Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (49 page)

Both Pamela and Keith illustrate the trade-off. Let go of your need for perfect order, achievement, or status in exchange for a higher quality of life and more fulfilling emotional relationships with the people you love.

Mel: Forty-three years old. His wife is threatening to LEAVE HIM.

Before we had even met Mel, we found ourselves growing irritated with him. In our first phone contact, he asked if we had an opening on Thursday evenings. We told him that we only worked Monday and Wednesday evenings. „So there’s no chance I can come in on a Thursday?“ he asked. We told him again that we did not work on Thursday evenings. We made an appointment for the following Monday. Twice more before we met that Monday, he called. „Isn’t there any way I could come in on a Thursday?“ he wanted to know. „It would really be much better for me.“

Mel was twenty minutes late for our first appointment. When he walked into our office, the first thing he did was comment on how inconvenient it was for him to come on a Monday. „I have to come all the way across town,“ he said. He sat down on the couch and noted that it was uncomfortable. „Can I move it a bit?“ he asked.

We asked him why he had come to therapy.

MEL: It’s my wife Katie. She’s threatening to leave me unless I go into therapy. I don’t want her to go.

THERAPIST: Why is she threatening to leave?

MEL: She found out I was having an affair again.

THERAPIST: So it’s happened before?

MEL: Yeah. It’s the second time she’s found out.

THERAPIST: Is it your second affair?

MEL: Nah (laughs). It’s a little quirk of mine. I just can’t be satisfied with one woman.

As time went on, we found that there were other reasons Katie was threatening to leave Mel. Katie talked about it in one of our marital sessions.

KATIE: I just can’t take it anymore. He just always has to have everything his way, and I’m sick of it. He’s like a spoiled child. Everything has to be his way.

Mel seemed baffled by Katie’s behavior. „She makes such a big deal about everything!“ he complained.

Nina: Thirty years old. She cannot hold down a job.

Nina also was late for our first appointment. „I’m sorry,“ she said, „lateness is a problem for me.“

THERAPIST: Well, why don’t we start with you telling me why you’ve come to therapy.

NINA: Well, my husband Raymond wants me to get a job. We’re having money problems.

THERAPIST: Do you want to get a job?

NINA: No. Really, I think it’s very unfair after all these years for him to start making me work. It really bothers me.

THERAPIST: But it sounds like you’re looking for a job nevertheless.

NINA: Yeah. I’ve been looking. I mean, I have no choice. We’re really having money problems. The problem is I’m having trouble finding a job. And to tell the truth, when I did work, I really had trouble holding on to a job.

THERAPIST: What was the problem?

NINA: I guess it’s that I find working boring. I really can’t be bothered to do everything they want.

Nina strikes us as childish. It seems her true purpose in coming is to get us to ally with her against her husband and convince him she should not have to work.

THERAPIST: Do you think your husband might be willing to come to therapy with you?

NINA: Yeah. That would be great I wish you would talk to him and get him to see reason. I’m really not cut out for work.

THERAPIST: Well, if you want him to know that, you’ll have to tell him yourself.

When it becomes apparent we will not intervene in the way that she wants, Nina becomes petulant. „Why are you doing this to me?“ she asks.

Use this questionnaire to measure the strength of your Entitlement lifetrap. Answer the items based on the following scale:

SCORING KEY

1. Completely untrue of me
   
2. Mostly untrue of me
   
3. Slightly more true than untrue of me
   
4. Moderately true of me
   
5. Mostly true of me
   
6. Describes me perfectly
   

If you have any 5’s or 6’s on this questionnaire, this lifetrap may still apply to you, even if your score is in the low range.

INTERPRETING YOUR ENTITLEMENT SCORE

10-19 Very low. This lifetrap probably does
not
apply to you.

20-29 Fairly low. This lifetrap may only apply
occasionally
.

30-39 Moderate. This lifetrap is an
issue
in your life.

40-49 High. This is definitely an
important
lifetrap for you.

50-60 Very high. This is definitely one of your
core
lifetraps.

There are three types of Entitlement, each with its own characteristic experience. The types overlap—you can be more than one.

THREE TYPES OF ENTITLEMENT

1. Spoiled Entitlement
   
2. Dependent Entitlement
   
3. Impulsivity
   

You see yourself as special. You are demanding and controlling, and want everything your way. When other people balk, you get angry.

KATIE: We’ve been fighting because I want to take this course, and he doesn’t want me to.

MEL: She won’t be there when I get home from work.

KATIE: I’ll be home within a half-hour of when you get home.

MEL: But you won’t be able to make my dinner.

KATIE: Mel, it’s only one night a week. We can order our dinner or go out.

MEL: You don’t understand. I work hard. It’s a matter of my comforts. (Yells) And my comforts are important to me!

You have little empathy or concern for the feelings of others. This leads you to be inconsiderate and perhaps even abusive.

You are indifferent to normal social expectations and conventions. You consider yourself above the law. You believe that although
other
people should be punished when they violate social norms, you should
not
be punished. You do not expect to have to pay the normal consequences for your actions.

MEL: Sorry I’m late. I was waiting for this bastard to pull out of the tow-away zone so I could park there.

THERAPIST: You parked in a tow-away zone?

MEL: Yeah. But it’s okay. I borrowed my brother-in-law’s car. He has „MD“ license plates. Even if I got a ticket, I could talk my way out of it.

You take what you want without guilt because you feel entitled. You expect that you will somehow manage to escape the negative consequences other people would incur for acting similarly. You will get away with it or manipulate the situation so you do not have to pay the consequences.

If you are the dependent type, you feel entitled to depend on other people. You place yourself in the weak, incompetent, needy role, and expect other people to be strong and take care of you.

You feel entitled much in the same way as a child feels toward a parent. It is your
right.
People
owe
it to you.

NINA: Raymond is really mad at me because he found out I was stealing from the food money to buy clothes.

THERAPIST: Why were you doing that?

NINA: Well, he cut my clothing allowance. It really bothers me. What am I supposed to do? Just keep wearing the same old crappy clothes?

THERAPIST: I know. He cut your clothes allowance because you two are having such money problems.

NINA: Well, he’s supposed to be taking care of things better! It’s not supposed to come to this!

Like Nina, you may expect to be supported financially. You let other people assume responsibility for your everyday affairs and for much of your decision-making.

You are more likely to be passively than actively aggressive. When someone fails to take care of you, you feel like a victim. You are angry, but you probably restrain yourself. You express your resentment in other ways—through pouting, passive-aggressive behaviors, hypochondriacal complaints, whining, and occasionally a childlike temper tantrum.

You do not necessarily feel that you are special. In fact, you may try very hard to please and be accommodating. Yet you feel entitled to be dependent. Your entitlement comes from the fact that you feel weak and vulnerable. You need help, and people
must
give it to you.

This is a lifelong pattern of difficulty controlling your behavior and feelings. You have problems with impulse control. You act on your desires and feelings without regard for the consequences.

You have trouble tolerating frustration enough to complete long-term tasks, especially boring or routine ones. You have a general lack of organization and structure. You are undisciplined.

NINA: Well, I didn’t get the travel agency job.

THERAPIST: Oh. So you finally went down there. What happened?

NINA: Actually I couldn’t get through the application. They wanted me to fill out all these long forms I didn’t understand, and to do all this paperwork. I couldn’t find anyone who would really help me go through it step by step. I thought that if this was what the application process was like, I definitely wouldn’t like the job. It’s just not the kind of place I want to work in.

Like Nina, you may have a tendency to procrastinate. When you finally do the task, you do it half-heartedly or passive-aggressively. You just cannot get yourself to focus and persevere. Even when you
want
to stick to something it is hard for you. You have a problem with short-term versus long-term gratification.

Your difficulty postponing short-term gratification may also take the form of addictions such as overeating, smoking, drinking, drugs, or compulsive sex. However, problems with addictions do not necessarily indicate that you have this lifetrap. Addictions are only one of several indicators. For you to have the Entitlement lifetrap, the addictions must be part of a more general pattern of problems with self-control and self-discipline.

You may have trouble controlling your emotions, particularly anger. Although you may have some depression, anger is your predominant emotion. You are not able to express your anger in a mature way. Rather, you are like an enraged child. You get impatient, irritable, angry.

KATIE: The way he yells, it’s so embarrassing. He doesn’t care where we are or who’s listening. All of a sudden he’ll start screaming. We can be in public, at a friend’s house, anyplace.

MEL: That’s right. When I’m angry, I want people to know it.

KATIE: And I’ll tell you, it works. I give him whatever he wants just to shut him up. Everybody does.

You are self-indulgent about expressing your anger. You feel you should be free to vent any emotion. You do not consider the impact on other people.

Your problems with anger and impulse control put you at risk. At the extreme, your problem controlling your impulses could lead to criminal behavior. More typically, they occur as explosiveness, temper tantrums, or inappropriate behavior.

NINA: I got this great new dress for the party Friday.

THERAPIST: How did you swing that? I thought Raymond wasn’t giving you any more money for clothes.

NINA: Well, if you swear not to tell him, actually I stole it. It was really easy.

I just sneaked it into the dressing room and slipped it into my bag.

THERAPIST: How are you going to explain it to Raymond?

NINA: Oh, he won’t notice. It’s really his fault anyway, because he won’tgive me the money.

Raymond
did
find out about the dress. He was so angry that he told Nina he wanted a trial separation. This was the last thing Nina wanted. She had acted impulsively, without considering the consequences. Between the
impulse
and the
action,
she had to learn to place
thought.

Unlike many of the other lifetraps—which cause you to suppress your needs—the Entitlement lifetrap involves the
excessive
expression of your needs. You lack a normal degree of restraint. Whereas other people inhibit and discipline themselves appropriately, you do not.