Therapy for Couples, Families & Individuals in Little Rock

Web Dev April 1, 2024

Ways Passive Aggressive People and Pleasers Drive Us Nuts.

Mom and me, she was a world-class pleaser, and I am a recovered pleaser. I loved her dearly, but her pleaser behaviors drove me nuts. She died in 2020 at age 101, pleasing others to the end. Photo: Becky Whetstone
One of the most difficult people to deal with is the passive-aggressive person. Of all bad behaviors, this one is especially frustrating because, at least in the form of what we call a pleaser, the person portrays a persona of kindness and decency while, under the surface, their intentions and true feelings are not on that positive wavelength. Their acrobatic-like avoidance and weaving around truth, being forthright, and direct conflict confuses the brain of the person who deals with them. “What do they really want?” the listener may ask. “Why won’t they just tell me?”

What creates this mess of a person who wants one thing and says another? Who won’t just level with you about what’s going on? Who seemingly acts as if they’d be struck by lightning if they were direct? I know something about it, not only because I deal with passive aggression daily in therapy, but I used to be pretty good at this myself… here’s how we become that way, starting in childhood …

Early in life, most humans take a look at what’s expected of them by their parents, the education system, culture, and other influences and conclude they can’t measure up. At that moment, they take on toxic shame, the idea that they’re not good enough, and begin an abusive relationship with themselves. A nasty voice now constantly reminds them where they fall short and will continue the abuse until they learn how to quiet it, and that’s if they do.

Toxic shame is what defines childhood trauma, so if you have toxic shame, we know you have trauma. It is an enormous game-changer because you toss away your true self in exchange for a new false self because you decided your true self doesn’t measure up. We form this new self based on who we think we should be, and we do it to be accepted. This is the persona that psychiatrist Carl Jung identified long ago in his theory of the personality. The persona is the false self or mask we hide behind. Instinctually, we pick up on what the influencers value and wish we were and become that, sort of like a chameleon who turns green when sitting on a leaf.

If your family rewarded academics, sports, achievement, and excellence, you may have become an overachiever or perfectionist. If you learned good behavior and going along got accolades, you may have become a pleaser. If your family gave you positive attention for helping, you may have become a caretaker. Of the many paths we choose from like these, we often forever put aside who we are for what others want us to be. It is a recipe for emotional exhaustion and other forms of suffering.

A pleaser’s fundamental stance is to be seen as a good person at all costs, and this isn’t easy in a world where we sometimes need to take a stand and set boundaries to be healthy. To avoid the perception that they are assholes, the pleaser has a passive way of going about taking those stands, setting boundaries, and letting others know what they want or need. I call the under-handed way they operate and the ambiguous way they behave as being a passhole, which is short for passive-aggressive asshole.

Pleasers’ primary personality trait is passive-aggressive tendencies. I am a recovering pleaser raised by an Olympic gold-medal pleaser from southern Arkansas. This phony, always-pleasant-in-public, five-foot-tall southern belle I called Mom never told anyone what was truly on her mind except for a few choice family members, and she taught me to do the same. Whenever I spoke my mind to someone not in the family, tried to set a boundary, said how I felt, such as the room was too cold, said I was tired and needed to go home, or acted less than wonderful, I would be scolded. “No,” the message was, “You should suffer silently and keep any discomfort, negative feelings, or upset to yourself.”

Go along, get along, and agree with others at all costs. Never disappoint or let anyone down, don’t bother people by asking them to help you do things, and don’t let anyone know how you really think or feel. The message was to sell yourself out so others can be happy. Thanks, Mom.

My entire life changed for the better when I finally got help and did away with my pleaser self.

My mother never sought to heal or be different; she believed it was the best way to live for 101 years. Observing her life was a case study of the pleaser personality: Her friends thought she was a living angel and the most wonderful woman in the world, but I knew her secret — that she was angry, depressed, upset, and indignant about thousands of things. Her “best friend” and next-door neighbor at her retirement home doted on and adored her, and my mother acted as if the feelings were mutual, but in reality, she saw her as a nuisance and pain in the ass.

Whenever I visited or took her out to do things, she would unload her complaints for as long as I was in her presence. Over time, my visits became shorter as my ability to tolerate her negativity increased. If I shared details of my life with her, she could be harshly critical. I was her perfect repository because my dedication to being there for her was rock solid, or so she thought. No matter how unpleasant she was, I was always going to return. Passive-aggressive people don’t take risks telling the truth to those who they fear might leave if they showed their true colors. I can’t tell you how often that dedication was tested and how close she came to losing me.

We were once invited by the new owners of our old family home to drop by for a lunch date and see all the changes and renovations they’d made. My mother and I toured the house, and I watched as she oohed and ahhed and complimented them on their designs, innovative ideas, and wonderful taste. She praised them effusively. When we left, she spent two hours in a rage about how they had ruined the house; it was now a monstrosity and how they tore out the things that had made it wonderful. Her blood pressure must have gotten dangerously high. With pleasers and passive-aggressive behavior, this is how it is … you can’t trust that anything they say is even close to the truth.

Toward the end of her life, I told her the negativity was getting to me, and I wanted to know why she acted one way with me and another way with others. She told me I was the only person she could be her true self with. I responded, “I got to see the ugliness, and you should have been nicest to me. Instead, you were nicest to your friends.” She complained to me often that she was lonely, and I was the sole person who could fill that void. Like a spoiled child, the only person she wanted was me, and that’s so she could be her true, resentment-filled, negative self.

Pleasers are angry people, but they won’t openly express anger except to a family member or their special people who are in on the secret. Under the false facade of pleasantness and agreeableness, they are full of contempt for others and mad as a nest of hornets. Of course, any anger they have is expressed passive-aggressively or in an indirect way.

The silent treatment is one of the most used arrows in their quiver. Another is refusing to cooperate, and another is testing others to see if they care or testing them to see if they will do what they should. The leaving your dirty dishes in the sink forever trick is quite common. The pleaser says to themselves, “I do everything around here, and Ron won’t put his dishes in the dishwasher, and I shouldn’t have to ask him to, so I’ll just leave his dishes in the sink and see how long it takes him to put them where they belong.”

On the surface, as with my mother, it may appear they are angry at others, but subconsciously, they are angry at themselves for the pact they made long ago to always acquiesce to others and pretend like they’re enjoying it. Pleasers resent living this way but feel it is the only way to be loved and accepted. To them, any love or acceptance is earned through accommodating others and being what they want you to be; this is the price they must pay. The idea that someone could love and care for them because they exist is like trying to get them to believe the moon is made of cheese. It’s just not possible.

It’s such a sad thing, and unnecessary. When I was in my full-blown pleaser era, I assumed people didn’t want to be my friend, so if I had a good friend, it was because some determined soul had hit me over the head with a club and dragged me into their friend cave. I’m grateful for those persistent people who wouldn’t give up on me; for a pleaser, that may be what it takes to break through their walls of toxic shame, for as much as they want to be loved, they can’t understand why they should be loved.

Why pleasing is a setup for disaster.

Healthy relationships involve two people who show up authentically, communicate their needs, wants, hopes, and dreams, and are responsive to one another. They help each other through life and understand the give-and-take of committing to someone. They set boundaries if they need to and don’t make themselves do things that aren’t healthy.

Passive aggressive people make all sorts of rules for themselves designed to be successful and prevent suffering, but in the end, they suffer more than almost anyone. In fact, if you want to torture yourself, being a pleaser is a pretty good way to do it. If they ever do get miserable enough to change, the first step to a whole new healthy way of living, showing your true self to the world, will initially be anxiety-provoking. Once you do it, though, you’ll feel relief.

Here are some of the beliefs, rules, and different ways pleasers sabotage themselves:

1. Perception is everything. They must never be seen as a bitch or an asshole.

2. What they want is less important than what others want.

2. Advocating for themselves is rude or selfish, but passive aggressiveness and dropping hints are totally okay.

3. Others should know or figure out what they want; they shouldn’t have to explain.

4. They resent when others fail to give them what they want or need, and they will not tell them what those things are.

3. They throw themselves under the bus so others can be happy and resent the person they accommodated.

4. They must be perceived as good and nice people, and they will die on that hill. Therefore, they will not admit they are wrong or ill-intentioned.

5. Pleasers have strong opinions but will never tell you what they are. Their minds are a courtroom of condemnation, full of judgment and negative perspectives, and they are the non-bending judge, but no one must know it.

6. They specialize in gaslighting behaviors. “I did not do that!” “That’s not what I meant!”

7. The silent treatment is a good way not to be seen as an asshole during disagreements, they believe, and will punish a person for days if necessary for dragging them into confrontation or any situation that made them suffer.

8. Only selfish assholes assert themselves to get what they want.

9. Any love or friendship I receive must be earned through my helpful actions.

Here are the things clients say that help me pick up on the fact that they are pleasers or engage in passive-aggressive behavior:

I don’t do confrontation.
I have to do X, or they’ll get mad at me.
I can’t tell them how angry I am because they’ll drop our friendship.
I can’t set boundaries with my parents; that’s wrong.
I can’t say no.
It’s mean/bitchy not to do what others want.
It’s selfish to put myself first.
What would people say?
I don’t want to be friends with them anymore, but I can’t hurt them.
I hate disappointing people.
I don’t want to be seen as a failure.
I try to avoid people I don’t like.
I’m not angry, I’m frustrated.
If I ask for anything from anyone, I am being a bother. I have to do everything myself.
Another common pleaser behavior worth mentioning is deciding what is best for others. Here is how it plays out:

“I figured you were busy, so I didn’t call.”

“I didn’t want to bother you, so I left you alone.”

“I would have invited you to the luncheon, but I know how you dislike Sue.”

When my son was killed in Afghanistan in 2011, this phenomenon was driven home. Many of my friends assumed I was inundated with visitors and food, so they decided not to visit or bring anything, and I ended up sitting at home alone with my sister and daughter. A couple of years later, I looked at my Facebook messages from those days, and so many people wrote, “Well, I know you are overwhelmed, so I will reach out to you after everything dies down,” and then they never did.

This taught me something very important: don’t assume you know what is best for others. If you are so inclined, show up, be there, and don’t put it off. Please don’t say you’ll call later and then not do it. A healthy person will tell you if they don’t feel like visiting, so when in doubt, show up, call, ask them to do something, whatever it is.

Another way this dynamic unfolds in my life is sometimes I offer a noon appointment to a client, and they’ll say, “I don’t want you to give up your lunch for me.”

“First of all, it’s my responsibility to make certain I eat, and secondly, I wouldn’t have offered it to you if it wasn’t a good time for me.” Adults don’t need other adults worrying about their self-care, well-being, and what’s best for them. If it’s offered, take it. If you want to see them, call. If you’re in doubt, ask.

Another irritating form of passive-aggressive behavior is offering a person an out. I’d call my mother to confirm our agreed meeting time, and she’d say, “I know you’re busy, and if you’ve got other things to do, you don’t have to come visit.”

“Mom, I love you and want to come visit. I wouldn’t be coming over if I didn’t want to.” I repeatedly begged her to stop the “You don’t have to …” dance, but it was so ingrained she never did. People’s actions show you who they are, and she showed me that her self-esteem was so low that she could not comprehend that anyone would electively choose to visit.

Passive aggression in the workplace.

The corporate world is a breeding ground for passive-aggressive behavior. Years ago, I worked for the San Antonio newspaper and wrote a very popular column about relationships and being a single mom. Unfortunately, I married a man running for the U.S. Congress who would likely win, and when I did, they took my column away to avoid the appearance of bias. When the managing editor called me in to tell me, she never said they were ending my column or anything close to it. She beat around the bush for about 20 minutes as I sat and listened. Her vagueness about what they wanted me to do in the future was puzzling; then suddenly, it hit me — “They’re taking my column away!”

I asked her if that was what was happening, and she said, “Oh yes, you can’t write that anymore, blah, blah …” While I was angry about losing the column, I was more angry about the way they were doing it. “Have some respect and just tell me,” I thought. “I can’t believe we sat here, and you talked baloney until I figured it out.” On the way out of her office, I passed by the huge glass window of the editor, who had been my mentor and a dear friend. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t had the balls to tell me himself.

I think the passholes at the newspaper were unnecessarily cruel and cowardly. They should have told me the truth diplomatically and compassionately, and I would have respected them and could have handled it. But passive-aggressive people remove the bandaid in any conversation in the slowest, most painful way, often leaving you to do the math or read between the lines of what they mean. When you must do something that will cause someone pain, the only merciful way to do it is to be upfront and express your message clearly, quickly, firmly, and compassionately.

Passholes in love and dating — several methods of driving others crazy.

Every woman knows that if a man says, “I’ll call you,” at the end of a date, there’s a 90 percent chance he won’t. I’ve never met a woman who didn’t wish a date would say something closer to the truth, like, “I enjoyed talking with you tonight; good luck out there.” No one needs the brutal truth about why you’re not wanting to see us again, but good Lord, don’t lie. I don’t know if gay couples suffer from the same phenomenon — gays, let us know.

Ghosting is a relatively new passive-aggressive behavior that I wish would disappear. To vanish and not face a conversation with someone is the most cowardly, childish, and ridiculous action I can think of, and is one reason I came up with the term, passhole. Wherever ghosting originated, or what person ever thought of that as one of life’s acceptable communication skills, needs to have their head examined.

The molders.

Be aware that plenty of pleasers will mold themselves into the person they think you want them to be. This is why I beg people to date for around three years before deciding to marry. By that point, you will probably have seen whether they are solid or will have seen almost every red flag, giving you plenty of data to make a wise decision. If you don’t do your due diligence, you could marry an amateur actor or actress who performs as your ideal person for a few months or years until the real them begins to show up.

I used to do this myself because I didn’t think I could attract a good mate if I showed them my true self. One of the most ridiculous charades I pulled was telling a man who loved snow camping that I could think of nothing better. During especially heavy snow in Yosemite Park, we drove to the campsite and laid our tent and sleeping bags out, where I shivered uncontrollably and almost got frostbite. Although I was the most miserable I had ever been, I never complained, was extremely cheerful, and even pretended to love it. Pulling my pants down in frigid weather and going to the bathroom on the ground was a wonderful experience, no problem. The only good thing about it was, when I got home I talked seriously to myself about how I would never lie about what I enjoyed again. It was the first step in my eventual recovery from pleasing.

Passive-aggressive breakups.

We are all self-centered at times, and anyone is capable of bad behavior. Life would be easier if everyone could accept our humanity and the fact that we sometimes do ridiculous things. Even unkind things. But the pleaser trying to extricate themselves from a marriage or relationship can never be forthright about their intentions of leaving and often adopt the “let them down easy” approach. They will weave tails about why they are ending the relationship that leaves them in the best light, or at least not looking as bad as it seems, or they won’t immediately reveal their intention to make the breakup permanent.

One of the cruelest forms of this I have seen is when a pleaser wants to separate and offers false hope to distraught partners by saying they need time to think, all the while knowing they’re not going to reconcile. A passive-aggressive man or woman tells themselves that telling the truth would make them an asshole, and leaving hope, even though there isn’t any, is an act of kindness.

I have seen this too many times when a couple comes to me for marriage crisis counseling, and one person is dead-set on parting but says it’s possible they could reconcile in the future. When I hear that, I explain that they should not mislead their partner and only leave the door of hope open if they absolutely mean it, or there will be hell to pay.

When you know a relationship is over and lead someone to believe otherwise, it delays the healing and recovery process a cleaner break would have achieved. When the recipient of the pleaser’s false hope realizes they were misled and forced to endure a Chinese water torture ending — and they will — they will feel rage and contempt for having been treated so heartlessly. The passive-aggressive ex will ultimately be seen as an asshole, their worst nightmare and the very thing they had been trying to avoid. If you have children and need to co-parent, this situation makes it very difficult to get along moving forward. If you are certain you want out, and reconciliation is not an option, the only merciful thing to do is tell your partner the truth.

Freedom from pleasing.

Pleasing and passive-aggressive behavior is entirely repairable. As with anything, people must be sick of themselves, their lives, and their choices and highly motivated to change. Like me, once they start showing their true selves to the world, they learn that most people don’t run for the hills, and the relief one feels being real shows them it’s a better way to live. Those who love you for you stick around, and the ones who love your phony self will drift away, and that’s as it should be. Anyway, if someone only wanted you around because you never said no and always went along, they were probably only there for what they got out of it.

At the end of the day, the emotional disabilities a pleaser takes on in childhood drive the crazy and cockamamy passive-aggressive behaviors I’ve described. Trauma causes low self-esteem and the inability to set proper boundaries with people, which leads to pleasing behavior. It’s a learned behavior that can be unlearned. Learning how to value and protect yourself will be a huge part of pleaser recovery. The recovering pleaser must work to learn who they really are and to stop using others as their compass for how to be. To find out who you are, taste life, and discover what you love and don’t, just like you learned what foods are your favorites.

What you can do.

We can’t make people do anything, of course, but we can ask. If you have a pleaser who is close to you, you can request they get help, and either they will or they won’t.

Either way, I suggest you not suffer fools, and if you detect a pleaser is beating around the bush, I recommend you work to get to the bottom line of what you think they are trying to say, as I did with my boss at the newspaper. When I realized she was dancing around a bitter truth, I made her get to the point. I literally put the words in her mouth, and she had no choice but to confirm my suspicions.

If you’re dealing with the silent treatment, tests, or some other form of ridiculousness, I’d not positively reward any of the bad behavior, and I would just talk about what is going on in a calm, direct manner. I might say, “If you are waiting for me to put the dish in the dishwasher, all you have to do is ask,” and “I’d rather you just tell me what you want or need rather than to give me the silent treatment.”

If the behaviors are over-the-top, go together to see a couples or family therapist like me. We can diplomatically inform them about what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and why it doesn’t work. Messages delivered by therapists are often more likey to be received and taken seriously than from a friend or family member. Go figure.

There’s so much more to pleaser recovery, and 12-step programs for codependence are great places to begin. Here are couple of books I recommend, one is suitable for anyone, The Disease to Please, by Harriet Braiker, Ph.D. and the other is for men, No More Mr Nice Guy, by Robert A. Glover, Ph.D.

Note: I am an Amazon affiliate and may receive a small percentage of the sales of these books at no extra cost to you.

Check out my new ebook on marriage crisis and how to know if you need to separate. It also includes a plan for an amicable divorce.

We’ve got lots of news and many exciting things going on in the relationship realm … so I’m preparing to send out a regular newsletter with the best relationship advice on the planet. To get on my email list, click here.

Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Arkansas and Texas* and is known as America’s Marriage Crisis Manager®. She is a former features writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and has worked with thousands of couples to save their marriages. She can work with you, too, as a life coach if you’re not in Texas or Arkansas. She is also co-host of the YouTube Call Your Mother Relationship Show and has a telehealth private practice as a therapist and life coach via Zoom. To contact her, check out www.DoctorBecky.com and www.MarriageCrisisManager.com. Also, here is how to find her work on the Huffington Post. Don’t forget to follow her on Medium so you don’t miss a thing!

For licensure verification, find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.

Filed Under: Blog

Web Dev March 25, 2024

What a One-sided Relationship is and How to Fix It.

A one-sided relationship feels like you’re loving on a mannequin. It’s hard to wake them up and get them to be proactive in the relationship, but it is possible. Photo: Adobe Stock: Lightfield Studios.

When you marry someone you wholeheartedly adore, a person you love doing things for and love with all your heart, who you can’t wait to throw down and make passion-filled love to, those feelings can carry you a long way before you realize that you’re doing just about everything in the relationship while they sit by and receive. “Wait a minute,” you think one day. “What the hell is going on here?”

When our flaming love fires simmer down to lukewarm bathwater temperature, it’s usually because we have not had enough energy input to keep us fueled. We can give and give to others, but we need them to give to us, too. When that doesn’t happen enough, the fire starts to go out over time, and it becomes harder and harder to feel anything close to what you’d been feeling. That’s when a person sits down and tries to figure out what has caused this major shift.

A one-sided or unbalanced relationship or marriage isn’t that unusual, unfortunately. The concept of stoking romantic feelings, also known as relationship work, is well presented in Gary Chapman’s world-famous book The Five Love Languages. Whether it’s one or both partners who have dropped the ball and allowed the love tank to get low, it’s completely avoidable. But today, we’re not going to talk about when both do it; we’re going to visit the sad story of when one person has enveloped the other in love so thoroughly that they didn’t even realize that they were the only one pedaling the bike until they stopped and took a breath.

Lazy romantics have their reasons for not bellying up to the bar of actionable love, of course. Here are some of the things I’ve heard:

I don’t know how.
My family never showed love; it was just understood.
I’m not that kind of person.
You knew that when you married me.
No one ever told me I was supposed to do that.
More understandable reasons from my point-of-view are:

People hurt you in your life, and you went into a self-protective cocoon.
Past traumas have rendered you allergic to doing things that make you uncomfortable.
You are avoidant attached due to past traumas, and coming close to another person causes you anxiety.
You’re afraid of rejection.
You were shamed for showing vulnerability.
You have low self-esteem, feelings of insecurity, and believe your partner doesn’t want you.
Life has been too easy for you, things given and not earned, and that’s the only thing you know.
Having a healthy relationship takes a lot of hard work — time, focus, and attention. I write about this all the time. A healthy marriage is like a high-maintenance plant. It needs the right amount of light, water, minerals, and soil and must be pruned and tended to. Unfortunately, too many people think that once you’re married, life shifts to responsibilities: a career, splitting the bills, household duties, kids, and doing things together. None of those things fosters or nourishes a relationship except doing things together. People become bored and restless in a long-term relationship when there is nothing but responsibilities and routines. What a perfect recipe that is for negative relationship issues and eventual emotional distress.

Marriage itself insinuates there will be romance, and unless you mutually agree otherwise, it must be on the table. The pattern I see is what I mentioned at the top of this blog — one starry-eyed, love-struck partner so entranced with a new love that they don’t even notice the object of their affection does not come up with ideas to do much of anything and has little or no romantic bones in their body.

Maria and Jose.

Maria was crazy about Jose. She was so attracted to him in a way she could not find words for; he had her heart on every level, and she obsessively focused on his every need. She didn’t notice that he never talked about marriage, never had ideas for a date, rarely called or texted her, didn’t write her cards, bring her gifts, or do little things to show he cared. He was more than happy to receive her love and attention and welcomed it, but they would have stayed home if she didn’t think of something to do. All the signs of a one-sided relationship were waving in her face, but she failed to notice them. This is a common mistake.

When she felt she had waited too long for a marriage proposal, she told him it was time, and he did nothing. Months passed by, then a year. Finally, while driving one day, they talked about it, and she screamed, “What is wrong with you? I want a family, and if you do not marry me, I am going to leave you!” “Okay, okay,” he said, “Wanna marry?”

Sitting in therapy years later, she said, “I just thought he was scared of commitment or something, but he was very committed. “He would have stayed like that forever, spending time with me while I doted on him, but he had no thoughts of marrying me or moving our relationship forward. It never occurred to him to do thoughtful things for me. Why didn’t I see that he was the kind of man with no ideas, no vision of a future together, no need for variety, and not one romantic thought ever?”

Now that Maria was worn out with giving, doing the romantic heavy lifting, and giving her marriage her best effort, she stopped cold turkey. When they came to see me, they lived as friends and roommates. A one-sided situation like theirs almost always ends up like this. Blinded by the chemicals of new love, she missed every red flag warning that Jose did not know how to give to her romantically, and theirs was an imbalanced relationship, a one-sided marriage, a situation that no one ever imagines for their romantic relationships. Of course, Jose could have gone on like that forever, and even when Maria discontinued her efforts, it didn’t occur to him to check what was going on. “I did ask her, ‘Hey, when are we going to have sex?’” he said.

Relationship apathy.

This issue of relationship apathy affects both genders. It often results from growing up in an invulnerable family. Imagine family members quietly living together who did and said the bare minimum when together, with little or no emotional support, and no one shared the truth about what was going on in their lives or who they were. People who grow up in families like this have no concept of mutual engagement, helping one another, and understanding and relating to the other’s struggles and challenges.

Also, people who have never been compelled to exert much effort or work to maintain or keep a friendship, mainly because things just happened for them, never learned the two-way street that defines relationships. I have met many physically stunning people who didn’t have much personality and showed no interest in engaging with others for the purpose of getting to know one another. It appeared they just existed, much like a piece of art on a wall. “How did this happen?” I used to ask myself.

Now that I am a therapist, I know that certain things like beauty, money, and fame are powerful gifts that magnetically attract people. People who appreciate the aura of your gift want to be near it for the sake of being near. When people gravitate to you, stick around, do things for you, and expect nothing in return except your presence, you quickly learn that this is what a relationship is. People without the gifts that magically draw people in must make a dedicated effort to join in the game of life and engage with others. They seem to sense that if they sit there and wait for things to happen, they will end up sitting there alone.

Giselle and Dave.

After over twenty years together, Giselle and Dave were in a marriage crisis. The hard-working, ever-helping wife was awakening to the reality of her imbalanced romantic situation. Almost overnight, she realized Dave was a talker, not a doer who would not change. She had hung on to the idea that, at any moment, he was going to turn that around, but now she was pretty certain that day would never come.

She was very successful in her career and had done everything possible to make his dreams come true, including funding many of his brainstorms, but he always dropped the ball. His lack of effort to follow through on anything had lost her respect, but how lonely she felt bothered her the most. This is a common feeling of the one who is the strong one and cheerleader in one-sided love.

“Why didn’t I see he wouldn’t change before?” she said. “Where have I been? I have just been waiting and waiting for him to finally step up to the plate and do his part as a partner, and you know what? He can’t do it. I don’t want this type of relationship.”

Giselle came in alone after our first couples session. “He’s not coming back even though he says he is,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He says he wants to read the relationship books you recommended before setting up another appointment for us, but I need to see him take urgent action. Anyway, I know he won’t read the books, and it’s just another excuse not to come to therapy. If we were going to go to couples therapy and really work on it, it gave me hope; without it, I have none. I’ve seen all I need to see.”

Why are people not doing their part?

The core problem with people who can’t or won’t step up and do their part in a relationship is usually emotional immaturity. They are children in adult bodies, still expecting their parents to plan and take care of everything. This is one reason family therapists tell parents of young children to push their children toward doing things themselves and being independent on an age-appropriate level along the way. The end goal of parenting is to have children who can be launched and care for themselves like a mother bird nudges her nestling from the nest. When the child grows up and allows others to do almost everything for them, you can be sure that didn’t happen.

Emotional immaturity is caused by being traumatized in childhood, and most of us have plenty of it, whether we remember it or not. Humans become emotionally disabled due to all of this in five core areas: self-esteem, boundaries, reality, dependency, and moderation/control. (1) People with childhood trauma often have a lack of self-care and self-awareness, so they won’t even notice they have an issue and wouldn’t do much or anything about it if they did. The disabilities inevitably appear in relationships, and like a person with one arm who can’t button their shirt, things you would normally expect a person to do as part of a romantic partnership won’t happen, like making plans for a romantic evening together. They only think about getting help because their spouse begs them to. The good news is that it’s entirely reparable with professional help, but often, they are pretty happy with their life the way it is and aren’t that motivated to change.

Lack of integrity is a trust killer.

To say you will do something and not do it is the same as lying to a partner. It kills trust and causes resentment. In marriage, one of the most important things to have is a foundation that says, “You are solid, and I can count on you.” (2) In unrequited love relationships, the taker stays in their comfort zone and assumes no risk, much like sitting in an easy chair and having life delivered. It’s very safe in that easy chair, but you must rely on others to keep you alive. Sadly, two-way relationships’ emotional investment, vulnerability, risk, and reward are all the qualities that make them worthwhile. Still, in a one-sided relationship, the taker will probably never experience it.

In the end …

The title of this article says it will tell you how to fix your one-sided relationship, but it takes two to fix this problem, and as I said, the person with this particular disability isn’t likely to do their part. I have seen many clients like this eventually divorce, and thankfully, the low-energy partner is usually able to support themself and keep a roof over their heads once on their own. Still, they will live in a way that causes them the most comfort and the least stress. It’s a sad dynamic, but that’s their chosen path.

My suggestion to everyone who has been the doer in a one-sided relationship is to be very aware of the potential partners you meet moving forward. If you enjoy them, ensure they are stepping up and doing their part. You also want to make certain you aren’t the one who immediately steps in and starts helping them in the areas where they struggle. Let them figure their own stuff out, and if they don’t do anything about it, you’ll know what to do.

Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence.
Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight.
Note: I am an Amazon affiliate and may receive a small percentage of the sales of these books at no extra cost to you.

Check out my new ebook on marriage crisis and how to know if you need to separate. It also includes a plan for an amicable divorce.

For licensure verification, find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.

Filed Under: Blog

Web Dev March 21, 2024

Why Your Relationship Will Never Be 50/50.

Equality diehards don’t do well in marriage and relationships. Stop expecting problems in the marriage to be seen as 50–50, and focus on your part in it. Quibbling over who is most right or wrong is a fool’s game. Graphic: Adobestock/Magann

Are problems in marriage always 50 percent your fault and 50 percent your spouse’s fault? Not in my experience. Still, quite a few individuals in couples therapy desperately want me to tell them it is. They need me to tell them so. If a person gets a whiff that I may think they’re mostly the problem, panic will set in and they will often offer up perceived stacks of violations their spouse committed to try and even it out.

It’s a good thing I won’t be fooled. As the Sherlock Holmes of marital issues, always seeking to solve the mystery of what’s at the bottom of a couple’s issues, it’s my job to uncover the truth, and if one person is mostly the problem, we need to get down to it. It perplexes me to no end that it’s so hard, I mean really hard, for someone to own up to being a marital problem child, but at the same time, it doesn’t.

Because of things like this, marriage therapy is a ceaselessly fascinating thing. Couples come in for a session, and we talk about their goals, followed by the things that are tripping them up, and it won’t take much time before I get the gist of the problem. I can usually get a general idea of the themes and dynamics that take them down within the first or second session. Some take great offense at this, assuming I’m carelessly jumping to conclusions and need to know all the details of their life story and all their tales of woe, but I don’t.

I am looking for themes and patterns. They report the stories and the different ways they interact, they correct each other and clarify, and I make mental notes of the things I see that don’t work in relationships. Although people want to think they are completely unique, and they are in some ways, human beings are pretty predictable regarding behavior. I know I must be getting it close to right because every week, I hear the words, “You hit the nail on the head,” when I start telling them what I think, but only from one of the two.

That doesn’t mean that other things they might tell me might add context and be helpful later on; it’s just that I am on the scent of their key relationship dynamics early on, and that gives me a place to start. I don’t think in black-and-white terms, like one person is an angel and the other a devil, though some clients say things like, “Oh my God, she’s thinking I’m the villain!” Not so fast, I say. People are way more complex than that.

The griper.

Still, the most common dynamic I work with involves a griper and the receiver of the griping. The griper is bothered by little things and wants their spouse to change so they can be comfortable, and the receiver says they might have a good marriage and happy relationship if the griper would chill out and leave them alone. Although people long for a healthy relationship, and that’s why they are there, I’ve come to believe that at least one person (probably the griper) secretly hopes I’ll take their side and stick it in their partner’s eye. At the end of the day, they want vindication and validation that their spouse has made their life difficult, and they strongly hope that the type of relationship advice I offer will pull their partner into line.

When I present my initial premise and check with them to see if I’m on the right track, one person smiles, and the other person squirms nervously. This is when the tenor of a session forever changes. The hardest thing is getting the person who perceives themself in the hot seat to honestly and humbly see that they may not be the great partner they thought they were. I must do it tenderly and softly because if I flat out told the person I’m thinking they may be the primary pain in the marriage’s ass, it wouldn’t go very well. Anyway, most people don’t have the ego strength and solid sense of self to be able to receive constructive commentary directed primarily at them, no matter how softly and respectfully it’s delivered.

Such news does not align with how they see themselves, so they often think I must have it wrong. They may question my training and credentials or try to throw me off the trail, deflecting my attention to things their spouse does instead. A good therapist sees it all and keeps people on track.

What are the qualities of a difficult partner?

Understand that the more inflexible a person is, the more controlling, rigid, intense, negative, obsessive, neurotic, moody, arrogant, boundaryless, withholding, volatile, vengeful, demanding, humorless, and intolerant, the more difficult they will be to have a relationship with. That’s common sense. Of course, these people are usually most responsible for their marital issues, while at the same time are wired such that they can’t or won’t see it. It stuns the mind to know how many people in the world have no self-awareness.

So, the math equation is: the one who resists, denies, deflects, and doesn’t buy into my perspective while their partner does is almost always the one who bears the most responsibility for the marriage being unworkable. That’s marriage therapy math.

Ron and Sue have been together for 12 years, and they’ve hit a wall. Ron initiated the idea of marriage therapy and is certain it will only take me a few sessions to fix his wife. He admits he’s not perfect and knows he has minor issues, but the main problem is that Sue is stubborn and doesn’t listen to him. He wants me to teach her to listen and then turn her from a recalcitrant bull into a precious little calf who takes suggestions and adjusts accordingly. After listening to his gripes for about 10 minutes and noting Sue’s sarcastic asides, I put down my pen and looked at Ron.

“I think I can see what’s going on here,” I say. “Ron, you’re pretty demanding and controlling, and I think you’re wearing Susan out. Now, Susan, do tell me if I am wrong about that …

“You’re not wrong,” she quickly adds. “Ron is an authority on how all things ought to be.”

“Well, I do like the home to be neat as a pin,” but what’s wrong with that?” he says. “I like things a certain way, but Sue just won’t do it. I’m just asking for small stuff, a two-way street effort to keep our place clean and picked up, but she doesn’t care about it. We wouldn’t argue about anything if she kept the house picked up.”

“To Ron, a romantic evening at home is the two of us scrubbing down the countertops and wearing white gloves to see how much dust there is,” she says while rolling her eyes.

“So you think the problem is Susan?” I say. “If only she were clean, did her fair share of household chores, and kept the house tidy, you’d be content?”

“Well …. yes. Pretty much.”

Is Ron more of a problem in the marriage than Sue? Is she the problem? Let me offer more context to their story before you decide. They both have demanding careers, plus three children aged nine and under, two of whom are involved in after-school activities. I have great compassion for what it must be like in their household; I imagine this: noise, dirty laundry, lost shoes, people running to the car, and half-eaten snacks lying around.

“Do you think your demands are reasonable?” I ask Ron. In my experience, families like yours are chaotic, and that will probably not change that much. The idea that your home could remain neat as a pin in the midst of mayhem doesn’t sound reasonable. In fact, a little understanding on your part might be in order.”

“I don’t think I’m asking too much,” he says.

“And I do,” she says. “I’m willing to do a little, but Ron, your standards and what you’re asking are over the top, in my opinion. I’d like him to focus on what I will do, not what I don’t or won’t.”

Finding your dysfunctional pattern.

My mentor, Terry Real, creator of Relational Life Therapy and author of the best relationship health books on the planet, says a great way to hone in on a married couple’s dysfunctional patterns is to fill in the following blanks: “The more Spouse A does X, the more Spouse B does Y, and the more Spouse B does Y, the more Spouse A does X …”

The more Ron complains about the state of the house, the more Sue thinks he’s unreasonable and shuts down. The more Sue shuts down and does nothing, the more Ron complains. It was easy to see their pattern within the first 15 minutes that we talked. Ron is what I call the “squeaky wheel” spouse. He’s the one complaining and demanding changes. Sue is shut down and sick of his griping.

In his mind, my job was to persuade Sue to clean up her act (literally). It caught him off-guard when I told him that he had unrealistic expectations and that he needed to find more compassion and understanding for Sue, especially considering how difficult and stressful this stage of their lives is. Anytime you can process another person’s situation using a dose of compassion and empathy and show some emotional support, it’s a good day. If Ron values a tidy house, and Sue is less interested in that, that might be a good focus for him to take on, and perhaps she could focus on the things that are meaningful to her. That’s how people in good relationships sort things out.

Inner peace rule.

Here’s a rule of thumb for relationships: It’s a boundary violation when one person asks another person to give up their inner peace so they can have it. If your partner asks you to do something you’re uncomfortable with, always say no if you will resent them if you say yes. Only agree to what they ask if you can do so with a neutral or happy heart. A neutral heart might look like, “Well, it’s not my favorite thing to do, but I don’t mind doing it.”

In the case of Sue and Ron, she already resents him for what she sees as his unreasonable demands, and she should tell him diplomatically, “Ron, you are the one who wants the house a certain way, so I suggest you be in charge of that yourself.” If Ron wants a successful marriage and a happy wife, he will stop the fight to win this and other power struggles, throw up the white flag, and take care of the problem himself. There is no right or wrong regarding whether a house should be kept pristine or not.

Crux of the problem.

Since women demanded to be treated equally at the turn of the last century, men, fearing losing it all, have hung tightly to their half. That’s okay regarding job opportunities and wages, but in marriage, things aren’t usually going to be equal. People would be wise to throw this concept in the trash.

I believe those of us in relationships should each shoot for 100 — I give my all, and you give your all, and let’s see what happens next. If my relationship fails, I blame myself 100 percent, and you do the same. If my partner really doesn’t want to do something I want, I should do it myself.

Marriage isn’t equal and fair; sometimes, one person does more than the other in great relationships, and sometimes, that switches. We must bend and flow throughout our lives together and stop finger-pointing. If you are a blamer and must point the finger at someone for your relationship problems, point it at yourself. My job would be so much easier if everyone came in with the attitude that everything is 100 percent their fault. Still, people are prideful and immature and want to deny their major part in not having a perfect relationship, or, as I said, their ego needs to know they are only half the problem.

Expectations and relationship satisfaction.

Some people are masters at creating relationship problems unnecessarily, and I aim to stop that. My mother loved spending time thinking about things to worry about, for example. It was a complete waste of time. Expectations in marriage are that way — these are little ideas a person has about what another person should be doing. Ron thinks a home should be clean, and Sue should be cleaning it. It’s completely ridiculous that any adult would expect anything of another without their agreement.

The only way expectations work is by discussing whatever it is first, and if both people agree, then you may have an expectation. For example, one spouse, Mary, wants the other, Joe, to text her at least four times daily. To her, if you love her, that is what you will do. The problem is that Joe loves Mary but is busy when he works and finds her expectations a nuisance. Joe should not have to text if he does not want to. Mary is out of line, declaring that he doesn’t love her if he doesn’t text when the truth is she has no idea how he feels, she is making that up. Only he knows that.

When Ron, Mary, or anyone else doesn’t get what they want or can’t get their spouse to abide by their rules, they must back off and learn to take care of themself. We all experience a disappointed little boy or girl within us at various times. We need to nurture and care for that part of us when that happens. It is unfair to ask your partner to change who they are so you can be happy, and that doesn’t happen with successful couples in a long-term relationship.

If you are the kind of person with lots of expectations and demands, then you will be more than 50 percent of the problem in your marriage, I assure you. No one wants to be a pain in the ass to their spouse, but people with lots of demands and expectations are just that. If you recognize yourself here, come off your high horse, take stock of yourself and your behavior, and do what it takes to make your relationship work.

Check out my new ebook on marriage crisis and how to know if you need to separate. It also includes a plan for an amicable divorce.

For licensure verification, find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.

Filed Under: Blog