Anger in the Age of Entitlement

Cleaning up emotional pollution.

Steven Stosny, Ph.D., treats people for anger and relationship problems. Recent books: How to Improve your Marriage without Talking about It, and Love Without Hurt. See full bio

October 13, 2008, Anxiety

Comments on "Emotional Reality v. Reactivity"

Emotional Reality v. Reactivity

By Steven Stosny on October 13, 2008 in Anger in the Age of Entitlement

Seeking to "get your needs met" in a relationship will not improve it. Neither will just solving problems. Besides the fact that these are often veiled attempts at manipulating your partner into doing what you want, they are likely to increase the emotional reactivity at the heart of your discord. Read More

Failed at creating emotional reality?

Submitted by ParkRanger on October 13, 2008 - 11:18pm.

When we fail with relationships, it can be really hard on us. One thing that really helps is to be able to vent out our anger, frustration and confusion. But what do you do when you don't have friends or family willing to listen to you whine and wallow in pity? I've found that there are places online you can vent things out anonymously and still have people listen and even give advice. On of my favorites is http://www.ventpark.com/parks/relationships/

The best way to repeat the same mistakes

Submitted by Steven Stosny on October 14, 2008 - 3:02am.

Venting anger and frustration will certainly make you angrier and more frustrated and make it likely that you will be just as reactive in your next relationship. Instead of venting anger and frustration, try to figure out where you went wrong, which was probably not being true to your deepest values. Focus on improvement rather than the blame inherent in anger. The pain causing your anger is telling you to do better. Listen to the pain and learn from it. Then the anger, resentment, and frustration will subside and allow you to be who you really are.

Catharsis doesn't work

Submitted by LB on October 14, 2008 - 10:50am.

The catharsis hypothesis was debunked ages ago. "Catharsis" makes things worse, not better.

I find this a fascinating

Submitted by Novalis on October 14, 2008 - 5:34am.

I find this a fascinating approach, and I think there's a lot of wisdom in it. However, it's also very idealistic (in the philosophical sense), that is, it seems to presuppose that reality is in our head more than actually out there in the world. In this sense, it has a lot in common with stoicism.

The hazard of this as I see it is willful blindness to what's actually going on. Why be concerned about a partner's profligate spending or even infidelity if you can just create your own emotional reality? Heck, why even bother so much with finding a suitable partner to begin with? Anyone will more or less serve, so long as you will yourself to be a loving partner. This is extreme devil's advocacy I know, but it seems to be implied in the point of view.

Where are your emotions?

Submitted by Steven Stosny on October 14, 2008 - 12:34pm.

Emotional reality is in your head. Your emotions are about you. They are constructed out of your experience, biases, considerable blind spots, arrogance, self-righteousness, etc. Your judgment of what is "profligate" about spending, for instance, or even what is unfaithful, will depend far more on how you see yourself than what your partner is doing. Attributing the majority of your negative emotional reality to your partner leads to willful self-blindness and guarantees a high degree of negative reactivity from your partner. You are less likely to suffer what you fear if you are true to your deepest values. For instance, if you regard your partner as profligate, she will regard you as controlling, which will justify her spending. It is much harder to be unfaithful to a compassionate lover than a judgmental one. It is certainly possible that you can be married to someone with a largely negative emotional reality and many people cross the line from reactivity into abuse. But for the majority, an old marriage counseling adage holds: Mother Theresa doesn’t marry Attila the Hun. If you think you’re married to Attila the Hun, you are probably not Mother Theresa. Your emotions tell you more about yourself than your partner. As for love is blind, what is hard to sustain after the infatuation stage is your own interest, compassion, trust, and love. If you are prone to blame that difficulty in being the person you were when you were infatuated on your partner, you will certainly bring about a negative change in her. There is no blindness darker than an inability to see the self, yet it is a struggle to do so. Finally, you will have a difficult time discerning your negative reactions to your partner from your own guilt and shame for failing to be the partner and the person you believe in your heart that you should be. You have the best chance of seeing your partner more objectively if you are acting on your own values rather than reacting to her.

What if your partner is one who crosses that line into abuse?

Submitted by Jennie on October 14, 2008 - 7:22pm.

Generally your advice makes sense to me for most marriages. It is a confusing, and difficult line to walk, when your partner is abusive at times. Is your advice different for those situations?

I am reading your book "Love without Hurt" and my husband started doing the bootcamp section but he isn't really following through on it. I really like the book and your approach.

Abuse differences

Submitted by Steven Stosny on October 15, 2008 - 7:43am.

Jennie, You must be yourself even in an abusive relationship. The worst effects of abuse are changing you into someone you are not. Holding onto your deepest values won't keep your feelings from being hurt but will protect you from loss of self. The difference in relationship dynamics is that your authentic, compassionate behavior will not likely improve your relationship. The defenses of abusers are usually too great to allow change in reaction to positive approach from you. You need to use compassionate assertiveness to inspire relationship change. The most compassionate thing you can do for someone whose behavior is harmful to himself and others is remove yourself from the behavior, as Love without Hurt discusses. That often (though not nearly often enough) motivates the abuser to do the hard work of change, provided he values you and your relationship. You might consider a live boot camp. Best wishes

Thank you for clarifying, & a question

Submitted by Jennie on October 20, 2008 - 5:01pm.

I appreciate the clarification. It is true. I felt myself becoming so resentful and cold and trying to be selfish as a way of protecting myself & it just made me feel worse. Reclaiming my compassion feels much better regardless of what he does.

I have a question about your book. I hope it is okay to ask here. If not, just let me know.

I noticed that in "Love without Hurt" there are core value exercises about comforting a child in both the section for wives, and the bootcamp section for husbands. The scenario for wives involves sharing scarce water while lost in the desert with a child who would die without it, even though sharing also puts you at greater risk of dying in the desert.

The scenario in the bootcamp is about providing emotional comfort to a child who had just been in an auto accident. In that scenario, providing the comfort is probably only a minor time inconvenience.

I was wondering if there is a reason that you made the stakes so much higher in the wives section versus the bootcamp instead of using the desert scenario in both.

Metaphorical vs. instrumental

Submitted by Joan on October 22, 2008 - 1:04pm.

No, it has more to do with the fact that men tend to be more instrumental about emotional experience and are more likely to be thinking of how to get out of the desert with the child. When help is on the way, as in the accident, they can focus more on increasing value for the child. But that's minor - I have interchanged them with men and women.

As I review the last

Submitted by Novalis on October 14, 2008 - 5:57am.

As I review the last comment, it occurs to me that your approach relies on the famous blindness of love in the first place, a blindness that notoriously fades after a year or so but which you propose to maintain over time. It's worth a try...

From the above

Submitted by Steven Stosny on October 14, 2008 - 12:36pm.

As for love is blind, what is hard to sustain after the infatuation stage is your own interest, compassion, trust, and love. If you are prone to blame that difficulty in being the person you were when you were infatuated on your partner, you will certainly bring about a negative change in her. There is no blindness darker than an inability to see the self, yet it is a struggle to do so.

Your mother does not work here anymore

Submitted by Sharon on October 14, 2008 - 12:32pm.

This article really spoke to me. If our need for love and support is not being met by our partner, becoming bitchy and horrible to them is certainly not going to fix the problem. I love the quote by Gandhi, "Be the change you wish to see in the world". It's about leading by example. And sure it's no fun to be an adult sometimes, but we can't all be kids forever either. I think that's what too many people expect in their adult relationships. This article to me is about being emotionally mature, giving love in order to receive it, and not attacking your spouse for failing to please you. I like that you said compassion is contagious. It IS and not just within the home. Thanks, Steven, for your insight.

problem is confusion

Submitted by joseph on October 16, 2008 - 3:59pm.

Dear Dr. Stosny- I find your blog to be insightful and I also appreciated your book. I agree with much of what you write, but for me the problem is questioning my sense of reality after an interaction with my partner which leaves me doubting myself. For example, she'll say something about what I did or didn't do, and for months I would literally doubt my own sanity because I really didn't think I did X or Y.

I'd love to be better at reaching my core value and being more compassionate but I find it's so hard when I can't even figure out what actually happened in an interaction, and I find myself internalizing messages from her about all sort of things which I think are projections onto me but I'm no longer sure. (She had a terrible childhood and has some great sensitivities.)

I'm neither Attila nor Theresa, and therein is the stumbling block- when one feels accused it's hard to do an accurate self-assessment.

Choose value

Submitted by Steven Stosny on October 16, 2008 - 6:21pm.

It’s hard not to be defensive when you are accused of something. It helps to know that what you are defending is your ego, not your values. If your wife accuses you of something, she is feeling hurt. Your defensiveness seems to her like you don’t care about her hurt, which reinforces her emotional reality that you must have meant to hurt her by your actions or inactions. Let her know that you care about her hurt and that you want her to feel better. In your core value you do care about her being hurt and you do want her to feel better. If she can feel that, you’ve got the best chance of reconciling your emotional realities. If you compete to see who is “right,” you'll both alienated. Though not infallible, acting on your values will usually lead you right. Acting on your feelings will usually lead you wrong, smack into confusion, if your honest, or into the self-righteousness of making the same mistake over and over.

Hi again. Thank you for your

Submitted by Joseph on October 20, 2008 - 9:02am.

Hi again. Thank you for your thoughtful and caring reply, with which I agree in principle.

In practice, however, where things get very stuck is a pattern where it's not so much a struggle about who is "right" over subjective things but over basic facts: "you didn't do X," "you did X", when I know what I didn't or didn't do. Again- not something subjective like "you used a tone in your voice" but something hard and fast, like "you didn't feed the dogs."

Then the struggle is: "admit you're lying," and here's where your model breaks down: my values say, admit it, and the conflict will go away, but then I feel like I'm giving my soul away. When our conflicts get to the point where I can't say, "I care about your hurt" because the response will be "then admit you're wrong and you lied about feeding the dogs" (or whatever the issue is) then I have no idea what the core value response is. Is it to reduce conflict in the moment by admitting something I know isn't true?

Is it to just walk away? Is it to stand my ground?

That's where all the confusion comes it.

all the best,

It's not "Just the facts, Ma'm"

Submitted by Steven Stosny on October 20, 2008 - 9:26am.

The problem is never just the facts. Your wife is reacting to a pattern of perceived betrayal or, at least, unreliability. You have to address her expectation that you let her down, which will probably require intensive therapy.

Unless she is psychotic, which I doubt, I'm sure she would give a very different description of your disputes. She would probably say that you don't see her or hear her or make any attempt to get her. In other words, an isolation terror makes her rigid about the facts and her expectation that you will let her down.

If you can be up front about the perceived pattern of betrayal in your relationship, you will stop seeing it as a struggle over facts and respond to her accusations without defensiveness: "I will try harder to show you I care for you and to restore trust to our relationship." But if you see her as psychotic or see yourself as a victim, you have no chance of improving. Compassion is not agreeing with facts; it is caring about someone’s pain, even if, after careful soul-searching, you truly think it is self-inflicted.

Does the codependent spouse

Submitted by Mrs. D M Herrington on October 26, 2008 - 1:36pm.

Does the codependent spouse operate out of compassion, pity, or fear? Especially when their partner is abusive in all respects, physically, verbally, and psychologically?

Compassion

Submitted by Steven Stosny on October 26, 2008 - 1:44pm.

Compassion will make her realize that staying in the abusive situation is endangering her, her partner, and their children. Pity and fear will keep her stuck and inevitably give way to contempt, which will probably cause more abuse.