Let’s say you were looking to love someone—or to love someone more fully. What would you do to achieve that goal? Pamper her with jewelry? Compliment him? Romance her more? Spend more time together? Bring her flowers? Seduce him?
Well, not exactly. Not that those behaviors wouldn’t be appreciated, but rather those behaviors are only partial answers to the question of what it takes for us to be more loving. The real answer is that we require the five A’s: attention, acceptance/approval, appreciation, affection and allowing. The following behaviors, taken together, open us up and make us feel safe, secure, loved, valued and cherished:
Attention. Attunement. Noticing what someone is doing, how they’re doing, how they’re feeling, what they sound like, what they need and want. When we feel someone’s genuine and friendly attention, we feel more deeply known for who we are, and it creates greater degrees of connection, trust and safety. Attention is about bringing someone into our focus, so we no longer see that person with as much blurred vision.
Acceptance/Approval. When you feel accepted, you feel worthy. Trusted. Approved of as you are. Supported. The more secure you feel regarding how accepted you are, the more you will be able to open up and love more freely. So how do we accept traits and behaviors in our partner (and in ourselves) which are self-destructive, self-centered, morally wrong, foolish and risky? The answer lies in seeing beyond someone’s weaknesses to his or her inner being, where we can see his/her inner beauty and potential.
Appreciation. To feel greater levels of self-confidence and self-worth, we need to feel recognized, appreciated, respected and valued for what we are, what we give, what we do and how we are unique and special.
Affection. Touch is essential for opening up and remaining intimate. From holding hands to making love, expressing ourselves physically helps us stay connected and secure in each others presence. But affection can be more than physical. It is also about feeling and communicating that you genuinely like someone else, and like being in his/her presence.
Allowing. In a relationship, when I am allowed to be my authentic self, to express my deepest needs and longings, to trust in my own judgment, to go after creating my life’s goals and ambitions and to explore my own unique path and interests, you are allowing me the ability to create my best self. So if you want me, you cannot be controlling of me, or put so many demands on me that I wind up losing myself in order to take care of you.
The five A’s are eloquently articulated and described by David Richo in his book How to be an Adult in Relationships (Shambhala). They are the essential ingredients of love, respect, security and support. All of them make us more loving both when we give and when we receive them.
Neil Rosenthal is a licensed marriage and family therapist in the Denver and Boulder, CO, specializing in how people strengthen their intimate relationships. He can be reached at 303.758.8777 or e-mail him from his website www.heartrelationships.com.
Even lawyers aren’t always adversarial. Many lawyers will acknowledge that a successful negotiation allows both sides to walk away from the table feeling content with the outcome.
But all too often, couple’s who can’t resolve their differences approach each other like bad lawyers. They argue their case over and over again—attempting to wear the other down—in order to get their way. In a relationship, however, it isn’t wise to have a winner and a loser. If one person feels defeated and therefore submits to the other, that will just generate greater levels of resentment.
Here are some suggestions about how to successfully resolve angry conflicts in your relationship, courtesy of Ellen Wachtel, in her book We Love Each Other But… (St. Martin’s Griffin):
• Make a list of your mate’s specific sensitivities and hot-button issues. What is he particularly reactive to? What really sets her off? Keep this list handy, because you’ll be able to add to it as things arise.
• Acknowledge your own sensitivities and issues, and turn criticisms into requests. Often you can avoid highly charged conflict by prefacing your reactions, comments and criticisms with an acknowledgement that you are touchy also. You could say something like: “We both know I am sensitive about being told what to do. Even though your advice may not bother someone else, it annoys me. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t give me directions and advice when I’m driving.” In general, the more you can couch your request as having to do with your needs rather than your partner’s failings, the more likely you are to be heard. If you say, for instance:”I know I get stressed by a messy environment and that I’m a bit of a neat freak,” you are inviting your partner to try harder to keep things neat. If you label him a slob, he is less likely to cooperate with you.
• Pair a statement of what you appreciate, admire or respect about your partner with a complaint or a request. For most people, criticism is hard to take, but it can be particularly difficult if it undercuts someone’s self-confidence or increases his/her self-doubt. Prefacing a complaint will soften the way it will be received. You might say something like:” I know you try hard to be even-tempered and most of the time I think you do pretty well, but recently I’ve been feeling you’ve been moody and quick to anger with me.”
• Try to accommodate your partner’s sensitivities even if they seem irrational. Are there things you would do or say (or not do and say) if you were specifically attempting to avoid engaging one of your partner’s hot-button issues? Avoid “fighting words.” If telling your partner that you think he’s selfish leads to a huge fight, stop using that word. Describe his actions in some other way. (This does not mean you should do all the accommodating. Each of us has the responsibility to work through our own issues so that the task of solving your problems has not been passed along to your partner.)
Neil Rosenthal is a licensed marriage and family therapist in the Denver and Boulder, CO, specializing in how people strengthen their intimate relationships. He can be reached at 303.758.8777, or e-mail him from his website www.heartrelationships.com.
What sets you off? Are there predictable landmines that trigger fights, arguments or angry outbursts—in your intimate relationship, with your children or with other close people to you? Here are a list of hot-button issues and emotional triggers, many of which come from Ellen Wachtel in her book We Love Each Other, But… (St. Martin’s Griffin). Which of these describe you, your partner or your intimate relationship?
• Do you tend to feel that you are not the number one priority in your partner’s life?
• Do you feel hurt easily?
• Do you like things “just so”? Is it hard for you to see things done the “wrong” way? Is it hard for you to delegate responsibility to someone else?
• Are you afraid of too much closeness or dependency? Do you keep yourself removed, walled off, uninvolved or largely unavailable?
• Do you fear abandonment? Can you easily feel neglected or slighted?
• Do you get jealous easily?
• Do you tend to feel that you are being taken advantage of?
• Are you more critical than you would like to be?
• Do you speak with an edge in your voice when you think your partner should already know something, or when she repeats herself?
• Do you have difficulty relaxing until everything on your day’s “to do” list is accomplished?
• Are you overly sensitive to criticism?
• Do you worry about being controlled?
• Do you push yourself to the point of getting overwhelmed?
• Do you revisit decisions over and over again that have already been made?
• Do you mull over what is bothering you for a long time before expressing your feelings?
• Do you blame or lash out when you are frustrated?
• Are you stubborn?
• Are you moody?
• Do you have trouble admitting to or apologizing when you are wrong?
• Do you interpret your partner’s clutter and mess in the house to mean that s/he does not care about what is important to you?
• Do you feel you give a great deal more than you receive from your partner?
• Do you feel your partner lacks empathy or is unresponsive to your feelings, needs or desires? Do you feel that your partner doesn’t treat your desires as important?
• Do you have poor control over your anger, reactivity, defensiveness, anxiety or fear?
• Do you feel your efforts go unappreciated by your partner?
• Do you feel badly treated or poorly respected by your partner?
• Are you craving more nurturing, friendliness, affection, tenderness or sex?
• Do you feel betrayed?
• Is there secrecy, withholding of personal information or dishonesty in your relationship?
• Are you reluctant to commit?
I will address how to diffuse relationship triggers in next week’s column.
Neil Rosenthal is a licensed marriage and family therapist in the Denver and Boulder, CO, specializing in how people strengthen their intimate relationships. He can be reached at 303.758.8777, or e-mail him from his website www.heartrelationships.com.
Dear Neil: My boyfriend confuses me. He can get very sharp with me: critical, judgment and easy to anger when offended. At times, he gets irritated and very critical at what feels to me like minor infractions, and he can get quite verbally hard on me for making even a small mistake.
So why does he get so offended, defensive, angry and shut down when I call him on his negative behavior? Recently I told him I thought he was intolerant, arrogant and hurtful for getting sharp with me too often, and he responded with anger, defensiveness and checking out from me the rest of that day. On other occasions he has gotten extremely sensitive to even a hint of disapproval from me. What gives? What is he doing? Why does he give criticism so readily, and find taking criticism so hard to handle? Is there anything I can do about this before I leave him?
- Had It in Vail
Dear Vail: You’re describing someone who has a severe narcissistic injury. Here’s how it works. If someone has very low self-esteem, they’re going to be extremely sensitive to any form of critique, correction, criticism or admonishment—even if what you say is meant constructively, and even if it’s 100 percent true.
Your boyfriend may feel humiliated, embarrassed, exposed or degraded by criticism, because he may have constructed a façade of perfection or superiority in order to protect himself from other people’s harsh judgments of him. But if you break through the façade with an unflattering critique, then he may feel defenseless, and the only self-protection he may have left is to respond with sharp anger, counter-criticism, withdrawal, payback or rage. This is why people who can’t take criticism are often the very ones who dish it out.
This behavior originates in childhood. If a child is invalidated a lot or is made to chronically feel inadequate or not good enough, as an adult, he may defend against such feelings by constructing a shield around himself where he won’t tolerate criticism or accept negative judgment coming from virtually anyone, for any reason.
But by using this defense, your boyfriend is essentially stopping you from sharing yourself, from communicating, from airing your grievances or from telling him when you’re unhappy with him. The likely effect this will have over time is to distance the two of you from each other, because it will shut down the connection (and therefore the closeness) between the two of you. To be intimate requires us to regularly air our feelings, concerns, needs, desires and requests of each other.
If no one intervenes to stop this pattern, his defense may well become the eventual downfall of your relationship. You could address this issue head on with your boyfriend but his defensiveness is likely a life-long response which he may be barely aware of because he’s so used to it. Thus, it is unlikely that he will break this knee-jerk response without professional assistance and guidance.
It would help if the two of you entered couple’s counseling and learned more effective ways of working through conflicts, disagreements and hurt emotions more effectively.
Neil Rosenthal is a licensed marriage and family therapist in the Denver and Boulder, CO, specializing in how people strengthen their intimate relationships. He can be reached at 303.758.8777, or e-mail him from his website www.heartrelationships.com.
Dear Neil: Can you help me repair my relationship? The lady in my life and I have lost the ability to be close with each other. Here’s how a typical conversation between us goes: Me: “How was your day?” Her: “I’m annoyed. I feel like I’m a verbal punching bag at work. I’m in a bad mood.” Me: “Well you’re not at work now. Let’s do something fun.” Her: “You do it. I don’t want to do anything tonight.”
I know she is disturbed by things not going well at work, but she won’t let me bring her out of her funk, and she’s almost always in a miserable frame of mind, so it’s very unpleasant to be around her for any length of time. Any suggestions as to what I can do?
Feeling Disconnected in Denver
Dear Denver: Perhaps the only real connection skill is to be able to “step inside the puddle” with someone else. “Stepping into the puddle” refers to conscious emotional attunement to another person, meaning you have to temporarily stop being so concerned about your own feelings, needs and desires, and instead tune into how your mate is feeling, and what it’s like emotionally to feel the feelings she’s going through. This asks of you to temporarily let go of your critical judgments and emotions in order to be emotionally available to your intimate partner. Stepping into the puddle with someone else is about temporarily joining them with your presence, your response, your touch and your heartfelt participation
Joining someone with your presence and your participation is not a bottomless pit of despair. It’s a puddle, not an ocean you’re stepping into, and it’s designed to help the two of you connect and feel close with each other. Your willingness to step into that puddle with her will also help her to feel safe around you, as if you are one of her close natural allies and friends. When you allow yourself to feel what she is feeling, you’ll likely find that your willingness to join in her emotions will not drag you down, but rather assist the two of you in walking out of the puddle together.
This idea comes from Patricia Love and Steven Stosny in their book How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It (Broadway Books). This process is greatly aided by affectionate touch and direct eye to eye contact whenever possible: hugs, holding her hand, putting your arm around her and neck massages, to name a few.
Here’s how it might work if you were to step into the puddle with your lady: You: “How was your day?” Her: “I’m annoyed. I feel like I’m a verbal punching bag at work. I’m in a bad mood.” You: “Would you like to talk about what happened at work today?” Her; “I don’t feel respected at all. After three years I’m still treated as if I’m a beginner that needs to be told what to do. I feel insulted all day. It’s humiliating.” You: “I’m so sorry, honey. That must really be painful to go through. I can’t imagine how that must feel. I’m sure that would offend me, also.” Her: “Yeah, it put me in a bad mood.” You: “No wonder you feel awful. What would ease your pain and help you to feel better?” Her: “Would you give me a back rub?” You: “I’d be happy to do that.”
Neil Rosenthal is a licensed marriage and family therapist in the Denver and Boulder, CO, specializing in how people strengthen their intimate relationships. He can be reached at 303.758.8777, or e-mail him from his website www.heartrelationships.com.
by Neil Rosenthal
