Rosenthal,WITHDRAWAL
AND DISCONNECTION (disconnection,walled-off,
sabotaging a relationship)
Wk of March
4, 2007 wc: 608
WITHDRAWAL AND DISCONNECTION
Feeling a bit disengaged or
withdrawn in your relationship recently?
Don’t feel badly. Most people do.
Everyone—no matter how close or
intimate, and no matter how much you may love each other—sometimes feels
disconnected from the people they love and are devoted to. Let’s face it: living with someone—or being around someone a
lot—can really tax our patience. We can
grow annoyed with people we also love and care about, including our children,
parents, extended family, friends and especially our intimate partners.
There are so many ways of detaching
and disengaging that we’re not always conscious of when we are doing it. So here is a list of some of the most common
ways people use to disconnect from each other, with
the hope that if you become conscious of the ways you withdraw, you’ll do it less
often:
- Not having time for a connected relationship. Making your
intimate partner a low priority in your life.
- Tuning out.
Not paying attention, being distracted, being preoccupied with
other things or being tired.
- Using the demands of parenthood to keep your
relationship a lower priority.
- Being a poor listener. Frequently interrupting, talking over
someone, or listening for what you can disagree with or argue about.
- Having a defensive wall up, so your partner doesn’t
feel you’re receptive to his/her feelings, requests, hurts or needs. Your partner will not feel heard, and instead
is likely to feel minimized, dismissed, unimportant or devalued.
- Not allowing yourself to take to heart that which your
partner says matters to him/her, and not letting it influence you. Acting as if you don’t value what your
partner says or how s/he feels, and showing little empathy or compassion
for his/her feelings.
- Infidelity.
For some this includes Internet porn sites, and it definitely
includes romantic or sexual flirting.
- Being extremely possessive, jealous or paranoid. The other person needs his/her own sense
of individuality, autonomy and freedom, and will resent you if s/he feels
treated as an extension of you.
- Judging, criticizing or shaming. We all have judgments and get critical
at times, but how are such criticisms offered? In an attacking, shaming, belittling
way? Or with tact, diplomacy, kindness and sensitivity? The difference between saying something
from a position of anger/irritation and saying something from kindness and
tact is huge.
- Getting abrasive quickly or frequently. It pushes the other person away, and
makes him/her afraid of you.
- Treating your feelings, needs, irritations, sensitive
subjects and requests as far more important than your partner’s.
- Not being empathetic to your partner’s needs, wants
or desires.
- Making everything about you. How you feel, what you want, how things
will effect you.
- Withdrawing generosity of spirit and friendship as
soon as you get upset or angry.
- Addictions. The
Internet, overworking, excessive drinking, being irresponsible or
untrustworthy with money, watching too much TV, porn, food, drugs,
etc. All of these keep the
relationship more distant.
- Incessant complaining.
- Demeaning or belittling words or behaviors. Being rude. Name calling. Being hateful.
- Taking a lot more than you give. Asking for a lot but
giving only what you feel like giving.
This includes not being a generous lover, and not taking care of
your partner sexually the way s/he desires.
==============================================
Neil Rosenthal is a licensed marriage and family therapist
in Denver and Boulder,
Colorado, specializing in how people strengthen their intimate
relationships. He can be
reached
at (303) 758-8777, or e-mail him from his website, heartrelationships.com