Stop the Train!
SOLVING THE RELATIONSHIP PUZZLE
Stop the Train!
By Dr. Tom Merrill , Bobbie Sandoz Merrill, MSW
Cox News Service
Published on: 07/29/04
Dear Tom & Bobbie: I have been reading your column regularly and have tried to follow some of the advice you have given, but it doesn't seem to work with a problem my partner and I have. We tend to fight a lot, and he seems to enjoy it. It seems to me that he even tries to goad me into fights. If I remain neutral and "come from my heart" as you have recommended in one of your columns, he just presses harder, looking for something to hook me until I fire back...and then we are off to the races. So, that is one part of the problem. But what I am really having difficulty with is that when he has had enough of the battle he just stops, wants to make up and have sex. At this point, the last thing I want is to have sex with him. But if I do not, he will pout and then get angry again. We have repeated this pattern countless times, and nothing gets resolved. I want to stop it. What can I do?
Signed: Battle Weary
Tom says: Stop the train now! Either get it onto a different track or get off. The way you two interact is guaranteed to perpetuate the difficulties you have described, and you are headed for a disastrous relationship wreck.
While there are many possible reasons why your partner defaults to this unpleasant behavior, he sounds like someone who engages you through fighting. He confuses this with intimacy and will only experience the relationship as successful after you have slugged it out and then made up.
You might think that all you have to do to get him to stop acting this way is to tell him that what he is doing is dishonoring, unloving, destructive, selfish and damaging the loving feelings you once held for him. You've probably even told him this or some variation of it...and nothing has happened. And it won't, because this is just fuel for the argument fire.
If there is one thing that has been demonstrated repeatedly in the area of psychology it is this: reward the behavior you want to continue and ignore the behavior you want to extinguish. This works with children, adolescents, bosses...everyone.
When behavior persists it is because there is a payoff. So, despite your requests that your partner do things differently, until you find out what the payoff is for him and remove it he will continue the let's-fight-let's-have-sex cycle. We can't know all of the nuances of your situation, but from what you say there are two areas where it appears you are providing the payoff to your intimacy-impaired partner.
First, if he were not able to "hook" you, there would be no argument. So, suggestion No. 1 is: don't take the bait. Simply decline to engage in that sort of conversation.
Second, the big payoff that keeps the cycle going is the after-argument sex. Ramping up his adversarial interaction until you jump into the argument is his foreplay. It gives him a false sense of intimacy when you give in to sex. As long as you ultimately say "yes" you are guaranteed of seeing his unwanted behavior. You are in effect training him to be the person you say you do not want.
The answer to your question, "what can I do?" does not lie in "doing" anything. Rather it is to stop doing. Stop engaging when he initiates the fighting and stop giving in to his sexual demands. Find a time when things are relatively peaceful and in a side-by-side conversation tell him directly that you are going to ignore both his invitations to fight and the requests for sex. And then follow through. If he continues to press for both and you remain detached, remove yourself from his presence. If you give in to fighting and follow-up sex, you need to assess what the payoff is for you to keep this behavior going.
Putting a temporary halt to his bad behavior will not solve the underlying issues that are the genesis of the destructive interaction in which you are both are engaged. If his behavior continues then get professional help to put the train on a different track. Or get off. Either way, the ultimate goal is to change the direction of the train and have it headed toward a positive, healthy relationship that benefits both of you.
Bobbie says: I wholeheartedly agree and want to make two more points.
First, be aware that many women make the same mistake you seem to be making — repeatedly telling men that they don't like arguing, but then stridently engaging in an oppositional form of faux intimacy as well as the highly reinforcing follow-up sex. Don't get pulled into this cycle. It has an illusion of working for your husband but takes you out of feelings of closeness.
Second, tell him just how much his attempts to goad you into fights are repelling to you and that his insistence on doing this could even cause you to lose your love for him, which is what many women in counseling have said happened with them. Instead of arguing or filling your head and heart with negative feelings about your husband, give him an honest choice between persisting in this repugnant pattern and trying something new that will lead to genuine intimacy.
Tom and Bobbie say: Once this cycle of arguing and making-up is out of the way, we suggest that both of you seek positive ways to relate to each other...and in doing this consider our goal of focusing on how you can settle for more, rather than the less your arguing is creating for you. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
Tom Merrill, Ph.D., ABPP, and Bobbie Sandoz Merrill, MSW, are married and veterans of the relationship puzzle. Tom, a clinical psychologist, and Bobbie, a therapist and parenting specialist, bring their personal and clinical experiences to this column. They have co-authored Settle for More: Finding and Keeping the Relationship You Want, to be published in fall, 2004. They welcome reader responses and questions: Merrill@lava.net.
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