It started as a minor issue. Wayne had absent-mindedly told his oldest granddaughter that her mother was leaving on a vacation for which the child was not included. She wasn't supposed to know yet as no one wanted to deal with her disappointment in not getting to go with her mother.
But...it had been a stressful week at work, Lonnie and Wayne had been dealing with the anxiety of closing on a new house, and their oldest daughter, her husband, and three grandchildren were staying with them. They were doing a lot of childcare with three rambunctious children in too crowded a space while their adult children attended a friend's wedding. Then they were going to leave town without their children.
Wayne's slip had been the last straw, She lit into him. Rather than staying focused on her disappointment in the present, Lonnie's criticism quickly turned into a litany of Wayne's failures as a husband, as a father, and as a life partner.
Wayne's efforts to defend himself led to further disparagement, Why, his wife asked him, did he always defend himself instead of listening to her and focusing on her feelings?
Later, when she calmed down, she reminded him of how stressful her week was. "I wish you could realize these outbursts aren't really about you," she told him. To Wayne, this was just another criticism.
"I'm just a massive disappointment to her. She clearly doesn't love me. She has nothing good to say about me. Nothing I do is ever right, nothing I say is ever good enough" Wayne said in counseling.
“Can you think of an example or situation where that might not be true?”
This is a question counselors often ask clients who exaggerate negative thoughts. When people negatively interpret an experience, it's often because of an underlying core belief. Wayne had grown up with one parent who belittled his accomplishments and one who was neglectful. As a result, he struggled to feel loved.
Wayne tells himself this negative story about his relationship with Lonnie because he suffers from a need for external validation. Healthy egos have a set of intrinsic value based on core characteristics about which they feel good and which give them a sense of self assurance from which they can manage criticisms from others.
Wayne's core belief that he was unlovable had profound effects on his marriage. Wayne typically interpreted almost any failing on his wife's part -- miscommunications, failures to keep promises, losing her temper, failing to initiate or turning down his bids for sexual intimacy -- to indicate that she did not love him.
The question “Can you think of an example or situation where that might not be true?” encouraged Wayne to find examples of times that Lonnie did compliment him, praise him, and express love and affection for him. Identifying examples that did not confirm his claim allows him to to stretch and ultimately break his core belief that he was unlovable.
The next step was helping him replace the dark story he tells himself about his unhappy interaction with Lonnie for a more favorable way of framing his situation. Something like:
"Poor Lonnie. She is usually so even tempered and patient. This isn't really about me at all. She must be having a really awful week. I wonder what could I do to help her feel better?"
Was Lonnie out of line? Absolutely. Should they discuss her words and how Wayne felt in reaction to them? Definitely. But the time and place for that is the weekly marriage check-in meeting. Being defensive, arguing back, walking out, or giving her the silent treatment would not do Lonnie, Wayne, or their relationship any good.
Telling himself a positive story, one that focuses on Lonnie and her frustrations rather than Wayne's self-doubts, opens up opportunities for Wayne to reach out in a loving and supportive way--and instead of adding to Lonnie's frustrations, it invites an apology from her in ways that defensiveness does not.
Telling yourself positive stories has been shown to be a powerful tool with many long-term benefits, including seeing the positive side of setbacks and disappointing events (Affleck & Tennen, 1996), optimism (Seligman, 1998), and feeling and expressing gratitude (McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, & Larson, 2001).
It is also spiritually important. In this week's Gospel, Jesus describes himself as the Bread of Life and insists that only those who feed themselves on him will have life.
What do you feed your mind? If you fill yourself with fears, anxieties, jealousies, disappointments, and self-doubts, then those "foods" will poison your mind and spirit--and your relationships.
If you want more positive experiences and outcomes in life, start intentionally feeding yourself more positive thoughts.
How? Here's four simple suggestions to get you started.
One of the simplest ways to do this is to keep a daily gratitude journal. Spend five minutes before bed each night writing down three things you're grateful for. At least one of them should be about your spouse. Regularly engaging with positive thoughts in this way will make you more attuned to the good things in your life, which works wonders for your well-being. And re-reading your entries when you need a boost can be a marvelous tonic.
Learn more. There are many practical guides that may help you cultivate a positive approach in your interactions with your spouse and others. One successful book by a therapist that focuses on the stories we tell in relationships is The Stories We Tell Ourselves by R. Scott Gornto. Another is The Courage To Be Happy by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, which is written as a dialogue between a pessimistic youth and his mentor, and soundly rooted in Adlerian psychology. Kindra Hall's Choose Your Story, Change Your Life, although written primarily about stories that get in the way of self-confidence and success in professions, is clear and easy to read, and its lessons can be applied to your relationships.
Check your mental diet. What are you watching on TV? What are you reading? Where are you spending your screen time? How many thoughtful conversations are you having with your wife and friends about dreams, plans, hopes, and fears? In other words, are you feeding yourself a healthy mental diet that builds your self-esteem and gives you strong, virtuous role models? Or are you feeding yourself the unhealthy diet of fear and anxiety and moral ambiguity that comprises so much of contemporary media? "You are what you eat" refers to our minds and spirits as well as our bodies!
Pray and discern. Whether you call it an examination of conscience, discernment, finding God's plan for you, or the classroom of silence, prayerful meditation has always been central to Catholic teaching. You are called, in these moments, to humility. You are asked to focus entirely on your own actions, and your behaviors, and to take responsibility for them. Humility requires you to focus on your reactions to your spouse, and ask what you could have done differently. It's a chance to mentally exercise the virtues, in the hope of actually putting them into practice next time.
References:
Affleck, G., & Tennen, H. (1996). Construing benefits from adversity: Adaptational
significance and dispositional underpinnings. Journal of Personality, 64, 899-922.
McCullough, M. E., Kilpatrick, S. D., Emmons, R. A., & Larson, D. B. (2001).
Is gratitude a moral affect? Psychological Bulletin, 127, 249-266.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1998). Learned optimism. Pocket Books.
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