if you peel the onion far enough, eventually *everybody* cries
on the subject of nuclear meltdowns, i have to say... no-one is sexy at eleven o'clock at night with a faceful of snot and a head full of demons.
i don't know where to start, though i guess friday's morning post is as likely a launch pad as anything. and since the responses i got from the general friends-only filter just proved that some people either don't want to know or don't need to know the full scope of what i'm processing here, i'm filtering down to my "high trust filter". oh you lucky people you.
i meant what i said when i wrote that the hardest thing i've ever done is admit to my partner that he cannot trust me (currently) to meet his needs.
i have issues when it comes to valuing anyone else's needs as being as important as, or sometimes even more important, than my own. i am prone to making questionable decisions - defined as "ones that will rock the boat and upset a sense of stability" - when faced with something that i want that doesn't explicitly fit within the expectations or explicit limitations of my primary relationship. i could give you detailed examples of that process and destabilizing decisions i have made, but really, most of you don't need to know the details. just believe me when i say, there's no shortage of samples, even recent ones, much as i might wish it otherwise.
in short, i decide to do what i want because i want it, and then bring every ounce of Weasel Fire-power i have online in full defensive mode to justify my choices when it becomes apparent that matthew is upset by what appears to be my lack of concern for, or lack of value invested in, his feelings. setting aside for the moment the issues that arise from expectations that i explicitly know his feelings, and place in them the same default values he does, lets just look at the times when i know i've made questionable decisions in grey areas, and then dealt spectacularly badly with the consequences of those decisions. like i said, there is no hyperbole here - i recently did exactly that, and have spent the past month, the past week in particular, coming to grips with the fact that this particular behaviour pattern is about to become a deal-breaker kind of problem for the man i love.
let's start by coming back to the exhibited behaviour pattern: "i have issues when it comes to valuing anyone else's needs as being as important as, or sometimes even more important, than my own." when i want something badly enough in the heat of the moment, i make decisions like a selfish six-year-old: i act on what i want without (apparent) thought for the consequences, then cry foul when i am (ostensibly) punished for my choices. what upsets matthew the most, as i understand it, is the fact that he cannot fathom how some of these choices seem like good ideas, how i can convince myself he'll just be OK with the decisions i make in situ, or worse, not be OK but suck it up and cope. my decision making process is opaque to him, because he cannot figure out how i can prioritize the lower-valued or less important things in the short term, to the detriment of the bigger, more important/more highly-valued things. my shift-in-the-moment priorities confound him.
my passionately-argued response is, i want the right and responsibility to maintain my autonomy. i want the right to make my own decisions, to sometimes choose my own needs over someone else's. and while on the surface this is the kind of adult responsibility i think everyone wants, to a degree, it causes problems when my actions and decisions fly in the face of my stated intents, stated priorities, previously-held values. i am incongruent, my actions become non-transparent, and i create doubt. if matthew trusts that i am *always* going to be thus, that i am always going to put my own needs first to the detriment of his, he feels he's going to have to go on the permanent defensive, looking out for himself and protecting himself, because he *expects* i will always think like the selfish six-year old. and therefore, he will treat me like the selfish six-year old.
let me tell you, that's not a happy thing to hear.
so i've been poking this tendency to the point where it's raw and oozing emotional lather all over the place, and it finally occurred to me to look at the root fear that drives the behaviour (hey, i advocated the process to everyone else, i might as well prove i'm willing to take my own medication once in a while). and two things hit me, pretty much simultaneously when i peeled back the onion layers to ask myself, "what the hell *am* i afraid of??"
1. i am afraid that acknowledging other people's needs means sublimating or subsuming my own needs, and that i will cease to exist as anything other than someone who lives to put other people's needs first... at the cost of my own.
2. this fear, and the aggressive defensive tactics i have adopted to protect my autonomy where my needs are concerned, are the very things that, in one form or another, have driven the demise of my three previous relationships (all my "adult" relationships, including my marriage).
the fear i think i have been aware of for a while; i may even have named it at one point before burying it somewhere deep and dark. the corollary realization of the larger pattern, however, was new. realizing not just the larger pieces of the pattern, but coming face to face with the cost of my patterned behaviours, the cost of catering to my fears... and understanding that i absolutely do not choose to risk matthew in the same way... was galvanizing, to say the least.
it comes too late to save the weekend plans with benjamin, but i'm coping much better with that disappointment than i was with the crunchy, nasty thought that finally blew the top off my stressors and cause the fearful meltdown on friday night: if i don't get my shit together, and *soon*, matthew's going to leave me because he doesn't like me. even though he said as recently as last night that it's only a part of me he doesn't like, we both have to acknowledge that the patterns that define the "unconscious karen" are a pretty big part of me. that absolute fear of being subsumed, the astonishing force of aggression that is my defensive mechanisms (what i term the "Weasel Fire-power" that comes online to justify and defend my self-indulgent, high-risk-high-impact decisions) are so deeply embedded that the idea of culling those patterns, or trying to rework how i make those decisions - of simply trying to stay present and conscious with someone else's needs when they run contrary to my own short-term wants - just flabbergasts me.
benjamin wrote something to me this morning - we were discussing his thoughts about making changes in himself - that struck a chord in me. he said, "I am not opposed to change, I just see the mountain and not the results when I start." this is exactly how i feel right now: absolutely daunted by the scope and majesty of this thing i am going to carve out of myself and remake into a more effective process. matthew also commented last night as we were finally crawling into bed that he had no idea where to start with making these changes. i think my reply to benjamin this morning has some merit, at least as a starting point, and it ties in with my general process for making changes in any other forum or format: "you need to have a clear "eye on the prize", or a good understand of the results you're trying to achieve, whenever you start any process for change, because otherwise, you have absolutely no way to measure your success rate. if that doesn't help you see past the mountain, then nothing will."
when matthew commented about not having an idea how to go about this, i told him: for me, at least, it starts with establishing an end goal - what are the results i need to achieve? what do i need to do to achieve those results? what are the individual processes for each of those steps? what are the tools i have on hand to make those processes go, or what do i need to develop myself or acquire from elsewhere?
in this case, my end goal is to establish and maintain stability and comfort in my primary relationship. i also want to be able to maintain my involvements with other people in ways that don't throw doubt on my overall prioritizations.
with that end-goal in mind, i need to make some large-scale changes to my patterns (this is the large-scale roadmap to that end goal):
looking at that large-scale roadmap, in order to make that first item happen, there are things i need:
in order to make that second thing happen, these are the things i need:
for each of these "project line items", i have most of the tools i need to make the processes go - they generally seem to distil down to communications factors, and needing to ask for what i need or want in each process, or let matthew know how best he should communicate what he needs or wants in each process. for example, he's taken to approaching statements of his own needs in a roundabout fashion that start with questioning *my* needs in a specific situation. in his mind, he's "scouting enemy territory", trying to get a lay of the land before committing to an act of vulnerability that he fears will be met with hostility, especially if he's about to challenge me on something i'm doing or acting towards. in my mind, however, as soon as he starts questioning me without transparent motivation, i get defensive about *being challenged* on something i want - the weasels come out, and the hostility ensues. in short, matthew's approach technique provokes the very response he's trying to avoid. so last night i asked him to specifically state his feelings as directly as possible, when he feels his needs are going unmet. instead of asking me how i feel about something, just come right out and say, "i'm feeling anxious about this situation/your actions/whatever, and here are the details that i think are provoking this feeling in me."
what this changes, is how i listen. when he starts to sniff around and making the questions all about me, i anticipate the challenge to *me*, and go on the defensive. but when he makes the statements all about him and his feelings, he provokes the the listening partner, simply because he's introducing information that's all about *him*. i'm not responding to a passive-aggressive challenge, i'm responding to a statement of need. it's a subtle difference, but a profound one. the end result may be that i have to change something i'm doing, but it won't be on the grudging end of what feels to me like passive-aggressive manipulation... and that makes it easier to listen, easier to hear, easier to *want* to stay present and make the collaborative solutions happen.
no, it's not an iron-clad guarantee of improvement, but it's something we haven't tried in *this* kind of situation before, but has worked for us in other contexts. it is a communications tool we already have, that will help shore up specific processes, that in turn strengthen the framework of the structural changes i'm trying to integrate and internalize.
i can't make these changes alone. more importantly, i believe i won't make these changes alone. and if i don't make them, they will eventually cost me this relationship - matthew has told me as much. this relationship is only doomed, however, if we are forced to maintain the current status quo. and since we've both determined that the current state of affairs is neither desirable nor sustainable... things have to change. the cost of the current inefficient processes is too high, and i don't want to spend another evening facing down the demons shouting in my face that he's going to leave me because he doesn't like me.
i want to be the person who has earned, and deserves, his trust.
i want to be the person who values, and is valued, without fear.
i want to be the person who has earned, and maintains, the privilege of being considered and treated as an adult.
i want to be the person who has earned, and can effectively balance, intimate relationships with people who share these goals and values.
i cannot achieve these goals as the person i was a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. but ghods help me, i will prove that people *can* change at their core.
and for my next trick, i'm going to move fucking mountains, to boot.
i don't know where to start, though i guess friday's morning post is as likely a launch pad as anything. and since the responses i got from the general friends-only filter just proved that some people either don't want to know or don't need to know the full scope of what i'm processing here, i'm filtering down to my "high trust filter". oh you lucky people you.
i meant what i said when i wrote that the hardest thing i've ever done is admit to my partner that he cannot trust me (currently) to meet his needs.
i have issues when it comes to valuing anyone else's needs as being as important as, or sometimes even more important, than my own. i am prone to making questionable decisions - defined as "ones that will rock the boat and upset a sense of stability" - when faced with something that i want that doesn't explicitly fit within the expectations or explicit limitations of my primary relationship. i could give you detailed examples of that process and destabilizing decisions i have made, but really, most of you don't need to know the details. just believe me when i say, there's no shortage of samples, even recent ones, much as i might wish it otherwise.
in short, i decide to do what i want because i want it, and then bring every ounce of Weasel Fire-power i have online in full defensive mode to justify my choices when it becomes apparent that matthew is upset by what appears to be my lack of concern for, or lack of value invested in, his feelings. setting aside for the moment the issues that arise from expectations that i explicitly know his feelings, and place in them the same default values he does, lets just look at the times when i know i've made questionable decisions in grey areas, and then dealt spectacularly badly with the consequences of those decisions. like i said, there is no hyperbole here - i recently did exactly that, and have spent the past month, the past week in particular, coming to grips with the fact that this particular behaviour pattern is about to become a deal-breaker kind of problem for the man i love.
let's start by coming back to the exhibited behaviour pattern: "i have issues when it comes to valuing anyone else's needs as being as important as, or sometimes even more important, than my own." when i want something badly enough in the heat of the moment, i make decisions like a selfish six-year-old: i act on what i want without (apparent) thought for the consequences, then cry foul when i am (ostensibly) punished for my choices. what upsets matthew the most, as i understand it, is the fact that he cannot fathom how some of these choices seem like good ideas, how i can convince myself he'll just be OK with the decisions i make in situ, or worse, not be OK but suck it up and cope. my decision making process is opaque to him, because he cannot figure out how i can prioritize the lower-valued or less important things in the short term, to the detriment of the bigger, more important/more highly-valued things. my shift-in-the-moment priorities confound him.
my passionately-argued response is, i want the right and responsibility to maintain my autonomy. i want the right to make my own decisions, to sometimes choose my own needs over someone else's. and while on the surface this is the kind of adult responsibility i think everyone wants, to a degree, it causes problems when my actions and decisions fly in the face of my stated intents, stated priorities, previously-held values. i am incongruent, my actions become non-transparent, and i create doubt. if matthew trusts that i am *always* going to be thus, that i am always going to put my own needs first to the detriment of his, he feels he's going to have to go on the permanent defensive, looking out for himself and protecting himself, because he *expects* i will always think like the selfish six-year old. and therefore, he will treat me like the selfish six-year old.
let me tell you, that's not a happy thing to hear.
so i've been poking this tendency to the point where it's raw and oozing emotional lather all over the place, and it finally occurred to me to look at the root fear that drives the behaviour (hey, i advocated the process to everyone else, i might as well prove i'm willing to take my own medication once in a while). and two things hit me, pretty much simultaneously when i peeled back the onion layers to ask myself, "what the hell *am* i afraid of??"
1. i am afraid that acknowledging other people's needs means sublimating or subsuming my own needs, and that i will cease to exist as anything other than someone who lives to put other people's needs first... at the cost of my own.
2. this fear, and the aggressive defensive tactics i have adopted to protect my autonomy where my needs are concerned, are the very things that, in one form or another, have driven the demise of my three previous relationships (all my "adult" relationships, including my marriage).
the fear i think i have been aware of for a while; i may even have named it at one point before burying it somewhere deep and dark. the corollary realization of the larger pattern, however, was new. realizing not just the larger pieces of the pattern, but coming face to face with the cost of my patterned behaviours, the cost of catering to my fears... and understanding that i absolutely do not choose to risk matthew in the same way... was galvanizing, to say the least.
it comes too late to save the weekend plans with benjamin, but i'm coping much better with that disappointment than i was with the crunchy, nasty thought that finally blew the top off my stressors and cause the fearful meltdown on friday night: if i don't get my shit together, and *soon*, matthew's going to leave me because he doesn't like me. even though he said as recently as last night that it's only a part of me he doesn't like, we both have to acknowledge that the patterns that define the "unconscious karen" are a pretty big part of me. that absolute fear of being subsumed, the astonishing force of aggression that is my defensive mechanisms (what i term the "Weasel Fire-power" that comes online to justify and defend my self-indulgent, high-risk-high-impact decisions) are so deeply embedded that the idea of culling those patterns, or trying to rework how i make those decisions - of simply trying to stay present and conscious with someone else's needs when they run contrary to my own short-term wants - just flabbergasts me.
benjamin wrote something to me this morning - we were discussing his thoughts about making changes in himself - that struck a chord in me. he said, "I am not opposed to change, I just see the mountain and not the results when I start." this is exactly how i feel right now: absolutely daunted by the scope and majesty of this thing i am going to carve out of myself and remake into a more effective process. matthew also commented last night as we were finally crawling into bed that he had no idea where to start with making these changes. i think my reply to benjamin this morning has some merit, at least as a starting point, and it ties in with my general process for making changes in any other forum or format: "you need to have a clear "eye on the prize", or a good understand of the results you're trying to achieve, whenever you start any process for change, because otherwise, you have absolutely no way to measure your success rate. if that doesn't help you see past the mountain, then nothing will."
when matthew commented about not having an idea how to go about this, i told him: for me, at least, it starts with establishing an end goal - what are the results i need to achieve? what do i need to do to achieve those results? what are the individual processes for each of those steps? what are the tools i have on hand to make those processes go, or what do i need to develop myself or acquire from elsewhere?
in this case, my end goal is to establish and maintain stability and comfort in my primary relationship. i also want to be able to maintain my involvements with other people in ways that don't throw doubt on my overall prioritizations.
with that end-goal in mind, i need to make some large-scale changes to my patterns (this is the large-scale roadmap to that end goal):
- i need to change how i make decisions so that i can consciously, and conscientiously, keep matthew's needs in mind; i need my decision-making process to be transparent, so that even when i choose my needs over his, i have reasons that make sense to both of us, not self-indulgent whims that don't even hold up to defensive justifications and rationalizations.
- i need to subvert my innate fears of being subsumed.
looking at that large-scale roadmap, in order to make that first item happen, there are things i need:
- clearer communication with matthew, regarding the state/priority of his stressors and anxieties as they affect his core needs and my situational wants/needs
- when he needs comfort and reassurances for specific circumstances, i need to know, preferably in advance, what he expects those comforts and reassurances to look like
- i need to force myself to do the entire risk/impact analysis before i make any decisions, and where there is doubt or a grey area, fall back on the current Golden Rule, which is, "That which is not expressly permitted, is expressly forbidden". remove the greyness completely for now. if there is a good reason to challenge that Golden Rule (perhaps i'm confronted with an option we haven't considered or negotiated *at all*), then i *HAVE TO* check in first.
- be consistent between the letter of my intent, and the action. if i say i'm going to do something, i have to do it. if i'm going to change my mind about what i'm doing on the fly, i need to let matthew know what's changing, and give him the opportunity to have a say as my partner in those changing decisions. this is part of the transparency need.
in order to make that second thing happen, these are the things i need:
- professional help at managing fear (on the table, if not in immediate progress)
- conscientious work to keep the weasels drowned in a weighted sack whenever i feel like i'm "sacrificing", and succumbing to the fear.
- a high degree of reassurance that i am valued as an equal, that i'm not constantly sacrificing my own needs to meet someone else's, and some clear guidance on where and when it's OK to put my needs or even short-term wants above my partner's (and "never" is not an acceptable answer, because to always put someone's needs above my own is where the sense of sublimation starts to kick in. if there's no balance, no sense of equalization over time, i'm going to be increasingly fearful.)
for each of these "project line items", i have most of the tools i need to make the processes go - they generally seem to distil down to communications factors, and needing to ask for what i need or want in each process, or let matthew know how best he should communicate what he needs or wants in each process. for example, he's taken to approaching statements of his own needs in a roundabout fashion that start with questioning *my* needs in a specific situation. in his mind, he's "scouting enemy territory", trying to get a lay of the land before committing to an act of vulnerability that he fears will be met with hostility, especially if he's about to challenge me on something i'm doing or acting towards. in my mind, however, as soon as he starts questioning me without transparent motivation, i get defensive about *being challenged* on something i want - the weasels come out, and the hostility ensues. in short, matthew's approach technique provokes the very response he's trying to avoid. so last night i asked him to specifically state his feelings as directly as possible, when he feels his needs are going unmet. instead of asking me how i feel about something, just come right out and say, "i'm feeling anxious about this situation/your actions/whatever, and here are the details that i think are provoking this feeling in me."
what this changes, is how i listen. when he starts to sniff around and making the questions all about me, i anticipate the challenge to *me*, and go on the defensive. but when he makes the statements all about him and his feelings, he provokes the the listening partner, simply because he's introducing information that's all about *him*. i'm not responding to a passive-aggressive challenge, i'm responding to a statement of need. it's a subtle difference, but a profound one. the end result may be that i have to change something i'm doing, but it won't be on the grudging end of what feels to me like passive-aggressive manipulation... and that makes it easier to listen, easier to hear, easier to *want* to stay present and make the collaborative solutions happen.
no, it's not an iron-clad guarantee of improvement, but it's something we haven't tried in *this* kind of situation before, but has worked for us in other contexts. it is a communications tool we already have, that will help shore up specific processes, that in turn strengthen the framework of the structural changes i'm trying to integrate and internalize.
i can't make these changes alone. more importantly, i believe i won't make these changes alone. and if i don't make them, they will eventually cost me this relationship - matthew has told me as much. this relationship is only doomed, however, if we are forced to maintain the current status quo. and since we've both determined that the current state of affairs is neither desirable nor sustainable... things have to change. the cost of the current inefficient processes is too high, and i don't want to spend another evening facing down the demons shouting in my face that he's going to leave me because he doesn't like me.
i want to be the person who has earned, and deserves, his trust.
i want to be the person who values, and is valued, without fear.
i want to be the person who has earned, and maintains, the privilege of being considered and treated as an adult.
i want to be the person who has earned, and can effectively balance, intimate relationships with people who share these goals and values.
i cannot achieve these goals as the person i was a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. but ghods help me, i will prove that people *can* change at their core.
and for my next trick, i'm going to move fucking mountains, to boot.