Questions and Answers: Desperate

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From an evolutionary point of view, it should come as no surprise that there is a connection between our mental lives, including our attitudes and values, and our physical lives, including our own and our families material survival and prosperity. The study of the connection between our mental and material lives is what I call “Psychoeconomics,” which we might explain as, “investments of the self.” From this point of view, our beliefs about how we should behave in many situations in life, including marriage and family, have an economic foundation, although it may not be explicit.

It can happen that the various investments of one’s self come into conflict. This email seems to describe such a situation. Having made a number of psychoeconomic investments, the writer now finds that she is at risk of having to maintain them at the cost of her sense of being a person of value in her own right, or risk losing them to recover her self-respect.

Shelly writes (in caps):

I WRITE OUT OF DESPERATION.  DON'T KNOW WHICH WAY TO TURN OR WHAT STAND TO TAKE.

I HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR 21 YEARS.  MY HUSBAND AND I HAVE A HISTORY OF ARGUMENTS.  ALWAYS (IN MY EYES) BECAUSE WE DIFFER IN VIEWPOINT.  I FIND MYSELF SOMETIMES ANNOYED AT, NOT HIS SUGGESTION OF THINGS BUT HOW HE SAYS IT.  HE FEELS HE HAS TO TAKE THE HARD, ALMOST "PUTTING ME DOWN" LINE TO DO  WHAT HE SAYS OTHERWISE I WON'T.  THAT REALLY UPSETS ME.  EARLY DAYS I WOULD FIGHT MY POINT HARD TOO BUT THEN FIND HE REFUSES TO SEE WHERE I AM COMING FROM AND MAKES NO ATTEMPT TO MAKE UP AND MOVE ON.  BECAUSE I LOVE HIM, I PUT MY PRIDE ASIDE AND TRY TO MAKE UP.  HE WILL ONLY DO SO WHEN HE IS GOOD AND READY, LEAVING ME TO TORMENT OVER IT FOR LONGER.

I FOUND THAT HE NEVER LIKED ME CORRECTING HIM.  HENCE GRADUALLY I HAVE FOUND MYSELF WITHDRAWING FROM IT, JUST TO AVOID ISSUES.  AS A RESULT THOUGH I FIND I HAVE LESS AND LESS TO SAY AT DINNER PARTY CONVERSATIONS FOR FEAR OF HAVING AN OPINION OTHER THAN HIS.  WORSE STILL, I FIND MYSELF SUPPORTING HIM EVEN WHEN IT IS NOT REALLY HOW I FEEL.

WE RUN A BUSINESS AND WORK TOGETHER.  AGAIN BECAUSE WE DIFFER IN VIEWS ON HOW TO DO THINGS,  WE ARGUE ALOT.  OVER THE TIME I HAVE WITHDRAWN MYSELF FROM MORE AND MORE DUTIES AT WORK, HOPING NOT TO BRING HOME MORE ISSUES FROM WORK TO OUR PERSONAL LIFE.  THIS HAS LEFT ME FEELING INADEQUATE AND NOT APPRECIATED.  HE HAS CHOSEN TO SEE MY GRADUAL WITHDRAWAL FROM WORK AS NOT WANTING TO WORK.  HE REFUSES TO SEE THAT HE HAS MADE IT VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME TO WORK WITH HIM.  EVERY DECISION TO BE MADE HE HAS AN INPUT ON.  IN THE END I AM LEFT SECOND GUESSING EVERY DECISION OF MINE.  YET HE SAYS THINGS LIKE " CAN'T YOU MAKE A DECISION BY YOURSELF".  WHEN I DO HE MANAGES TO FIND FAULT WITH IT.  " IS THIS THE BEST YOU CAN DO" IS WHAT HE HAS TOLD ME ON OCCASION.

I SUPPOSE BECAUSE WE HAVE SWEPT SO MANY ISSUES UNDER THE CARPET THAT IT IS QUITE HARD TO HAVE ANY REASONABLE DISCUSSION OF ISSUES BECAUSE HE ONLY SEES HIS VIEWPOINT AS CORRECT AND DOES NOT WANT TO CONSIDER MINE. I TOO CAN'T ACCEPT BLAME AT TIMES ‘CAUSE I HONESTLY DON'T SEE WRONG IN WHAT I MAY HAVE DONE OR SAID.  HE IS EXTREMELY CONVINCING AND SO OFTEN LEAVES ME THINKING THAT I HAVE BEEN UNREASONABLE AND CAUSED ALL THE STRIFE.

LATELY HE HAS BEEN EMBARRASSING ME BY CUTTING ME SHORT DURING CONVERSATIONS IN FRONT OF OTHERS.  LATER CLAIMING I INTERRUPTED HIM FIRST.

I GAVE UP MY CAREER PATH TO JOIN HIM IN HIS BUSINESS WHEN WE GOT MARRIED.  I HAVE SUPPORTED HIM WITH DECISIONS OF HIS WHEN EVEN HIS FAMILY DID NOT.  I HAVE, TO SAVE FACE, GRADUALLY TAKEN A BACK SEAT IN THE BUSINESS AND LET HIM MAKE ALL THE DECISIONS.  I AM NOT WORTHY TO BE A DECISION MAKING PARTNER BUT GET CALLED ON TO HELP WHEN SHORT STAFFED, ETC.  HOW DOES THAT MAKE ME FEEL.

I HAVE ALLOWED HIM TO TREAT ME LIKE THIS.

HE THREATENS ME WITH GOING OUR OWN WAY.

I DONT WANT THIS FOR MY KIDS.  IF ONLY HE COULD BE A LITTLE MORE REASONABLE AND REALIZE THAT I AM AN INDIVIDUAL AND WILL THINK DIFFERENTLY AT TIMES.  I AM A GOOD PERSON WITH NO VICES.  I USED TO BE A VERY HAPPY GO LUCKY, FUN LOVING CAREER PERSON.  NOW I AM LACKING CONFIDENCE AND A VERY, VERY SAD PERSON.

I HAVE SUGGESTED COUNSELING, BUT TO NO AVAIL.  AN OBJECTIVE PERSON’S VIEWPOINT WOULD BE GOOD FOR BOTH OF US.  THERE IS NO POINT IN JUST MYSELF ACCEPTING FAULT AND MAKING PROMISES NOT TO INITIATE ARGUMENTS, BECAUSE THAT IS HARD TO DO.  HE SEEMS TO BE ON THIS MISSION TO PICK FAULT WITH ME AND AND NOT WANT TO SEE THE WRONG IN IT AND ALSO NOT WANT TO BE REASONABLE.  IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN HIS TREND TO MAKE UP WHEN HE IS GOOD AND READY.

A LITTLE VOICE TELLS ME TO WALK AWAY, BUT I FEEL MAY BE SOMEONE NEUTRAL CAN MAKE HIM SEE MY VIEW TOO AND HOW HE'S HURTING ME, KILLING MY PERSONALITY AND  OUR MARRIAGE.  HE IS NOT A BAD PERSON.  IF YOU WERE TO ASK ME WHAT IS HIS MAJOR FLAW,  WELL I WOULD SAY THAT IN ANY DISCUSSION OR VIEWPOINT, HE FIGHTS HARD TILL THE END FOR HIS VIEWPOINT.  I CANNOT HAVE THAT SAME PRIVILEGE OR PASSION.

I AM WRITING THIS OUT OF SHEER DESPERATION FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S VIEW.  I URGENTLY NEED HELP.

I'M LOSING MYSELF.

Dr. Einhorn replies:

The psychologist John Gottman has studied communication in marriage for many years at the University of Washington in Seattle. He claims to be able to tell, with over 90% accuracy, within 15 minutes of observation of a couple's conversation, whether their marriage is likely to end in divorce. The key that he uses is the presence of contempt in the attitude of one or both partners toward the other. Contempt is always an indicator of trouble in a marriage, and the more contempt there is, Dr. Gottman tells us, the more likely the marriage will end in divorce.

It sounds like Shelly is suffering from her husband's contempt, and that she is keeping their relationship going despite the cost that she pays with important parts of herself; her self-respect as an individual, her self-esteem as a person of value to others. She certainly seems to be suffering a great deal, and may even be at risk for emotional or psychosomatic breakdown. That leads to the question of why she has remained in a situation which she finds so destructive for so long. Why hasn’t she insisted that her husband treat her differently, that they get into marital counseling if they can’t resolve their conflicts sufficiently without it, and if he prefers to dissolve the marriage rather than work with her to improve their relationship, then let that be his choice?

Psychoeconomically, the answer may be implicit in her description of her situation. Although she doesn't say so, it appears from her description that her sense of self is deeply invested in being a wife, mother, and business partner, and those investments appear to be working for her. She has been investing a lot of herself for a long time in those roles. If she were to insist that her husband treat her better or at least go into marital counseling as a step toward that, and if he were to remain firm in his threat to end the marriage rather than do so, she would become an ex-wife, a single mother, and who knows what might happen economically. Usually both partners, as well as the children, are poorer after divorce.

When Shelly writes that, after a conflict with her husband in which she perceived him to be mainly at fault, she gave in and tried to make up “because I love him,” that sounds, from a psychoeconomic point of view, something like this: “My investment in this relationship, in all its dimensions, is worth more to me than sticking up for myself, and trying to improve the relationship at the risk of losing it.” In the economy of the self, as the saying goes, ‘you pays your money and you takes your choice.’ But it’s not money as such that we pay with, although wealth is usually involved at some distance. We pay with our hearts, our souls, and our time in this life.

Let’s look at this in historical perspective. It wasn’t all that long ago, in historical terms, that women had no economic rights whatsoever; their entire economic lives were based on family relationships. In England, until several centuries ago, women couldn’t even own property in their own names. Their fathers, husbands and brothers had to leave property intended for their daughters, wives and sisters to each other, hoping that the bequests would be held in trust and given to their intended recipient. This attitude came over with early British immigrants; Dolley Madison, for example, was nearly deprived of her inheritance from her first husband after his death, by his brother, to whom her husband had left it for Dolley. She had to retain an attorney to get even part of it, and it wasn’t until she’d married James Madison, who intervened on her behalf, that the trustee actually fulfilled his trust. (Reported in A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation, by Catherine Allgor.) In 1765, a British judge went so far as to say that, “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband...” (W. Blackstone, 1765, in Krause, 1976, p. 127, italics added, quoted in my article Child Custody in Historical Perspective: A Study of Changing Social Perceptions of Divorce and Child Custody in Anglo-American Law, in the Spring, 1986, edition of the journal Behavioral Sciences and the Law.) Long after such problems have been remedied in English and American law, we are still struggling with the cultural residue of such attitudes.

Shelly has subordinated her self-respect and self-esteem as an individual to her self-respect and self-esteem as a wife, mother and business partner. She can’t reclaim her personal self-respect without jeopardizing her marital, family, and economic self-respect, all of which can substantially impact her social status and well-being. Shelly doesn’t seem to want to have to take the risk; she wants her husband to be changed.

The bottom line, from a psychoeconomic point of view, is that her husband isn't really Shelly’s problem, she herself is. There is a certain kind of psychological maturity that only begins when we acknowledge that we have a responsibility for our own state, and that we have to work on ourselves in order to take care of ourselves. Shelly doesn’t seem to have reached that threshold yet, and many people never do. “I am a good person with no vices,” she writes, as if to say, “I deserve to be happier because I am doing what I am supposed to!” But self-neglect, lack of necessary self-work, is a vice--a very widespread one in our time, in my opinion--and lack of taking responsibility for one’s life is too. Fritz Perls, the psychiatrist who hybridized psychoanalysis, zen meditation and psychodrama into "Gestalt Therapy," said that, although people come to therapy claiming to seek help to change themselves, what they really want is help getting other people to change. Which seems to be what Shelly really wants.

Shelly is right to the extent that she expresses a need for someone to help her to be more objective. A good therapist will go beyond just offering emotional support to help Shelly to mature psychologically by initiating some necessary self-work. In therapy, Shelly could reflect on how she’s gotten to where she is, what she’s gained and how she’s paid for it, and on what she needs to change within herself in order to live her life with self-respect; including how much she’s willing to risk losing in order to achieve that. Such a therapist would be one who could recognize the importance of each and all of the aspects of Shelly’s sense of self that we’ve considered--mother, wife, business partner, member of society, individual--and help her take responsibility for herself and set about rebalancing and integrating the different aspects of herself in a healthier way. The process is not painless or without risk, but neither is the status quo.

I wish her good luck.

Dr. Einhorn

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