Forget everything you thought you knew about change

Greg was a college professor who loved mental gymnastics but wasn't very comfortable with emotions. He especially dreaded extended family holidays because his wife Suzanne thought his relatives were cold and arrogant, and invariably a member of his family would say something that upset her during their visit. She would then go into what he called "a dramatic meltdown." Greg's response? He didn't want to talk about it with Suzanne; he wanted to hide. This upset her even more, which increased his desire to withdraw. Greg wanted Suzanne to stop reacting "so emotionally." She wanted him to "quit being so intellectual and support her."

I asked Greg to think of a way to go with the pattern instead of trying to avoid it. He decided he'd suggest to Suzanne that when with his family they'd find a private space every hour and take ten minutes so she could vent. He would take her feelings seriously.

Greg loved the idea of expecting and planning time for Suzanne to blow off steam, because he wouldn't be distracted wondering when or how it might happen. When he told Suzanne, she was pleased that he was acknowledging her right to her feelings about his family.

As it turned out, they didn't need to take ten minutes every hour. Just knowing they could do it was freeing. "That outing," Greg later said, "turned out to be our very best family visit. While we hoped to be able to make it through two days, we actually stayed three days extra."

More in Out of the Box Self-Coaching Workbook

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Hands Off

Often when we experience relationship problems we conclude it's the other person who's "touchy," "unreliable," "critical," etc. Operating from this premise, you may unwittingly attempt solutions that reinforce or even exaggerate the perceived problem.

Let's say Anne and Bill have a family business and Anne, a perfectionist, thinks Bill gives employees too much autonomy. 

Anne presses Bill to be more hands-on, questioning him frequently and in detail. Bill doesn't keep her posted on the ways he is hands-on because "She'll just nit-pick anyway." This confirms Anne's belief that Bill isn't paying enough attention to details, which leads her to follow up more frequently. Bill responds by retreating even more, leading Anne to check in even more, and so on. 

Instead, they could reframe the situation as an interaction problem:

• Problems that occur between people are situational difficulties -- both are doing something to maintain the problem.
  
• It's normal and appropriate to resist attempts by another to "fix" us; such so-called resistance is more usefully labeled as a source of energy when released for positive purposes.
• It may seem paradoxical, but going with the other person's energy is much more likely to make a difference than lecturing, advising, or scolding.

This approach requires relationship partners to develop the ability to:

1. focus on observable behaviors in the interaction (vs. only the behavior of the other person),
2. do something to alter the interaction (as opposed to trying to change the other person).

A particularly interesting application of this concept relies on the paradox of going with a behavior in order to change it. Following this premise, Anne could release the positive potential of Bill's management style by saying something such as "I respect your value of trusting our employees to do their jobs well. Let's talk about how we can help them be more autonomous." This is a win-win situation:

• If Bill "resists" Anne's suggestion, he becomes more "hands-on," increasing his oversight of employees and eliminating her basis for criticism.
• If they work out standards that ensure employees do their jobs without frequent follow-up, again there is no longer a basis for Anne's complaint.

For more about this approach, read The Tactics of Change, by Fisch, Weakland, and Segal.

Owning Up

As follow-up to exploring how both people in a relationship contribute to interaction patterns ("Hands Off"), the following exercises will be most useful if both complete and discuss them. Nonetheless, it's possible for even one person to significantly change a relationship if you think through and write down your responses to the following:

First, what is characteristic of you in relationships? 

• Think of a recent situation with your partner or a close friend where your characteristic behavior played out. Run through it mentally from the beginning. 
• Now think of another situation. And another.
• What do these three situations have in common? What do you notice about yourself and intimacy with others?

Second, identify ten things that annoy you about your close friend or partner. For each, explore: 

• What is your reaction to their behavior?
• How do you provoke that behavior?

Next, describe five painful situations that have occurred in your relationship:

• What were the consequences for you? 
• What was your responsibility in each situation?
• What keeps the situation alive for you (what is the pay-off in the present)? Examples are illusion of control, getting a charge from the anger, not having to face your own fear of intimacy, etc.

Finally, describe ten positive characteristics of the other person and the effect of each on your relationship. Reflect on how you might integrate more gratitude into this relationship and into your life.

What's Good Enough?

Several of my clients worked with me to look more closely at their marriages, for a variety of reasons. One couple -- while their marriage was already more than good enough -- wanted some fine-tuning and gave rave reviews of a workshop I recommended with Doctors John and Julie Gottman in Seattle, "The Art and Science of Love." 

With a client who wanted to refresh her marriage, we began exploring "what's good enough?" I learned about this concept from Carolyn Bartlett, who uses it in The Enneagram Field Guide. Initially coined by psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott, "good enough" describes a nurturing relationship that provides the basic safety, love, mirroring, and containment needed by a developing child. It's also a template for effective therapy. And we can easily extend it to effective partnering in adult relationships.

Interestingly, healthy "containment" is not restrictive. Quite the opposite: the term refers to an emotional, mental, and spiritual space where both partners are available, expansive, and secure; where both feel calm and safe; where each can experience and express perspectives and emotions -- with the expectation of support and comfort, and without fear of judgment or rejection.

Clearly, this definition of "good enough" does not mean compromising or lowering standards. It simply recognizes the fact that no human being and no partnership of any kind is or has to be perfect. And it inspires open communication to make sure each partner's needs are being met.

In "Bad Relationships: Change your Role and the Rules of Engagement," Dr. Tara J. Palmatier quotes Gottman's "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:" criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Palmatier suggests two scenarios that can have "mutually satisfying, long-term relationship outcomes" (the remaining eight are "either 'get out now' or 'live a life of resignation' outcomes"). In response to your concerns, your partner could:

1. Hear what you say, be accountable, respect your feelings, and actively try to change.
2. Hear what you say, be accountable, respect your feelings, communicate which of your behaviors are contributing to the situation, and you both actively try to change.

From a systemic view, I prefer the second scenario, and suggest that you also (1) look together at how the pattern operates that you've created together, and (2) agree on an interesting and inventive way to interrupt the pattern. Michelle Weiner-Davis addresses this in Divorce Busting, especially Chapter 6: "Breaking the Habit: Interrupting Destructive Patterns."

 

The Partnership Path to Self-Knowledge

(From Margaret Frings Keyes' The Enneagram Relationship Workbook)

1. Falling in Love: Infatuation marks the first phase of relationships, when the floodgates of the unconscious are opened and we glimpse a possibility of our own wholeness. We project our unconscious positive images of the opposite sex onto the other person and we feel spiritually and mentally alive, because each sees the other only in terms of desired aspects and traits.
2. Adaptation to Power Roles: Now we begin to divert attention away from our own unacceptable traits, urges, feelings, etc., and project those that are negative onto the partner. We also endow our partner with collective authority, and thus rebel or conform to what our partner expects. The relationship shifts as we create rules, roles, and expectations. To some degree we suppress ourselves for fear of losing the partner. Liveliness and compatibility are reduced as we begin to operate from our defenses. 
3. Darkening Conflict: In this phase our unknown and unconscious aspects demand to be seen. We may become depressed, angry, and/or hurt, and one or both will engage in fantasies of separation, longing to ESCAPE! Positive aspects of life are projected onto the outer world (e.g., new career, new associations, new interests), so now everyone but the partner looks attractive. Our feelings and perceptions about power, betrayal, and abandonment deepen as our unconscious issues are reflected in even more negative projections onto the partner. Transformation depends entirely on our conscious involvement in our own drama, the decision to focus on our own need to change. Depending on our level of consciousness, we can:
   • Refuse to recognize and deal with differences (and later repeat the problem with someone else). 
   • Try to control the partner by anger, disapproval, withdrawal, or pouting. 
   • Experiment with separation (this can be positive if the goal is to achieve consciousness and choice, but remember that eventually even our work on ourselves will have to be completed in relationship). 
   • Begin the true work to integrate the Shadow. Although uneasy and ambivalent about it, we move our attention away from how we and our partner should be and toward who we and our partner are. 
4. Remembering Self and Completion in Union: If we have the courage to deepen our own self-awareness and take personal responsibility for the relationship, we accept and integrate parts of ourselves that we have not wanted to know and see. We examine how our partner has characteristics that we have been unwilling to acknowledge in ourselves. We feel the pain that results from knowing ourselves, as we recall not only of the pain done to us, but also the pain we have created. Our gifts and strengths are heightened as we re-own our Self, instead of reacting solely to our partner. We develop the ability to observe our interactions without judgment and see our prejudices as distortions. Our love becomes based in reality, and the well-being of the other becomes essential to our own as we forgive our partner, our parents, and ourselves.

Playing a Bigger Game

Remember Games People Play? The relationship games described by Eric Berne are so familiar from our own interactions, it's relatively easy to notice when someone else plays them. In truth, though, if you're in a game, you're a player, too. When we view relationship interactions as systems, we can see how all players contribute to the pattern.

The popular "Why don't you--yes, but" game is described in 50 Psychology Classics as beginning "when someone states a problem in their life, and another person responds by offering constructive suggestions on how to solve it. The subject says 'Yes, but...' and proceeds to find issue with the solutions. In Adult mode we would examine and probably take on board a solution, but this is not the purpose of the exchange. It allows the subject to gain sympathy from others in their inadequacy to meet the situation (Child mode). The problem solvers, in turn, get the opportunity to play wise Parent."

The Parent, Adult, Child references are from Transactional Analysis, popular since the sixties and still highly relevant.


Now look again at the players in "Why don't you--yes, but." Either party can start the game. The problem solver might be in the role of wise Parent, or might be playing parent, period, whether reacting to the other or initiating advice. How many times have you described a situation to a friend, co-worker, or life partner where you wanted a listener or someone to brainstorm with as you talked it through, only to have the other person jump in and tell you what you should do about it?
 
When you re-read the above example of "yes, but..." notice the assumption that one player (the "Child" in this case) creates the pattern, and the "wise" Parent is the blameless bystander. Looking at our interaction patterns this way promotes blaming and judgment. Yes, we all play games, and yes, sometimes one party is less emotionally healthy than the other, but by definition an interaction takes two people.
 
Instead of judging the interaction games in your relationships as someone else's fault, notice how a pattern is perpetuated, by either or both of you, and look for inventive ways to interrupt the pattern. If asked for your opinion by someone who's typically responded with "yes, but," for example, say "I'm not sure what the best thing would be for you," or "What have you considered?" or "What do you think might work?"
 
And, of course, pay close attention to the games you initiate. They wouldn't be games unless both people wanted to play.

"How," not "Why," is the Question

To more fully understand the couple in the Plus ça change blog entry, it helps to know that people with the husband's personality -- point Nine in the Enneagram personality system -- tend to go along with others' ideas yet feel unspoken resentment when they stifle their own agenda. At the same time, they are peacemakers and want to be reassured that even their unexpressed annoyance has not created a disruption.

Thus, the husband wanted to snuggle up to his wife, who was very aware of his "pouting" and didn't feel so inclined.

Those of the wife's personality -- point Eight in the Enneagram -- typically have plenty of ideas but often succumb temporarily to their enthusiasms and/or forget to include their partners. This couple might have been drawn together initially because of their mutual comfort with the wife providing structure, then both began to feel some pain from that same dynamic.

What's fascinating about this couple is that we did not spend time exploring their personality patterns so they could understand why they were having difficulty. Instead, I asked questions to help them look closely at what each of them did and said, so they could see how they were unwittingly feeding their interaction pattern. This works in the same way as interrupting a personal pattern. You look carefully at how the pattern operates, then find a way to playfully interrupt it, so it loses its "juice."