that I am both compassionate towards him and protective of my own self, if that's possible.
Thanks


Narcissistic confusion

Submitted by Steven Stosny on July 14, 2008 - 1:41pm.

Compassion protects us from becoming narcissistic in reaction to narcissists. The key interpersonal element of narcissism is not how they feel about themselves; it is their inability to see other people apart from their reactions to them. When other people are nothing other than how they make you feel, you feel justified to oversimplify them and manipulate, dominate, or reject them to make you feel better. It is using others for self-regulation.

Of course not all, not even most, resentment and anger comes from self-loathing. But chronic resentment, anger, and abuse against loved ones will produce self-loathing in anyone capable of forming emotional bonds.

You seem to see a much larger overlap of sociopathy with narcissism than most observers. However, most would agree that narcissists are a heterogeneous group. And of course they have a need to believe they are better than they are and better than others. The study you cite shows how deeply-seeded that need is in the dominance-mastery domain, though, significantly, not it in the relationship domain, which is the pertinent to marriage. It is there that the inadequacy of narcissists requires the most defense.

There is a subset of narcissists who cannot form emotional bonds – most regard them as sociopathic – and training them in compassion would be fruitless. Those who do form bonds are subject to the emotional laws of attachment. Whenever they violate attachment bonds, they experience guilt and shame, which they regulate by compulsively minimizing the violation and blaming it on their spouses. If they did not feel that contempt for and manipulation of loved ones was a violation of the deeper values, there would be no compulsion to minimize or blame anyone else – there would be no cognitive dissonance. They would be proud of hurting those they love. In treating some 3,000 court-ordered men, I have never met anyone proud of it, once you go a little beneath the adolescent bravado on the surface.

Thinking as superficially as they do, in terms of manipulation, power, and control, will neither help them nor their families. Reactive narcissism, not compassion, plays into the hands of the narcissist by making them feel like victims and justifying their control and abuse.

Although narcissists are a heterogeneous group, narcissism is certainly a defensive system. It is hard to see how they need to defend themselves so vigorously from self-love. The victim who can compassionately see that her abuser hates himself more with each negative thought about her can free herself of him. She knows that he cannot heal until he becomes compassionate and that she will only contribute to his self-destruction by staying with him if he fails to become compassionate.

Compassion is not pity. It is never submission. It is self-healing. In contrast, the contemptuous description of him offered by many advocates utterly fails (unless she herself is contemptuous) because she knows there is more to it than that. It locks her in a pendulum of pain, as her contempt turns to guilt and pity.

Fortunately, she doesn’t need a ractive diagnosis or a third-party interpretation of defensive, shame-avoidant behavior vs. opportunism; she only needs to feel consistent compassion from him. Absent that, she knows that the relationship will harm her, him, and their children.

Steven Stosny


I am sold on the idea of

Submitted by anonymous on June 30, 2008 - 10:16am.

I am sold on the idea of being compassionate and improving my communication skills. I want to do these things because of how I want to live my life and because I want to grow into the person God designed me to be.

I find it dangerous to associate my good behavior with the idea that if I do it I might get my husband to do what I want. Some of us who have lived with people with addictions have learned the hard way that we truly have no power over another person's behavior. We have found that to be the case even when we are "on best behavior," as my mother would exhort me to have when visiting my alcoholic grandfather.

Giving compassion to others with no strings attached (not based on the response of others) frees me--and inner freedom is a great gift to give myself.


I also believe in always treating others with compassion

Submitted by Brenda on June 30, 2008 - 10:38am.

I also believe in always treating others with compassion, honesty, dignity, respect regardless of their response. It's who I really am as a person. But, when exposed to emotional abuse for so long, it's very difficult to keep the resentment and anger at bay and not start looking for ways to protect yourself from the abuse.

I learned this through Dr Stosny's books and when I realized that I wanted to get back to the compassionate person I truly am and started behaving that way, my husband's response got worse and more emotionally abusive than ever.


Brenda, If you are

Submitted by Steven Stosny on July 2, 2008 - 10:00am.

Brenda,

If you are in an abusive relationship, it is not your responsibility to repair it - only the abuser can do that. To heal himself he must feel compassion for you. Accepting any less from him will perpetuate your suffering as well as his.

The point of compassion for yourself and your husband is to prevent the abuse from turning you into someone you are not. No doubt your husband is interpreting your compassionate behavior as pity, which makes him more angry. (If you have read Love without Hurt, the distinction between compassion and pity and the pendulum of pain is emphasized. I also reviewed it in my most recent post here.) If you regard him as having a personality disorder, your compassion will certainly come off as pity for his defects.

Personality disorders are extremely complex diagnoses that only a professional should make after thorough examination and testing of the subject, supplemented by interviews with the partner. You cannot make that diagnosis based on what you read in a self-help book and certainly not in a blog post.

If you can see him apart from your reaction to him, which is admittedly difficult when you have been abused, and still think that he is NPD, the most compassionate thing you can do is leave, as you will both be trapped in a pendulum of pain, swinging from pity, contempt, guilt, and back to pity. If you think he protects himself from pervasive inadequacy about relationships with anger and control, insist that he do the boot camp work from the book you have read, so that he can learn to heal himself with compassion. His willingness to do that will indicate how vital your relationship is.

Best wishes,
Steven


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Steven Stosny

Steven Stosny, Ph.D., has treated more than 6,000 people for various anger and relationship problems through CompassionPower, the organization he founded and directs.

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