Get Out of Your Own Way

by Mark Goulston

  Appreciate that those efforts demand compromise and sacrifice—and that your partner loves you enough to try.

  Acknowledge your partner’s contributions. Don’t keep your appreciation to yourself.

  After you establish a track record using the Three A’s, you might find that your partner’s behavior spontaneously changes. Sometimes people do things you don’t like because they don’t feel appreciated.

  If you still feel shortchanged by your partner’s lack of effort, ask yourself if your objections are fair and reasonable.

  If they are, try to express any hurt and frustration you might feel without sounding critical.

  Tell your partner what changes you would like him to make. Ask if he thinks these changes are fair and reasonable, and if he is willing to make the effort.

  Ask him if there are any changes he would like to see you make.

  Putting up With Broken Promises

  “And be these juggling fiends no more believ’d,

  That palter with us in a double sense;

  That keep the word of promise to our ear

  And break it to our hope.”

  —SHAKESPEARE

  “We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears.”

  —FRANÇCLOIS, DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

  Broken promises are devastating because they clash with one of our deepest longings: to believe in other people. As helpless infants, we needed to trust our caretakers in order to feel safe; now, in adulthood, a broken promise can resonate with that early memory of vulnerability and make us angry, insecure, and sometimes as petulant as children.

  What makes broken promises frustrating as well as painful is when promise-breakers don’t own up to their misdeeds—often because they don’t realize they made a promise in the first place. To make themselves feel comfortable, people will carelessly say things to ease your tension, soothe your worries, or, more selfishly, get you off their backs. They don’t realize that you plan to hold them to their word. Hence, the boss hints at promotions to make employees feel secure, parents propose a trip to Disneyland to shut their kids up, and men allude to marriage to reassure their girlfriends and bask in the glow of adoration. In their minds, appeasing an awkward situation overrides the possible long-term consequences.

  Sometimes we on the receiving end make it easy for promise-breakers by not holding them accountable. In order not to make waves, and to maintain their basic sense of trust, we rationalize the betrayal with “Oh, he just made a mistake,” or “She must have forgotten.” We do this because we are so frustrated that we are on the brink of exploding or imploding, and we’re terrified of losing control. Unwilling to lose a friend or cause an ugly scene, we ease off and say it’s okay, and eagerly accept their promise another time.

  Making excuses for chronic promise-breakers is invariably self-defeating. If you don’t admit how upset you are, or if you minimize the damage that has been caused, the promise-breaker will continue to be unconcerned about letting you down. And if later you confront him, he’ll simply make excuses, knowing that you’ll back down again—or he’ll insist that he merely made a mistake rather than own up to having done something wrong.

  If the commitment-breaker is a repeat offender, you will eventually find yourself cringing when he makes another promise. When this occurs, take it as a sign that you’re burned out on excuses and it’s time to draw the line. The first step is to ask yourself, “Am I frustrated beyond any hope of reconciliation? Is the relationship important enough to lower my expectations, or should I cut my losses now?”

  If you choose to stick it out, you have to be prepared to hold the person accountable. Try to do it before you get so mad that you lose your cool, and try to raise the issue in a nonthreatening manner. An excellent way to stand up for yourself while avoiding a hostile faceoff is to use what I call the Columbo Defense. Like Peter Falk’s famous TV character, you lean forward without making eye contact and scratch your head as if you are extremely perplexed. Then you say that, while you might be mistaken, you seem to remember that some kind of promise had been made. This is a disarming way to introduce a delicate subject when truth is on your side but you don’t want to rub the other person’s nose in it.

  A patient of mine named Mandy used the method with her boyfriend Tom, who had a habit of letting business interfere with romance. Once, when he canceled a long weekend at a desert spa, Tom said, “I’ll make it up to you. Next spring my schedule will be lighter and we’ll go to Hawaii for a week.” As spring edged toward summer with no trip in sight, Mandy grew increasingly annoyed. She couldn’t let Tom get away with another broken promise, but she knew that if she lost her temper or expressed irritation he would get defensive and accuse her of being demanding.

  Instead, Mandy used the Columbo Defense. One night, after a lovely dinner, she said to Tom, “You know, I’m kind of confused. Maybe my memory is off, but I believe you said that you were going to arrange a trip to Hawaii this spring. Do you remember that?”

  Tom knew what Mandy really meant: “Okay, you made a promise. I’m not going to bitch about it, I’ll just refresh your memory and give you a chance to get your act together.” Her approach got his attention, commanded his respect, and gave him no way out except to lie blatantly. Best of all, it gave Tom a face-saving way to “remember” the promise and belatedly make good on it.

  Habitual promise-breakers usually think they can get away with it. If you don’t want to be a doormat, you have to let them know that betrayal exacts a cost. But be prepared to follow through; if they call your bluff and you cave in, you will be breaking an unspoken promise to yourself.

  USABLE INSIGHT:

  If they break too many promises, don’t let them make any promises.

  TAKING ACTION

  When someone breaks promises repeatedly, try to make the next one binding, so you don’t end up in a bind when it’s time for the payoff.

  Clarify your expectations: “That sounds like a promise. If you don’t come through, it’s going to hurt. So, how much should I bank on it?”

  Don’t bring up past offenses. It’s a waste of time and possibly an invitation to a fight.

  Establish a time frame: “When can I count on this to happen?” If the person resists, set the deadline yourself: “I’ll remind you of it on the first of the month.”

  If the person does not follow through, pin him down in a nonthreatening way. Wit and imagination work better than confrontations or ultimatums.

  If diplomacy fails, let the person know the consequences of not keeping the promise. For example, say “I’ll start dating other men,” or “I’ll have trouble trusting you again.”

  If you follow these steps, the promise-breaker might turn into a promise-keeper. If there is no change, however, he probably has no intention of keeping his promises (as opposed to someone with good intentions who makes promises carelessly). You might not want to accept another promise from him.

  Practice what you preach. If you want people to keep their promises to you, make sure you keep yours. Making promises you can’t keep is just as self-defeating as letting promise-breakers get away with it.

  Trying to Make up While You’re Still Angry

  “Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat.”

  —JOHN FREDERICK BOYES

  Not long after I gained some notoriety as an expert on relationships, I found myself struggling with my own marriage. After a series of minor incidents, so much resentment had accumulated that my wife and I had become cold and hostile toward one another. At times I feared that I’d even stopped loving her. One night I lay in bed ruminating while she read a book beside me. The atmosphere was tense. Frustrated at how long the unpleasantness had lingered, I decided it was time to make peace. I turned toward my wife with loving intentions. I wanted to make a peace offering, but what started to come out of my mouth was a declaration of war.

  I caught myself before I yelled, and shuddered silently at thi
s grim realization: I still loved my wife, but I couldn’t stop hating her. If we did not do something quickly, our marriage would either self-destruct or settle into an icy détente. Yet as long as we were still angry it would be impossible to act peaceably. “We have to talk,” I said.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she replied curtly.

  “We don’t have a choice,” I insisted. “I’m scared. I can’t stand hating you.”

  Instantly, my wife knew something had changed. I was talking to her, not at her. “I’m scared too,” she confessed.

  Our hands found each other under the blanket. It was the first time we had touched in weeks. Soon, we had the long, honest talk we so desperately needed.

  From that point on, I have tried to help warring couples understand that it’s futile to try to make up before letting go of the anger inside. Trying to be loving while still harboring hatred might buy you a truce, but not genuine peace. Hatred keeps you on guard. You get defensive over minor remarks and overreact to everything the other person does that’s not totally, unequivocally positive. That’s not exactly a recipe for intimacy. Only when you are drained of underlying negativity and come to feel punched out emotionally can you think, “I don’t want to hate this person anymore.” Then the rebuilding can begin on a solid foundation.

  Hatred usually begins with disappointment. As you discover irritating qualities in your partner, you gradually come to think, “This is not the person I fell in love with.” Initially, you hesitate to tell the other person because you don’t want to hurt him. But if your feelings have no outlet, they build up, until you’re afraid that if you admit how upset you are the relationship could not endure. In time, the disappointment turns to anger, and eventually the anger becomes chronic and turns into hatred.

  Hating usually hurts the hater more than the one who is hated. I often ask couples, “If you had to choose between getting your way all the time and never having to feel angry toward your spouse, which would you take?” Nearly everyone says, “Never being angry again.” Deep inside, most of us know that feeling hatred is much more painful than not getting our way. As one husband poignantly stated, “The only thing I hate more than my wife is hating her.”

  “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”

  —INDIRA GANDHI

  Can you imagine a worse fate than to come to the end of your life and realize that you hated well but loved poorly? If you’d like to thaw out the cold war between you and your partner, you have to get through the hate. Fortunately, while it might seem surprising, hatred is actually easier to overcome than the loss of love. When love really dies, it cannot be resurrected by an act of will. But if it has merely been obscured by a cloud of hate, it can shine again once the hate has dissipated.

  USABLE INSIGHT:

  Relationships end not because you stop loving, but because you can’t stop hating each other.

  TAKING ACTION

  Instead of being afraid to face your ugly feelings, give them a fantasy life in your mind. Imagine a hateful, vengeful action that matches your feeling and play it out mentally. Doing this can help you feel less out of control.

  Start talking to the other person from the hatred you feel on the surface, but don’t stop until you get to the vulnerability that underlies the hostility. Emotions are built on layers. Beneath hatred is usually anger; beneath anger is frustration; beneath frustration is hurt; beneath hurt is fear. If you keep expressing your feelings, you will generally move through them in that order. What begins with “I hate you” culminates in “I’m scared. I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  Once you’ve talked your way from hate to hurt and fear, you’ve laid the groundwork for a new beginning. To strengthen that foundation, try these exercises: Both partners describe one of their own character flaws. Humility resolves self-righteousness.

  Both partners share a quality of the other person that they admire. Admiration resolves disappointment.

  Both partners express appreciation for something that the other one did. Gratitude resolves resentment.

  Both partners apologize, without excuses, for something they did to hurt the other person. Remorse resolves hurt.

  Both partners can now express what the other did or didn’t do that hurt and angered them.

  Not Learning From Your Mistakes

  “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”

  —OSCAR WILDE

  “If you don’t learn from your mistakes, someone else will.”

  —ANONYMOUS

  Self-defeating behavior is inevitable when we don’t learn the lessons that experience tries to teach us.

  In an old sitcom episode, a character finds a pistol and decides to cash it in at a New York pawn shop. The clerk sees the gun and hits the alarm button. Complications follow, and in the end the character convinces the court he is innocent. Before letting him go, however, the judge says, “It is against the law to sell a gun in New York. What will you do if you find another one?”

  “Pawn it in New Jersey,” replies our hero.

  That is an example of learning the wrong lesson from a mistake.

  Perhaps the most common wrong lesson we derive from mistakes is to conclude that we should avoid similar situations in the future rather than learn how to handle them differently. While sometimes appropriate, “I won’t try that again” or “I’ll never go there again” is usually a way to spare yourself the pain of having to reconsider your actions. Taken to extremes, avoidance can even turn into a phobia, triggering anxiety every time you are in a situation that resembles the original trauma.

  I once treated a young prosecuting attorney who was deeply depressed because she had blown her first trial. Eager to score a knockout, she worked extraordinarily long hours in preparation, depriving herself of sleep and sustenance. After pulling an all-nighter, she buzzed into the courtroom and delivered a brilliant opening statement, only to be stunned by the tactics of a wily defense attorney. Nervous and sleep-deprived, she lost her composure, stammering incoherently and fumbling in her briefcase for material she could not find. The judge declared a mistrial.

  Sadly, the lesson she came away with was “I’m not cut out for criminal law.” The right lessons would have been: keeping your mind and body sound is an important aspect of preparation; learn as much as you can about your opponent; and, one setback does not cancel out the skills that brought you this far.

  Another common and unworthy reaction to a mistake is to judge yourself too harshly. Thoughts such as “I’m such a wimp!” “What an idiot!” or “I’m totally incompetent” can help you assuage feelings of guilt and shame by punishing yourself. They also enable you to beat others to the punch; if you criticize yourself strongly enough, nothing anyone else can say will possibly be as bad. In fact, when others sense your self-blame, they might back off from their own criticism and try to console you instead.

  But self-flagellation is ultimately self-defeating. It’s important to distinguish between hating yourself and hating something you did. “This proves I’m totally worthless” leads to despair and loss of confidence, while “I can’t stand when I act that way” can lead to wisdom and determination.

  Some wrong lessons are the same as denial. I have seen people who were caught having extramarital affairs conclude, after the bitter battles that followed, “I should have been more careful not to get caught.” Such a self-centered reaction leads to cover-up behavior instead of growth. These people failed to learn the right lesson, namely to confront the relationship problems that drove them to have an affair.

  Victims of abuse commonly take the opposite tack. I know battered wives who say, after each heartbreaking episode, “He didn’t mean it. I should learn not to provoke him.” Wrong lesson. What they need desperately to learn is: they don’t deserve such treatment; they must stand up for themselves; they will not fall apart if they leave their husbands.

  It is wrong to deny your mistakes and wrong not t
o learn from them. Those two wrongs cannot make things right, but facing your mistakes and learning the right lessons can.

  USABLE INSIGHT:

  We always learn from our mistakes, but we don’t always learn the right lessons.

  TAKING ACTION

  When you make a mistake, don’t let yourself make any irreversible decisions for at least 48 hours. Screwing up makes us feel as if something in the mind has fallen apart. In our rush to repair it, we grasp at an easy source of relief rather than evaluate our motives and actions. The 48-Hour Rule provides a grace period in which to figure out the right lesson.

  Ask yourself if you might be avoiding the real lesson because: You’d rather have immediate gratification.

  The truth is too hard to face.

  It would require that you change.

  You need to blame someone else.

  Allow yourself to hate the mistake you’ve made, but not to hate yourself.

  Think back to similar situations in the past. Did you make the same mistake then? If not, what did you do differently? If so, what did you tell yourself you would do if you had it to do over again? These memories might help you learn the right lesson.

  Trying to Change Others

  “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

  —VICTOR FRANKL

  Recently I asked the four couples in a therapy group, “How many of you feel that if your relationship is to get better, your partner has to change?” Without hesitation, eight hands went up. Then I asked, “How many feel that you have to change?” After a moment of awkward hesitation, everyone raised a hand, not with conviction but because they knew it was expected of them.