Drop Dud, Gorgeous
I typically avoid conflict to keep from having ugly conversations. I'm in an unhappy relationship, and it's clearly not fixable. I always rely on the other person to end a relationship, even when it's making me really miserable. Why do I do this, and how do I change?
--Stuck Girl
Note that fighter planes have an "ejection seat" and not a "go down in a flaming wreck" seat.
Fighter plane seat design is a helpful model for relationships that have run their course. Facts don't change because you refuse to acknowledge their existence. Your approach -- which I'll call "nonfrontational" -- is particularly counterproductive. Clinical psychologist Randy Paterson calls this a "passive" style of responding to conflict, driven by a goal of avoiding conflict "at all costs." In fact, what you end up avoiding is not conflict but temporary emotional turbulence -- the queasyfraidyanxiousness -- that would come with taking steps to resolve it. So, by avoiding conflict, you end up having much more conflict for a much longer stretch of time!
But say you braved up this afternoon and told your boyfriend it's over. It would feel miserable in the moment, and that misery would have plenty of company as you did all those fun breakup things like sawing the couch in half. But then you'd be out -- instead of neck-deep in still miserable for another three months, or as long as it takes for your boyfriend to notice he's had enough.
Healthy assertiveness starts with telling yourself that you have a right to try to get your needs met. Feeling worthy might take some emotional renovation. If so, do get on that, either on your own or with a therapist. However, there's a secret to asserting yourself, even as a person who's long avoided it. You don't have to feel worthy or even comfortable in order to do it. Admit that it'll feel scary, totally foreign, and generally like a big pile of suck to assert yourself -- and then do it anyway.
You might also apply this to other areas of your life, from friendships to work. When a situation you're in becomes irreparably toxic and awful, there's a reasonable thing to do, and it isn't staying in it and having the cat join you once a week in a small private funeral for your enthusiasm.
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
The Supremes had a song "You Just Keep Me Hangin' On."
I watched a drag performer lip-synch to this song (the Reba McEntire version) and afterwards, I told him that while the song itself is engaging, the lyrics leave me annoyed.
For example: "Why don't you be a man about it
/ And set me free? / Now if you don't care a thing about me / You're just using me."
Why is she begging to be dumped? Is she not capable of dumping someone herself?
The drag performer just replied, "Sometimes, it's hard."
Well, if the protagonist in this song is giving herself a pass for not just dumping him because it's hard, then she has no room to complain if he doesn't dump her, either. If she won't because it's hard, then she shouldn't expect him to do it.
Patrick at February 25, 2021 1:24 PM
Do it over text or email if you can’t muster the courage to do it in person. You can even explain you have a hard time talking about things like that. Sometimes things just need to end in any way possible.
Mary at March 2, 2021 11:04 AM
I just have to intervene here because Patrick has abused the meaning of the magnificent Supremes song "You keep me hanging on". The song is not about some girl begging to be dumped, as he says. The song is about a girl who has already been dumped by her boyfriend - but said boyfriend is trying to string her along to keep her as a "friend with benefits". Let's review the some of key lyrics from the verses:
You say although we broke up
You still just wanna be friends
But how can we still be friends
When seeing you only breaks my heart again?
and
You say you still care for me
But your heart and soul needs to be free
And now that you've got your freedom
You wanna still hold on to me.
You don't want me for yourself
So let me find somebody else
and
Now you don't care a thing about me
You're just using me, hey, abusing me
The protagonist of the song is emotionally conflicted but is still very much trying to do something about the ex's ugly behaviour - the song is itself a demand that the ex just leave them alone, and she is firm about it, repeatedly demanding that the ex "get out of my life".
The protagonist is not at all the wimp Patrick seems to think. As Amy suggests Stuck Girl should do, the protagonist wants to rip off the bandage and end all contact with the user ex, so she can get on with her life.
Contrary to Patrick, Stuck Girl would do well to follow the example laid out for her by the Supremes.
Tzvi at April 22, 2021 5:29 AM
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