Why the Words Selfish and Selfless Need to be Removed from the English Language.

The American culture has dysfunctional beliefs and values that affect and injure us all, and two that have especially limited people’s ability to thrive are the toxin-packed adjectives selfless and selfish. Our society perpetuates the idea that individuals of highest character are those who are selfless, doing absolutely nothing for themselves, and the lowest form, the selfish, because they do. Another word that can go away while we’re at it, is deserve.

As a therapist I see depressed, anxious, depleted clients every day. They weave stories of choices and decisions using terms like:

“This is going to sound really selfish, but I …”, or,

“I know I should just do X, but that’d be selfish/greedy (or put any guilt-provoking term here).”

To get a client to believe that doing for yourself, even being generous to yourself, and saying no to things you would really prefer not doing, is not selfish, but actually healthy and necessary self-care, is one of the steepest hills we’ll climb. Far too many people just won’t buy it because it has been drilled into their heads by numerous sources over many years that it’s wrong to do things just for you, and right to do all you can for others.

The brain-washing messages stream in from family, friends, religion, schools, the media … you should only get things you absolutely need, be pragmatic. Nothing indulgent for you unless you’ve toiled, suffered, sacrificed. “Oh, you took a vacation to Tahiti? Well, you worked so hard last semester with school, community service, nursing a sick family member, and a full time job, you deserve it.”

We’ve learned not to share news of good fortune and self-generosity unless we first mention the suffering that made us worthy of it.

Well, I have news for you — we all deserve trips to Tahiti whether we lift a finger or not, but society says it is pure narcissism, entitlement and self-indulgence to be wonderful to you unless you’ve earned a reward. We are told it is better to give than receive, and when you die, the goal is to be described by all who knew you as a selfless, sacrificing person who has earned an eternal break in heaven.

Emphatically, with all of the passion I can muster, I tell you that those ideas are hideously wrong and misguided. We all “deserve” everything good and wonderful, all the time.

The “suffer for others and give, but never receive” model is a guaranteed recipe for suffering. Self-care, my friends, is the most important thing any person can do, period. Nourishing yourself in mind, body and spirit is the only healthy way to live, keeping yourself filled with the things that bring you joy, pleasure and contentment. This will keep your emotional bank account in the black, leaving you energized and excited about life, and only then will you be able to bring your best self to others, in a moderate balance of playing, sitting, working, pondering, breathing — yes, help others if you can and really want to, then relax and nourish yourself again.

We have to teach ourselves that we were born to want and need things, it’s our nature, and it is OK and innate to want and need things when we’re grown. My rule of thumb is I can do whatever I want so long as it is respectful to myself and my marriage. I tell my clients how I traded in a perfectly good car recently for a tripped-out Jeep that features an electric fold-back roof. This new car makes my heart sing. I did not need the Jeep, I wanted it. It cost a lot, I could afford it and do not need to justify the purchase to anyone. People that attempt to rain on my Jeep parade get met with a, “I love it and it brings me joy,” and that’s all I have to say about it. This concept amazes most, and it’s not the only generous thing I’ll do for myself this year and in the future.

My self-care regime is so good that I end up running around with a sparkle in my eye and bounce in my step, all the result of being so good to myself. I exercise and feed myself healthy foods, that I cook, and my soul loves it. I say no to things that would take my peace away, unless it’s unavoidable like taxes and dental visits. My clients, on the other hand, are miserable because they are trying to be everything to everyone else, and nothing to themselves. They have become human pack mules carrying an impossible load, and give themselves the crumbs of life if there are any left. They don’t get physical checkups often if ever, and they throw filler-filled foods and snacks into their bodies, and quite a few drink, smoke or medicate their miseries away. When family and friend’s expectations and requests come in, they will be there, even if it’s a pain in the backside, they have to drop what they were doing, or costs them financially. They’ll do it even when tired and emotionally spent. Their friends and families know they can count on these people in this way and will take advantage of them and their inability and unwillingness to say no.

What the selfless are not telling you, but they tell me, is they took a day off of work where they are self-employed getting paid per client to accommodate you, then did not make enough to pay all their bills last month. You weren’t the only person they did that for. And why?

“I don’t want to disappoint anyone, people give me grief if I don’t do what they want or need me to do. They say things that make me feel guilty. It’s easier to just do the stuff and be broke and exhausted.”

Do they resent doing all of these things? Absolutely.

One client who couldn’t pay her bills because she was so dedicated to being there for people was told by me that this was her choice to manage her life this way, completely her fault, and not the fault of the people who ask and expect. People can ask for and expect lots of things from me, but they won’t get anything unless I agree, and I won’t agree if it is not healthy for me. Setting boundaries like I do for myself is a crucial part of self care, obviously, but my clients will say that saying no to anyone whether the person is demanding, needing, or wanting is mean, which is another dysfunctional concept that needs to be expunged from our thought processes. The fact is, other adults who can and should be handling their problems need to be, and we need not feel badly about saying no to anyone who is capable of taking care of things themselves.

The people in our lives who would use and abuse us know and use the words and phrases that will feel like a knife to the heart, and every therapist knows that a narcissist will always protest and squeal when their loved ones first set boundaries, but to be healthy and thrive we must do it.

So are there people who are self-oriented to the point of excluding everything and everyone else? Yes! They are probably the ones asking you to do things for them all the time. Enabling them perpetuates it, so just stop.

So, who do we call to expunge the words selfish, selfless and deserve from our language? I don’t know, but in my office it starts by calling my clients out every time they say them, forbidding them to utter them in my office, and talking about this subject in social and formal conversations whenever I can. My guess is that dedicating yourself to not using them will feel like the removal of handcuffs, and I can’t think of a better way to begin the practice of self care.

Emergency Advice for Cheaters Who Just Got Caught

As a Marriage and Family Therapist and relationship crisis manager, I’ve dealt with hundreds of couples in the throes of infidelity, maybe more. What I’ve learned is that without knowledgeable and experienced guidance, most duos manage to make a more painful and bigger mess of their lives than was necessary. Of course, this lessens the likelihood of the usual desired outcome ­ — complete recovery and a stronger and better marriage than existed before. Instead, they bumble their way to relationship breakdown, and too often, divorce.

Counseling with friends and family almost never helps. It’s a matter of the biased and clueless coaching the biased and clueless, and it ruins relationships moving forward — how can I break bread and ha-ha again with a mother-in-law who has been telling her daughter, and my wife, that she should cut her losses and dump me? If I had my way, families and friends wouldn’t be told about the matter until long after the situation has been managed and settled down, or never.

The first thing to understand is that when a human is in a life crisis, they are activated in the same way as any mammal who is sensing a threat to its life. Sure, you and your spouse aren’t being faced down by rabid dogs, but your brain thinks you are. It ascertains that the threat is serious, and sends you both into fight, flight or freeze. Most injured spouses go into fight mode, and it lasts much longer than average, so get ready. The cheaters can do all three, or only one or two, it just depends. What you need to know about this is that when couples are activated, they can’t make intelligent decisions, so no major decisions should be made at this time. What you need is to manage the crisis and not do more damage, and that’s where I come in.

Note for serial cheaters: Some men and women live by a creed that says there is no harm in cheating, only in the carelessness of getting caught, and perhaps they feel entitled to do whatever they want whenever they want. If this is you, chances are you have a personality that is not conducive to marriage and committed relationships. I strongly urge people like this to either devote themselves to going into recovery much like an alcoholic would through the 12-step treatment program Sex and Love Sex Addicts Anonymous, or return to being single and stop making people miserable. Only learning to feel badly about hurting others and immersive, intense, life-changing and decisive action will end this type of behavior. Trying to behave won’t cut it.

For all of the others who have strayed, the following information is for you:

1. Don’t do this alone — get marriage crisis help. The first thing you must do when you reveal your affair, or your spouse has discovered it: Seek professional help for your marriage with a Marriage and Family Therapist. Think: If you were vomiting blood would you manage it yourself? This is the relational equivalent. Don’t mess around, find someone who knows what they’re doing with marriage crisis, and take their wise advice. Can you afford it? Instead ask, can you afford divorce?

2. Get help for you. In addition to individual and couple’s therapy, you need to look far and wide for ways to become a better person moving forward. Yes, get therapy, but also look for support groups, seminars and workshops dedicated to being emotionally healthy and living a life of integrity. Some I recommend are the Omega Institute, The Work by Byron Katie, Onsite, Tony Robbins’s Date with Destiny, Landmark Forum.

3. Get rid of the other person. I have no tolerance of people who cheat with married men and women, and if you came to see me to talk about your situation I would point out all of the negative character traits that these types of people have — like being predatory, lying, lack of integrity. They make terrible future life partners because they’re shameless and have no problem taking what they want when they want. People that marry affair partners will find that neither partner will ever trust the other — want to know why? Because you already know that when the relationship’s stock drops, and it will, the other person will cheat. Cheaters often say to this, “Well you could say that about me.” Yes, but you are going to do all you can to be a better person and end outcomes like this, right?

4. Understand post-affair dynamics. Your spouse will be obsessing about your affair for months to come, maybe longer. This is what they do when activated. This is normal for a relationship crisis. He or she will ask thousands of questions and want every last detail, and you will not like it, but you must engage with them to an extent, for the foreseeable future. Here’s how to do it right: Answer basics like, where you met, how many times you met, where you rendezvoused, whether there was an emotional connection, why you did it, etc., but absolutely do not answer questions about sexual details such as what you did and how, did you like it. Do not engage in comparisons like, “Who is physically superior?” “Who is better in bed?” Comparisons and details like that create indelible images in your spouse’s head they will never forget and may never let you forget.

5. Express clearly and sincerely that what you have done is a big damn deal. You need to be mortified with yourself, show remorse and express this clearly to your spouse. To heal, your spouse will need to see that you “get” that this breach of trust is gigantic and has caused them great pain. You must be humble, accept responsibility, and do not blame your spouse for what you have done. Sure, their actions may have played a role in your straying, but there is no excuse for cheating, so don’t even go there. You will have to give them a nutshell answer for now about why you did it, and eventually you must be able to offer more insight into what led you to make such a wrong decision, but not when your spouse is activated. Minimizing the enormousness of what you have done, or saying things like, “I apologized so let’s move on,” will leave your spouse chronically thirsty and stall forward progress. You did the crime, now take ownership of it like any person of integrity would do. If you find that you are on your attitude high horse and can’t get over finger pointing, deflecting, and lying, then you might look into whether you may be a narcissist.

6. If your friends and/or family know and aren’t encouraging you to work things out or aren’t staying neutral, they aren’t friends of the marriage and should be disregarded. If your spouse is less than great or hopelessly dysfunctional you don’t need other people to reiterate this point, do you? Avoid negative influences, especially if the marriage has legs and can likely be worked out. You must work this out on your own with professional help. Only you and your partner know the complete story and if it’s worth working through.

7. Pondering what it would be like to be single. When marriage gets tough lots of people think about what it would be like to be single. I spent many years single in my adult life, and I work with single people daily. My report is, it’s tough out there, and there are not a lot of functional people to find romance with. Your spouse has faults, but so will any new partner. Know that once people have had children with others it complicates relationships enormously and increases the chance of a second divorce by 25 percent. Being on your own has its benefits, but humans are wired to be in relationship with another. That is where we thrive. If you can fix what you have, and most especially if you have children together, do all you can to work it out.

8. If I leave might I regret it? A landmark study of people who divorced their partners, 10 years later looking back at how everything has played out, found that 90 percent wished they had worked harder to save the marriage they were in.

One more thing: What do you do if your dysfunctional spouse won’t seek help to attain change and growth? We all have three choices at any given time:

1. Accept the status quo.

2. Change ourself, and request that our partners change, or

3. Eliminate the relationship.

Personally, I’d never consider №1 if it meant continued unhappiness. Either your relationship will grow and evolve from this crisis or it will get worse than it ever was. Then you’ll know exactly what to do.

Visit Doctor Becky’s website at www.doctorbecky.com. Email becky@doctorbecky.com.

https://doctorbecky.com/2019/09/07/emergency-advice-for-cheaters-who-just-got-caught-a15d6a4183b2/