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One of the clichés of pop psychology is that anger is the most complex emotion. Actually, anger isn't that complicated. Although we've developed convoluted ways of thinking about it, it's really a simple response to a perception of vulnerability, threat, and entitlement. Compassion, on the other hand, can get really complicated, which is why it is so misunderstood. Read More
Recognize the Pain
Dr. Stosny - Thanks so very much for clarifying compassion. Could you expand on "recognize the pain that fuels the contempt"? How do you recognize this type of pain?
It seems that compassion without love or love without compassion are not genuine compassion or genuine love. Are they intertwined?
Compassion by another name
From a Christian perspective, what you call compassion seems very close to what we would call love. I will need to keep that difference in terminology in mind in the future.
i have a fear of compassion
I have resentment and contempt when I watch my husband scream, swear and misbehave towards my 17 yr. old son when he is misbehaving. Should I instead feel compassion for how hard it is to deal with a disrespectful child? Would I tell him that? Does my husband need to feel more compassion for my son and/or himself to stop this?
What do you want to be and what do you want to model?
Your husband definitively needs more compassion for your son to stop modeling poor self-regulation for him. But you cannot manipulate him into being more compassionate. Here is what you must ask yourself: Do you want to be resentful or compassionate? How does it help your son for his father to model emotional dysregulation and his mother to model resentment and contempt?
You’ve probably noticed that criticizing your husband makes things worse. He already feels like a failure as a parent – his anger at your son is to punish him for the reminder of how much of a failure he is. You would do better to align with the part of your husband who loves his son and wants his best interests. Sympathy for the difficulties of raising a teenager is a start, but it is really about the ability to focus on what will best help your son learn responsibility and respect. Irresponsible and disrespectful parenting isn’t working and never will.
Best wishes
??
"Sympathy for the difficulties of raising a teenager is a start, but it is really about the ability to focus on what will best help your son learn responsibility and respect."
So there's no consequence for the dad going off on his son? Can you explain practically what this mom would do in the moment of it occurring? I spent years aligning myself with the good part of the father of my kids who wanted what was best for his son... and talking also to the son to help him grow and become a good strong young man. To no avail. Abuse takes a toll and if the husband can't/won't self-regulate, then what?
I find some of this advice vexing. And exhausting.
Truth or Consequences
I suspect you’ve given “consequences” and found that it made things worse. It is, indeed, a waste of time using any means - positive or negative - to manipulate change in your partner. Compassion prevents the heat of the moment by making you focus on who your loved ones are rather than how you want them to behave. Then it doesn’t take much time to see whether your partner cannot self-regulate or is, in his perspective, however distorted it may be, reacting to feeling manipulated. Either way, you would have a clear course of protective action in a relatively short amount of time. One of the hardest things to do is see your family members apart from your emotional reactions to them. Fear of compassion keeps us stuck in these recurring patterns.
Your husband's compassion could heal him but not you. Yours could heal you but not him. Though it is crucial for parents to model the self-healing power of compassion for children, it can be modeled for adult children, albeit with less efficacy. But you cannot blame each other and feel compassion at the same time. Blame and shame (what I think you mean by “consequences”) produces the powerlessness that causes the heat of the moment and which, without question, is exhausting. In contrast, compassion focuses on healing, improving, connecting, and protecting, which prevent the heat of the moment and generate energy.
Thank you Dr. Stosny...you
Thank you Dr. Stosny...you are very helpful. I have such deep love for my family and truly want to help them.
Thank you for posting this
Thank you for posting this information online. I hope it will help me and my husband in our marriage. We were both damaged by trauma in childhood, and as a result have Jekyll/Hyde personalities. We both have a bad habit of blaming each other for things that happened before we met. I believe that we are both inherently good people who love each other, though. He was arrested for domestic violence last year and ordered to batterer's treatment. I was horrified, because I had assaulted him much worse than what he did to me, which was minor and non-injurious. As a result, he's getting counseling for his problems, but it's so expensive I can't afford to get help for myself, help that his counselor said I badly needed after he told her some things about my history. So I'm left to troll the Internet for advice. Yours has helped me to focus on my marriage. I'll need more, I know, to end the horrible anxiety attacks that have plagued me since childhood, but you have given me some tools I can use to learn not to turn my anger and rage on my husband, and confuse him with people who have hurt me in the past. Thank you so much!
Catherine
Catherine, I'm not sure you've seen them yet, but I'd like to recommend Dr. Stosny's book, "Love without hurt", to you and maybe your husband too, if he's receptive. I also recommend the HEALS CD-Rom, available from Dr. Stosny's website, compassionpower.com. Like you, Dr. Stosny's tools helped me a lot, and quickly, with my own severe anxiety (it is now gone), and with my interactions with my wife.
Good luck and take care.
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