Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (34 page)

Both of Eliot’s parents were consistently critical and demeaning. What made it more difficult was that his parents adored his older brother.

ELIOT: My problem was that my brother was such a hard act to follow. He was better looking, smarter, funnier. And he treated me like dirt. Just like my parents did. He’d pick on me and they’d laugh. He always got the best of everything and I was left with hand-me-downs. Well, he Doesn’t have the best of everything now. I have it now, and he’s nothing.

Defectiveness is often formed through comparisons with a favored sibling. Older siblings often foster this lifetrap. It is easy for them to be better at everything because they are older. They are smarter, faster, stronger, or more competent. Older siblings are often critical of their younger, less talented siblings.

Humiliation was a prominent theme in Eliot’s childhood. Again and again, his shortcomings were the object of ridicule.

ELIOT: I remember one time my dad was going to take me and my brother to a ball game. Then my brother got sick and couldn’t go. The day we were supposed to go, I got dressed and was waiting by the door. I was all excited. My father came down and looked at me, and asked me where I thought I was going. I said the ball game, and he said he’d have to be crazy to go all the way to the game just for me.

I never let him know I wanted anything from him again.

Eliot learned to hide his true thoughts and feelings. His true self became a secret, known only to him. This way, he felt less vulnerable. He could maintain a sense of pride. It was too dangerous to reveal himself. Anything he offered was met with a critical eye. Revealing himself meant risking exposure to shame, and the worst shame was being exposed as wanting love.

We pay a high price for burying our true self in the way Eliot did. It is a great loss, like a death. Spontaneity, joy, trust, and intimacy are all lost, and they are replaced by a guarded, shut-down shell. The person constructs a false self. This false self is harder, less easily wounded. But no matter how hard the exterior, deep inside there is pain about losing one’s true self.

The advantage of building this protective shell is that you often feel better day-to-day. At least on the surface, you seem to be doing well. But it is an illusion. Inside you still
feel
defective and unloved. The problem with the shell is that you never really address the core issue. A true self that stays hidden cannot heal. You have to stop settling for illusion and start going for the real thing.

It is very important to realize that the Defectiveness lifetrap is
not usually based on a real defect.
Even people who have serious physical or mental handicaps do not necessarily develop this lifetrap. The crucial factor is not the presence of a defect, but rather how you are made to feel about yourself by your parents and the other members of your family. If you are loved, valued, and respected by your family members—regardless of your actual strengths and weaknesses—you will almost certainly not feel worthless, ashamed, or defective.

DANGER SIGNALS WHILE DATING

1. You avoid dating altogether.
   
2. You tend to have a series of short, intense affairs, or several affairs simultaneously.
   
3. You are drawn to partners who are critical of you and put you down all the time.
   
4. You are drawn to partners who are physically or emotionally abusive toward you.
   
5. You are most attracted to partners who are not that interested in you, hoping you can win their love.
   
6. You are only drawn to the most attractive and desirable partners, even when it is obvious that you will not be able to attain them.
   
7. You are most comfortable with partners who do not want to know you very deeply.
   
8. You only date people you feel are below you, whom you do not really love.
   
9. You are drawn to partners who are unable to commit to you or to spend time with you on a regular basis. They may be married, insist on simultaneously dating other people, travel regularly, or live in another city.
   
10. You get into relationships in which you put down, abuse, or neglect your partners.
    

You may cope with your Defectiveness lifetrap by avoiding long-term, intimate relationships altogether. You may have no relationships at all, only short relationships, or multiple relationships. By avoiding long-term commitment, you make certain that no one gets close enough to see your inner flaws.

Another way you might avoid intimacy is by becoming involved with someone else who does not want to be intimate. Even though you are dating, you lead parallel lives where you never get too close.

Eliot had a series of affairs throughout his marriage; he was always involved with at least one other woman, sometimes two. However, only once did he ever meet a woman that he thought he could love. Interestingly,
he did not ask her out.
Like Eliot, you might avoid dating people who really interest you. You only date people you know you could never love.

You might have a relationship with a person who lives at a distance, or who is traveling all the time. You can only see the person on weekends. There are many ways you can set up relationships to escape the intimate contact you fear.

Alison is more willing than Eliot to become intimate; she gets involved with men and falls in love. But she is most attracted to men who criticize and reject her. Her previous boyfriend was this way. She stayed with him for years even though he was nasty and insulting the entire time.

Many people who get into masochistic relationships—in which they tolerate being badly mistreated—have Defectiveness lifetraps. They basically feel that this is all they deserve. When we asked Alison why she stayed with her previous boyfriend for so long, she said, „I felt I was lucky to have someone who wanted to be with me at all.“

If you have the Defectiveness lifetrap, be careful when there is very strong chemistry. You probably have the most powerful attraction to partners who criticize and reject you. They reinforce your feelings of defectiveness. Critical partners will feel
familiar
because they echo your childhood environment. We strongly recommend that you stop dating partners who do not treat you well rather than try to win them over and gain their love.

DEFECTIVENESS LIFETRAPS

1. You become very critical of your partner once you feel accepted, and your romantic feelings disappear. You then act in a demeaning or critical manner.
   
2. You hide your true self so you never really feel that your partner knows you.
   
3. You are jealous and possessive of your partner.
   
4. You constantly compare yourself unfavorably with other people and feel envious and inadequate.
   
5. You constantly need or demand reassurance that your partner still values you.
   
6. You put yourself down around your partner.
   
7. You allow your partner to criticize you, put you down, or mistreat you.
   
8. You have difficulty accepting valid criticism; you become defensive or hostile.
   
9. You are extremely critical of your children.
   
10. You feel like an impostor when you are successful. You feel extremely anxious that you cannot maintain your success.
    
11. You become despondent or deeply depressed over career setbacks or rejections in relationships.
    
12. You feel extremely nervous when speaking in public.
    

If you do form a relationship with a partner who loves you and whom you could love, there are many ways you can reinforce your Defectiveness lifetrap within the relationship.

Your criticalness can be a major problem. If you are narcissistic, you may be more comfortable with a partner you can see as one-down. Then you do not have to worry so much about being found out, judged, or rejected. Eliot illustrated this pattern in his marriage to Maria:

MARIA: Eliot picks apart everything I do. When I’m with him, Ifeel like I’m always doing something wrong.

In sessions alone with us, Eliot would recount his sexual exploits. And, as he described each woman, there was always something wrong. This one had the wrong texture of hair, that one had legs that were too short, this one had too menial a job. In fact, Eliot had exact specifications for his perfect woman.

THERAPIST: What is it that you want from a relationship?

ELIOT: What I want most is a woman with blonde hair, tall but not too tall, like not above 5’7”, tan skin. Slim and athletic. Not too big breasts. I want her to dress kind of preppy. You know, that clean look, but with an arty edge. And I want her to be successful, but not too successful. Not more successful than I am (laughs).

THERAPIST: Have you ever found her?

ELIOT: Not even close.

Eliot criticizes his partners for failing to meet his specifications. In this way, he keeps himself from caring too much about how they feel toward him. If you have the Defectiveness lifetrap, you may also try to devalue your partners. You believe that a truly desirable partner will see your flaws and ultimately reject you.

The person Eliot criticizes most is the person he loves most—his wife Maria. In fact, the vehemence with which he criticizes her is one of the signs of his love. When Eliot feels his love for her, it increases her value, and almost reflexively he lashes out at her.

You may feel that anyone who could love
you
must be low in value anyway. This is the old Groucho Marx line, „I never would want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.“ It is as if, in loving you, your partner does something wrong.

ELIOT: Each of my relationships is a conquest for me. I get all excited about the pursuit, but when I finally win her, I lose interest.

THERAPIST: At what point do you win her?

ELIOT: (Pause.) I guess it’s when she starts to care about me.

Romantic relationships are the most intimate, so your false self moves into full gear. As Alison puts it, „I always feel like I’m putting on an act with Matthew.“ The failure to be genuine is a common pattern with this lifetrap. You believe that only your false self is worthy of love. By hiding your true self, you never believe that your partner loves the real you. By not being completely open, you reinforce your sense that the real self is shameful and unlovable. Your greatest terror may be of being exposed: that eventually your partner will see through your act to the defective person beneath.

ALISON: I just know that I’ll marry him and one day he’ll turn around and tell me that it’s all been a mistake, that he doesn’t really love me. I don’t really understand why he hasn’t done it yet. But he’s gonna do it sometime.

THERAPIST: And you’re just waiting.

ALISON: Yes. It’s only a matter of time.

You may even, like Alison, consider ending the relationship. The situation is so fraught with anxiety that you feel that you cannot stand it anymore.

Envy and jealousy are almost always facets of the Defectiveness lifetrap. You are constantly comparing yourself unfavorably to other people.

ALISON: Whenever we go out, like to a bar or a party, I always feel like he wants to be with the other women more than with me. He tells me I’m crazy, and in a way I think I am. I mean he doesn’t flirt or anything. It’s just that I start thinking that the other women are prettier or sexier or more interesting. I would rather be with them if I were him. If he even so much as talks to another woman, I get very upset.

Alison idealizes other women and exaggerates her own flaws. When she makes comparisons, it is hard for her to win. She spends much of the time feeling that other women are more desirable than she.

To reassure herself that Matthew still cares, Alison barrages him with questions: „You want to be with her, don’t you?“ „Don’t you think that girl’s prettier than me?“ She hangs onto Matthew, afraid to leave him alone. Her attempts to insulate him from her rivals usually backfire. She comes across as needy and insecure, which drives Matthew away. This tends to lower her value in his eyes.

Matthew described this process in one of our couples sessions.

MATTHEW: The other night we went out dancing with my friend’, Kevin, and his new girlfriend, Elyssa. Alison got all sulky, and started saying that I’d rather be with Elyssa. For no reason. It was a real drag.

I really love Alison, but I don’t want to be with someone where I can’t even go to the bathroom for five minutes without being accused of trying to play around.

You may not be as obvious as Alison. Like Eliot, you may have learned to hide your feelings of jealousy, but inside you probably feel as they do: that the world is filled with more desirable competitors for your lover.

You may also find it difficult to tolerate criticism. You are probably hypersensitive to it. Even a slight criticism can lead you to feel enormous shame. You may vehemently deny that you have done anything wrong, or put down the person who is criticizing you. This is because to acknowledge any flaw is to let in a flood of painful feelings related to Defectiveness. Thus, you protect yourself by denying any flaw, mistake, or error. Your defensiveness and inability to take criticism can be a serious problem.

As we have noted, you are likely to feel the most chemistry toward partners who trigger your Defectiveness lifetrap. The flip side is that you tend to get bored with people who treat you well. This is your paradox: you want love so much, but the more your partner gives you love, the less attracted you feel. This is exactly what happened with Eliot and Maria.

ELIOT: When we first met, I was madly in love with her. I really thought this was it for me, I would never need anybody else. But, after we got married, I just lost it for her. I stopped wanting to sleep with her. We haven’t slept together in over a year.

You have the most chemistry in situations that reinforce your defectiveness. It is consistent with your self-image. It somehow feels alien to have someone you value value you.

These are the two sides of the swing for you. At one extreme you pursue someone you desire highly. You feel one-down. The chemistry is high and the fear is high. At the other extreme, you pursue someone who loves and accepts you. You are less afraid, but you soon devalue your partner and lose the chemistry.