It can be extremely easy for me as a coach to get as confused in a session as you feel in a conversation with your spouse. Being the practical farm-kid that I am, I came up with a tool to help me do a better job keeping conversations moving forward in a constructive manner. I call it Mind Your Own Business.
That probably doesn’t mean what you think it means. I wouldn’t be telling you to shut up, just live and let live, and disengage in this relationship. Instead, it is a way of reminding me to pay attention to who is talking about who. Where the rubber meets the road, and where real change happens, is in taking responsibility for our own selves, and how you (as in, both of you) talk reflects your assumed level of responsibility. This is also a great way for me to identify if I am working with an abuser.
Typically, I’ll hear her saying things like “What can I change to get him to stop?” and hear him saying things like, “How can I make her stop?”
See the difference? In a sense she knows that change starts with her. She usually still has very codependent thinking about what those changes are, but the point is, she comes to the sessions looking at herself – how depressed, or anxious, or numb, or crazy she feels. So even if she’s talking about her husband’s behavior, it’s still in the context of what SHE can do to be better, sexier, meet his demands, make him happy, communicate her needs, listen, etc.
The narcissist, on the other hand, is all about fixing her. You’ll hear it in the terms he uses, where he places responsibility, and how he talks about himself. He minimizes his own actions and highlights hers. He talks about HIS feelings and HER behavior. When he does talk about her feelings, it’s in the context of his own definition of them – that is, he will tell you what her motives are, how she is thinking, and what she’s feeling based on his own perception and not out of an attempt to understand her.
You have a right to say, “I’d like to speak for myself please.” When you do this, it begins to break the power of your spouse to define you. It exposes your spouse’s powering-over attempts. It builds your personal sense of self to stand up for yourself. And it stops the crazy-making by having each person focus on their own piece of the pie.
This Week’s Question:
I need advice… Our counselor tomorrow wants me to be honest with my feelings, etc. with [my husband]. He will be asking us both what we’ve done to sin against each other. Etc. I’m so scared. I have tried that. I feel like I’m barely getting strong enough to have boundaries and I was sort of hoping for backup to show him what needed to change.
It’s hard to be sure if I’m operating out of fear or wisdom! He is so full of anger towards me and I feel very afraid he will just “”snow”” the counselor. So…my hesitation to be vulnerable AGAIN.
Do you have thoughts on this? I feel like puking.
Sharmen’s Answer:
The scariest part of couple’s counseling is that it does require vulnerability on both sides to be effective, and when you’ve been abused, that’s the last thing you want to do. Especially if you see that your spouse is only there for YOU to change.
I’m going to assume your counselor’s heart is in the right place, that he is hoping to expose how you’re hurting each other in order to stop the cycle. But he seems to be operating from a standpoint of mutual cooperation and desire to heal the relationship. If your husband is willing to own his piece of the pie, that’s great! But, the context you described did not reflect cooperation and desire to heal. You implied that he does not honor boundaries, and that you are afraid. You said he was full of anger, and implied he puts on a show to prove that he is the victim and you are the evil one. These things tell me that your relationship is not broken because of mutual sins against each other, but because he is abusing his authority to stifle the life out of you.
You’re paying this counselor to help you, and right now the help you need is getting some safe space to heal and gain perspective. It is fully your right to say to him, “That’s a great conversation to have at a later time, but right now I’m not safe to talk about those kinds of things.”” Tell him you’re willing to work things out, but safety has to come first, and that will mean seeing true repentance from the abuse first.
What are you next steps if your husband refuses to acknowledge how he has powered over you? What are you doing to instill boundaries to protect you from his harm?
