 |
||
Knowledge Bank April 2004
ASK OUR COACHESThis column answers questions submitted by our readers. Submit your questions to who will forward them to our coaches all over the world. Each issue, we'll publish a few answers from our RCI coaches.THIS MONTH'S QUESTION:
THE COACHES RESPOND: MIKE ANSWERS: We humans are all complex mosaics of how we choose to interact with our past. Your bride is still carrying her past into her present, so the present is, for her, the past. It appears that professional assistance is needed to move her past back into the past and in dealing with your lives the way they are today. Coaching is likely to be insufficient. There are therapeutic issues that seem to run very deep here, and will need strong assistance and guidance. I'd suggest your working with a coach to modify your decisionmaking process as well.
MARI ANSWERS: Your relationship sounds unhealthy and toxic for both you and your wife. I urge you to seek professional support. There is NOTHING outside of ourselves that can make us happy. The only thing that can make your wife happy is herself, REGARDLESS of what you do/don’t do, say/don’t say, etc. You certainly do not have to get used to a life like this. You deserve better. There are some things you can start doing right away, whether your wife is open to getting help or not. The techniques of non-violent communication (NVC) would support you in giving empathy to your wife’s feelings and needs without selling out on yours. NVC has the power to literally transform relationships. Underneath anger is usually hurt – and your wife needs to have her hurt really heard and gotten. I wish you courage, strength, peace and – most of all – happiness.
KEN ANSWERS: Marriage does not change people. If they were angry, sad, or distressed before, they will be the same after. There are several possible explanations for your wife's behavior. The first thing I invite you to accept, though, is that her moods and anger are not about you. They come from some deeper source within her unrelated to you. You can be assertive in expressing your feelings. Use "I" messages to tell her how you feel without criticizing her. Rather than trying to calm her, Invite her softly and gently to share what is going on for her. Use reflective listening by simply mirroring back what you hear her saying, repeating her words as closely to the way she said them as possible. Then ask her, “Did I get you?” When she says that you have gotten her, invite her to tell you more. While you are listening, try to see it from her perspective, as though you are walking in her moccasins. You don’t have to agree. You are just trying to understand what is going on for her. When she says that that she has said all she has to say, tell her your understanding of how what she has said makes sense given the way she sees things. Then tell her how you imagine she must be feeling. It is possible that when she feels understood and her feelings have been empathized with, her anger will diminish. This is a very powerful communication skill, and not easy to do without assistance. An Imago coach or therapist has been trained to assist couples with this skill. Assuming that there is no substance abuse, mental illness, or anything of that sort, with work on both your parts, your relationship can enrich and improve. Write back and let us know how it goes.
ANGER: RESOURCE OR RELATIONSHIP KILLER?by Ken Sprang, MA JD One of the most troublesome of human emotions is anger. Some of us wear our anger like nitroglycerin—it can explode at any moment with only the slightest stimulus. Others of us bury our anger deep within and never let it show. Sometimes we turn it so far inward that we become depressed. How should we handle anger, particularly with intimate partners? Anger is a normal, healthy emotion. It is neither good nor bad. It just is. If a couple says they have never had a fight, I wonder whether one of them is comatose. Healthy people disagree. The challenge with anger is expressing it in an appropriate way so that our anger does not have a damaging effect on us or those who are the object of our anger. Anger usually arises from some circumstance in which we are emotionally wounded or compromised. The nature, intensity, and object of our anger are usually tied to our childhood experiences. Often, for example, when we get angry with our partner, we are really venting buried anger at a parent or someone else from our earlier life. What feels like a slight or a deep wound from our present partner may in fact be pretty minor in reality. However, our feelings are intense because deep down in our unconscious there is a memory of some similar event in childhood. I grew up with an abusive stepfather, abusive of both my mother and the children, and the message was clear that children were to “be seen and not heard.” Therefore, I learned to bury my anger at the abuse and wrongs done to my mother and sister and even strangers, as well as myself. In my first marriage I continued the pattern of stuffing all the anger inside, both past and present. By the time my present wife, Carol ,and I met, I had worked through a lot of issues in my own therapy and journey, and was feeling more comfortable about expressing anger. In those early days I would sometimes get furious with Carol over the silliest little things. I soon realized that there were two reasons. First, it was safe to get angry with her. In my household growing up when someone got angry, someone else was either hurt or abandoned. I discovered that if I got angry with Carol, no one would be hurt or abandoned. Second, I had suppressed the anger for years, and I had a lot to be angry about. I had to discover the source of my anger and learn to express it appropriately. When we get angry, that anger is 90% about our “stuff” and only 10% about our partner. Why is it that a set of circumstances, for example an unkempt house, makes one person furious and has no emotional impact on another? The cause of our “charge” is ours, not our partners—90% about us. We need to own our anger and express our feelings. Use “I” messages. For example, rather than saying “You forgot to fill the gas tank again and now we are out of gas. What an idiot you are,” say “I am really angry that you did not fill the gas tank when you were driving the car. It really irritates me to have to run out of gas.” When you are angry, it is yours. Tell the person you are angry with how you feel without judging him or her or their behavior. There are safe, appropriate ways to ask for behavior change. We teach clients to do so without demeaning the other person, raising their defenses, or reducing the probability that they will hear what we are saying. Manage anger carefully and it will enrich your relationship. Expressing anger unconsciously can destroy your relationship. THE INTENTIONAL DIALOGUE PROCESS AT A GLANCE
|
||
