If you fall in love (or are friends) with a man or a woman who reveals having had a very difficult childhood there are a few things of which you may want to be aware.
Keep in mind that I am only one voice in a vastly explored arena. It is usually a good idea to get lots of insights from several sources.
Sad thing is that if you have already fallen in love you probably won’t be looking for help.
If you are, it’s because you’ve already begun to see how tough it is to love tough-historied people. (I rather like my euphemism).
“Troubled” or “unsettled” are pejorative terms.
Avoid them.
People from tough backgrounds can be very exciting, motivated and “world-changing” people.
If you are going to be partners you have to learn and understand what kind of music is playing in their heads and hearts and how they dance to it or turn it up or turn it down or turn it off (if they ever can).
They will often be way ahead of most people in terms of being street wise. They have had to be. They have been watching, negotiating, recruiting, debating and have had to have an eye for undercurrents for so long such behaviors are a way of life for them.
They will usually be cunningly intelligent but also possess zero desire to bring harm to you or others.
More about this sometime….
Artist: Trevor Beach – google him or find him on Facebook and buy his art. The above and another hangs in my office. I enjoy the idea that an artist named Beach seems only to paint Ocean Scenes.
The problem with difficult childhoods in troubled families (pick your conflicts or addictions or stressors or health concerns – or a combination of several) is that children with difficult childhoods have had to dress for self-protection, and, as a lifestyle, have often had to prepare themselves for enduring domestic tensions or wars and regarded it as normal. This is how everyone lives isn’t it?
Once the child becomes an adult its difficult to shed engrained protection measures and essentials and throw off a guarded and conflictual lifestyle even if it’s no longer needed.
Carefree happy children may become carefree happy adults but it’s unlikely a stressed and anxious child will enter realms of stressfree bliss and trusting vulnerability on coming of age.
Adult survivors of difficult childhoods hear things like, “You’re so difficult to get to know,” and “You’re so difficult to get close to,” and “Why does everything have to be a fight?” and proceed with the hard work of adult life that mirrors the hard work of childhood wondering what on earth people are talking about.
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Unrelated to column: got some new art in our home today: Cameroon artist Patrick Yogo Oumar (see Instagram if interested).
Covering for someone so outsiders do not notice or find out about his or her undesirable behavior (drinking, gambling, addictive habits).
Relaying lies to a workplace – calling in to say he or she is ill when he or she is unable to work because of the addiction.
Permitting, turning a blind-eye, cooperating, letting things go unnoticed to keep the peace or because it feel easier.
Enabling behaviors are often subtle way of disguising who it is in a family who is in need of help. The enabler often appears to be the strong or the healthy one. Control is the name of the game – and family life can feel like one.
Empowering is common in healthy families.
It can involve:
Getting out of each other’s way so people can learn from errors and get credit for their successes.
Allowing natural consequences to follow choices so people can learn just how powerful really are.
Trusting and believing in each other even when things do not go to plan or appear to be falling apart.
Empowered people require the company of other empowered people and all require a strong sense of self. Freedom to discover and to learn are the hallmark of the empowered.
You’ve heard about an adrenalin rush. I’ve seen ego rush. I see it in in groups, teams, and in classrooms. I detect it rumbling in me. Perhaps it’s natural and part of survival.
Symptoms of an ego rush occurring:
Authentic conversation – the give and take and the sharing and building on ideas of others – seems impossible. It’s verbal arm-wrestling or nothing.
Perceived insults, rebuffs, refusals, or dismissals are stored. They lurk in awareness, crouched for attack when the timing is right.
What a person knows must be known and he or she will nudge and provoke until you share his or her belief in his or her superiority.
The ego will win by winning or it will win by losing but humility and backing down are not options.
Actual loss, perceived as humiliation, is temporary – a matter of perception. The “loser” will circle around and get even.
Everything spins around hierarchy and real engagement, the wrangling, is delayed until the hierarchy is figured out.
Conversations are calculated and are a means to advance an undisclosed agenda.
The presence of authentic humility escapes or confuses those caught up in the ego rush as much as witnessing or trying to engage in a conversation using a totally foreign language.
I’ve seen women and men painstakingly pick up pieces of their lives after a broken marriage.
This is necessary, natural, and understandable. Deep love, when it ends, at least for one party, is scarily disorientating.
Some never recover. A broken heart can really cause a slow (or a quick) death.
Perhaps you are you tripping over evidence of a terminated relationship. Letters, photographs, or books seem to appear from nowhere and evoke fresh pains or salt for the wounds.
A purge may be necessary, but it’s not for all.
The loot may be all you have. It can become a crucial stepping-stone to greater health. Or it can be a debilitating anchor.
I’ve been confused about why some friendships have ended. I examine memories for clues to what, how, and why things went wrong.
There are times this is unnecessary.
My damaging role is painfully clear.
The pain I caused is deep for others and obvious to me. And, my own and deserved pain is utterly near.
What do we do with our pain – deserved or not?
Options are unlimited once confession occurs.
Confession, of course, does not mean mutual forgiveness is inevitable. It’s not.
Options broaden with confession and commitment to learn from the past.
What is the year teaching you? Please, reflect and let me know. Here are a few things I am learning afresh and re-learning:
Trust broken is hard to restore. My experience is that forgiveness can restore broken trust but the ability to trust again can take a long time to restore. This is especially so with close friendships and infidelity in marriage.
No one is more important than anyone else. To be intimidated by another is a waste of opportunity and energy. Yes, we all have different roles. We are afforded a variety of degrees of power and responsibility that come with our varying roles, but using that power to lord it over another is the surest indication that the power is in the wrong hands.
Some individuals are so significantly hurt that the real person has disappeared behind shame, regret, and pretense. The defense has become the identity. The vulnerable person inside died a very long time ago and, sadly, will probably never be known.
Ignored conflicts and family issues that are unaddressed will remain and usually grow. The issues may change shape, may go into hiding, may remain latent for decades – but they will surface and get necessary attention.
I am very aware that people don’t analyze their connections in the manner I’ve described below. We’d have healthier communities and families if we did!
Will you search with me when I am searching, stand with me when I am standing, and drop to your knees with me in prayer if and when I need it? I will try to do the same for you.
Will you stand up to me with firmness and kindness when my many blind spots are blocking my thinking? I will try to do the same for you.
Will you join me and examine our connection (as casual acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors, partners, or spouses) so that we remain mutual and equal and respectful no matter the degree or significance of our connection?
Will you take time to listen to me? I will try to take time to listen to you?
Will you allow me my quirks and eccentricities and try to regard them as interesting rather than regard them as things you wish were different about me?
Will you seek my highest good as far as you are able given the knowledge we have about each other? I will try to do the same for you.
Will you try to be as unafraid of me as I try to be unafraid of you?
The Mercury / Monday 9/25/2017 / I have witnessed many fine acts of parenting:
The mother who sends her adult sons and daughters Mother’s Day cards with handwritten lists of joyous memories about what it has been like to be their mother. She has done this for so long that it was some years before the children (when they were children) even knew they were the ones who were supposed to send her cards.
The dad who traded in his own car and settled for a used car so he could give his son the sports car his son wanted.
The parents who each worked two jobs so the two sons did not have to assume significant debt to attend university.
The single mother who has the wherewithal to leave her daughter’s academic struggles up to her and who encourages her daughter to speak up about what she needs to her teachers.
The dad who packs his son’s lunch each day for school and who adds an extra pack for his son’s friend who once expressed to the boy that he wished that he too had a dad.
The dad who taught his son to share without ever saying it but by showing it at every turn.
The parents who never let drinking distort or shape the way they reared their children.
Telling someone to “mind your own business” may come off as rude or uncaring. Neither is my intention. As always, whatever I write I know doubly applies to me.
Getting immersed in other people’s business, while it may offer feelings of comfort and provide and sense of importance, it is a fail-proof track to burnout.
It’s a seemingly acceptably way, as it can appear caring, to avoid your own business. Minding the business of others can offer protection from facing your own responsibilities.
So what is your (my) business (the listed order here is unimportant)?
The state of your immediate relationships
The condition of faith and your place in a community or faith
Your finances, your daily work, everything pertaining to house and home
Your children’s welfare, safety, and education while they are children
Your health, physical, emotional, and psychological – with the understanding that they are all inextricably connected
The greater good of your immediate and broad community.
So what is none of our (my) business?
Adult relationships where you are not one of the parties
The manner in which other families parent – until there is neglect or laws are broken
Organizational complexities (schools, churches, businesses) where you do not hold an official role or responsibility.
Talk about what you would like to do more as a family and what would we prefer to do less as a family. The list may include monumental challenges that take years to address. The list may include things that can be changed in an instant.
Talk about what you would each like to do more, and less, as individuals in the family. As above, some may be really easy and some may take seemingly forever.
Plan something meaningful and unusual (“off the charts”) that the family agrees to work toward. This may be a trip, a building project, or entering as a family into a race.
Discuss (according to age, ability, and appropriateness) topics that are usually taboo like death, sex, finances, and family secrets. Discuss why they are taboo in the first place. When and why and how did the secret become a secret. Who decides what is and what is not a secret?
Consult a professional who is able to construct a Genogram with your family. Request that it span three generations. This will (potentially) alert family members to troublesome trends and urges that pre-exist within the family system and therefore (potentially) equip members to face them if and when they emerge again. Nothing in families is new!
difficultrelationships.com 