Once he could name his feelings, Jason needed to accept that those feelings were his own. They might be triggered by someone else’s actions or speech, but they were his. Lashing out at someone else wasn’t going to make them go away.
Then, once he was there with the feeling, he was to check his body response. Am I hot? Cold? Is my heart racing? How’s my breathing? Am I okay?
Tuning into the feeling itself, and to how it was moving in his body, would help him stay with it until it passed or changed. He didn’t have to cover, medicate, or run from his feelings. He could choose to feel them. They were only feelings. He could accept them, bear them, stay with them—because they were temporary.
Once Jason was more adept at tuning in to his feelings, we practiced how to respond to them, instead of reacting. Jason had learned to live like he was in a pressure cooker. He kept himself under tight control—until he burst. I helped him learn to be more like a teapot, to vent off the steam. Sometimes he’d come to a session and I’d ask him how he was feeling, and he’d say, “I feel like screaming.” And I’d say, “Okay! Let’s scream. Let’s get it all out so it doesn’t make you ill.”
As Jason learned to accept and face his feelings, he also began to see that in many ways he was re-creating the fear, repression, and violence of his childhood in his current family. The need to control his feelings, learned at the hand of an abusive father, had translated into a need to control his wife and his children.
Sometimes our healing helps us to repair our relationships with our partners; sometimes our healing releases the other person to do his or her own growth. After a few months of joining him for couples counseling, Jason’s wife told him that she was ready to separate. Jason was shocked and furious. I was concerned that his grief over the failed marriage would govern how he treated his children. At first Jason was vindictive and wanted to fight for full custody, but he was able to shift his all-or-nothing mind-set, and he and his wife worked out an agreement to share custody. He was able to mend and nurture his relationships with the people who had inspired him to drop the gun: his kids. He ended the legacy of violence.
* * *
Once we are recognizing and taking responsibility for our feelings, we can learn to recognize and take responsibility for our role in the dynamic that shapes our relationships. As I learned in my marriage, and in my relationships with my children, one of the proving grounds for our freedom is in how we relate to our loved ones. This is something that comes up frequently in my work.
Jun wore pressed slacks and a button-up shirt the morning I met him. Ling stepped through the door in a perfectly tailored skirt and blazer, her makeup expertly applied and her hair carefully coiffed. Jun sat at one end of the couch, his eyes going over the framed diplomas and photographs on my office walls, looking everywhere except at Ling. She perched neatly on the edge of the couch and looked right at me. “This is the problem,” she said without preamble. “My husband drinks too much.”
Jun’s face reddened. He seemed on the verge of speaking, but he kept quiet.
“It has to stop,” Ling said.
I asked what “it” was. What were the behaviors she found so objectionable?
According to Ling, over the last year or two, Jun’s drinking had gone from an occasional evening or weekend activity to an everyday ritual. He began before he came home, with a scotch at a bar near the university campus where he was a professor. That drink was followed at home by another, and another. By the time they sat down for dinner with their two children, his eyes were a little glassy, his voice a little too loud, his jokes a little too off-color. Ling felt lonely and burdened by the responsibility of marching the kids through cleanup and bedtime routines. By the time she was ready for sleep, she was simmering with frustration. When I asked about their intimate life, Ling blushed, and then told me that Jun used to initiate sex when they went to bed, but often she was too upset to reciprocate. Now he usually fell asleep on the couch.
“That’s not all,” she said. She was listing all the evidence. “He breaks dishes because he’s drunk. He comes home late. He forgets things that I tell him. He’s driving drunk. He’s going to get in an accident. How can I trust him to drive the kids?”
As Ling spoke, Jun seemed to disappear. His eyes dropped to his lap. He looked hurt, reserved, ashamed—and angry, but his hostility was directed inward. I asked Jun for his perspective on their daily life.
“I’m always responsible with the kids,” he said. “She has no right to accuse me of putting them in danger.”
“What about your relationship with Ling? How do you see your marriage working?”
He shrugged. “I’m here,” he said.
“I notice a big space between you on the couch. Is that an accurate indication of a big gulf between you?”
Ling gripped her purse.
“It’s accurate,” Jun said.
“It’s because he drinks!” Ling interjected. “That’s what’s making this distance.”
“It sounds like there’s a lot of anger there pushing you apart.”
Ling looked quickly at her husband before nodding.
I see a lot of couples locked in the same dance. She nags, he drinks. He drinks, she nags. That’s the choreography they’ve chosen. But what if one of them changes the steps? “I wonder,” I began. “I wonder if your marriage would survive if Jun stopped drinking.”
Jun’s jaw clenched. Ling loosened her hold on her purse. “Exactly,” she said. “This is what needs to happen.”
“What would really happen if Jun stopped drinking?” I asked.
I told them about another couple I know. The husband was also a drinker. One day, he’d had enough. He didn’t want to drink anymore. He wanted to get help. He decided that rehab was the best option, and he started working hard on his sobriety. This was precisely what his wife had been praying would happen. They both expected his sobriety to be the solution to all their problems. But as his recovery progressed, their marriage got worse. When the wife visited the rehab facility, angry and bitter feelings would surface. She couldn’t stop herself from rehashing the past. Remember five years ago when you came home and threw up all over my favorite rug? And that other time you ruined our anniversary party? She couldn’t keep from reciting a litany of all the mistakes he’d made, all the ways he’d hurt and disappointed her. The better her husband got, the worse she became. He felt stronger, less toxic, less ashamed, more in touch with himself, more tuned in to his life and relationships. And she grew more and more enraged. He let go of the drinking, but she couldn’t let go of the criticism and blame.
I call this the seesaw. One person’s up, and one person’s down. Lots of marriages and relationships are built this way. Two people agree to an unspoken contract: One of them will be good and one of them will be bad. The whole system relies on one person’s inadequacy. The “bad” partner gets a free pass to test all the limits; the “good” partner gets to say, Look how selfless I am! Look how patient I am! Look at everything I put up with!
But what happens if the “bad” one in the relationship gets sick of that role? What if he shows up to audition for the other part? Then the “good” one’s place in the relationship is no longer secure. She’s got to remind him how bad he is so she can keep her position. Or she might become bad—hostile, explosive—so that they can still balance the seesaw even if they switch positions. Either way, blame is the pivot that keeps the two seats joined.
In a lot of cases, someone else’s actions really do contribute to our discomfort and unhappiness. I’m not suggesting that we should be okay with behavior that is hurtful or destructive. But we remain victims as long as we hold another person responsible for our own well-being. If Ling says, “I can only be happy and at peace if Jun stops drinking,” she leaves herself vulnerable to a life of sorrow and unrest. Her happiness will always be a bottle or a swig away from disaster. Likewise, if Jun says, “The only reason I drink is because Ling is so nagging and critical,” he gives up all of hi
s freedom of choice. He isn’t his own agent. He is Ling’s puppet. He might get the temporary relief of a buzz as a protection against her unkindness, but he won’t be free.
So often when we are unhappy it is because we are taking too much responsibility or we are taking too little. Instead of being assertive and choosing clearly for ourselves, we might become aggressive (choosing for others), or passive (letting others choose for us), or passive-aggressive (choosing for others by preventing them from achieving what they are choosing for themselves). It gives me no pleasure to admit that I used to be passive-aggressive with Béla. He was very punctual, it was important to him to be on time, and when I was annoyed with him, I would stall when it was time to leave the house. I would intentionally find a way to slow us down, to make us late, just to spite him. He was choosing to arrive on time, and I wouldn’t let him get what he wanted.
I told Ling and Jun that in blaming each other for their unhappiness, they were avoiding the responsibility of making their own joy. While on the surface they both seemed very assertive—Ling always on Jun’s case, Jun doing what he pleased instead of what Ling asked him to do—they were both experts at avoiding an honest expression of “I want” or “I am.” Ling used the words “I want”—“I want my husband to stop drinking”—but in wanting something for someone else, she escaped having to know what she wanted for herself. And Jun could rationalize his drinking by saying that his drinking was Ling’s fault, a way to assert himself against her oppressive expectations and criticisms. But if you give up the authority of your own choices, then you are agreeing to be a victim—and a prisoner.
In the Haggadah, the Jewish text that tells the story of liberation from slavery in Egypt and teaches the prayers and rituals for seder, the special Passover feast, there are four questions that the youngest member of the family traditionally gets to ask—the questions it was my privilege to ask at my childhood seders, that I asked the last night I spent with my parents in our home. In my therapeutic practice I have my own version of the four questions, which I developed years ago with the help of several colleagues when we were sharing strategies for beginning a session with a new patient. These are the questions I asked Ling and Jun to answer now, in writing, so they could liberate themselves from their victimhood.
1. What do you want? This is a deceptively simple question. It can be much more difficult than we realize to give ourselves permission to know and listen to ourselves, to align ourselves with our desires. How often when we answer this question do we say what we want for someone else? I reminded Ling and Jun that they needed to answer this question for themselves. To say I want Jun to stop drinking or I want Ling to stop nagging was to avoid the question.
2. Who wants it? This is our charge and our struggle: to understand our own expectations for ourselves versus trying to live up to others’ expectations of us. My father became a tailor because his father wouldn’t allow him to become a doctor. My father was good at his profession, he was commended and awarded for it—but he was never the one who wanted it, and he always regretted his unlived dream. It’s our responsibility to act in service of our authentic selves. Sometimes this means giving up the need to please others, giving up our need for others’ approval.
3. What are you going to do about it? I believe in the power of positive thinking—but change and freedom also require positive action. Anything we practice, we become better at. If we practice anger, we’ll have more anger. If we practice fear, we’ll have more fear. In many cases, we actually work very hard to ensure that we go nowhere. Change is about noticing what’s no longer working and stepping out of the familiar, imprisoning patterns.
4. When? In Gone with the Wind, my mother’s favorite book, Scarlett O’Hara, when confronted with a difficulty, says, “I’ll think about it tomorrow. … After all, tomorrow is another day.” If we are to evolve instead of revolve, it’s time to take action now.
Ling and Jun finished their responses to the questions, folded up their papers, handed them to me. We would look at them together the following week. As they got up to leave, Jun shook my hand. And then, walking out the door, I saw the reassurance I needed that they were willing to try to bridge the distance they had let damage their marriage, to get off the seesaw of blame. Ling turned back to Jun and gave him a hesitant smile. I couldn’t see if he returned it—his back was to me—but I did see him gently pat her shoulder.
When we met the following week, Ling and Jun discovered something they wouldn’t have predicted. In response to the question “What do you want?” they had each written the same thing: a happy marriage. Just speaking this desire, they were already on their way to having what they wanted. All they needed was some new tools.
I asked Ling to work on changing her behavior in the moments after Jun got home each day. This was the time when she usually felt most angry and vulnerable and frightened. Would he be drunk? How drunk would he be? How drunk would he get? Was there any possibility of closeness between them, or would it be another evening of distance and hostility? She had learned to manage her fear by trying to exert control. She would sniff Jun’s breath, make accusations, pull away. I taught her to greet her husband the same way whether he was sober or drunk—with kind eyes and a simple statement: “I’m happy to see you. I’m glad you’re home.” If he was drunk, and she was hurt and disappointed, she was allowed to talk about those feelings. She could say, “I can see you’ve been drinking, and that makes me feel sad because it’s hard to feel close to you when you’re drunk” or “that makes me feel worried about your safety.” And she was allowed to make choices for herself in response to his choice to drink. She could say, “I was hoping to talk to you tonight, but I can see you’ve been drinking. I’m going to do something else instead.”
I talked to Jun about the physiological components of addiction, and told him that I could help him heal whatever pain he was trying to medicate with alcohol, and that if he chose to get sober, he would need additional support in treating his addiction. I asked him to go to three AA meetings and see if he recognized himself in any of the stories he heard there. He did go to the assigned meetings, but as far as I know he never went back. In the time that I worked with him, he didn’t stop drinking.
When Ling and Jun ended their therapy, some things were better for them and some things weren’t. They were better able to listen to each other without the need to be right, and they were spending more time on the other side of anger, where they could acknowledge their sadness and fear. There was more warmth between them. But a loneliness remained. And the fear that Jun’s drinking would spiral out of control.
Their story is a good reminder that it isn’t over till it’s over. As long as you live, there’s the risk that you might suffer more. There’s also the opportunity to find a way to suffer less, to choose happiness, which requires taking responsibility for yourself.
* * *
Trying to be the caretaker who sees to another person’s every need is as problematic as avoiding your responsibility to yourself. This is something that has been an issue for me—as it is for many psychotherapists. I had an epiphany about this when I was working with a single mother of five who was unemployed and physically challenged in addition to being depressed. She had a hard time leaving the house. I was happy to step in to pick up her welfare checks and get her children to their appointments and activities. As her therapist, I felt it was my responsibility to help her in any way possible. But one day as I stood in line at the welfare office, feeling benevolent and generous and worthy, a voice inside me said, “Edie, whose needs are being met?” I realized the answer wasn’t “my dear patient’s.” The answer was “mine.” In doing things for her, I felt very good about myself. But at what cost? I was fueling her dependence—and her hunger. She had already been depriving herself for a long time of something she could find only within, and while I thought I was sustaining her health and well-being, I was actually sustaining her deprivation. It’s okay to help people—and it’s okay to need help
—but when your enabling allows others not to help themselves, then you’re crippling the people you want to help.
I used to ask my patients, “How can I help you?” But that kind of question makes them Humpty Dumpty, waiting around on the pavement to be put back together again. And it makes me the king’s horses and the king’s men, ultimately powerless to fix another person. I’ve changed my question. Now I say, “How can I be useful to you?” How can I support you as you take responsibility for yourself?
* * *
I’ve never met a person who would consciously choose to live in captivity. Yet I’ve witnessed again and again how willingly we hand over our spiritual and mental freedom, choosing to give another person or entity the responsibility of guiding our lives, of choosing for us. A young couple helped me understand the consequences of abdicating this responsibility, of turning it over to someone else. They struck a special chord in me because of their youth, because they were in the phase of life when most of us are hungry for autonomy—and, ironically, the time when we may be particularly anxious about whether we are ready for it, strong enough to bear the weight of it.
When Elise sought my help, she had reached suicidal despair. She was twenty-one years old, her curly blond hair gathered in a ponytail. Her eyes were red from crying. She wore a man’s large athletic jersey that came almost to her knees. I sat with Elise in the bright October sun as she tried to explain the roots of her anguish: Todd.
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