Thursday, July 16, 2009

Kitchen-sink Fighters

As a Divorce Coach, my life and my career are dedicated to reducing the conflict that scars parents and children during the time while the marriage is ending and they are working to re-structure a post-divorce family. My passion is to show people better ways to interact, so that they and their children can move on.

So it may seem paradoxical that I actually DO advocate "fighting", but hear me out.

My good friend, Mark Rogers, refers to an argument as a "discussion with the heart heat turned up". This is an apt description. For most of us, when we feel passionately about a topic, we will bring emotional energy to it. If that topic is in disagreement with someone else, and if they are equally passionate about their position, a fight will ensue.

But there are ways to "fight" that can be healthy, and ways that are unhealthy. One of the ways that is unhealthy is when one of the parties simply swallows down their point, rather than present their position. This tactic masquerades as "peaceful", when in fact, the party who "stuffs" their emotions in this way is likely to suffer from serious health problems related to chronic stress, is likely to build resentment that can be fatal to the relationship, and is likely to "explode" when the pressure of all those stuffed emotions gets to be too much.

However, the other unhealthy fighting style that I wish to address in today's column is the "Kitchen-sink Fighter". You've probably already guessed what this person does in the fight: they throw in every accusation imaginable, every complaint, every past infraction, everything including 'the kitchen sink'. Rather than focus on the topic under discussion, this fighter rambles all over the place, engages in ad hominem attacks, and resorts to crazy-making tactics to distract and disrupt the argument. If you've ever observed this behavior, you may have found yourself wondering if the person really wanted to resolve the issue, or if they merely wanted to keep the fight going.

Sometimes, the Kitchen-sink Fighter is just a "Stuffer", going to the next phase. Having never gained resolution on any of the topics that they have previously stuffed, the Stuffer becomes a Kitchen-sink Fighter when the pressure of all of those previously unresolved issues finds a weak spot during the fight.

If you are engaging in conflict with a Kitchen-sink Fighter, what can you do? Practice some of these key phrases:

"I would like it if we can focus on this one issue for right now. Can we put those other issues aside for the moment?"

"I hear your concerns, however, I think we will get more accomplished if we keep working on resolving this one things, first."

"Would it help if we write these other ideas down, so that we can get back to them later? For right now, this one issue is the most important to me."

You can change up the words so that they feel more natural to you. The primary thing is to focus on the issue that you started with, promise your partner that you WILL come back to the other items, and put the emphasis on your own feelings, not on accusing the other person. For example, "you never stay on topic, all you ever do is ramble around" is not going to get you very far with your partner.

If you are a Kitchen-sink Fighter, then ask yourself how that works for you. Do you find yourself accomplishing resolution to the issues you are attempting to address, or do you see yourself going around in circles? Would you rate your times with your coach, counselor, or mediator as effective time, or do you often feel that when you are done, all you did was waste your time?

If you realize that being a Kitchen-sink Fighter is not working for you, then it may help to create an agenda. You might ask your coach or counselor to help you limit the topics in your sessions to just one, or maybe two topics at the most. If you've spent enough time to get to the third topic, then frankly, you are probably emotionally exhausted and due for a rest.

Working our way through conflicts, disagreements, and arguments is not a bad thing. Every human on the planet -- guess what, even the happily married ones -- finds themselves in disagreement with someone who is important to them, at some point or another. The difference is in what you learn to do with it.

Peace.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Shame -- the root of much bad divorce behavior

Recently, I asked a client of mine if she was ashamed of her "failed" marriage. She answered "no" -- that she did not feel shame at all. She was proud of the fact that she had had the courage to leave a marriage that was not working for her. Her self-esteem was growing as she discovered things about herself that she had suppressed during her marriage. And, she had a new love interest who was treating her with the dignity and respect that had been lacking from her ex-husband.

However, I pressed a little bit more, because there were things I was concerned about. Did she still attend the same church as she had during marriage? No. Why not? She just didn't feel as though she "fit in" anymore. Did she hang around with the same friends as before? No. Why not? Same reason.

And the coup de grace: how many times in the past week had she told someone her "divorce story"? Well, there was the hairdresser. And the air conditioning repairman. And the teller at the bank that she had spoken with about a bill that her ex-husband was supposed to pay but hadn't.

After an extended conversation, my client finally came to realize that she still felt very much ashamed of her failed marriage. She felt compelled to explain to everyone that it was not her fault, that she had done all that she could to save the marriage, and that it was her ex-husband, not her, who had committed adultery and subsequently filed for divorce.

Then we spent the next few minutes talking about all of the ways that shame can creep in, and the behavior that it can drive. When a person is ashamed of the outcome of their marriage, they will squander a lot of energy attempting to convince the world that they are not at fault; they are a victim; they are free of accountability. This sets the divorced person up for two potential problems.

One is, being a victim disempowers people. When a divorced person stays stuck in their victimhood, they cannot move on from the marriage. They have shackled themselves to a post-divorce world from which there is no obvious escape. This person often sabotages future relationships without even realizing what they are doing. This is the first date who can't stop talking about their "evil ex"; the co-worker who walks around sighing all the time whenever they aren't engaged in weepy, hush-toned personal phone conversations; the neighbor who whines about how difficult and overwhelming life is since that jerk or 'witch' left the family. The sad part is, most folks who are stuck in post-divorce purgatory don't realize it. They cannot figure out why their friends no longer want to hang around, why neighbors and church members avoid them, why they cannot ever seem to get that second date.

The other potential problem -- as mentioned before -- is that an ashamed divorcee is a bad-behaving divorcee. When a person cannot reconcile the failure of their marriage and feels compelled to redress the wrong, this leads to many of the classic maneuvers that so many divorcing people engage in. A "wronged" person can justify stalking their ex, sabotaging their ex, stealing from their ex, poor-mouthing their ex, harming their ex, and many of the other acts that take place during and right after divorce. This harms the ex, obviously; and the children of the divorce, also rather obviously... but what many divorcing spouses do not realize is that it harms them, as well.

As paradoxical as it seems, the path to overcoming victimhood is often accountability. It takes an acceptance that what happened is real, and it takes a willingness to courageously examine one's own contribution to the end of the marriage. Only then can a person feel empowered enough to rise above the wrongdoing of the other party.

And the key to accepting accountability is to face the shame. Face it head-on, admit that you hate walking around without that ring on your left finger, confess that you somehow feel "lesser" when you think about not being married any more. Wade unabashedly into that awful emotional milieu and own it. Utter the words out loud. "I feel embarrassed that I couldn't make my wife love me". "I feel ashamed when I go to church and everyone else there is married". "I feel like a failure when all of my children's friends come from 'intact' families". "I don't want anyone to know that my marriage didn't last". "I believe that being divorced makes me a bad person somehow". Whatever the feeling is, whatever the belief is, bring it out, and look at it. A coach or counselor can help you explore the feelings in an emotionally safe space, so that you can see what is triggering you, deep down below the place where you make decisions or choose behaviors.

A person who has faced their shame, lifted it out, addressed it, and disposed of it, gains several positive rewards. He or she can now move past the divorce itself. If the divorce is still being settled or negotiated, he or she can have clarity regarding which values are important to them -- which will help the parties reach an agreement more swiftly. Most important, a person who has reconciled their own shame and put it to rest, can then save all of the emotional energy that would have been squandered on protecting their psyche... and put it to use creating the next phase of their life, for themselves and for their children.

Shame is a part of any divorce -- in small quantities or large -- and can easily hide beneath other, more obvious emotions, or hide so well that the person experiencing it never even realizes that it's there. Removing shame, and creating a new life that is free of shame, should be a primary goal of any divorcing person and their coach.

Peace.