How to Stop Sabotaging Your Relationships

This episode was pre recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar on demand. CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register@Allce.com Counselortoolbox. I'd like to welcome you to today's presentation on relationship saboteurs. This is a more in depth presentation presentation of the relationship skills workshop that we did last week or the week before and really focuses on not only what the saboteurs are, but how it impacts the what I call the saboteur and the sabotage. I don't like the word victim because yeah, you can see the reasons for that. So with no further ado, we are going to identify the causes, consequences and interventions from some of the most common saboteurs. Now, there are a lot of things that we can do to really muck up a relationship. So we're not going to hit every single one of them, but we are going to talk about some of the ones that we most commonly see and we'll identify interventions for issues that are commonly seen in relationship sabotage. Most saboteurs are protecting themselves from their basic fears. People don't just get into a relationship and go, hey, I really want to screw this up, so let me see how I can do it. And we don't choose behaviors unless the behavior we're choosing, the benefits of that outweigh the other benefits. So when you're choosing a behavior, even if it's a snap decision, you're not going, you know, which one can make my partner most uncomfortable? What's most likely to mess up my relationship? So we want to look at what is the function, what is the benefit of, of these saboteurs on relationships. Most sabotagees end up experiencing these same basic fears. And so we want to look at what are we talking about when we talk about stress, when we talk about anger, when we talk about anxiety, which, you know, anger, anxiety are flip sides of the fight or flight sort of stress reaction. What we're really talking about is our mind's reaction to basic fears. Our mind is saying there's a threat of some sort. When we're talking about relationships, those threats generally center around isolation. Because we're meant to be together, you know, we're not meant to live out by ourselves as hermits in the woods somewhere. It doesn't mean you have to have 150 friends. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to be in a romantic relationship. But as humans, we need to have connection. We fear rejection. Rejection hurts, you know, whether you have good self esteem or low self esteem. A Lot of people really appreciate approval and rejection hurts. Even if your self esteem is good and you can be like, well, I'm sorry you don't like that or like me, there's still a little bit of a sting to it. Loss of control. Most of us have certain things that we want to hold on to control of. And one of those things is how we feel and the people that are in our lives. So it's really hard sometimes to let go of that control and trust and we're going to get to that trust thing and trust that if we loosen the reins, that person is not going to run away or our life won't just completely go into chaos. The unknown, which kind of goes along with loss of control. What happens if I let go of the reins? What happens if I make myself vulnerable? The unknown is really scary because if I can't predict what someone else is going to do, then you know, I'm vulnerable. And vulnerability puts us on that fight or flee, you know, we don't want to be hurt, sort of zone. And then failure. Whether you've grown to associate approval and acceptance with success, or whether you just don't like to fail, most of us don't respond with open arms every time we fail. So there may be some fear associated with it, some depression, some anxiety, some frustration. For some people it's a momentary, you know, I could have done better, let me learn from it. For other people, it's a devastating hit to their self esteem when there is a failure. And when there's a relationship failure, then they start looking at what's wrong with me? Why did that person leave me? So we're going to talk about depersonalizing some things because it takes two functional human beings to make a functional relationship. Insecurity is one of the first common saboteurs that we talk about now. The saboteur is the person who is the insecure one. Generally there's one person in a relationship that is more of something than the other. Not always, but that's how we're going to look at it today. So the insecure person in the relationship, or the saboteur is constantly anxious, constantly afraid of him. Abandonment, hyper vigilant to cues of abandonment. So if somebody is acting a little bit weird, or Maybe they are 10 minutes late getting home from work, or, you know, anything changes, the insecure saboteur is going to start freaking out, going, you're getting ready to leave. I need validation. I need you to tell me it's going to be okay. They have difficulty trusting not Only the other person trusting that person will be there, and they're not going to abandon them. But they also have difficulty trusting their own internal thoughts and feelings that, okay, things are going all right, so I can trust that there's something in the back of their head. There's a little gallery that's going, you know, you can't trust anybody else. So the person who's insecure is untrusting. They're hyper vigilant. Imagine being in their head. That's exhausting. They may constantly question or attack their partner. Where were you? You didn't answer my call. I called you three times. Why did you not answer my call? And the other person may be like, I turned off my phone because I needed a break. But that's going to come back to the saboteur as rejection. They need constant reassurance from the partner to prevent feelings of failure, rejection, and isolation. If they feel like they're failing in their partner's eyes, they may start frantically trying to get approval or acting out and tearing down the partners like, okay, maybe I'm not perfect, but you're not perfect either. So let me tell you. They may fear rejection. So they're constantly looking for reassurance or pushing the partner away and saying, you know what? If you're going to reject me, I'm going to reject you first. Then I still have control. And they may fear isolation. They may think that, you know, everybody always leaves. Everybody always leaves me. I'm not going to be able to maintain a relationship. So you can see just thinking about what it must be like in this person's mind, every time something happens, the phone rings or somebody doesn't answer the phone or doesn't respond to a text to put you on high alert that, oh, my gosh, this person is going to leave. So switching gears over to the sabotagee or the person who's experiencing the sabotage, they can feel smothered and. Or completely isolated. So let's talk about smothered for a second. If you are constantly having to reassure the saboteur, if the saboteur is constantly calling, touching base, going, I need to make sure you're still here. I need to make sure you're still here. It can be exhausting. Likewise, having to interact with that person on that level, with that level of intensity, the sabotagee can feel like they've lost contact with everything and everyone else because so much time is spent reassuring the saboteur. So in treatment, one of the things we can do with this couple is with the saboteur, we, we can have them start using some cognitive techniques to identify the thoughts they're having that are leading them to expect abandonment, that are leading them to feel insecure, that are leading them to question what's going on. Like in the example of if their partner didn't return three text messages in a row, what were the thoughts that went through your head? We can also look at teaching some DBT techniques for emotional regulation and distress tolerance, not having to be reassured constantly. We can work on some self esteem stuff to help the person develop the skills so they don't need that constant reassurance. They can say, you know what? I really love to have this person in my life. However, if they go away, my life's not going to end. It'll hurt, but my life won't end. So with a saboteur, there are very practical steps we can take with the sabotagee. We can have them learn to articulate what's going on. So if they're starting to feel smothered, they need to be able to articulate exactly what the person's doing that's making them feel smothered and present an alternative. You know, when I'm at work, I can't respond to your texts every hour or every 15 minutes or whatever, or I might be in a meeting, but I promise you I will return them as soon as I can. Likewise, the sabotage may initiate some contact and periodically text the person during lunch and say, hey, I'm at lunch. I was just thinking about you today. In order to sort of balance it out. So the saboteur is not constantly reaching out, going, you're still there, aren't you? You're still there, aren't you? The sabotagee needs to realize when they're getting exhausted from having to constantly reassure the partner because that can lead to resentment and irritation and irritability and all kinds of other dysphoric emotions. So when they're getting exhausted, what can they do for self care and how can they set boundaries and say, you know what? I need some me time. And, and this is something that sometimes you may have to go, go through in therapy working through where the person can say, I need some me time. It's not that I don't love you. It's not that I don't want to be around you. I just need some time that I can reflect on me stuff. I'm not trying to go away and, you know, leave the relationship. I need to stay in touch with myself. They can feel a lack of trust. I mean, it can be pretty Insulting. If every time you miss a phone call or don't return, return a text right away, the person's like, what were you doing? I know you were doing something you weren't supposed to be doing. So this leads to a lot of arguments and dysfunction, which oftentimes ends up causing the relationship to break up. Because the sabotagee reaches a point, they're just like, I can't take it anymore. The sabotagee may feel like he or she is walking on eggshells, afraid of the unknown. What is going to set off the saboteur next? If I go to the bathroom too many times, if I walk in and, you know, maybe I was at the department store and I end up smelling like perfume or something, is that going to set somebody off? What's going, going to make the next upheaval? So it's important to help open the lines of communication as the saboteur starts to feel more self confident and able to participate in the relationship and less anxious that the sabotage is going to leave. Through open communication, cognitive, behavioral and distress tolerance skills, hopefully they will start to reduce the amount of reassurance the saboteur needs and the sabotagee will start to get some more energy and be more invested in the relationship. Sometimes in these relationships we see the sabotagee actually starts backing away, which makes the situation worse. They're just like, you know what? I'm not going to respond to this person when I'm at work. But they don't communicate that to the saboteur. So then the saboteur loses their mind, wondering what's going on and if the person's going to leave. So there needs to be really good communication between the two of them. Honesty, you know, all kinds of other stuff. But we also need to address boundaries and cognitive issues that are leading the saboteur to be anxious, needing to control. And you'll see a lot of these sort of sound similar, and they are. The saboteur can get exhausted having to always be in control, but they're afraid if they let go. I'm terrified of heights and so whenever I go on a Ferris wheel, we get, you know, an eighth of the way up and my knuckles are already white. I am holding on so tightly and, you know, trying not to shake the car and everything as we're going up and around. But every once in a while you do something because it's what your kids want to do and you just hold on for dear life. This is kind of what the saboteurs doing. They feel like they have to be in control. They have to hold on for dear life because if they let go, they're going to go into a free fall and splat. They're always worried about loss of control, they're holding on and then they're looking around going, okay, I'm holding on to this. So you know, this person can't go away. But then over there, somebody new joined the firm that my partner works at. What if they like that person better? So now I'm holding onto this, but I've got to try to control her work life too. So how can I do that? It's exhausting. It's exhausting having to always be alert and hypervigilant to threats all the time and be in control of everything. Relationship failures due to inability to trust partners to not abandon or reject them. So if they need to control things all the time and they're not able to trust their partner to not abandon or reject them, guess what? They probably have lost a lot of relationships for being too controlling and domineering and suffocating and any of those other words you want to use. So what have they learned in this person's mind? In the saboteur's mind, they're probably going, I didn't hold on to control long enough. So I learned something. I need to control more. I need to hold on tighter. Because if I don't hold on tight enough, then they're going to leave not the message we want them to get. And we need to examine the cognitions that lead them to this point. But a lot of times they create a self fulfilling prophecy by saying, well, I must not have controlled enough. I must need to make sure I've got more things under control. So I'm not surprised relationship failure is due to trying to control the other person. A lot of people don't like to be controlled. So they may have ended, you know, gotten into relationships that ended quickly because they were trying to control the other person. Tell them what they could do, what they could wear, how they could act, what they could see, what they wanted to do. And the person, the other person was like, no, no, you don't tell me how I feel, you don't tell me how I think relationship ends. But the person who needs to control doesn't know how to accept differences most of the time. Because if they're different, then it may mean that you two aren't 100% compatible. Which in the saboteurs mind often is over generalized to that means you don't like me and you're going to leave involvement in Relationships with dependent or insecure others. Now this is kind of interesting because people who need to control often attract people who want to be controlled. Dependent personality and just people who feel inadequate, feel incapable. So you can create a relationship based on that. But oftentimes when you look at the relationship, not always, but oftentimes the quality is poor because the person who needs to control isn't dealing with any of those issues that surround his or her insecurity and need to control another person. And the person who's dependent isn't dealing with any of those self esteem issues or issues of lack of self efficacy. So it may not be a high quality relationship and they both may end up, you know, having some different disagreements and then when they separate it creates more conflict, can distract from the relationship problems. So if I'm controlling everything, I can distract from anything else that might be going wrong in the relationship. In the addicted family, there are family roles and the hero is the one who is typically succeeding. It's the football star, the valedictorian, the whatever. It's the person who achieves high goals in order to distract from all the family dysfunction. They're like, look at me, look at me. Everybody smile, it's going to be okay. Everybody look at me. The other side is the enabler who needs to control everything to prevent anybody else from seeing the dysfunction within the family. So if the person grew up in an addicted family, you might find that they need to control because they're trying to prevent anyone from looking too closely. So as a therapist, my thought is looking too closely at what? Tell me what it is that you know, you're trying to keep other people from seeing. And a lot of times it comes down to I'm trying to keep other people from seeing the real me, because if they see the real me, they'll reject me. So then we're back to self esteem. Work again. The effects on the sabotage. If you have someone who is not wanting to be controlled, then they often feel invalidated or disempowered and they feel like they don't have any control in the relationship if they're always being told what to do, what to think, what they want, which can create feelings of animosity and resentment. They may not feel heard or appreciated. So that leads to feelings or fears of rejection. You know, I want these things, but you don't want to hear them. So you're rejecting my opinions, you're rejecting what's important to me. Ergo, you're rejecting me. Some people will react with anger and back Away from the relationship or fight in the relationship. Other people may react with anxiety and start questioning themselves and go, well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I shouldn't want these things. Maybe I shouldn't feel this way because this person says, I shouldn't feel this way. We need to examine, you know, what's causing these fears of rejection and the associated behaviors, and how do you feel about it, what's important to you, and where do you want to go in terms of your life, the sabotage, and in terms of your relationship with this other person, what needs to happen in order for you to feel okay in this relationship? The sabotagee may not get their needs met. If they have needs that are vastly different than the saboteur, which is not uncommon, then the sabotagee is not able to get their needs met because the saboteur is saying, you need these things, and you don't need all those things you think you need. No, you're wrong. So the sabotagee may feel like they're not getting their needs met, and the sabotagee may fear failure if she does not meet the saboteur's needs. If you can't or don't do whatever the saboteur wants, then we're done, the relationship's over. So the sabotagee, again, has to look at what's more important, My wants and my needs or this relationship. And in therapy, if they want to work it out, we need to say, okay, what's the middle ground? How can both of you get your needs met? What happens if the saboteur lets go with the reins a little bit and doesn't have to control everything? What happens if the saboteur hears the sabotagee's needs? Sometimes the saboteur doesn't even know they're doing this and invalidating the other person because they don't know how to communicate. They. They don't know how to say, what is it that you need? What is it that you want? They're so used to controlling everything and telling people how it is. It's not. They're trying to be mean. They don't know how to communicate effectively. So we can help them learn fear of intimacy. Well, you know what? If you're afraid that you're going to be rejected, if you're afraid that you're going to lose control and not be able to deal with it, fear of intimacy is going to kind of spark some of those fears because intimacy means being vulnerable. The saboteur, inability to develop a meaningful connection based on your authentic self, not telling people who you really Are always having to lie, to embellish, to hide things because you fear rejection due to your low self esteem. You don't need them like yourself, so why would anybody else like you? So we want to help people figure out what is it about you that's really awesome? What is it about you that you bring to the table? And sometimes you have to have them step outside themselves and you know, maybe you can say, depending on the family they came from, what would your mother say was awesome? What would your best friend would say are your five best traits? If you were your own parent, what would you tell yourself was good about you? You know, try to get the person to get outside of themselves instead of trying to say I'm all that and more. Because that's not comfortable for a lot of people. Untenable anxiety when placed in a vulnerable situation. If they've been hurt before, if they've been abandoned before, if they don't have the skills to cope with getting hurt, rejection or isolation or failure, then when they're in a vulnerable situation where they could face one of those basic fears, their anxiety level is going to go through the roof, which again is exhausting. Being intimate with someone, you know, emotionally intimate, physically intimate, means being vulnerable. So if they're afraid of being vulnerable, then it's going to keep them from really developing a connection in the relationship. So we want to talk about different things that make them feel vulnerable. What would happen, you know, if something bad happened? And you know, what are the risks to being vulnerable in this particular way? What are the risks to telling your partner exactly how you feel about them? What are the risks to telling your partner something you don't like that you really want to work on and play it out in therapy? Play it out in this counseling relationship where it's safe to figure out exactly what are they expecting is going to happen? And then you can start looking at the probability. What is the likelihood in this particular situation? You may have been in some crappy relationships before, but in this particular relationship, what is the likelihood that if you put yourself out there and become vulnerable, this person is going to take the opportunity to just smash it all to smithereens? Many saboteurs maintain walls to prevent others from hurting them. You know, it's not that they will necessarily lie, but they withhold. There's no reciprocal self disclosure. The sabotagee may eventually realize, you know, I've been in this relationship with you for six months and I know nothing about you except for what you like to watch on Netflix. So that can start causing Conflict. Because the sabotage may start, you know, probing a little bit and going, let me get to know you a little bit more. And the saboteur is hidden behind those walls and says, no, no, thank you. The wall is six feet thick, and there's a moat around it for a reason, because everyone else has hurt me. So again, in counseling, we can look at is this person, everyone else, what is the same about this person? Because there are similarities. You know, they're humans. They're, you know, partners. They're, you know, whatever. But there's also a lot of differences. And what makes this person worthy of your trust? And that's a big issue. Worthy of your trust. Is everybody worthy of your trust? Heck, no. So how do you develop trust? Because a lot of times people who have fears of intimacy and abandonment and relationship stuff, they have either never let anybody in because they've never trusted anybody, or they've gotten in and been like, okay, I'm going to trust you, and just blah. All of a sudden, we're best as best friends after an hour and a half. And there's no boundaries, there's no development of trust. They just expect everyone's trustworthy. And when you do that, what happens? You get hurt. So people saboteurs may also push people away when they're feeling vulnerable, emotional, or close to someone. They're just like, oh, this is feeling good. And whenever something feels good, it comes crashing down around me. So let me make sure to push you away before this can get to the point where it might actually hurt. So this saboteur, instead of being anxious all the time, is very disconnected. A lot of the time, they're very isolated. It feels. When I think about this person, it feels very lonely to me because they're not sharing their true self with anyone, and they don't even like their true self. So they don't have a relationship with themselves either. So it's a very empty, lonely experience, which is something we can help them work on and figure out. What would it look like if you had a relationship with someone else? What would it look like? What would happen if you shared your true self with this particular person? So the sabotage in this relationship, inability to really get to know and trust the other person. If I realize that the only thing I know about you is what you like to watch on Netflix, and we've been dating for six months, I'm going to have a hard time trusting you with, you know, a lot of other stuff because I'm going to feel like you're hiding things from Me, I'm going to feel like you're keeping things from me because you know, they are. It may not be out of malice, it may be to protect themselves. So that can cause conflict. It can cause the sabotagee to feel like the other person, the saboteur is not invested in the relationship because you're not letting me get to know who you are. The sabotagee may get pushed away or lashed out on if he or she gets too close, which can bring up fears of isolation. It's like the sabotage is like, I've done everything I can in this relationship. I've shared, I've been vulnerable, I've, you know, offered, you know, parts of myself, my emotions. I've tried to be supportive and all I do is get pushed away. So it feels very isolating and rejecting, you know, going back to those basic fears, which can lead the sabotagee to say, you know what? I'm done. I can't do this if I'm not. If you're not wanting to engage in this relationship, if you're not wanting to invest in this relationship, the sabotagee often ends up getting hurt and pushed away because his or her authenticity too much for the saboteur. The saboteur sees the openness, sees the honesty, and they know that it's expected in return and they can't do it. So they push the person away. They're like, you know what? No, you know, goody on you. You're a great person, but I can't handle that. Which ends up sabotaging the relationship. Now I keep talking about pushing away. It's generally not one single argument that the person goes, you know what? This isn't working. Bye bye. A lot of times the saboteur sabotages through small things, picking arguments, creating tension, throwing temper tantrums, or just, you know, it gets so exhausting on the sabotage that finally they're just like, I can't do this anymore. Pessimism. If you've ever been in a relationship with a pessimist, you know, it can be exhausting. The saboteur, if he or she is pessimistic, then they're not going to get hurt. If they expect the worst out of everybody and everything all the time, guess what? You can only go up from there. Prior experiences create a self fulfilling prophecy. Again, if you expect the worst out of people, then generally you bring out the worst in people because they're not going to be like, oh, well, you expect I'm not going to get this assignment turned in on time. Well, then I don't have a really high bar to live up to now, do I? You expect me to abandon you? Okay. You know, because you're not committing. If you expect me to abandon you, then you're probably not going to put a lot of effort into maintaining the relationship. Allows easier relationship termination because the person can say, I told you so. Everybody always leaves. And it just creates an aura of negativity. Again, if you've been around people who are just negative all the time, it's hard not to let it rub off on you. It's hard not to start seeing the negative and the pessimistic side of everything. What can you do in counseling? Well, we can look at the pessimism. Use some cognitive behavioral techniques to identify the pessimistic thoughts. Encourage them to evaluate the probability of their pessimistic thoughts. You know, anything could happen, but is it probable or improbable this is going to happen? Encourage them to look for exceptions. When has something good happened that the bottom hasn't fallen out? Encourage them to start trying to look for the good in things. Not every day. One of the activities that I do with some of my clients, it's called a coin toss activity. And, you know, you toss a coin and if it lands on heads, you can act like your normal self. No change is necessary when it lands on tails. You have got to be optimistic all day long. And every time something happens and you start to have a pessimistic thought, you have to counter it with an optimistic thought. And the silver lining. It can be annoying at first, but I found with the majority of my clients, they really found that on the days that they were acting optimistically, they saw a lot more good in the world than they really expected to see. Effects on the sabotage. If your partner is constantly pessimistic, and it may prevent you from feeling secure, confident, or happy, if this saboteur is constantly saying, everybody always leaves, relationships always go to hell. So, you know, it's just a matter of time. I'm not going to promise I'm going to be around here for Christmas. Then the sabotagee is going, then why am I here? Why should I feel secure if you're telling me, you know, who knows? But it's almost guaranteed at some point going to disappear. It can draw an otherwise happy person into the abyss, anticipating failure. And I mean, think about that abyss when every time you look around, everything is negative, everything is gray. You're looking for the shoe to drop, the bottom to fall out. And people who were otherwise happy, once they start seeing those Changes themselves sometimes don't like them and they start saying, you know, something's got to change. I need to have some more optimism. I need to be more like the person I used to be because this is dragging me down. Now. The optimistic person can bring the, bring up the pessimistic person sometimes, but sometimes the pessimist is so hell bent on holding onto that pessimism so they don't get hurt. And emphasis is for a reason. It's not just to be snarky. It's because every time they've let go of that pessimism and they've started to get optimistic, it's been dashed for some reason. So we want to talk about rational optimism. Everything is not going to go right. There are going to be some days that are unpleasant. There are going to be some things that happen that are unfortunate or just honestly suck. So how do we deal with those and not start looking at the world as this incoming failure, this pessimistic saboteur, can cause the sabotagee to feel powerless to meet the saboteur's needs. Because the saboteur is always like, you know what, at some point this is gonna end or the bottom's gonna fall out or the other shoe's gonna drop. And no matter what the sabotage does, the saboteurs just saying, no, there's nothing you can do to fix it, it's just going to fail. So the sabotage feels extremely powerless, rejected, isolated, because they're hearing from the saboteur. I don't want to work on this. I don't want to try because when I've tried before, I've gotten hurt and I'm not willing to go out on a limb for you in this particular situation. Obviously there's a certain amount of self esteem work here, but a lot more of what we're looking at in pessimism are cognitive distortions and helping the saboteur identify how they may be overgeneralizing and projecting stuff onto the current relationship needing to be center stage. If you've ever dealt with somebody who has histrionic personality disorder, you're really familiar with this. But there are a lot of levels lower than a personality disorder that can be dysfunctional in a relationship. If the saboteur is center stage, it ensures that the other person's always attentive to them, which keeps the saboteur in control. You know, look at me, look at me. You're still looking at me. Come on, eyes on me. It provides a sense of self worth and external validation if they're Always the object of other people's attention. And if I'm always the object of your attention, then you're not rejecting me, and I don't feel isolated. Back to those fears again. It can be devastating to the person who needs to be center stage if they fail at something because, oh, my gosh, I'm not the best, and if I'm not the best, I failed fear, and it's likely you're going to reject me. Another fear. So then they start frantically trying to be center stage again to distract from whatever failure happened. Being center stage also distracts from any other problems in the relationship. Going back to the addicted family. The mascot is generally the one that tries to distract, tries to say, you know, everybody look over here at me. And the hero also does the same thing. Not necessarily in a humorous sort of way or in a dysfunctional sort of way, but the hero is the one that excels at everything and says, see, I'm worthy. Everybody needs to pay attention to me because everything's wonderful because I'm a success. So why does the person need to be center stage? Is what it comes down to in counseling. What is it? What happens if all eyes aren't on you? Does that mean that the other eyes are looking at somewhere else so you might be rejected? Does that mean you fail to exist if you're not getting external validation, why does it make you uncomfortable if you are not the center of this person's attention? The sabotage in these relationships can feel forgotten if they're always having to take the backseat. Now, in a relationship, you know, there are going to be times when one partner has center stage and the other partner is sitting in the audience going, hoorah, you did a great thing, and I'm going to support you in that. But it's a give and take. So then when the other partner has a success, you know, and you see, you support each other, and each person takes turns being center stage. And there's no fear that, oh, my gosh, you know, my partner is center stage, so that means they have succeeded in something and they may not want me anymore. The sabotagee may feel like, you know, my needs and my successes don't matter because this person is always one upping me. You know, everything I do is like, yeah, you did that. But let me tell you about what I did. It can be exhausting for the sabotagee to deal with emotional upheavals when. When the saboteur is not center stage because all of a sudden they become frantic with fears of abandonment, rejection, and isolation. The sabotagee often fails to get his or her own needs met because all the focus has to be on the saboteur to prevent chaos. It's constantly building this other person up, making sure that they're center stage, making sure that they know that your focus is on them, which means you're not focusing on yourself. You're not taking care of yourself, and that's not healthy. So people can start resenting one another. The saboteur can resent the sabotagee if that person wants to take some me time, and the sabotagee can resent the saboteur if he or she says, no, you can't have me time. It's us time or no time. Defensiveness effects on the saboteur. You know, when a saboteur is defensive, it's a power play. It prevents rejection. If somebody questions them, they can get defensive and be like, why are you asking me that? Deflect. Take a power position. So the other person, whoever's questioning them or whoever they perceive is questioning them may back off. It prevents people from getting too close. You know, tell me about X. And so in your past. Why do you want to know that? Because I'm curious. So we want to look at what's the benefit to the defensiveness. A lot of times it keeps people from finding out whatever they wanted or finding out or getting too close. So again, we've got to look at what would happen if this person got close and from what. Are you protecting yourself when this has come up before, when somebody's asked you about your past or something? What happened? What was the negative experience that causes you now to be so guarded? Defensiveness controls what they do and don't see. Because if you're defensive, you can say, you know what? I'm gonna flare up and bow up. So you can't see what's going on back here. We see this a lot in people with addictions. When you start to ask them about their use, when you start to point out that it might be a problem, they become very defensive because they don't want you to see what's going on behind the curtain. They may talk to you very openly about other stuff. So we want to look at those things about which you're defensive. What's the purpose? What is it that you're trying to protect? And what's happened when someone has found out about it before? And it protects against perceived criticism or rejection and failure. So if somebody comes home and they say, hey, how did your evaluation with your boss go today? And their first reaction is what, you expect that I was going to get a bad evaluation? The other. The partner may back off and be like, okay, we'll talk about this later. So if they fear someone is going to criticize them, they may bow up to keep anybody from looking too close. The sabotagee is likely going to get suspicious at a certain point. If you're always defensive, then the question is, what are you hiding? If you've had kids before, then you know on a little kid scale what this feels like. If you're. If your little child starts to get defensive, like, I don't have anything behind my back. Mm. Okay. So as a parent, my first question is, yeah, what's behind your back? Because clearly you do. Inability to trust or know the other person. If the person's always being defensive, always pushing you away, then it feels like you're being rejected and you have no control over of what's going on. You suspect that there's stuff you don't know that you kind of need to know about, but you don't know what it is. The sabotagee may fear communication because every time they ask a question, they're afraid that they're going to get their head bitten off, so they just don't even ask, which shuts down communication even more. And eventually the relationship starts growing apart. So we want to look at what are the benefits of defensiveness for the saboteur, and what is it the sabotaging needs? What steps could be taken because the saboteur is not going to become undefensive overnight. But what is it the sabotagee is looking for so they can feel less suspicious, so they can start to trust, and so they can start to openly communicate without fear of being attacked. Breaking trust and dishonesty. The effects on the saboteur. Well, a lot of times when this happens, the saboteur is getting a need met in an unhealthy way, fearing disapproval. So they've got some need, and, you know, they know what they're doing is probably not the ideal solution. But they're not get. They don't know how to get the need met any other way. They know their partner is likely going to disapprove, so they lie about it. They manipulate. This is true with addictions, affairs, and even buying stuff. You know, I know I've worked with couples before who. One partner's taken out a credit card that the other one doesn't know anything about, and all of a sudden they start having money problems. And the partner with the secret credit card starts becoming defensive. Oh, of course. It must have been me that spent money on stuff. Well, what did you spend money on? So we want to look at what's the behavior, what function is it serving, what need is it meeting? And in this relationship, how could you meet that need in a healthy way? And sometimes it's not about the relationship. You know, in the case of addictions, it may be someone who has chronic depression or PTSD and they're not able to feel okay. The dysphoria is just so oppressive that they end up self medicating. That has nothing to do with the sabotage. The sabotage isn't doing that to the person. And they may not even be able to help the person with that. But once we get it out in the open, then we can say, well, what can help you with it? So relationship problems are not always one partner's fault or the other's. You know, sometimes there's this intervening factor that the saboteur is trying to deal with. The saboteur is trying to protect themselves from. And it may have nothing to do with the sabotage. Often it has to do with the saboteur's past that they need to take a look at. And why haven't they taken a look at it? They may not have had the tools. They may not have realized exactly what was causing the problem. They knew they were angry all the time, but they had no idea why or how to fix it. And maybe they've been angry for so long that they thought that was normal. So we want to look at what's the function of the behavior. Have there been any times when this behavior hasn't existed? And how can we achieve meet that same need in a healthier way that can help the relationship? Okay, so going back to dishonesty. Dishonesty may protect from rejection after a failure. If somebody gets fired from their job and they keep getting dressed and acting like they're going to work every day, you know, eventually the partner is going to realize, you know what, we're going into foreclosure. And I'm wondering where your paychecks have gone. But being dishonest, they were hoping they'd be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat and fix it before the other person found out so they wouldn't be rejected. Part of it is communication, part of it is trust. And both of those clearly weren't there before the problem happened. And avoiding a disagreement after not keeping a promise, you know, saying that I will even little things, I'll stop by the store and get milk on the way home. And forgetting to do that and then coming home and all of a sudden turning it around and being like, well, you. You didn't tell me I needed to get milk. Excuse me? I texted you at 4:30 then I needed you to get milk on the way home. I didn't get the text. Yes, you did. You can see how these arguments can go back and forth when in reality the person could have said, you know what? I forgot. So the question is, why didn't they do that A in this particular relationship, if they said, you know what? I forgot, I'm sorry. The sabotagee may have just laid into them, which would make them much more likely to hide it the next time or in the past, if they have failed to keep a promise, if they've forgotten to do something, they may have, you know, again had somebody else lay into them for it. So now they are protecting themselves because they're afraid they're going to get in trouble or get rejected for it. The sabotagee, if they are in a relationship and the saboteur breaks their trust, they feel betrayed, A sense of powerlessness. They may start questioning their own intuition and feelings and not feel very good about themselves because the person is rejecting them, lying to them, not giving them the respect that they feel they deserve. So we're going to move on. Actually, Addictions, I guess, is our last specific saboteur. The effects on the saboteur, the relationship with the addiction trumps the relationship with the other person. This is an important concept in addictions to wrap your head around. Whether it's gambling or sex or cocaine or anything, whatever the person's addicted to, it becomes the only thing that can actually make the pain go away, even if only for a short time. So the significant other in the relationship isn't able to do this. The person, the saboteur, needs the pain to go away, to survive. So they start choosing the addiction over the significant other. This protects me. This helps me stay alive right now because I can't tolerate the pain. And the person I'm in a relationship with is either adding to the pain or isn't able to make it go away to the same extent. So they choose that. The addiction becomes their affair. So the sabotagee gets jealous, gets resentful, gets suspicious. All those things you would normally see in an affair sort of situation. The addictions do numb the pain. It distracts. If you're gambling and you could win a $10,000 booty, then yeah, you're gonna be focused on that and not focused on the fact that your mortgage is due and Your spouse is probably gonna be irritable, and your kids are in trouble and whatever else is bothering you. Addictions prevent reaching out, asking for help, and depending on others. Because most people are going to want you to give up that addiction. So they're in this quandary. If I reach out and ask for help, I'm going to have to give up the one thing that's helping me survive right now. No, I'm not there. Which leads to lying and manipulating and guilt. Because they know that they want to be there for others. They know that they want a healthy relationship, but they don't know how. Once people are in addictions, Their brain chemistry starts getting wonky, for lack of a better clinical term. So when they stop their addiction, it feels worse than even when they started. The problems have gotten worse, and now they're adding depression and lack of motivation, Norepinephrine and serotonin deficits on top of it. So, yeah, there's a lot to consider about what's going to be the more beneficial choice of action, the addiction and survival, or giving up the addiction and trying to work on all this other stuff that just seems so chaotic. Which is why it takes a long time for people who have addictions to enter into treatment. Because it's so painful when they start to detox and sober up and realize the mess that going on. Effects on the sabotage. Powerlessness, loss of control, Feeling unloved or rejected. Because the person is choosing the addiction over the relationship. Anger. Well, if somebody chose an addiction over a relationship with me, I think I might be a little bit angry and resentful and feel betrayed. Oftentimes, the sabotagee has been trying to fix the addiction or deal with the emotional roller coasters leading up to this. They've seen the behaviors. They see this person get really upset. They've seen them get really drunk and do stuff that really destroys their life, their career, their finances. And they try to fix it. They're like, okay, don't do this again. And they put it back together, and it doesn't work. The addict returns to the addiction. So the sabotagee experiences feelings of rejection, isolation, and failure. Eventually, the addict will reach a point where they decide that, you know, the addiction isn't even doing it for them anymore. And they're sick and tired of being sick and tired. But there's. It's really hard to. What we call, raise the bottom to get the person to see that sooner. And helping the sabotagee understand it's not about them. It's about the pain that the Saboteur is going through is one thing that I try to do when I work with significant others of addicts. Saboteur, sabotage. If there is an addiction. Addictions are behaviors used to help people escape from pain when nothing else has seemed to work. And they continue to use it despite causing other problems. Because you know what? The pain that they're running from is a whole lot worse than whatever hiccups they might cause using again. At least in their addicted mind. You got to remember they're choosing the behavior that's most rewarding. The person with the addiction needs to value what may be lost more than the temporary comfort of the addiction before they're ready to get help. And here's my soapbox. They need to engage in a treatment program that addresses not only the addictive behaviors, what they're doing, the cognitions, all that stuff, but also concurrent mental health issues because they have unbalanced their brain chemistry, regardless of what kind of addiction. So they're going to be more depressed and anxious during this early recovery period. And someone who used in order to escape from dysphoria, if you say, well, if you quit, you're gonna feel like crap. Think about how long they're gonna stay clean and sober. So we need to address those concurrent mental health issues to give them hope and optimism and empowerment. Sobriety means achieving a life from which the person doesn't need to escape. So this doesn't happen overnight. And it doesn't mean just stopping using that addiction. We need to remember that when life gets tough, you know, if they were an alcoholic, they may not pick up alcohol again. They may pick up gambling something else again to numb the pain. It's serving the same purpose. But a lot of times they justify that it's not their addiction of choice. It doesn't matter. It's an addictive behavior that you're using to escape that's starting to cause problems. During the first six months of recovery, most people have an increase in anxiety, depression, and or PTSD symptoms. You know, you can have all three. You can have any combination. The brain needs to rebalance. People need to be educated about that. So in this relationship, the sabotagee, the partner, the codependent, whatever you want to call them, needs to understand that things aren't going to turn up roses all of a sudden. This person is going to struggle for the next six months, and the saboteur needs to develop the skills to deal with their own issues. And again, this doesn't happen overnight. You don't give me a circular saw, train me on it for 10 minutes and leave me alone with it. It's a dangerous thing because I just start pushing buttons. We need to help people not only learn the skills intellectually, but actually be able to apply them. It takes a good six months. Abandonment issues are another set of issues that underlie most of these saboteurs. So we want to say, where did this come from? It could come from early egocentric, dichotomous learning. How do you like that for big words? Anyway, it means that when the little kid was abandoned, they were only seeing things in terms of all or nothing. Mommy left, so I must be bad, egocentric. It has to be about me. So it's either all or nothing, Mommy left, or mommy's here and it's all about me. I'm good or I'm bad. Those early schemas are still there in the back of our head when we're 60, 70, 80 years old. Now we may have discounted them and go, you know, that doesn't really quite fit anymore. We may have fixed them, we may have addressed them, but we find that a lot of people with abandonment issues have not. They're still thinking in terms of it's about me, it has to do, it's all about me. And it's either all or nothing. So we want to help them look at what, what other factors are out there and is it all or nothing or is there something in between, you know, and. Or the abandonment issues could come from a need for external validation due to low self esteem. They may not have been abandoned when they were little, but they don't have a good self esteem. So every relationship they get into, they're just desperately needing reassurance. They're needing validation because if somebody else doesn't tell them they're okay, then they're not okay. Which is exhausting and it pushes a lot of people away. So what do we do? Explore prior abandonment experiences and compare and contrast them with the current situation. Help them enhance their self esteem. Identify why they fear abandonment from this particular partner at this particular time. We want to be more focused on the now and not projecting all this stuff from relationships past. Use the Challenging questions worksheet from cognitive Processing therapy to explore thoughts and feelings and identify what would need to be different in your life, in this relationship, for you not to fear abandonment, low self esteem. Have them complete the sentence I'm a good person because have them identify their strengths and weaknesses and. And then of the weaknesses, figure out which ones are important enough to address and then build a plan to address Them. Help them silence their internal negative critic so they're not always telling themselves that they suck, that they're not good enough, that everybody's going to leave them. Encourage them to stop comparing themselves to everyone else and be the best them that they can be. You know you're not going to be so and so you can only be the best you you can be. And then examine why it's so important for them to have other people's approval. Fear of failure and conditions of Worth Many avoid relationships because they fear failure. So ask them what's going to happen if this relationship fails? What does it mean about you if this relationship fails? Because a lot of people take it very personally. Back to that egocentric thing. If the relationship fails, it means I am a failure. It means am unlovable. So we can challenge some of those cognitions. If you believe that failure means you pushed outside your comfort zone, then what can you learn from this failure? Not every relationship is going to work. So what can you learn from this one that's constructive? What would you tell a child who was afraid to make friends for fear of being rejected or the relationship ending? Sometimes the risk is worth the reward. So what are the benefits to taking a chance on this relationship? Have them create a risk reward list. And you may ask them, why are you worthy of being someone's significant other? Now you have to use this one kind of cautiously. You don't want to put them on the defensive, but sometimes putting them on the defensive doesn't hurt. And they can be like, well, because I'm pretty darn awesome. Thank you very much. Cool. Let's run with that. The emotionally unavailable partner don't talk, don't trust, don't feel from an addicted family. So they may not be emotionally available because they're not in touch with their own emotions. And or they may have been taught that they can't be available to others because they'll get hurt. They may have temperamental differences. So the emotionally unavailable partner may be one who focuses more on fixing things. They're more justice and fairness and thinking and solving. And they're not all into that touchy feely emotional stuff. And other people may be more into that touchy feely emotional stuff. And you can hear this in people by the vocabulary they use. If they use a lot of feeling words like anger and fear and sadness and devastation, they're probably more into feeling words. So if you're not comfortable using those, it may cause sort of a blockage in your communication. So the two of you need to Learn how to communicate. The emotion focused person needs to learn how to hear emotions in words. Like, I got kicked in the. I felt like I got kicked in the gut. Both people experience feelings just as intensely. They just use different ways of expressing it. Interventions. Become aware of your partner's emotional language. So if somebody uses a lot of feeling focused words, you can paraphrase them. You know, if they say, oh, I had an exhausting day today, you can say, tell me what was exhausting about it, you know, using their feeling word. Or you can just say, you know, tell me about it and use your own words like, you know, that must have really stunk or whatever. Communicate your need for an emotional connection. If you're not feeling one, if you're not feeling like there's a connection on a emotional level, and I'm struggling to find a word different than that, then you want to talk about what that would look like. And for some people, the thinkers, they'll talk more about reactions. So I might talk to my partner about, what was your reaction to that? When so and so said, tell me about your reactions to that meeting. Whereas he may say to me, how did you feel after that meeting? We're asking the same question. We're just using different words because not everybody's comfortable with feeling words. Help him or her learn what being emotionally available looks like to you. What does it look like when you're communicating support and emotional connection? And this goes back to that book on the love languages. How do you communicate your caring, appreciation, devotion for someone? Is it through gifts? Is it through acts of devotion? Is it through service? Is it through touch? There are a lot of different ways, and not everybody receives those things and feels the same way. One of my best friends, one of his main love languages is gifts. Me, not so much. You know, if you give me a gift, I'm appreciative. That's great. That's awesome. Thanks. But acts of devotion or acts of service, you know, coming and helping me mow the lawn when I'm having a really, really rough week mean more to me because it's more. That's my love language. And both can require the same amount of effort and thought to go into them. But it's just a different way of communicating support and caring. So be sure to communicate in your partner's love language and know what yours is and let your partner know what yours is so he or she doesn't have to guess, well, what is it that this person's going to want? Projection and transference. Unresolved past Losses can lead people to expect the new partner to make the same mistakes as the old partner. So you're just waiting for it. You're looking for the signs. You can expect someone and this can lead to suspiciousness, defensiveness, and it can shut down communication because you're expecting current partner to behave the same way that the last three did, which, you know, we talk about that whole self fulfilling prophecy or what might you be doing that is prompting every single relationship to go this way? Expecting someone to be just like someone in the past. Maybe you idealized your first love and every partner you've gotten into a relationship with, since you've compared them to that person and kicked them to the curb because you know what? They didn't measure up, you probably need to resolve that past loss because nobody's going to be exactly the same. Interventions you want to identify who this person reminds you of and how you're trying to rewrite that story. If that relationship didn't work, how are you trying to bring this person in, turn them into the person from the past and make it work now? And what can you do to accept this partner for who he or she is? If your partner is projecting onto you, gently reminds, gently remind him or her that you are not this person from their past and clarify what's happening in the moment. If they start saying, you know, you're just going to leave anyway, you can point out if you're privy to the past information, you know, I know your past relationships have ended really badly, but I'm not so and so, what's going on right now? We're having a disagreement. Does that mean I don't love you? No, I love you very much. We're having a disagreement and all people have them. You know, it doesn't mean that I'm going to get up and leave becoming fully aware of who this person is and force yourself to stop comparing them with others. Yes, there may be somebody better out there. There may be somebody better looking, there may be somebody better at cooking, there may be somebody richer, there may be somebody thinner. Stop comparing them to everybody else and looking for something better and appreciate what you have right then and there and decide whether it meets your needs. It may not. But instead of trying to force them to become more this, more that, more the other. Accept them for who they are and then decide whether the relationship can continue. Identify who this person reminds you of and how you're trying to rewrite that story and stop comparing them with others. Relationship saboteurs often protect an insecure saboteur from feelings of low self esteem, low self worth, the need for external validation and the fear of abandonment. Relationship saboteurs often affect the sabotagee by causing feelings of exhaustion, fear, frustration, powerlessness, low self esteem and unlovability, isolation and rejection. Any of these things in a relationship can end up causing the relationship to separate. So having people identify what it is, what am I feeling about the relationship and what's causing those feelings, then they can start working on the causes which are behaviors and trying to figure out if it's something that they can alter. Interventions involve addressing low self esteem on both parts. We want to make sure both partners feel like they are okay and that the world is not going to end and they won't dissolve into nothingness if the relationship ends and identify and work through triggers for fears of rejection, isolation, failure, the unknown and loss of control in both partners. Developing healthy relationships also requires people to improve their self awareness, develop self and other compassion. A lot of times our clients are either very compassionate towards themselves and not very compassionate towards others or the other way around, but we need to be able to be compassionate both ways. Develop effective communication so you can talk about what's going on. Help people learn about reciprocal self disclosure and trust building and help them learn about healthy boundary setting based on individual needs. To learn more about some of these skills and how you can work on relationships and address Relationship Saboteurs There are two books that that I really recommend, Relationship Saboteurs and Love Me Don't Leave Me. Both of these are published by Neuharbinger Publications. You can also find them on Amazon, but if you get them@newharbinger.com you can receive 25% off your entire order if you use promo code 1168 SNIPES if you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at allceus.com counselortoolbox this episode has been brought to you in part by allce.com, providing 24. 7 multimedia continuing education and pre certification training to counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006. 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