A number of years back I travelled to Chicago for work – a conference of contract faculty union folks. And while there, as I sat in the bar one night a guy dropped into the stool beside me. He’d seen me at the conference, and as we started talking we realized we’d spoken on the phone a couple of times. C had just been hired to do the same grievance work as me, though at a university on the other side of the country. We talked – the two youngest guys in this work – and realized we had a few things in common – getting hauled around the world by globe-trotting parents, falling into the union thing after sporadically thinking about academic careers, shit like that.
Over the next several years, he and I would twice a year find ourselves at another meeting together in another city, and these occassions soon became largely party weekends for us. We’d touch base as soon as we landed, find a bar, and spend each night roaming the town, getting far too drunk and flirting with waitresses. Mostly we talked sex and work at first, but over time something else happened – somehow, though we are really quite different, and though we only saw each other a couple of days a year, C and I ended up pretty close, using these rare meet-ups to talk about our relationships, our working lives, our struggles.
Not a close friendship either of us anticipated, I don’t think. But one that rose despite the odds.
Yesterday morning I woke up to an emal from C, who’s struggling right now with the sudden break-up of his mom’s relationship. Recently married himself, he’s watching her repeat long-standing dysfunctional patterns, and feeling, I think, alot of disappointment and a fair bit of anger – after a life of many struggles, he had finally seen some hope and joy in his mom, and I think is hit pretty hard by seeing that fall apart. So, C sent me an email telling the story, venting, and expressing a lot of pain/ disillusionment/ frustration at watching people he loves sabotage a relationship that has and probably could continue to bring out their very best.
Not an uncommon story, is it?
So I’m thinking about relationship sabotage, and the ways we have of torpedoing what is most important to us.
We all do it, sometimes, somehow. Some of us more than others. Some of us more consciously than others. But we all do it sometimes. And I’m not talking about the big things we do to end unhappy relationships – affairs, neglect and so on. No, what is more prevalent and I think ultimately more dangerous – dangerous for us personally, because we can so easily deny it – are the little niggling things that slowly sow seeds of doubt, if not in ourselves, in our partners.
I’m thinking today about what my own examples are. What are the little ways that I destabilize trust and intimacy in my relationships? Well , as I’ve written about here before, I am frequently subject to low-level jealousy. Not crazy-ass stuff that consumes me or is easily identified as a problem, but little ongoing insecurities that over time can do serious damage. Another of my own little self-sabotage-maneouvres is a tendency to swallow my tongue, to refrain from commenting on the little things that bother me, to refrain from asking for the things I want and need. Again, not a big issue on a daily level, but the kind of thing that over years can build up and sink a relationship. And both of these two specific tendencies of mine are, I think, manifestations of a more general insecurity, a more general doubt that anyone will really want me in the long term, that anyone will stick around if I express any needs of my own, or that anyone could possibly want me when there are so many guys who are stronger, sexier, more alluring. A fear grounded in anything real? No. After all, who could be stronger, sexier, more alluuring than me, right? : ) But the insecurity is there, nonetheless. It does not require justification.
These are my own areas of insecurity. And they are, too, the things that I bring into a relationship that can gradually sabotage its success. We all have them. Me, you, everyone we know, our parents, our siblings, our lovers, and all those we presume are better catches, more desirable, more together, smarter, sexier funnier – whatever.
And as I write this I think: hmmm…Does that mean it’s all inevitable? Clearly our insecurities never really vanish. The best we can hope is to manage them. Clearly, too, we can’t pretend they don’t exist. Our partners will always know, and the silence of not-speaking our vulnerabilities can be just as damaging as the doubt sown by speaking them. I guess, then, the best we can hope for is self-reflection and perspective, to find ways of calming ourselves when we slip into those tendencies, of being aware of what impact they might have, and of finding a balance between denying them and obsessing about them.
Not easy, and not a science, But a worthy effort, nonetheless. Me? I know what I need to do. I need to recognize and remind myself that I tend to silence myself more than I should, and to make a point periodically of not doing so, just to ensure the tendency doesn’t become a pattern. I need to not beat myself up for jealousy, but know when to speak it and when not to. I can take steps to prevent little waves from becoming a flood. I can decide, consciously, when to let my partner know I’m having a moment, and when to pretend and by pretending let the moment pass, so as not to make her responsible or anxious about what is clearly not her problem. I can be aware, and be aware that both too little acknowledgement of insecurity and too much emphasis on it are equally damaging. I can actively and consciously manage my tendencies once I identify them both to myself and my partner. I’ll never get it perfect, but that’s not the point. The point is the process.
It hurts to watch those we love do damage to themselves. And part of that hurt is because these moments remind us of our own insecurities, our own blind-spots, our own little time-bombs. C is watching now as people he loves unwittingly erode their own relationship. He’s trying to balance out his response – the frustration and anger that they do this to themselves, the sadness that they are throwing away something valuable, and the common-sense responses in him to, on the one hand, step in and help and, on the other, distance himself so he doesn’t get dragged into the dysfunction. And I suspect, too, he’s trying to fight off the doubt that we feel in ourselves when we see our loved ones self-destruct. Not a fun place to be.
But C….It ain’t all inevitable. Yeah, there’s always struggle. Yeah, we all inadvertently hurt those we love, and, yes, we all have fears and anxieties that, if unchecked, can push away those we most love. Those insecurities and tendencies to self-sabotage are issues for all of us. But knowing that doesn’t mean there’s no hope. In fact, I think knowing that might just be the key to managing it and weathering the moments of crisis.
Big love, C.
Bravo!
That’s a great, and honest, insight into self-sabotage – thanks for writing so lucidly about it.
And you’re right, it’s not the ‘I slept with another woman, hun!” stuff that does for us, it IS all the niggling times we bite our lip, or don’t listen (and support) properly out of an unresolved resentment, or – in my case – the small faults I find in my partner that mean she can’t be the one for me.
A good, promising relationship I was in last year ended after only a few great months – and it needn’t have due to these very reasons. 😦
And I agree that it ain’t inevitable, but we seriously have to be AWARE that we have and always will have such self-sabotaging tendenices – otherwise we will be gonners! Awareness is key, and then hopefully we can take the right kinds of action.
I sent my love to C, too. Wish him wisdom and compassion and the acceptance he may need when his Mom’s relationship ends, if it hasn’t already.
Thanks again for sharing this – read every word of it (which is unusual, for me! lol)
Steve
PS I also wrote about self sabotage recently – not quite as well as you, I’ll admit – hence I found this blog post (courtesy of Google News alerts)