marriage counseling

In the last post, I set up a typical example of mixed messages. (By the way, in psycho-jargon, these are called “double binds” and they were discussed extensively way back by Gregory Bateson. Analytical people will enjoy Bateson.) Mary Lou, who delivered the mixed messages may have had an ulterior motive to doing so and I did not discuss that in that post. I also left open how Lloyd, her husband of 20 years, ought to handle the problem.

Let’s look at the ulterior motive possibility.

By the good fortune of technology, we can enjoy Abbot and Costello’s famous routine, “Who’s on first. What’s on second, and I-Don’t-Know is on third.” Those guys are still funny today.

It’s just not so funny when you’re married to someone who is sending mixed messages. In fact, it’s downright frustrating. But that may be exactly the point. Let me explain with a story.

“Be honest with me,” Mary Lou pleaded with Lou. “Did I do something wrong?”

Maybe neither of them is crazy. This poor woman sat in my office weeping; she thought she was going crazy. We’ll call her Caroline. Here’s what happened: Her husband, we’ll call him Phil, decided that she was having an affair. She insisted she wasn’t, but he refused to believe her.

8 – “You S.O.B”

This is overt name-calling. There’s no other label to pin on it but verbal abuse. And there is never any excuse for it no matter how frustrated you are and no matter how badly abused you have been by the person you’re giving it back to.

9 – “Nobody would want you”

Is it normal for one person’s happiness to be dependent on another person? Isn’t that co-dependent?

In my last two blog posts I addressed co-dependency. I explained that a key to understanding co-dependency is that while one person does something destructive, the other person benefits in some way.

Another key point is that the other person may be acting out of fear rather than love, and I gave some examples of what it would look like to cater to another person out of love or even patience. In these latter cases, I wouldn’t call the situation one of co-dependency.

In my last post, I defined co-dependency. The key ingredient in it is that the supposed “victim” gets something out of the spouse’s bad behavior. Today I want to look at it from a different angle.

It’s always bad to put labels on people—especially yourself—just by looking at the outer behavior. For example, a person with a tremor could have a brain dysfunction, a motor problem, delirium from a life of drinking, or plain old fear. How can you know which it is by just looking at his hands shaking?

Labeling oneself as “co-dependent” could be the same mistake.

Let’s take a case and see how it plays out:

I was delighted: more feedback! I love opening emails from people or seeing blog comments; I like that sense of conversation. When people post, I know I’m not talking to myself.

Imagine my surprise in reading a comment that I shouldn’t have said in a recent newsletter, “Let me know your thoughts.” Instead, I ought to have said, “Please.” And he or she was right.