Next she decided she had had enough of being the third person in her marriage and moved out and in with John. She knew this was not the brightest of ideas but she felt like she finally met someone that she could connect with on all levels of a relationship and she was not willing to pass up the opportunity to be happy for once.
So four months ago she filed for a divorce. It was only then that I finally sent my sister packing for home and begged my wife to come back home and work out our problems. During that time, though, she fell hard for John, and they seem to have a great relationship. The exception is that John gets mad that my wife and I still have a business and work together.
My wife feels torn. While now I would like to have an exclusive relationship with her, she is unsure of what to do. I feel like after all those years of my being stuck with my sister from hell, she should give me a second chance and try to work out things with me. I know she is cheating on me, and while I am willing to forgive, I would be unwilling to open up the relationship since I go for exclusivity. On the other hand, she says her relationship with John is great, sexually things are fantastic, and it all just feels right for her without her having to try.
So reading your book made me feel like I’m behaving inadequately. I have tried to get professional help for this to get her back. The situation is driving me to the point where I do not know what to do. If you could tell me what to do, I would forever be in your debt.
CHAPTER 8
Cognitive-Behavioral Aspects
According to Burns and Epstein, emotional disorder is the product of “negative cognitions or [negative] automatic thoughts” and “stable underlying [incorrect or partially correct] assumption [s]” 1 that distort and disrupt interpersonal relationships through the creation of irrational disjunctive beliefs about oneself, others, and the world. These irrational beliefs, developed and maintained in the face of evidence to the contrary, lead to decreased interpersonal objectivity due to flawed interpretations of interpersonal events. These flawed interpretations feed back to firm up the original distortive beliefs to the point that the latter become unwritten laws—“activat[ed] stable underlying assumption[s]”2 such as “if someone doesn’t like me, then that means that I am unlikable.” These unwritten laws lead to catastrophic thinking such as “since I am unlikable, all is lost” so that the avoidant becomes unable to differentiate between real and imagined dangers, having lost realistic internal reference points by which to judge his or her own behavior and its consequences, further escalating the antagonistic interpersonal schemas.
PROJECTIVE (PARANOID) THINKING
Avoidants who think in the paranoid mode create outer stress from inner turmoil by attributing their personal negative biases and guilt feelings to others, turning their own worries, fears, and selfcondemnations into objective convictions of assault and attack. Projections largely account for suspiciousness and suspiciousness for the avoidants’ classic fear of criticism, humiliation, and rejection, reflecting an impoverishment of basic trust.
Here are three common projective assumptions avoidants make about others:
I feel unworthy and devalue myself. Projection of unworthiness and self-devaluation becomes “you devalue me.” Therefore a cancellation of a date due to sudden illness becomes a personal rejection, an offer to matchmake becomes humiliation for being so desperate that one needs to be fixed up, and the best-intentioned advice, including that from a truly concerned therapist, becomes a criticism for prior wrongdoing.
I am guilty about my sexuality. Projection of sexual guilt turns a friendly look from a stranger from a come-on or a “cruise” into a hostile stare or “sexual harassment.”
I fear being controlled. Projection of fear of being controlled becomes “you are controlling me,” turning a potential partner’s request to have a close or exclusive relationship into an assault on one’s independence. Good advice becomes the advisor’s attempt to manipulate for personal gain, and a personals ad on the Internet becomes not an offer to meet meant to attract, but a pack of lies designed to attack.
THE MAKING OF FALSE EQUIVALENCIES (SIMILAR = THE SAME THING)
Avoidants think negatively due to emphasizing the similarities, while overlooking the significant mitigating differences, between A and B. They perceive a little questioning of them to be a shattering critical assault upon them, see mere disinterest on the part of others as full negativity or hatred, and misinterpret advice from others (“this is what you can profitably do”) as a demand made upon them (“this is what you should do”). They see kidding as humiliation; turn constructive criticism into a put-down or a personal attack; and interpret friendliness as inappropriate sexual interest, or even sexual harassment. They believe any assertiveness on their part to be the exact equivalent of aggressiveness to others so that acceptable forwardness equates to unacceptable pushiness. They believe merely thinking about something bad equates to doing bad things; view the passivity associated with being in love as dangerous neediness, helplessness, and vulnerability; and see their minor flaws as completely disqualifying lesions. Commitment becomes entrapment; ordinary desire comes to equal desperation; cooperation with a friend or intimate comes to equal submissiveness; and submissiveness comes to equal complete loss of control and total, abject surrender. The uncertainty associated with all relationships becomes unpredictability; then unpredictability becomes certainty: that of looming, inevitable, attack, destruction, and loss.
A Case Example
One of my avoidant patients developed his characteristic sensitivity to criticism because he redefined criticism as anything short of complete acceptance so that if you didn’t love him completely, you condemned him totally. He developed low self-esteem because he viewed any slight imperfection on his part as a fatal flaw and came to believe that if he was not all good, he was no good at all. He developed a fear of losing his identity completely because he viewed closeness as merging and merging as engulfment so that any woman who liked him would, by definition, keep him from completely realizing his individuality by demanding that he submerge himself fully into her as an individual.
THINKING ACCORDING TO EXCLUSIVE (AND EXCLUSIVELY NEGATIVE) CAUSES
Avoidants who think this way become selectively blind to alternative explanations for their avoidant beliefs. Unable to think of any positive elements in, and so other explanations for, others’ presumed negativity, they explain others’ less than fully positive behavior toward them as strictly antagonistic and rejecting. Although they see the possibility of negativity in all positivity, they rarely, if ever, see the possibility of positivity in those situations that they at first perceive to be completely negative. Thus “he didn’t return my phone call yet” becomes not “he wants to get back to me but he is busy,” but “he does not like me enough to want to get back to me ever,” or “he was talking to me when his cell phone rang, and when he picked it up he turned away from me” becomes not “he had to answer that call because it was his business,” but “he prefers the person calling him to me.” Self-punitive attitudes originate along similar lines so that instead of “my anxiety is somewhat off-putting, I better be careful,” we hear a much more selfpejorative “I destroy anyone who wants to love me, and so I am not worthy of even trying to be loved.”
OVERGENERALIZING FROM ONE SPECIFIC INSTANCE TO ALL INSTANCES