Trust issues

This is the expandable one with enough room to pack a lifetime of doom and gloom unless you begin the work of emptying it; it even has wheels because it’s with you every day and every night, acting as a filter on how you view the world. 

The big problem here is that not only don’t you trust other people to be kind and true to you but you don’t trust your own perceptions and thoughts either. The combination of the two keeps you spinning like a top emotionally and without a sense of inner direction.

 Relationships are often fraught affairs, marked by deep insecurity on your part and, sometimes, an overwhelming feeling of vulnerability. 

All of this stems from childhood experiences in your family of origin when the people you were supposed to be able to trust to care for you didn’t and your own perceptions were actively undermined or ignored.

 Deep down inside, you’re afraid no one will ever be in your court. Your response to that will be to take it as a given and put on a full suit of emotional armor or become anxious and preoccupied with what you think is inevitable pain and rejection.

Difficulty managing emotions

A number of theorists believe that an insecure style of attachment is actually a failure of the emotional regulatory system; the three adult insecure styles are anxious-preoccupied, fearful-avoidant, and dismissive-avoidant. 

A loving and attuned mother teaches the infant and child how to regulate emotion and self-soothe in times of stress; the unloved child doesn’t learn that and resorts to cobbled-together and largely maladaptive coping skills instead. 

She either learns to dissociate from emotions and put on a suit of emotional armor (the avoidant styles) or uses clumsy efforts to deal by being emotionally volatile, aggressive, and panicked by turns (anxious-preoccupied.)

On an emotional level, this traps her in her childhood room for life until she is ready to tackle and change the behaviors she learned and can finally unlock the door.

Inability to see herself clearly

She’s internalized what’s been said to her—that’s she’s lacking in some fundamental way, unlovable, or difficult—and what’s been communicated by her treatment. That tape plays in her head despite what’s being said to her and about her in the present and it will continue until she begins to actively countermand it. 

Many daughters suffer from feeling fraudulent despite their achievements—it actually is called “Imposter phenomenon”—which is a result of that running tape continuing to undermine self-esteem. This piece of baggage is like an invisible backpack until you actively take it off.

Feeling isolated and separate

That sense that you’re the only person on the planet whose mother doesn’t love her begins young; it’s fed and watered by the cultural mythologies that insist that all women are nurturers and all mothers love. 

What the child believes is that it’s all her fault, and that thought fills her with shame and fear. That fear can cast a shadow long into a woman’s adult life, even when she has achieved real connections with others who love her and has people she loves. 

As a result, I’ve come to feel that initial feeling of being singled out and set apart is as formative and damaging as the lack of maternal love itself; a sense of truly belonging can elude a woman for decades of adult life. 

This is a heavy bag which can rob joy from the sweetest moments and until the daughter fully accepts that her mother’s treatment was never about her but always about her mother, that shadow won’t fully disappear.

Seeing the bags is the first step. 

“Crazy” is such a convenient word for men, perpetuating our sense of superiority. Men are logical; women are emotional. 

Emotion is the antithesis of logic. When women are too emotional, we say they are being irrational. Crazy. Wrong.

Women hear it all the time from men. “You’re overreacting,” we tell them. “Don’t worry about it so much, you’re over-thinking it.” “Don’t be so sensitive.” “Don’t be crazy.” It’s a form of gaslighting — telling women that their feelings are just wrong, that they don’t have the right to feel the way that they do. 

Minimizing somebody else’s feelings is a way of controlling them. 

From toys to clothing to #MeToo, men continue to center ourselves.

In the last few months, as accusations against a growing list of men starting with Harvey Weinstein continue to pour in, men have struggled with what to say. 

We’re so used to being centered, to being the default gender, to being the go-to for opinions, we can’t seem to sit on the sidelines and not interject ourselves into the discussion.

Minnie Driver recently took her fellow actor and former co-star Matt Damon to task for his attempt to soften the actions of Louis CK by creating different levels of assault and harassment.  

Damon, resisting conflating slap women on the butt with rape, pointed to Louis CK’s remorse, saying, “That’s the sign of somebody who—well, we can work with that.”

What “we”? 

Who is this “we” that is deciding which men have been exonerated? This is typical male enculturation. 

We men have plenty to do, including holding other men responsible for errors. 

It is not up to us to exonerate people if we are not among those who were wronged.

This is typical male entitlement: 

We exist, we have a voice, and so we think it wise to use it whenever we choose.

The first thing to do when someone we care about blames or criticizes us is to examine our own behavior. Is there truth in what they are telling us about ourselves? 

What was your intention in this situation? 

If we find that there is validity in what they are telling us, we can take a good look at what they are pointing to, and try to use their words as a lesson and opportunity to grow.

To honestly investigate our own behavior takes courage.

To acknowledge that we could have acted with more awareness in a situation, or could have done better, is not the same as blaming or judging ourselves. We are all works in progress and all in the process of becoming more aware.

But when we are in relationship with a chronic blamer, most of us have already done this kind of self-examination. We have found that the blamer frequently accuses us of intentions and actions that do not belong to us, and often belong to themselves. 

Part of what makes being in a relationship with a blamer so challenging is that our intentions and behavior seem unrelated to how they view and treat us. We may show the blamer who we are, and painstakingly explain, again and again, our truth—that we are not what they have decided. 

But the blamer needs us to remain the bad one, and needs us to see what sees. 

However, if we pay attention and take some distance from the accusations, we realize that we have been assigned a role in the other’s internal narrative and are playing a (negative) character for them in their storyline—all of which is about them and not us. 

Even when our behavior demonstrates a different reality than what the blamer claims, the blamer is likely to remain more committed to keeping his or her narrative intact than to seeing the truth.

The great danger that projection presents when it comes from those close to us is it makes us feel like the bad person that the other person is relating to. 

“the rape fantasy is exceedingly common among women, with as many as 25-40% of women endorsing some form of this fantasy, at least once in their lives.”

“Some women who have experienced the tragedy of sexual assault go on to be tormented by tremendous psychological turmoil over sexual fantasies of rape and forceful sex. They describe being angry and upset with themselves, confused that they and their bodies are responding with sexual arousal to a fantasy similar to an event that was so traumatic and devastating.”

“I don’t believe that women in general, or sexual assault victims specifically, are retraumatizing themselves by revisiting these experiences and fantasies. For many, I believe that, like any fantasy or daydream, it is a way for a person to mentally assert control over a situation in which they were powerless.”

The Difference Between Guilt and Shame

One involves feelings about oneself, the other depends upon empathy for others.

Although many people use these two words interchangeably, from a psychological perspective, they actually refer to different experiences. 

Shame sometimes go hand in hand; the same action may give rise to feelings of both shame and guilt, where the former reflects how we feel about ourselves and the latter involves an awareness that our actions have injured someone else. In other words, shame relates to self, guilt to others. I think it’s useful to preserve this distinction, even though the dictionary definitions often blur it:

Guilt:

a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.

Shame:

the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.

Guilt involves the awareness of having done something wrong; it arises from our actions (even if it might be one that occurs in fantasy). 

Shame may result from the awareness of guilt but apparently is not the same thing as guilt. It’s a painful feeling about how we appear to others (and to ourselves) and doesn’t necessarily depend on our having done anything. 

Many people crippled by shame have very little capacity to feel guilt, for example. In order to feel guilt about the harm you may have done to somebody else, you must recognize him or her as a distinct individual, to begin with. 

Thus a person who struggles with separation and merger issues might not feel true guilt even if he or she were to use that word to describe a feeling. 

Many people who display narcissistic behavior often suffer from profound feelings of shame but have little authentic concern for other people; they don’t tend to feel genuinely guilty.

 The lack of empathy to be found in narcissistic personality disorder makes real guilt unlikely since guilt depends upon the ability to intuit how someone else might feel.

1. If you confront or criticize them.

You may not intend what you say as criticism. You might, for example, be simply stating a preference that is different than the one they expressed. People with Narcissistic Adaptations suffer from “One-Mindedness.” 

This is the belief that there can only be one valid and correct view in any situation. Therefore, once they state their view, if you state a different one, they are likely to feel criticized and retaliate by devaluing you.

2. When they feel the need to establish dominance over you.

 3. When their initial idealization of you as perfect wears off and they start to see your flaws.

In the beginning of a new relationship, when your Narcissistic partner thinks you are perfect and idealizes you, they are likely to be extremely nice to you. 

As they get to know you and they start to see your normal human flaws, Narcissists de-idealize you. When this happens, they feel disappointed and cheated. You rapidly drop from being seen as special to being seen as low-status garbage. 

They then feel free to abuse you.

The best way to predict future behavior is to look at past behavior. Everyone has a style that does not really change all that much.  I have found that most   

If you think back to how your ex behaved during the relationship, you are likely to be able to recognize him as belong to one of the following three groups.

The Trophy Hunter

This is the guy who is a hunter at heart.  He loves a challenge.  If you played hard to get in the beginning of your past relationship, this made him want you more.  Now, when you are rejecting him, his hunting instincts are reawakened, and he becomes very, very interested in you again.  

Even though he was the one who broke it off with you, now he sees you as the one who got away and he wants you back. He will begin courting you again. The more you reject him, the more desirable you become.  The rejection only increases your value in his eyes.  You are now being seen as a status enhancing trophy.

He may start “liking” your Instagram posts, send you cute texts, or suddenly remember that your birthday is coming up and suggest that the two of you celebrate with a drink in your favorite date place.  

Sarcasm comes in many forms. It can be:

Playful, as when both partners enjoy the banter

Innocently insensitive

Poorly-timed humor, saying the wrong thing in the wrong context without malice

Used as impression management, trying to sound smart, witty, and urbane

Used to cover embarrassment

Hostile, meant to devalue, to undermine confidence.

Of course 4 through 6 present the biggest problems in relationships. Impression management and covering embarrassment create intimacy barriers that will eventually cause disconnection, if not outright deceit. 

The resulting space between the partners almost always fills with resentment.

Those whose sarcasm masks hostility raise the specter of emotional abuse. It’s not the sarcasm alone, but the denial of their partners’ hurt. Defensiveness is in itself devaluing.

I’ve had clients who cited research suggesting that happy couples laugh together, implying that there is something wrong with the partner for not laughing, let alone being hurt. “Too sensitive, no sense of humor, not smart enough to get it.”

I’ve written elsewhere that focus on the label applied to a behavior (for example, “abusive” or “sarcastic”) leads to frustrating arguments about the label. 

This obscures the crucial point that the behavior hurts, regardless of what you call it. The measure of behavior in love relationships should not be whether or not it’s abusive or sarcastic - that sets the bar way too low. 

Significantly, sexual narcissism is marked by a lack of true intimacy in the relationship – the partner is merely exploited to fulfill the narcissist’s selfish needs.

How do you know when your partner may be a sexual narcissist? 

1.  Charming and Romantic – But with a Catch

Many sexual narcissists can come across as alluring and attractive, especially during the initial stages of a relationship, when they’re trying to win you over. 

Like a master salesperson, they use charisma to get your attention, flattery to make you feel special, seduction (flirting, gifts, dinners, get-aways, etc.) to lift you off your feet, and persuasion to get you to give them what they want. 

Some sexual narcissists are very good in bed (at least they think they are), for sex is used as a tool to impress, entrap, and manipulate.

While there’s absolutely nothing wrong inherently with being charming, romantic, and a good lover, the narcissist crafts these traits in order to use others. 

He  is not really interested in you, but only what he wants to extract from you (often to fulfill an inner emptiness due to the inability to create true intimacy).

Why does your spouse blame you?

The number one reason

The most basic purpose of blame is to avoid responsibility by making other people be at fault. 

If it’s your fault, then your spouse is not responsible to fix it. 

Your spouse is relieved of having to make any changes or issue any apologies. 

Your depressed spouse may blame you to protect himself from feeling like a failure. The more insecure a person is, the greater is his or her need to blame others.

Unfortunately, blaming is not really effective in protecting your spouse’s self-esteem, solving problems, or improving your relationship. The reality of your spouse’s own responsibility comes back to him or her again and again. 

This should motivate your spouse to change, but if he doesn’t know how, it just leads to an escalation of frustration, anger, denial or blaming. It can even lead to emotional problems, physical problems, or drug or alcohol problems.

How it makes your spouse less successful in relationships

People who blame get to the point where their partners can’t stand to be blamed any longer. Or you feel very distant and rejected because of your spouse’s poor coping. Turning up the pressure on your spouse worsens the problem.

Backing off just makes you codependent for the blame. 

It is easy to feel stuck and hopeless. You may get to the point where you just resolve to live in a disconnected relationship. Or you may make the decision to end your relationship to have a partner who can actually make you feel loved.

Why spouses who blame refuse marriage counseling

It makes them afraid. Anything that threatens to put blame back onto the blamer will be shunned. Most people who blame are aware that they could be responsible for some of the problems, although they do a good job of denying that. 

But, in front of a counselor, those things are likely to come out into the open.

Why people who blame sometimes want marital counseling. 

This is because they want the therapist to side with them in blaming their spouse. 

When the therapist refuses to take sides or points out that they both have contributed to problems, the blaming spouse terminates therapy and blames the therapist.

 A couple may go to two or three counselors with the result being that they quit before progress can be made, the therapist being blamed each time.

What to do if counseling doesn’t work or is refused. Your next best step is to get into relationship coaching without your spouse. The coach can help you to effectively deal with your spouse without making your relationship worse. 

Simply leaving the problems unresolved would be the worse choice. You probably already have damage in your relationship because of it. And, you can probably predict for yourself what will become of your relationship if things don’t change.

How to deal with blame

Principle 1:  Don’t use emotional pressure to try to stop the blaming directly

Because blaming is the best that your spouse knows how to do, directly trying to take away the blaming will cause more problems. You don’t want your partner to stop blaming only to become aggressively angry, depressed, or end the relationship, for example. It’s the one leg he (or she) has to stand on, so kicking it out from under your spouse is not going to help. 

And, if you succeed in getting your spouse to stop blaming you, but have no way to deal with the problems, your spouse will continue to mentally and silently blame you.