Fighting verbally is an integral part of any relationship. Put at least two people together in the same place for a long period of time, and they’ll fight eventually.

If someone tells you that they “never” fight with their partner—especially with a big Stepford wife smile—mark my words, they are hiding something big and oppressive underneath. “Rarely” fighting can happen, but “never” just doesn’t exist.

Why? Because relationships are crossroads of “our” needs and “their” needs, “his” needs and “her” needs, “my” needs and “your” needs. Too many needs with not enough space for all of them at the same time breeds tension and, if not dealt with, eventual fighting.

My family can illustrate this well. When our families get together over the holidays, we have the “three-day fish phenomenon”: after three days, fish starts to smell. After about three days of being together, someone will get irritated with someone else. That’s when we all look at each other and say, “The fish is starting to smell.” It’s time to separate. We work at a conclusion about the conflict, even if it means we agree to disagree, put the situation behind us as best as possible, and go home.

There’s nothing wrong with this, by the way. We love each other very well because we understand how we work and function, and especially that we’re not going to agree on everything. Family therapists call this understanding the difference between “being right” and “having a relationship.”

Sometimes, you have to ask yourself if it is more important to be right, or to have a relationship.

For example, you could continue getting angry at your partner for not saying the right thing, at the right time, to make you feel better at that particular moment (being right)—or you can understand that perhaps your partner has no idea how to do what you expect them to do, and you have to teach them. The latter is calling “having a relationship.” It requires you to open up and tell your partner what you needs. Your partner, in turn, is responsible for working on understanding this need in the relationship.

This comes up in many relationships, but more commonly for newer couples who have passed the “honeymoon” phase and entered the “work” phase of the relationship. Let me demonstrate with a fictional situation, derived from general couples issues that come up with my clients.

Ms. A and Mr. B have been in a relationship for one year. Ms. A keeps getting angry at her partner, Mr. B, because she feels that he doesn’t do much in the house while she does everything. Ms. A then becomes riled up every time she feels she is doing more than Mr. B. For instance, Ms. A feels like she always has to initiate dates because, if left to Mr. B, they’ll never have them. Ms. A feels resentful in both planning dates and waiting on Mr. B. She says things to Mr. B like, “You don’t care. It’s always on me. You never do anything for us!”

In couples counseling, Ms. A learns to speak from her heart, beginning sentences with “I.” This, in turn, makes Mr. B respond directly to her.

Ms. A: “I feel overwhelmed and frustrated. I feel like I’m doing a lot in this relationship. I feel alone and hurt because of this.”

(Mr. B is forced to respond to his partner’s personal feelings and needs.)

Mr. B: “I’m sorry. It’s not my intention to hurt you or make you feel alone. I guess because you never say anything, I assume that you don’t need help, or you’re fine with the way things are.”

(Ms. A is forced to respond to Mr. B’s lack of knowing, trusting that he didn’t mean any harm.)

Ms. A: “Well, I take responsibility for that. I’ll tell you if it’s bothering me in the future, but I also need to you to share the responsibilities, too. Like, if I cook, I think it’s only fair if you do the dishes. Is that okay?”

(Now Ms. A and Mr. B are negotiating elements of their relationship.)

Mr. B: “Sure. That’s fair. I’m okay with that. Anything else?”

Ms. A: “I would really like it if we could go on a date once a month, and I don’t have to plan it by myself.”

Mr. B: “I’m not great at remembering to do that. I’m just not a spontaneous guy. But, if it’s always on the calendar, it’s a lot easier for me to remember. How about we go on a date every first Saturday of the month? Then we know it’s coming and can plan it together?”

Ms. A: “Yeah, that works. I’m up for that.”

Mr. B: “Cool.”

Granted, this example makes it look easy. In reality, it takes a great deal of compromise between the two parties to make certain elements and needs work in their relationship. Ms. A and Mr. B stopped the cycle of “being right” and moved into “being in a relationship” by working at it: speaking from the heart (beginning sentences with “I”), listening and reflecting understanding, ending with negotiating elements of the relationship, and trusting in their genuine care and love for one another. The process brought them through a tough spot and into a deeper understanding.

Relationships are both tough and wonderful. Some times it takes grunt work, but if both parties are up to it, it can be a truly rewarding experience.

Dramatic activities are powerful tools when used in a family therapy setting. One such tool is called psychodrama. An example of one type of psychodrama is family sculpting. The first step involves determining who has a sense of readiness to do their family sculpting at this time. I generally ask this question to the group and then wait to see who is interested in doing work. If more than one person is interested, I encourage each person to talk about how important it is for them to do work now, versus considering a later date. Whoever has the most pressing need is then afforded the opportunity to do the sculpting.

The individual is then asked to intuitively pick an event or an occasion from their childhood to present to the group. I ask them arbitrarily to pick an event or circumstance from when they were five years old. Later in the sculpting they are asked to pick additional events from age 10 and then eventually age 15. I will say more about this later. The person going through the sculpting is asked to choose a support person to be with them throughout the psychodrama. The person chooses someone he/she feels a connection with and feels safe around. As the individual recalls the setting, and whatever happened, he/she is asked to talk about the other people involved. As the individual introduces the people involved in the original setting, he/she is asked to choose somebody to play the part(s) of those initially involved.

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This is typically the stage of the sculpting where the individual really starts to sense the realness of what is about to happen. They begin to develop a sense of who might trigger the original mannerisms or energy that people possessed in the original setting. Paying attention to who the person chooses for each role can also reveal projections that the individual may have toward other group members. That is one of the reasons it becomes very important to de-role at the end of the sculpting. Once all of the participants are chosen, the individual then places them in the room according to where they would have been in the original setting and in relationship to where the individual him/herself was in the original scene.

The person then provides information about each individual, so that the people playing the roles will have a sense of what their character might say and how they might act. They can ask questions until they feel a degree of comfort with the role. This is typically a place in the activity where I assure the participants that I have a sense of their role and I will help them if they get stuck. I also make it clear that, if what they are saying does not seem accurate or helpful, I will intervene and provide direction.

While overseeing the group I remain available to be there for emotional support for the person being sculpted. The co-therapist may be asked to play a role. If he/she is not in a role then he/she can help provide information or direction to the participants. This person also plays the important role of tracking the group and must pay close attention to anyone who gets triggered into some of their own trauma as a result of the intensity and/or realness of the psychodrama.

The individual may choose someone to play his/her part in the drama or may play the role him/herself. This is determined through discussion between the individual and the group leaders. The main criteria for the person being involved as him/herself, is generally whether he/she feels prepared to get emotionally connected with the original pain or not. If he or she is not sure of the degree of readiness, it is better to move in the direction of not having a role for him/herself.

Someone experiencing psychodrama for the first time generally does better being less connected emotionally through having someone else play their role. This also allows him/her to see how impacted he/she was by the traumatic event, from the outside. This potentially provides an opportunity to be there for his or her own hurt parts that are revealed through the sculpting process. By getting to see their internalized process be externalized, the person, in some cases, makes their first connection with these hurt part(s), and thus begins to learn to acknowledge and be there emotionally for these parts of him/herself.

In this article I want to focus on one particular aspect of recovering from an affair: punishing the offending partner.

I am frequently asked, “How long is this pain going to last?!” That’s impossible to answer, but I do know one way to shorten the life span of your pain, and perhaps shorten the recovery process. What’s my secret? If you’re punishing your partner, stop. Why? Because punishment can slow the recovery process, thereby extending the pain you are working so hard to reduce.

In my office, I frequently hear the injured party telling their partner, “I want you to hurt for as long as possible, just like I do. You’re just going to have to take this punishment and deal with it!” The punishment begins in a wide variety of forms that ultimately prolong the injured party’s pain. In the early stages of recovery, dishing out punishment seems to provide the injured party a semblance of control after feeling profoundly powerless, helpless, and deeply wounded.

The Downsides to Punishment

First of all, punishment can lead to bitterness in one or both partners. Bitterness is swallowing a poison pill hoping the other party will die.

Second, it delays recovery due to the need for more repair. Punishment causes additional pain to a relationship already suffering on several levels. More pain means more recovery work. More recovery work takes more time. Inflicting emotional pain in someone else seldom leads to relief from our own pain because our brains are simply not wired to do that.

Punishing the offending partner means the injured party is working at cross purposes. For example, let’s pretend you are the injured party. Part of you wants to stop feeling so terrible and get your life back, perhaps save the relationship, or try to figure out whether or not the relationship even can be saved. Another part of you wants your partner to suffer, so you punish them. But punishing your partner, although understandable, only adds more pain to the relationship. The pain you feel as a result of the affair is real, deep, and pervasive. Adding pain to one side of the relationship while simultaneously trying to reduce it on the other side simply will not work. It is impossible to repair something that is simultaneously being damaged.

Alternatives to Punishment

1. Realize that your desire to punish is normal, but it’s the consequence of your own pain.
2. Understand that purposely causing pain for pain’s sake in your partner will not relieve your pain in the long run, even if it seems to provide a short-lived sense of satisfaction.
3. Talk with your partner in detail about your pain! Expressing your pain gives you a greater likelihood of being heard and understood. It also provides an opportunity for your partner to experience their own pain derived from losing your trust, damaging their credibility, and losing their integrity, not to mention the realization that the relationship is in jeopardy. Punishment may divert them from facing those important issues and emotions.
4. Remember, bitterness and punishment are damaging.

Think about it: If punishing the offending party must play a role, try to make it short-lived and limited. For when it persists, bitterness may take over, individual- and couple-healing is stalled, and your pain and recovery will be prolonged. Recovery from an affair is a long, arduous process, but the recovery process can be shortened if punishment stops. If need be, find a good counselor to help out.

How do you find a counselor who has an understanding of infidelity recovery? Ask if they have read Peggy Vaughan’s book, The Monogamy Myth. If not, look until you find a counselor who has. And if you haven’t read it, do so.

If you and your partner really want to do yourselves a favor, attend one of Brian and Anne Bercht’s workshops for couples recovering from an affair.

Limit the punishment, reduce your pain, and shorten the recovery process.

The final alcoholic family role I’d like to discuss in the context of recovery is the lost child. This is the child who stays under the radar, invisible, quietly decamping to his/her room, disappearing behind a stack of empty booze bottles or cloud of marijuana smoke. To paraphrase D.W. Winnicott, for a child it is normal to hide, but a tragedy not to be found.

What happens when a lost child gets clean and sober? To understand this, we have to look at what happened to make this child “lost” to begin with. This child, in a way, becomes, almost literally, a skeleton in the family’s closet. The child’s disappearance serves the dysfunction of the family in that this child will never divulge the family’s skeletons. There are many “elephants in the room” in such families; sometimes untreated addiction, other times abuse or neglect. The family’s collective shame must be hidden; the lost child serves as a kind of metaphor for what is repressed. When a child like this stays lost, he learns that his needs don’t matter, and so the adaptive hiding strategy becomes a way of life, later to be soothed and narcotized by the powder, needle, or bottle (as well as a series of codependent relationships).

The ambivalence this child struggles with in new-found sobriety arises from the advantages and disadvantages of the lost role. On the one hand, this person has protected his/herself from the vortex or volatility of the chaotic family dynamic. He/She has not had to enter into the fray and risk attack, injury, or humiliation. Invisibility becomes the best form of defense.

On the other hand, he/she lives with a kind of emotional anorexia and is a prime target for a host of destructive behaviors: self-harm (cutting, burning), eating disorders, sexual compulsivity, codependence, addiction, and so forth. This child wants to be heard, needs to be heard—but is terrified of being heard. Being heard means facing the feelings beneath the cloak of invisibility, and risking the judgment and/or abandonment of the family members who rely on him/her to stay quiet. Such a person carries heavy feelings of shame, guilt, rage, isolation, and a longing for (and terror of) human connection.

The question of whether the family can be helpful or destructive, as the child gets sober, hinges, not so much on the degree of the family’s past dysfunction, but on their current willingness to get honest and authentic. This family support, of course, is preferable to the lost child, more so than accusations of the child being bad by forcing them to look at long-hidden family secrets.

The family may consciously yearn for his/her sobriety while unconsciously defending against their own shame and guilt. I once knew the father of a l0st daughter, newly sober (my client); he was often enraged at her for a variety of puzzling reasons, until I discovered that he himself was an alcoholic who was terrified of having to face his own problems. His words said “get healthy” but his behavior said “let’s keep things as they were.”

It only takes one relatively balanced member of the immediate family who is willing to align with this newly sober lost person, and live in honesty rather than deceit, to bolster the addict’s support system. Having just one family member on board who loves and accepts the addict, who is not overly threatened by his/her recovery, can bolster a sense of hope. This actual relationship can shed light on the addict’s (usually futile) attempts—prior to sobriety—to find surrogates for lost family members.

Of course, the addict’s partner or family members often cannot or will not accept their loved one’s condition and desire to change, and are threatened by the prospect of recovery. They may defend this terror by insisting on seeing addiction as a moral failing or weakness. Still, the addict has a chance of success, as always, though the recovery work proves more formidable: this is a case that requires immediate support-building, as the lost person begins speaking the truth and breaking the bonds of repression. Like all addicts, he/she will require the support of a sober community, therapy, and intensive recovery work. Being rewarded with love, acceptance and higher self-esteem is often strong inspiration.

It is still amazing to me how threatened alcoholic family members become as their loved one becomes healthier; as order is threatening to chaos, health is threatening to the ideology of sickness, which casts a black pall over everything and fosters a sense of futility. Thankfully, recovery can lift the black veil of these (mis)perceptions, when the addict is truly ready to surrender and begin the slow, sometimes grueling, but always worthy, path towards wellness. This can happen without the aid and support of loved ones, but recovery comes easier when family, too, is willing to change.

In part I of this series, Family Ties: Support for Family Members with Alcoholism, I discussed what happens when members of alcoholic families, who are alcoholic themselves, get sober. The members of these families tend to fall into certain behavioral patterns, or roles, which classically include: the hero, the scapegoat (or identified patient), the mascot, the lost child, and the caretaker. I want to further explore the patterns I have observed in my clinical experience working with individuals and their families, both in my private practice and in a 30-day residential treatment program.

What’s interesting to observe is how the entire family dynamic changes once their loved one gets sober. I never cease to wonder at how a person’s stabilization in treatment often leads to an increase in their family’s anxiety. Thus, as soon as the person completes detox and starts showing signs of improvement, the parent or sibling or spouse of the person will call the staff in a more anxious state than ever. This, of course, is a sign that the family’s homeostasis is changing, which is terrifying to a dysfunctional system (which tends to reject change)—another reminder that, to paraphrase James Masterson, people often come to therapy or treatment to feel better, not necessarily to get better (Masterson & Lieberman, 2004).

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What happens when a family mascot enters the treatment process for alcoholism or addiction? The mascot is someone who lessens family anxiety by providing distraction and deflection, often via humor and comic relief. Here is the “class clown” who can break tension by cracking wise at precisely the right time.

Keep in mind that family members may play more than one role simultaneously; for instance, I once worked with an individual who was a recovering alcoholic—and a stand-up comedian. Quite a good one, in fact. Fortunately, he was able to provide insight and painful emotional truth, along with the laughs. The good news with such a person is that humor is often a filter for truth, so if he/she can step out of the spotlight and get in touch with the pain of addiction, without deflecting it with humor—or to enhance rather than distract from truth—then recovery can begin.

The problem is when the person tries to re-enter the family system. Family members are inevitably going to find themselves unsettled, antsy, perhaps even critical of the clown who sheds the mask. Very often you will hear people say of a recovering mascot, “She used to be so funny, now she’s kind of boring” or “He’s so serious now that he’s sober, what happened to the exciting guy I used to know?” What often happens when a mascot (or any such family member) gets sober, is that the other members (or even close friends and co-workers, etc) are now left with an absence of deflection, or distraction, which creates a void—filled, inevitably, with each persons’ unexamined problems. Now the sibling, parent, or spouse of the mascot no longer has the luxury of distraction, and that anxiety must be contained and processed by a system that is inherently uncomfortable with owning or processing anxiety healthily.

Thus, the mascot may be left with feelings of guilt, shame, self-criticism—the usual feelings that come with early sobriety—magnified by a dysfunctional family system which gives lip service to sobriety but, in fact, isn’t exactly sure how to deal with it. This person may feel they are causing the anxiety in a family, when it’s been there all along: in subterranean form. This speaks, again, to the importance of viewing alcoholism as a family disease in which each person is required to look at his/her “stuff” without passing the buck any longer (i.e. shaming/blaming, etc). For each member, this process will at first feel very uncomfortable. But getting better does not guarantee feeling better, at least in the beginning. Paradoxically, the constant laughter and tension-breaking shenanigans of the mascot, within an actively-addicted family system, has drowned the pain that must now be dealt with head on, if the system is to truly have a shot at health.

Sadly, this did not happen with the sober comedian I mentioned earlier. With sobriety came anger on the part of his spouse, much of which was justified, given the destructive way he behaved in his addiction. However, she refused to acknowledge the fresh start his sobriety provided, declined to get help via al-anon or counseling; in turn, he blamed her for his feelings of guilt, shame, and (eventually) rage. Neither took responsibility, or found healthy support, and word has it that he is now drinking and using with abandon while his wife is hurt, angry, and seeking divorce.

References:

1) Masterson, J. & Lieberman, A. (2004). A Therapist’s Guide To The Personality Disorders. Phoenix, AZ: Zeig, Tucker & Theisen.

Family harmony is a dream we all share. Wouldn’t it be great if we could function, day to day, like our favorite television families? Sure, life would come along with a one-two punch, but because we are so connected, in sync, funny, and resilient, by the end of the day we would land on our feet, together. Whether you relate more to the family of The Cosby Show, Malcolm in the Middle, or Family Guy, those families always come out wiser and still united in the end.

Real families aren’t so predictable. Marriage, child rearing, going to work, moving across the country, cleaning the house, going to school, loaning or borrowing money, having medical problems, dealing with one another’s moods; this is family life. It’s a messy marathon, and some of us find the experience more painful than others. Into some families comes divorce, or alcoholism, or mental illness, perhaps poverty or abuse. These families struggle to be connected and have positive relationships. And with enough pain, some of us walk away from our families and never look back.

There are times when it may be wise to create some emotional distance from our relatives. We don’t need to be intensely involved with every member of our family all the time. Our family systems have their own sense of rhythm. Varying closeness and distance is a natural process that brings balance in the dance of maintaining manageable emotional energy. We all do it, and it is a function of every close relationship we have.

Some of us have the experience of deliberately cutting off connection, particularly with one or both of our parents, for an extended period of time. We have another argument, the phone gets slammed down, and something inside us closes. We have run out of energy to explain, defend, and extend ourselves and we just need a rest from that intensity. Such periods of distance and recovery are common in families. You may be in one of those periods right now. It may feel like a burden has lifted, and you vow you’ll never go through that, whatever that was, again.

But here’s the thing: while shorter times of disconnect won’t interfere in your life, years of emotional shunning can. When we cut out a key family relationship from our life, it takes quite a bit of energy to keep that emotional door closed. And, any positive emotional energy that that relationship could provide us with is gone. While the bad stuff is not active, neither are the benefits. We compensate for that missing support, interaction and connection by leaning more heavily on other close relationships, like our marriage, our children, and our job. Our other relationships can take the extra expectations for awhile, but they can’t provide extra emotional stability indefinitely. Those relationships can get stressed. And then instead of one cut-off relationship, people can find that they are being distanced or shut out by other key relationships. Loneliness, isolation, and distress can erupt, seemingly, “out of nowhere.”

I believe that we are better-balanced human beings when we strive to maintain some measure of openness and connection with all the key people in our family system. It’s like the water pipes that feed my basement sink. In Minnesota, winter temperatures can dip well below zero. I’ve discovered that when the temperature is that low, the pipes to that sink can freeze. Frozen water pipes are one problem I don’t want. I have learned that if I keep the faucets slightly dripping on the coldest of nights, I prevent a huge problem. Drip, drip, drip: that’s all it takes to keep my pipes working. Drip, drip, drip is all the energy you really need to expend to keep connected to the most difficult family members in your life. You don’t need to open your emotional “faucets” very far to prevent your own emotional system from freezing up.

This can look like a birthday card, a call on a holiday, an invitation to a family event. It can mean returning an email graciously, showing up for an anniversary dinner, knowing your parent’s cell phone number. It means simple connection, the kind that keeps families functioning, particularly at times of high anxiety or emergency. I don’t want to have the first connection I have with my mother for years be in the Intensive Care Unit of the local hospital.

For me, it boils down to this: we need each other, particularly our core family members, to be in our emotional world. Don’t cut someone off from your life completely. The relief you feel is short lived, and the pain can last a lifetime.