Family of Origin Insight: Consequences of Conflict

[qos]

This morning, during a conversation with my mother, a family dynamic I've never been able to describe adequately came into sharp focus.

One of the things Wolfling's father and I have worked hard to teach her is that she has boundaries that deserve to be respected, that empathy and compassion and kindness toward others doesn't mean she has to allow herself to be hurt or run over by the desires of others. Both her father and I were taught as children that other peoples' feelings were of paramount importance, and we were to "be nice" in all but the most extreme situations.

The silver lining of having the twins living upstairs in The Old Place was that Wolfling learned about borders. She learned that being nice sometimes didn't guarantee harmony, and that she was not obligated to buy peace by letting others take advantage of her good nature. It was okay to say she didn't want to play, even if the twins got angry or hurt or cried. It was okay to not want to share her toys. It was okay to say so when someone did something that hurt or upset her, and she was justified in removing herself when that happened, and/or seek adult intervention.

I've never been satisifed with my previous attempts to explain how my socialization was different, but this morning my mother described a conflict situation with these words: If I expressed how upset I was, that would cause a break, so I just try to see it from the other person's side.

I sat there for a moment, running her words again in my mind, then said: Did you hear what you just said? You equated speaking up and saying you'd been hurt with automatically causing a break in the relationship. It's break the relationship or be silent. There's no middle ground to express your feelings and have the relationship survive.

That's the programming that's kept me silent too often in my life: the assumption that defending myself will cause escalation and end the relationship. I wasn't taught to express my feelings in a way that allowed room for discussion, clarification, apologies, or healing.

I think my father had more skill in this area, but he was The Father so he virtually always won any conflict in our family anyway. So we didn't really learn good conflict resolution skills from him, not in terms of family or friends situations.

It all makes so much sense now.

Comments

[oakmouse]

Oh, fascinating. I have the same internalized belief --- that if I speak up it will destroy the relationship --- but I probably got it from Dad. (My mom was the original it's-all-about-me girl when it came to fights.) It's fairly crippling in some ways.

I'm curious. Do you ever find that speaking out *does* destroy a relationship? I've had it happen a few times, and had a relationship badly crippled a few more; always friendships, never romances. It hasn't been a definite predictable pattern, though, which makes the entrenchment of the belief all the more odd.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I've made an additional post to address this question.

[qos.livejournal.com]

You can see how much good THAT did me.
Do you think you made the right decision?
Or do you wish you'd remained silent and things had gone on the way they had been?

I've just made a new post to address your comment and a couple of others on the same theme.

[malakhgabriel.livejournal.com]

That's the programming that's kept me silent too often in my life
Much the same here.

[makhsihed.livejournal.com]

Here too. I never quite figured out how to word it though.

Adding this to memories, if you don't mind.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I'm honored that you find it memorable.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

I'm still unlearning that one, though I had it installed by my ex-husband, not my parents. It was unloving to defend yourself, because it's inherently a rejection of the other person, and you are bad for doing it. If you loved them, you'd want the same things they did, and want to please them.

It's a hard one to unlearn, and then to learn how to state boundaries without being confrontational about it, because it's too easy to start out defensive if you're sure you're about to start an argument for asking to be treated decently.

I didn't know how bad I had it until I met some sane people and had to learn a new language. It's like having thought you'd heard an orchestra but really only had the percussion section.

[qos.livejournal.com]

It was unloving to defend yourself, because it's inherently a rejection of the other person, and you are bad for doing it. If you loved them, you'd want the same things they did, and want to please them.

Your ex-husband and my ex-fiance have a lot in common.

When I tried to express my feelings gently so he would understand, or seek understanding of his perspective when there was conflict, he'd accuse me of "using psychology" on him instead of just fighting, "like normal people do."

Just thinking about those exchanges makes me twitch.

[coen.livejournal.com]

I have been programmed in the same way. In order to avoid conflicts, I tend to swallow my emotions. This attitude had not helped me much in life.

When I tried to swallow my anger I became moody and grumpy. Speaking out my anger would probably have relieved it, but swallowing made me moody for a long time.

Also, I have found that problems in relations are much easier found when all involved persons speak their mind. It may cause a fight, but a fight can be resolved. I used to be very scares of fights, but I learned that long lasting silence is far more dangerous for relationships than occasional fights.

When I found out how dangerous and destructive it was to swallow emotions, I tried to change my attitude. Re-programming yourself is hard, and it takes a lot of time, but it can be done, to a certain extend.

My (ex) wife and me have always tried to teach our son that speaking up for yourself is a good thing. But this is hard to learn for an autistic kid. My boy finds it very hard to communicate about how he feels. But sometimes he does, and I can tell it does him good.

[coen.livejournal.com]

"If I expressed how upset I was, that would cause a break, so I just try to see it from the other person's side."

I know what you mean. I used to believe the same thing.
But I think the key is not to just see the other person's side, but both sides. So that includes your own side too.

I used to understand the other person's side, and completely forget about my side.
Now I say: "I understand your side, and your emotions, and I respect them. But there is also my side, and my emotions, and I want those understood and respected too."

[cyotered.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I've been dealing with that very idea for the last month. A friend of mine called it "seen" "unseen." I always felt like I was seen when I was doing what our family saw as acceptable, but became instantly unseen when I did something that made anyone uncomfortable. It happend at the wolflings party the other night when I mentioned I was heading back towards my old style of dressing. It took a good hour and a half talking it out with S to work it out of my system. I've been working very hard at overcoming that for the last few years. I'm getting better, but all it takes is one of the family elders to shoot up to a vocally stressed level over something I do or say, and I want to curl up to a little ball and wimper til I can make it right. I don't do that anymore, but I still feel it.