Do You Know Why You Do What You Do?

Most people don’t, actually.

I mean, they say they do. But when you ask them, their answers sound like they’re looping around in circles.

For example, ask Tom why he got mad at his wife, Andrea.

He’ll say something like, “DrDeb, I get along with everybody. At work, I’m a valuable team member. In sports, they think I’m a valuable player. It’s only at home that my wife ticks me off.”

I might answer with, “Yeah that’s normal. But why is that?

“I don’t know; you’d have to ask her,” Tom might reply.

Huh?

It’s his  feelings, his behavior. How in the world would asking her get my answer?

But, see, he’s being sneaky, here.

He’s pretnding that I’m supposed to ask her what her reason is for purposely getting under his skin.

Which is the #$@% silliest thing.

It’s his skin that she got under and only he would know what it was about Andrea’s behavior that caused the feelings he had.

But the problem is that Tom actually doesn’t know. And doesn’t want to know.

What’s more, he’d rather blame Andrea because then he doesn’t have to look at himself.

Classic case #1

Andrea had a beauty parlor appointment and after she got there, she learned it was cancelled. Of course she was annoyed, but she realized that humans make mistakes and that was that.

Tom, on the other hand, told her that if someone canclled an appointment on him, he would have hit the roof. He could not understand why it didn’t bother her so much.

For her part, Andrea couldn’t understand why Tom would be bothered to such a degree by such a small thing.

Classic case #2

Andrea was asked to participate in a charity drive. She was so annoyed at the organization that she did not want to participate at all. Why? Because they never invited her to be the Guest Speaker even though she has gone all over for years doing public speaking.

Tom couldn’t understand that. Because he was a more quiet guy, he wouldn’t even want to be a public speaker. And she could not understand why he would not feel slighted the way she did.

Classic case #3

Tom was fuming when their adult son disagreed with his choice of stock investments. “Does he not respect my abilities? My years of investing?” he muttered.

Andrea couldn’t see what the problem was. She realized that their son was approaching investing from a different perspective than her husband and that he was entitled to do so.

She told Tom, “Look, Mike believes in slow and steady wins the race. He’s young and can afford to plan for the long term. You, on the other hand, always worried you’d run out of time so you wanted the get-rich-quick approach. It’s simply two different ways of looking at it.”

Tom was not convinced nor were his hurt feelings soothed.

***

And these are just things that trigger and bother them that don’t even have to do with each other!

Imagine how painful – and confusing – it must be when they each trigger the other and neither one understands what made the sting so much worse when the trigger came from the person they’re supposed to love most in the world.

So Why Does This Happen?

That’s the question!

As a therapist/detective, here’s my answer: If you are ever betrayed, the worst betrayal in the world is the one that comes from your parents when you’re a child.

The place of safety from the world should be the arms of mom or dad. If, instead, those arms reject you or the mouth offends you or the mind dismisses you or the person is simply not there, then that’s a betrayal.

And it hurts.

It stings.

And the sting stays buried underneath all the growing and advancing in life that you do. So you can be 30, 40, 50 or 60, hold a highly responsible position and still have a hurt and frightened little child inside.

That child is well protcted from the slings and arrows of life by your outside tough behavior and appearance.

So the world thinks you’re tough. But we know different.

Your toughness is a cover for the truth of how easily hurt or frightened or offended you can be.

And it will be more apparent with your family because they – like your parents – are the people you trust most in the world. So the slightest little thing will bring back the old sensations at a deep level, perhaps an unconscious level, of being betrayed.

See, even though you “learned” not to trust your family, that learning doesn’t go too deep. The small child inside you will naturally yearn for the love and tenderness that was not there from parents.

You then switch that over to expecting it from your partner, even if you’re not consciously aware of that.

And of course, your partner can’t ever make up for what your parents didn’t give you. Not only that, they shouldn’t.

They shouldn’t because they’re your equal, or at least, they are suppoed to be. That means they expect something from you back in the way of compassion and understanding.

Well, it’s hard for you to give that compassion or that understanding when you’re still hurting inside!

So both of you will end up saying that the other person doesn’t meet your needs. Because it is only from a spouse that you even have those needs.

And that is the reason why your spouse will get under your skin when no one else will: No matter how tough you are on the outside, you still have those same needs on the inside, needs that only a spouse can meet.

So What Do You Do About It?

Just admitting the above ^^^ is the first step.

Most people won’t.

Logically, they would be in better shape if they did but they still can’t.

That’s because admitting this truth makes them vulnerable to more hurt, more betrayal.

(Right? Just saying that someone has hurt you or has the power to do so is being vulnerable.)

And those tough protectors inside will not let this happen. They’ve been working too many years protecting you to allow it.

On the other hand, if two people are too fed up, they might take the awful step toward the big “D.” And that represents an eveen greater loss – loss of the family feeling, loss of companionship, loss of all the years that you “tried” but got nowhere, loss of the dreams you had for the future.

It’s for that reason that people will often wait til they’re at the brink before reaching out to me. That’s normal. But then I say, “Okay, we could work on fixing this – and it is fixable – but it will take time.”

It will take time for

--the protectors inside you to trust us that we can solve the problem

--the protectors inside to trust you that you won’t get terribly hurt in the process

--you to start putting together the emotional pieces of the puzzle even though you’ve avoided those particular emotions your whole life.

But it’s doable. Reach out to me and we'll talk about it.

• Emotion regulation
• Relationships