Relationship destructive behaviors vs. autonomy

The following segment is from the second session of Anatomy of Couples Therapy: Challenges & Choices teleclass with Terry Real. The class is still available for purchase on Terry Real’s website.

When we talk about self-destructive behaviors, it is so different when we look at it in the context of infidelities as if when we look at it in the context of other expressions of self-loathing, of rage, of entitlement. The interesting thing of talking about infidelity is, why people will act in a way where they could be taking the risk of losing everything – their family, their children, their reputation, their hard won existence for a glimmer of what? People do this, there must be something massively compelling on the other side. We can emphasize the self-destructiveness or we can emphasize the longing, the quest of what one finds there. It was one of the most powerful ways people have of beating back deadness. And more often with their life, I don’t always think that there is this defacto, something missing in the relationship, as if the relationship had this it would inoculate us against this wanderlust. For some people it’s an experience of autonomy, of self affirmation as in, this thing I do totally for myself. I have been doing for others, my self-destruction is actually been I have sacrificed myself in the context of my life. I’ve only thought about everybody else’s needs and I have not attended to mine at all. It becomes a kind of redefinition of where is the sacrificial life. I present this narrative not as an endorsement but as a story I have often heard.

In some situations: I have taken care of my four kids, I have taken care of my dying mother, I have taken care of my helpless father, I have taken care of my employees, I have taken care of my alcoholic sibling, I have taken care of my unemployed husband or partner, and I find myself in the libidinal space of an affair in which I can, for the first time, attend to myself. That is one place where I know I’m not taking care of anybody else. It is not only transferential, it is a difficulty in differentiating, in holding on to me, in the context of others, that requires I go elsewhere in a secluded place that is disconnected from my life through the secrecy, my life can’t enter in there and therefore nobody can come in and ask me anything. This is one discourse I hear from unfaithful partners, there are so many. And of course as they talk about themselves they are not thinking of the implications, only the motivations.

We will continue the dialog on tough challenges you face in couples therapy in our newest teleclass series, starting June 2nd. Register for Rethinking Couples Therapy: The Hard Questions and The Nuts and Bolts