Don't Marry an Axe Murderer

The other day I was in a parking lot after picking up my mother's prescriptions and I was getting ready to buckle up and leave. As I clicked the buckle into place, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a young man and a young woman--probably in their early twenties--saying goodbye in between rows in the middle of the lot. They looked very much in puppy love. Like early stages "I like/love you, hope you really like/love me too" infatuation. Smitten. Of course, I was riveted. You would have been too; the whole exchange was very sweet.

After their goodbyes, they both turned to walk in opposite directions toward their cars. Almost immediately, the young woman stopped and turned back, gazing at the young man, seeming to will him to turn around and look back at her. No such luck; he sauntered on. As he reached his car, she turned and headed toward hers, appearing a wee bit deflated. At that moment, the young man stopped and turned and gazed at her, looking as if he hoped that she too would turn and connect for a long-distance, across the lot, goodbye. The young woman didn't look back; she simply got in her car.

Neither of them knew that the other had looked back, and both, with their unrequited wistful gazing, might have left wondering if the other was as equally besotted. A stranger got to see what the two of them were hoping and looking for in the other. It was bittersweet to witness this near-miss exchange. I left the lot hoping that the two of them would figure out sooner rather than later that they are deep in smit together.

Which reminds me of the movie "So I Married an Axe Murderer." Now, I'm not a big Mike Myers fan, but I love that film. Loving it as I do, I had to share it with an ex when we two were in that smitten stage of dating. I ought to have known that we were not going to make it as a couple when she said she wanted to turn off the film not long after we began watching. (If only selecting a good partner match were as easy as liking the same movies.)

My ex did not turn off the movie, however, until after she heard Charlie--the Mike Myers character--tell a friend, "I'm smitten. I'm deep in smit." From that point on, the ex's correspondence with me was often signed, "Mr. Deepinsmit." I think the ex decided to turn off the film after Charlie recited the "Woman Woman" poem at an open mic night for poets (a low point for sure if you don't appreciate the movie mocking the whole super cool beatnik scene), and so if you are tempted to watch the movie, try hanging in there for a while. 

  

(Amazon reviewers give the film a 4.5 rating out of five and Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 2.5. Obviously, your mileage may vary, and please don't judge all my movie reviews based on this one.)

Most everything in life is bittersweet; it's just the nature of things, all things.

Few relationships, if any, turn out like Hollywood romances. The romance doesn't stay sweet forever; heck, it doesn't even stay a romance (at least not like in the beginning). Dishes must be done, bills must be paid, garbage has to be put out, illness strikes, and so on. Tragedy can pull people apart or bring them closer together. The mundane can be sacred or numbing. I guess how we respond to life's challenges (and relationships represent a life challenge every bit as much as they represent an opportunity for personal fulfillment), whether we pull together or pull apart, push someone away or stray, might tell us something about who we are as people.

The trouble with Hollywood romances is that they almost always end before the conflict stage. You know, the stage that follows the romance stage. It is the stage that literally sets the stage for the rest of your relationship. And because it involves conflict, well, it’s probably the least fun stage in a relationship. (But who ever said that everything worthwhile would be fun all the time?)

Some people actually believe that romance is the stuff that martial love is made of and not the deeper love that can emerge when two people commit to successfully negotiating the conflict stage. While happy couples emerge from the conflict stage with healthier strategies for dealing with conflict, some relationships get stuck in negative conflict patterns. Whether it's a match made for distance via mutual avoidance, a dance of approach and avoidance--where one approaches and the other avoids--, constant bickering and recriminations, or one-sided patterns of emotional abuse, or worse.

To be sure, we all engage in a certain amount of drama within relationship. This is an important point: own your own drama to the extent you are able and take responsibility for your own healing. Remember though, while we may, through self-reflection and grace, catch glimpses of our negative shadows, it may be impossible to see our entire shadow or difficult to discern how real those glimpses are. Similar to how difficult it could be to spot which ass is really a true reflection of your ass in a room filled with fun house mirrors. This is one of the ways in which intimate relationships may be beneficial: At times, our partner may be able to give us some much needed perspective when we become inordinately self critical or may be able to recognize that which we are unable to see in ourselves and offer constructive criticism.  

If our self knowledge is strong (if we've developed the ego strength necessary to develop good self-reflection skills and the courage to face our own dragons), we are able to discern, perhaps most of the time, when a constructive criticism offered is potentially valid or possibly a projection on the part of the other person or simply massive insensitivity to our difference, our situation, and our needs. Not needing to defensively fend off criticism when delivered, we can be comfortable with the idea of taking time to consider input from others. Hearing criticism can be part of our self-discovery process and a welcome contribution to our growth.

Drama frequently arises when current events rub up against old wounds and we react with the combined pain of the old and the new. People also engage in drama even when hurtful currents events do not rub up against old wounds. Drama dynamic is a phrase I use to describe when the drama within a relationship becomes an ongoing, predictable dance between the two. When engaging in drama, we may pout, overreact, react without thinking, avoid conflict, become emotionally distant, project, and engage in other unhelpful strategies (drama) to ameliorate and protect us from pain or the discovery of our true self. Of course, these strategies are more often than not maladaptive, causing even more drama. They harm rather than help the situation.  

Drama comes in many forms, from bothersome to damaging: deprecating behavior meant to solicit positive feedback; playing the victim (e.g., avoiding conflict while blaming the partner for his avoidance, and collecting and keeping resentments in the dark while failing to express his needs); not fighting fairly; scapegoating family or friends; having affairs; fighting about imagined affairs; pressuring a partner to engage in sexual acts that she is uncomfortable with; making threats (e.g., to leave, suicide, etc.); emotional and physical attacks on a partner, and so on. 

Drama, if attended to, may prove useful--in a positive sense--to individuals and their relationships. Upsets, maladaptive coping strategies, and disagreements represent important opportunities for personal healing and growth for both partners. Conflict provides an opportunity for increased understanding and greater intimacy. By accepting responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and working to develop more adaptive coping strategies for ourselves, we will likely be benefitted, and what benefits us may benefit our relationship(s). Working in cooperation with our partner increases the chances that our relationship will benefit. So what separates the average person, who needs to learn more adaptive strategies, from a drama queen or king? Demonstrating a willingness to accept responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and to apply sincere effort to learning new, more adaptive life skills. People who demonstrate the same tend to engage others in less drama the older they get. Meaning, they learn "how to be an adult." (See David Richo’s book of the same title.) 


Unfortunately, there are people who are programmed for drama who won’t accept personal responsibility for their actions and who imagine intended slights wherever they turn. For them, conflict of the dramatic type, whether overt or the property of a partner's vivid imagination, never ends. Life together is one big drama. And because drama by it's very nature tends to be manipulative, people who don't have much experience in relationship or don't have clear boundaries--e.g., unduly trusting, etc.--may be manipulated into believing that patterns of relationship-damaging behaviors are just a part of normal adult relationship. And if the drama is contained in one partner's head (the quiet, seemingly unassuming drama queen or king), the other partner may rarely, if ever, have an opportunity to glimpse the play in progress until the drama queen or king's deceptions become more obvious or he suddenly acts out.  

Real life drama is often not enough for drama queens and kings (i.e., hardship is not drama enough). Why? Hardship is grounded in the present and demands attention be given to current suffering. Hardship often motivates us to dig deeply within, which could lead to our coping better. Drama queens and kings, more often than not, do not want to be distracted from their script by reality nor do they want to dig deep. Reasons for not doing the personal work that might be required to cope better with the presenting hardship may be provided to deflect attention away from their unwillingness to accept personal responsibility for healing their past wounds, leaving them ill equipped to cope effectively with the current hardship. The drama queen or king's partner, swayed by his reasoning, may take on more responsibility than would otherwise be warranted. Of course, the reverse could be true as well. The drama queen or king may insist on handling everything and use the real life drama to undercut a co-dependent partner's confidence and deny that person the opportunity to take responsibility. The fact remains: the real life hardship is not enough; the drama queen or king has to turn it into a tool for the script that she or he is running. It all depends on whether a "poor pitiful me" or "poor you" script is being run (or "incompetent you," "useless you," "crazy you," etc.)


Drama can also be an escape mechanism similar to drinking alcohol or taking drugs, and the drama addict will manufacture drama to get the fix that he or she needs to feel better and/or shift focus and responsibility for the emptiness, hurt, guilt, or shame that the person feels. Indeed, a partner may be the only person who witnesses the drama while others see the false self that the partner fell in love with; sort of the way some alcoholics keep their drinking secret from some people but not others. Or everyone else may see it clearly or catch glimpses of it, but the drama queen or king keeps up enough of the act around the partner to assure her that nothing is wrong, life is hunky dory.

Blaming may be used to justify the continuance of unacceptable behaviors. Another strategy, which takes the focus off of a person’s own responsibility to do the work needed to heal or behave more responsibly (e.g., like a caring, relatively rational adult), is to place the responsibility for the resulting drama on the other person in relationship or on people outside of the primary relationship. ("It's your/her/their fault I'm so upset. I wouldn't do thus and so if you/she/they didn't do blah, blah, blah." As in, "If you didn't talk back to me, I wouldn't hit you.") If someone else has been pegged to shoulder the blame, then the drama maker has no responsibility to behave differently. The victimizer becomes the victim, leaving the partner, and/or other people, including children caught in the middle, to walk on eggshells. Sometimes both partners, friends, and even strangers walk around on eggshells when it comes to various issues. 

Which brings me to something that happened when I was directing a single parent and homemaker program at a community college.

It was dusk, day classes had long been over and night classes were in progress. The administrative staff had gone home. Basically no one was about as I headed from the parking lot toward my office at the back of the building. The entrance to the back of the building faced the same direction as the front entrance yet was less traveled, and virtually received no traffic at night because no night classes were conducted at that end of the building. The parking lot was oddly situated on a hill: from the building, you could only see the first few cars in the lot. That night the lot was nearly filled with the cars of night students. The building's windows were hermetically sealed, however, effectively blocking most sounds.

As I hit the sidewalk, I noticed a taller than average woman, about 5'8" or so, and an even much taller man, appearing to be a few inches over six feet, leave the back entrance. She was clutching her books closely to her chest, and he was haranguing her. He looked menacing. I couldn't hear what was being said though he was livid. I guess he thought as long as no one could hear him, the situation must appear to be a "no harm, no foul" one.

Something about the interaction suggested a relationship, and yet, something about it also unnerved me. This thought crossed my mind, "If he gets her alone in the parking lot, he may abduct her." While relatively obtuse to body language, particularly subtle cues, these cues were anything but subtle. Still, I felt silly. Could I really be sure that this was anything that needed interrupting? Was what I was seeing any of my business? Besides, he was only quietly haranguing her.

As we progressed toward each other on this long walk, I debated the whole way what to do. Would I pass by them? Would I pass by and then head back to the parking lot as if I forgot something in my car so that I could see if she got safely in hers? Why was I even thinking that she had her own car? Whatever the case, something about the situation, told me that he was desperately trying to get her attention in the time they had together, which I took to be during the walk from the building to her car.

As we neared closer, I adjusted my position on the sidewalk to suggest that I was about to walk around them, and at the last second, I crossed in front of her and turned on my heel in front of him, effectively cutting him off while keeping in step with her. I simultaneously took her by the arm and said, "May I walk you to you car?" I glanced over my shoulder quickly; he was frozen in place, looking at me in shocked indignation.

She could have pulled away. He could have attacked me. I could have been arrested for assault (if a stranger intervening and touching her arm like that while cutting him off made her feel threatened... I mean, she might have taken me for a nut case).

What she did instead was shake under my touch, exhale loudly, and say, "Thank you."

Turns out they had been boyfriend and girlfriend and then he began to control and berate her. That eventually led to physical violence. She tried to work it out and when she couldn't make the relationship work, she broke up with him. He threatened her, he stalked her at work, at school, he threatened suicide. She decided that if she agreed to establish the relationship with him, he'd get help, they could work it out. But the violence started up again, and so she had broke it off. Indeed, it had crossed her mind that he might try to abduct her once they were in the parking lot. She was scared to death. All of that came out in a rush as we walked together. 

I don't know what happened to her after I escorted her safely to her car and she left the lot. Sometimes we don't get to know the rest of the story. But I didn't hear of any missing persons stories or abductions in the news.

I'd like to think that his anger was diverted from her and that the public censure made him realize that he was dangerously close to screwing up his life. Perhaps he walked away and grew as a person. More likely than not, he walked away and refocused his rage on some other unsuspecting woman that he would charm and then play out his necessary drama.

Many romances fail to make the transition from romance to deep, abiding love. Instead of being true relationships, they become a series of transactions, and one or both of the partners may simply act as placeholders in the other person’s life, fulfilling enough needs to keep the person around. While other people, though skilled at securing love, are simply not capable of loving another. They may fall in love with an ideal they have in their heads, but when that person’s partner fails to live up to the ideal, she or he is held responsible. With these malignant, emotionally and/or physically abusive lovers (whether overtly or covertly abusive), it was never about their partners. Their partners were never there, only their imaginary lover was present for a time. 

You'd think this would be obvious to anyone in a relationship with someone who is incapable of love (other than, perhaps, being capable of being in love with the idea of someone being in love with them) if not for the fact that love can blind us. Sometimes we may be willfully blind because we believe we don’t deserve any better. At other times our blindness may come from our having a too trusting nature, an inability to make sense of subtle cues or red flags that conflict with what a partner tells us is true for them, or an over developed sense of loyalty. (People with Asperger’s might recognize themselves in the last statement.)

Malignant, dyed-in-the-wool drama queens and kings, having secured love with sweetness, will dangle ripe carrots in front of partners, barely giving them a taste now and then, stringing them along. Their partners, seeing what the drama queen or king is capable of, will often hang on, hoping that the relationship will improve or believing that the drama addict will heal and grow and become more capable of intimacy, instead of accepting that the addict loathes intimacy because ongoing intimacy would reveal the disordered inner life, an outsized entitled ego that the addict wants to keep sequestered in the dark, or for who knows what reason (given that intimacy denied is intimacy denied; it's difficult to see through a shut door). And it can be difficult to accept that the person you think you know and love is best suited to drama, perhaps even terror. 

Dyed-in-the-wool drama kings and queens rarely change, including the quiet ones who often fly under everyone’s radar. They are more likely to have affairs and change partners or venues when asked to deviate from their script, or when they get bored directing the play in progress. However, if you continue to give them what they want at the expense of yourself--e.g., if you continue to take their abuse or agree to live in a relationship that lacks emotional intimacy--, they may string you, and others, along. What matters is that they get the fix they need, not that your needs are met. Why give up an easy mark?

Don't be a mark. Don't play the fool. 

Pay attention to the red flags early in dating. Note what feels odd or inappropriate to you. Listen to friends and family that you trust if they express concerns about the person you are seeing. Hear people out. Become clear about your needs and boundaries in an intimate relationship and clearly express the same to the person you are dating. Make no mistake: significant needs are boundaries. Having significant needs left unfulfilled, without any effort on the part of a partner (or worse, disregarded or discounted), is a boundary violation, which may be indicative of a poor match. (Yes, it is true: no one person can meet all of our needs; however, get honest with yourself about your future happiness.) Pay attention to how conflict is managed as it arises. And not just with you but with other people as well.

Some people are wonderful during the romance stage; it's easy to be hooked and become convinced that this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. If you and Mr. or Ms. Wonderful stay together, pay attention to the developing drama dynamic. The Dozen Drama Rules is not an exhaustive list of the drama that people engage when dealing with conflict, but the Drama Rules can help you identify some of it when you see it. How is conflict dealt with by you and your partner? Is it being dealt with? 

Deal directly with drama when it arises: talk about not just the conflict, but how you and your partner deal with conflict. Notice whether you and your partner own your respective parts in the conflict, whether one or the other is expected to own the entire conflict, or whether one of you consistently takes responsibility for whatever conflict arises. Pay attention to blaming behavior, score keeping, and backpacking. Backpacking is where someone collects slights and hurts, never expressing them until the proverbial straw breaks his or her back and then, empties the backpack all at once by blowing up. Call the behaviors for what they are (maladaptive coping behaviors) and work on ways to ameliorate the behaviors. 

Not all mild-mannered people are mild mannered on the inside. Obsequiousness (fawning attention versus authentic good-heartedness)--either giving it or being expected to give it (perhaps as a way to mollify the other person)--is not a good sign. The person giving it may have the potential for breaking in one of two directions: become demanding because of all she or he has done for you or fall into silent resentment and grudge holding. People who behave in that manner rarely do so without having hidden expectations and needs that a partner is supposed to mind read. Fail to read them and your stock will go down. Also, pay attention to a pattern of acquiescence; going along reluctantly with a partner's wishes as a consistent strategy leads nowhere but to resentment, and you (or your partner) may have found yourself someone who wants to play the martyr for now. If you are acquiescing consistently, if you are constantly making allowances while disregarding important needs of your own, ask yourself why. Is that more about you, more about your partner’s needs and behaviors, or a combination of the two? Be honest with yourself.

Notice and name what hurts belong to your interactions and relationship and what does not. That is, note what hurts or parts of hurt that are related to you or your partner's past or other situations in your life together, that are clouding your present interactions, and that need to be healed or addressed, as might be the case with a stressful situation that's negatively affecting your relationship. Does the person who has deep past hurts take any responsibility for his or her healing or is the person's partner supposed to tiptoe around any and everything identified? Work together to create healthier ways of handling hurts, disagreements, and stressful situations when they arise. 

Pay attention to whether you or your partner has stopped expressing needs and/or feelings about personal matters that matter beyond work or family issues and yet includes work and family. (If a partner claims to have a perfect childhood, be wary.) Work together to reestablish satisfactory emotional intimacy. You may have varying needs, but it is important to work together to maintain emotional connection. 

Focus on the present reality not just your hopes and dreams. If your partner will not work with you to develop healthy strategies for dealing with conflict or does not care for your need for emotional connection, don't make excuses for him or her and don't play along according to the script he or she is directing while hoping for change sometime in the future. (And if it is you who is unable to stretch and grow and reduce your need for drama or connect with your partner, get thee to a counselor.) Take off your rose-colored glasses and listen to your gut. 

Love may be unconditional but relationships by necessity are not, and it is not unreasonable to expect others to accept some responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and personal healing and growth. To be sure, we all make allowances for the people we love. We cannot be perfect. Our partner cannot be perfect. No one is perfect. We forgive each other our imperfect humanness and love each other in spite of or perhaps in part because of our imperfections. Also, not everything is fodder for healing: we have misunderstandings, we decide to agree to disagree, we stretch to understand a partner's perspective. Robert Karen (How Far Will an Apology Go?) sums up nicely what relationships teach us about others, our basic humanness, and ourselves:

I think we need to remember that not forgiving ourselves, not forgiving others, is a part of who we are. It is as natural to us as our defenses, our repression, our dissociation, our denial. No one is able to look at themselves whole. No one is so evolved as to deal creatively with every loss and insult. No one is free from illusions about themselves, positive and negative. No one is immune to the joys of victimhood and revenge. We all have this in us. We are all enmeshed to some degree in our inner dramas and the unimaginable passions and loyalties they represent, which hold sway over us in ways not even we can know. If we can see some of this in ourselves, accept it, be concerned about it, it is less likely to control or overwhelm us. We will have a better chance to stay connected, to expand our zone of connection, to dissolve whatever scar tissue we can from a life of hurt and conflict, and move on to the goodness of love.

When moving on to the goodness of love, remember that having healthy relationship boundaries and a healthy level of emotional intimacy is an investment in the health of the relationship. Relationships require care and attention. Loving relationships welcome cooperative effort. Behavior that is hurtful and damages the relationship needs addressing. Own your own sh*t to the best of your ability and endeavor to work with your partner for your and your relationship's sake. 

And if you find yourself with a drama queen or king (that is, someone who holds tightly to maladaptive coping strategies whether she or he is loud and brash or quiet and seemingly unassuming), insist on couples counseling. And if your partner consistently makes little to no effort to improve the relationship or actively works against you--if you partner continues to be abusive, manipulative, or distant--, if all of your best efforts fail and it appears you are with a died-in-the-wool drama queen or king, stop kidding yourself and resign yourself to more of the same or move on.  

And to increase your chances of being able to move on, don't marry an axe murderer.

POST SCRIPT: I have a tendency to get lost in the parts of things and so I wrote this essay in lieu of a book, as a way to quickly remind myself about some of what I've learned about the drama dynamic. Healthier ways to communicate are not touched upon, though you might note behaviors in both this and in The Dozen Drama Rules that are by their very nature antithetical to effective communication. If what I've learned and shared here benefits you, then perhaps both of us are blessed. 


I apologize for not putting my standard ::blog warning:: on this essay to alert the reader to the fact that this is a serious and an exceptionally long one. If I'd done that, I would have ruined the set up--the introduction to romantic love--and possibly your enjoyment of the scene between two young lovers that I recounted. ♥


I PROMISE that Monday's essay will be a WHOLE LOT shorter and it will be light hearted too.