I work with individuals who would never allow another person on the whole of planet earth speak to them in the abusive and disrespectful ways they allow their spouse/partner/child/teen treat them on a daily basis and, usually, the abuse is mutually tossed back and forth like a pinless hand grenade, waiting to see who explodes first.
They claim to love each other, but their words clearly minimize, and even negate, these claims, with chronic criticism, judgement, blame, labeling, diagnosing, contempt, belittling, intimidation, manipulation, etc, etc, and their children learn the vocabulary of psycho-emotional power and control, because this same blatant control drama between spouses/partners is often used to control children/teens.
You cannot love someone you do NOT respect, because respect is the foundation of love. You can claim an obligation to love another based on blood, but if you have NO respect for that person, then your actions are empty and merely veil the truth. But, miraculously, the truth always rises to the top as observed in your actions (since actions always speak louder than words)
There are 7 billion people in the world and each wants love expressed and received in 7 billion different ways, making "love" a very vague and shadowy concept to pin down and define (other than neuro-chemically. See sidebar)
RESPECT: "A feeling of admiring someone or something that is good, valuable, important, etc. A feeling or understanding that someone or something is important, serious, etc., and should be treated in an appropriate way." LINKRespect is quite easy to define and we all know when we are receiving it and when we are not. "Love" is vague and often obscure, but respect is clear and palpable. You may often wonder if another loves you, but you know immediately when they do NOT respect you.
If you have no respect for your spouse or partner, then going out on a "date night" (the usual lame therapeutic assignment) is a complete waste of time. If your contempt and disrespect for another makes it a chore to call them by their first name, then writing "love notes" is not for you. If you feel a slight nausea upon hearing your spouse/partner arrive home from work then "I feel" statements may be ineffectual.
Disrespect demands estrangement, because you have no interest in understanding those you do NOT respect and chronic disrespect will eventually lead to utter contempt. Through contempt we become strangers and strangers are incapable of love, but they are capable of hatred. In war, we hold our enemies in contempt and that makes it easier to hate them.
CONTEMPT: a feeling that someone or something is not worthy of any respect or approval. A lack of respect for or fear of something that is usually respected or feared. LINKExperiencing years of criticism, judgment and blame will bring you to one exclusive destination, a state of utter contempt and once your brain becomes hardwired for contempt, reacting from scorn and resentment will become habitually reflexive, with normalized, abusive, knee jerk responses simply a part of your daily routine, i.e., washing the dishes, eating dinner, brushing your teeth.
Yet, like any other behavioral addiction, you can engage a healing process that requires you abstain from habitualized, reflexive responses, substituting more healthy and adaptive interactions. This requires a great deal of intensive work and must include the potential for relapses due to the addictive nature of the scripted narratives you have been engaged in all these years.
The problem is that the work needed to abstain from addictive interactions becomes so long and arduous that most are simply not up to the task and the dysfunctional patterns their brain has become hardwired to engage will manifest in every future relationship.
Work it out now or take it with you wherever you go...
The Subconscious Circularity of Predictable Puppets
If You Married to be Happy, then it's no Wonder Your Miserable
Marital Brain Damage and the Nuclear Option
MODERN LOVE: Mutually Assured Destruction
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