Are you in stable misery? Which stabilizers are you guilty of?

I found this article on Creating Rewarding Relationships by Kim Leatherdale, therapist, writer, artist, and fellow human. I thought it was excellent and wanted to share it with you.

Sometimes I see couples who just don’t seem willing to change.  Although they are in my office and they “say” they want to do something to feel better, they make no changes.

It’s not me, so I look at what they are doing.  I know something is keeping them stable in the misery they are expressing to me, and let me tell you, what they express is quite miserable.

What do I mean by keeping them stable?  Well, one or both of them are doing something that allows them to put up with the discomfort of where they are now.  They may be telling me they can’t stand each other, they scream all the time or shut down, they haven’t had sex in years, or they don’t know each other at all, but when I dig I see the thing(s) that permit them to tolerate the pain- those things are misery stabilizers.

What sort of things are misery stabilizers?  Here are a few examples:

• An addiction– when you are numbing yourself with an addictive behavior or chemical, you don’t feel the pain of your unhappy relationship.  Besides, the addiction always comes first.
• Affairs– if you are getting your needs met outside the relationship, then you don’t feel the emptiness inside the relationship.  You can put up with it because you have someone else on the side.  Keep this in mind if you are the “other person,” you are helping your lover stay in a relationship they aren’t happy with.  There are no excuses for infidelity.
• Work– by staying at and focusing incessantly on your work, you can distract yourself from how unhappy you are at home.  If you run yourself into the ground physically, mentally, and emotionally by pouring everything into work, then you don’t have to spend any of that energy on your unhappy relationship.
• Food– any eating disorder creates numbness which allows you not to feel your misery.  Whether it is binging, purging, restricting, eating to fill emotional needs- all of these are misery stabilizers.
• Your family– often one member of the stable-miserable couple is focused exclusively on the kids.  You spend all your time, effort, emotions and concentration on the kids, their schedule and their needs.  That way you can ignore your relationship.  To a degree you are treating your kids like an affair.
• Anything that allows you to ignore, put up with, or suffer through a relationship anyone would describe as miserable.

What do you do?

Stop the stabilizers and let yourself feel and respond.  However, respond in a healthy way.  I’m not saying just because your relationship is miserable that you must leave it.  I am saying that you can do some work on yourself and the connection to make it better.

No one deserves to live in misery.

Your courageous work is to identify any misery stabilizers you have in your life and stop them.  Get help if you need assistance through the transition and onto healthy relating.  Make it a point to relate, connect, repair, and communicate.

Don’t avoid, ignore, or endure- make a change.

For more on Kim Leatherdale visit her site Creating Rewarding Relationships, join the Creating Rewarding Relationships Fan Page or follow her on Twitter