The Godfather and Abandonment

 

 

 

 

Last week, I wrote about the Godfather and the parallels of his life of addiction and real people’s addictions, such as addictions that clients often suffer from who seek therapy. The addiction is not the only issue to address in someone’s life. Addictions point to deeper, underlying issues within a person and influences families and loved ones. The person who is suffering from addiction can still be intelligent, highly functioning, financially successful, and gain approval from peers.  A person does not have to lose everything to understand that they are suffering from an addiction or an addictive personality. Losing everything that matters to a person is simply part of the final stages of an addiction once it has taken over. Noticing the addiction at this time is very late in the game. Having denial about masking or pain killing real feelings such as abandonment, shame, guilt, and other emotional struggles allows the addictive behavior ro run out of control.

Once an addiction is unraveled, understood, and accepted, the process of understanding the feelings that trigger the need to pain kill can be seen and felt more clearly. The type of addiction, the details and frequency are critical to understanding yourself. Abandonment, shame, and guilt can create a cycle that feels unending, helpless, and hopeless. When the Godfather abandons his needs for real love that he feels for his girlfriend and trades this for approval from his father and his family, he does so out of guilt and shame. A client recently began unraveling his addiction to approval from other people and more poignantly, of other women. In last week’s blog, I shared the Godfather’s family influences that pushed him further into addiction. As he grew further and further away from his own identity, essentially abandoning himself, by abandoning his needs, his new life provided opportunities for him to latch onto activities that recreated his pain and fed his pain killing activities. Similarly, my client recreated a life that mimics his childhood, even though he consciously knew he never wanted some of those events to be repeated. But the little boy in him, that feels hurt by the losses he felt as a child is all too familiar with seeking out relationships that are empty and void of love and affirmation, feeding the beast even more into a cycle of shame and abandonment.

There is a scene in the Godfather during a family dinner, where the Don (Marlon Brando) and all his sons are eating together. The youngest son, Al Pacino, has no interest in getting into the family business. He had fallen in love with a girl, was disgusted by his father’s behavior and saw himself as different from his brothers. However, his conscious desire to have something different in life, different from a mafia family, wasn’t big enough to overcome his childhood woundings. Something begins to chip away at his ability to self-differentiate, his ability to choose to be himself, true to his needs and his gifts, to be different.  Each time he felt pressure from his family, such as the time he gets a call from his family to join them for a holiday. He ditches the family holiday to instead spend time with his girlfriend. This comes back to haunt him as he hears about his father’s illness and he is triggered by shame, guilt, and remorse for being so distant from the family, especially from his father. It is in these moments that he begins saying things to himself that pull him away from his own needs. Needs that are healthy and self-differentiating and he instead chooses to become closer to his family through guilt and shame. His desires are not based in a healthy honesty about himself and his experiences, they are built on a foundation of shame and abandonment. He learned this type of abandonment and shame from his father, played by Marlon Brando, who watches his mother be killed by a Don mafia leader in Italy. The revenge and power his father needs is built-in from the his real feelings of loss of power and abandonment of his family. His triggers were based in his young boyhood.

 

 

The sins of the father were certainly passed down, generationaly, in this family even if the events were never discussed or shared with the children. Guilt, shame, powerlessness, and severe abandonment are the triggers that drove the Don to  become such a power-hungry person. The addictions they both shared as the Godfather and the Don, were all a cover for losing family members and growing up without real intimacy. 

After his father passes away, we see the Godfather making different choices. There is a sudden change in character. He can no longer feel intimate with his wife, the woman he fell in love with, the woman he married. He changes his path in life to include everything his father wanted from him, instead of being his own person. Eventually, his life spirals out of control with affairs, power, and corruption. He loses his wife, his unborn child, and most of all, he loses himself. This is what abandonment, shame, and guilt can create and destroy in a marriage and in a family.

“You Are Controlling!”

Control isn’t about typical jealousy you see  in a “lifetime”movie. It’s  being over productive, doing pre-emptively what others are able to do. 

 

Being controlling doesn’t mean you try to control others in a direct way. It means not being able to trust others. Like not feeling you can trust that you’ll be heard, cared for, loved, known, get your needs met, etc. Being controlling comes from an internal anxiety that developed in childhood and solidified itself in adulthood.  It’s the constant worry about yourself and others, that dominates how you care for the people you love. It’s the opposite of self-differentiation.

 

Do you tend to task yourself with the care of other people’s responsibilities if you feel like they won’t do it? Do you say to yourself “well it won’t get done so I have to.” Do you say “well if I don’t do it all hell will break loose.” Then you’re being controlling to manage your anxiety. Soon passive aggressive anger is sure to rear its ugly head.

 

 

Controlling can look like a kind gesture or sound like a helpful suggestion. But you know you’re doing it to alter the outcome of a particular circumstance. What’s unhealthy is the opportunity that is lost for the other person to feel consequences, discomfort, pain, and eventually learn about themselves. Acting out the controlling behavior removes the opportunity for the controlling person to feel their anxiety and learn from it. 

 

Come in and talk to me to find out why your friends and family tell you to stop being so controlling!

He won’t change! She won’t change!

On a recent trip, I looked out the window of my airplane seat and noticed fluffy white clouds and a clear blue sky. Below the massive clouds were cities covered in darkness. I noticed that from my vantage point, the day was clear, blue and sunny. From below the clouds, the sky above the city was dark, stormy, and probably windy. Perspective is our reality, each person has a perspective that colors and filters their world. After several months of therapy, one client asked me ”will it always feel this hopeless?” The same client usually asks me, “well, what am I supposed to do?”  The work of a therapist is to show the clarity that lies beyond the darkness or hopeless feelings. Clarity and appreciation for painful life circumstances is difficult to see when your partner is suffering from sexual addiction, is disconnected, has abandonment, shame, or has had an affair. It is hard for you to see these circumstances as beneficial in your recovery when you’re in severe pain. The perspective often seems bleak and dismal.
The work towards recovery is to recognize that you cannot always see what lies below or outside the clouds. In this case, the clouds are your mental filter or your pain. Much like the atmosphere I experienced during my flight, your emotional background ”clouds” or alters your perspective, your reality, your judgement of life and adds filters to how you see your significant other. Seeing your reality from one perspective, limits your ability to see the light from another perspective. It leaves you in a dark, cloudy place.

During group session this past week a client asked, ”Why should I do the therapy if he isn’t committed?” Marriage counseling is not about the “relationship” or the “marriage” all of the time…..therapy is about the individuals inside the relationship. The relationship is the outer core that provides definition to the two people who have been together, sharing intimacy on several levels, much like the earth is part of a larger universe. Or like a car with working parts. If something is wrong with your car, you don’t throw out the entire car and buy a different one, or tell yourself, “Well, the car isn’t working, I guess I need another car.” You take the car to a mechanic for a check up to pinpoint the part of the car that is causing the malfunction. Sometimes the malfunction involves several parts and pieces that need adjusting. Marital therapy is the same way….two people who are complex systems, entering into a relationship, who have baggage from their backgrounds, enter into a system of a relationship. Whatever is not working, needs to be checked out. The correct or right answer does not exist, until the work has been done to understand the truth about who you are and why you see life as you do, then this is shared with your significant other. This means sharing all of who you are, the good, the bad, the ugly to one another, and not just focusing on the “bad” behavior that brought you to therapy. One goal is to learn about your reactions and emotions to your relationship’s challenges. These are the opportunities that arrive at your doorstep so you can learn about yourself through your pain, even when you know there are no guarantees. Being married and having a piece of paper that says you are married, does NOT provide a guarantee of loyalty, love, trust, and unconditional love. It is only an intention. There aren’t marriage police officers that come by to check up on you to see if you are being a good wife or husband. Relationships cause pain and take a lot of work. Being in recovery means understanding that the world can be a painful place, that all people have issues, and you might get stung. Instead of becoming reactive and bitter, you can have your needs met if you could understand your reactions and learn more about yourself. You can become more loving and accepting of yourself and others, even in the midst of painful circumstances. This journey requires work and patience, with tolerance for discomfort while facing the unknown.

” We Have Communication Issues, that’s all…”

Communication

“I know he doesn’t care….it doesn’t matter if he says he does!” 

Many times a week, couples will say they are having communication issues. When I probe deeper, asking the question about conflict and how often the couple argues, the answer is usually “Oh, we never fight, I mean we don’t yell or anything, we just have trouble communicating.” Or sometimes the answer is, “I can’t say anything without it turning into a huge argument!”  

Either way, couples decide there is a communication issue. Communicating is not the only issue. The  issue is not being able to be understood and have your needs met. Therefore, problems remain unresolved whether you are a fighter or a non-communicator. 

My client “Mary” describes her partner as being unsympathetic or cold, showing little concern for her needs. She describes her husband as expressionless, cold, and translates this as not caring about her issues or her feelings. Mary tends to translate her worth or value of her concerns with her husband’s response or lack of response. Mary doesn’t feel a connection to her husband when he doesn’t share his feelings. She then moves on from the topic she wished to discuss, into feeling abandonment, guilt, shame, and maybe other negative feelings about herself. The connection Mary is desperately seeking is affecting her ability or inability to have her needs met. Mary feels hurt, shut down, and resentful, then finds herself in a similar situation several times in her marriage throughout the month.

Mary is making an assumption about herself, the importance of her issues, and her husband’s intentions. Based on her expectations, Mary is unable to have her needs met by her husband. In session, she asks how her husband could love her when he doesn’t respond to her with emotion. She feels jealous, insecure, and envious when she sees him laughing or smiling when interacting with others. Perhaps there is something going on within Mary. Her husband clearly is closing down when Mary needs him. It would be a mistake in understanding anything about Mary’s husband if we just label him as a jerk, unfeeling coward. He is not those things. He is clearly capable of some emotion, but the interaction in the marriage is not expressive of that to Mary. 

When Mary believes and trusts what she is feeling, she will be a little less reactive, blaming, and shaming to her husband when she needs him. Being critical with a smile on your face still feels like criticism. After years of being reminded how disappointed Mary is in her husband, her husband doesn’t have any other response except defensiveness, that is why he seems cold or shut down, he’s being protective of himself from her criticism. Sharing when you trust and believe in yourself diminishes some of the alienating feelings your spouse could have around your criticism. Strong feelings around heated topics can escalate either into huge arguments or intense shut down or cut-off, leaving spouses feeling abandoned. Either way, it is not merely a communication issue, but a matter of self-worth, childhood woundings replaying over again, and managing intimacy in a marriage that will always have ups and downs.

 Mary often points to her husband as causing her pain, when Mary is the one who is the  most powerful in re-enacting her childhood pain with her husband. She comes from a  background where she experienced negative body image issues, perfectionism, and shame         due to her family issues. Although she felt loved by her family, she cannot remain on a        solid platform that allows her to trust her own feelings without validation from her husband. Simply stated while working on your own issues and understanding your partner, even the most painful circumstances can bring about challenging opportunities. Because no situation is about anyone else except you. It is the only person you can change. If your partner is built or wired a certain way that is challenging for you it doesn’t mean you can tell them to change. The lesson is to work out your inner struggles, then your communication will become strengthened. You will carry yourself as trustworthy and safe! When you are challenged, see it as an opportunity to learn about yourself. After all, you chose your opponent!