Alice Amell Posted November 26, 2014 Posted November 26, 2014 I'm not in a relationship so I can't comment from experience but from Stef's video about Empathy Hostages, I can extrapolate that it is important that both of you feel that your needs are met - that you can both share and aren't crowded out by the other person's problems. That no one is using the other person as an emotional hostage. He mentioned in the video if someone is dealing with so much trauma and shares all of it with another person, that person is like overburdened and may feel like they aren't free to share their own thoughts and feelings because it would seemingly undermine the other person or be disregarding their issues. In this sense they are a "hostage" that is kept in order to give empathy. It might be unintentional but something to watch out for. Therapy is really good too so you have more than just each other to talk to. Keeping a journal might also help and can be used to vent some emotions or to explore thoughts and feelings independently, to not overburden one another. I don't have direct experience so this is just all theoretical in my understanding but I hope it helps 1
TheFreeMarketIsAnarchy Posted November 27, 2014 Author Posted November 27, 2014 I'm not in a relationship so I can't comment from experience but from Stef's video about Empathy Hostages, I can extrapolate that it is important that both of you feel that your needs are met - that you can both share and aren't crowded out by the other person's problems. That no one is using the other person as an emotional hostage. He mentioned in the video if someone is dealing with so much trauma and shares all of it with another person, that person is like overburdened and may feel like they aren't free to share their own thoughts and feelings because it would seemingly undermine the other person or be disregarding their issues. In this sense they are a "hostage" that is kept in order to give empathy. It might be unintentional but something to watch out for. Therapy is really good too so you have more than just each other to talk to. Keeping a journal might also help and can be used to vent some emotions or to explore thoughts and feelings independently, to not overburden one another. I don't have direct experience so this is just all theoretical in my understanding but I hope it helps Yes this is good advice, I think I should go back and re-listen to the empathy hostages podcast. I feel as though I do have a tendency to offer myself up as an empathy hostage because my mother would often use me to help her with her emotional issues, making me feel as though my emotional reality was insignificant to hers. We're trying really hard to work through it together but I agree with you that we need independent sources to confide in to reduce the burden on each other. Thank you for your response Alice =)
Kaki Posted November 27, 2014 Posted November 27, 2014 There is a book - besides RTR- I can strongly recommend. It is by Richard Schwartz (the developer of IFS): Richard Schwartz: You Are The One You've Been Waiting For, Bringing Courageous Love To Intimate Relationships (You can find the book also as ebook and audiobook) In this ebook, Richard Schwartz, the developer of the Internal Family Systems Model, applies the IFS Model to the topic of intimate relationships in an engaging, understandable, and personal style. Therapists and lay people alike will find this book to be an insightful exploration of how cultivating a relationship with the Self—the wise center of clarity, calmness, and compassion in each of us—creates the foundation for courageous love and resilient intimacy: the capacity to sustain and nourish a healthy intimate relationship. Self-leadership also allows us to embrace our partner's feedback and use it to discover aspects of ourselves that seek healing. My husband and I found it quite helpful. We both are are in therapy (both IFS) and work parallel on our relationship.
J. D. Stembal Posted November 27, 2014 Posted November 27, 2014 Why do you have to stay together? is it beneficial for both of you? You can also split up now, pursue self-knowledge and confront your family, and resume the relationship later. You live in different cities, so it doesn't make sense to stay together even if you were not needing to pursue self-knowledge. To be very honest, I don't think students should be pursuing long term relationships in high school or college with friends or sexual partners. I have taken a look back at all the people I dated and befriended in school. They were complete nut balls and I was one of them. Most of us were into recreational drugs or alcohol, more than a couple were rabid feminists, and I can't think of one of us who wasn't at least a little bit leftist. I've gradually cut off contact with all of those people over the years, but I never really knew why until listening to FDR. You should probably write down all the positives and negatives to staying together. When I first started donating to the show, I knew I needed self-knowledge, which ultimately led me to confront both of my parents in person about the child abuse I endured. Originally, I wanted my girlfriend of 15 months to be there to support me (she also had never met my parents), but she copped out at the last minute because her own parents picked the same week to drop in on her. Having to face my parents alone, I chickened out of having the discussions that I needed to have on that particular visit. When I suggested to my girlfriend that she confront her own parents while they were in town pestering her to get married, she refused to do so saying that she already had the necessary discussions with her parents while she was a teenager. It was a lie to get me off of her back. It was then very clear to me that she wasn't really serious about helping me or herself. Is your girlfriend really your supporter, or is she going to be a liability? You have to determine this fairly soon.
TheFreeMarketIsAnarchy Posted November 28, 2014 Author Posted November 28, 2014 There is a book - besides RTR- I can strongly recommend. It is by Richard Schwartz (the developer of IFS): Richard Schwartz: You Are The One You've Been Waiting For, Bringing Courageous Love To Intimate Relationships (You can find the book also as ebook and audiobook) My husband and I found it quite helpful. We both are are in therapy (both IFS) and work parallel on our relationship. That sounds fantastic, I will definitely get that! Thanks a lot for the reply Why do you have to stay together? is it beneficial for both of you? You can also split up now, pursue self-knowledge and confront your family, and resume the relationship later. You live in different cities, so it doesn't make sense to stay together even if you were not needing to pursue self-knowledge. To be very honest, I don't think students should be pursuing long term relationships in high school or college with friends or sexual partners. I have taken a look back at all the people I dated and befriended in school. They were complete nut balls and I was one of them. Most of us were into recreational drugs or alcohol, more than a couple were rabid feminists, and I can't think of one of us who wasn't at least a little bit leftist. I've gradually cut off contact with all of those people over the years, but I never really knew why until listening to FDR. You should probably write down all the positives and negatives to staying together. When I first started donating to the show, I knew I needed self-knowledge, which ultimately led me to confront both of my parents in person about the child abuse I endured. Originally, I wanted my girlfriend of 15 months to be there to support me (she also had never met my parents), but she copped out at the last minute because her own parents picked the same week to drop in on her. Having to face my parents alone, I chickened out of having the discussions that I needed to have on that particular visit. When I suggested to my girlfriend that she confront her own parents while they were in town pestering her to get married, she refused to do so saying that she already had the necessary discussions with her parents while she was a teenager. It was a lie to get me off of her back. It was then very clear to me that she wasn't really serious about helping me or herself. Is your girlfriend really your supporter, or is she going to be a liability? You have to determine this fairly soon. Hi, thanks a lot for your honest comments, I'm trying to play devils advocate with myself to make sure I can rationally justify the relationship, so this really helped. I have definitely shared your experience of having to disassociate with those kinds of people! Lots of obnoxious people which I am happy to leave behind. That sounds rubbish about your ex-girlfriend, thanks for sharing though. I guess if I contrast that with my experience despite me and my girlfriend both having difficult upbringings in various ways her capacity to empathize with my experience and to understand the value of self-knowledge and philosophy seems very genuine to me. Although that is held back by some photo-copier of history style dysfunctions (as it is in myself) I am sure that those capacities are genuine. And recently talking stuff through and being fully honest with each other/with ourselves is making it easier to feel mutually supported and to interrupt and negotiate with those dysfunctional elements so hopefully this will continue. Also the being in college/different cities thing we talked about the other night. We made the plan to move in together next year for that last year and she can commute to class because our two colleges are only an hour bus ride apart. The justification for this is that it will be easier to mutually support each other and work through employing RTR and other things like the book recommended by Kaki if we can have conversations not just at one limited time-frame each week. I hope moving in together will be a good ground to really test our compatibility. I hope it doesn't come across as if I am just dismissing your concerns out of hand, as I said i'm trying to keep a debate going with myself.I guess I made the positive case for the relationship but I do want to be realistic as you said that if it isn't clear that we can make progress through self-knowledge together effectively then we should split. I also understand that I have an emotional bias to stay together because of the pre-existing attachment/dependency. I want to keep this from influencing my attempt to make rational decisions. The thought of breaking up with her makes me feel very unsafe and anxious and so I want to keep exploring the root causes of that. Do you/does anyone have any thoughts on all that? Thanks again or your comment I appreciate it
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