This content addresses the challenge of loved ones unaware of their negative impact on others, who deny consistent feedback and feel victimized by others‘ responses. Risa’s husband exemplifies this: his children and wife experience him as aggressive and critical, while he firmly believes he’s a patient, loving dad offering wise guidance.
When Risa gently highlights the discrepancy between his perception and their reality, he becomes enraged, rejecting the feedback and accusing her of judgment. This intense denial stems from a need to protect his cherished self-image and avoid deep-seated shame, preventing him from acknowledging how he truly comes across. Moving forward is incredibly difficult when personal narratives so strongly override external reality.
What can we do or say when our partner or someone we love is completely unaware of how they come across to others in the world, and yet is continually frustrated about other people’s responses to them? How do we make things better when someone we care about can’t see their own behavior accurately, when they have a skewed version of themselves, and are certain they’re not doing what they’re actually doing? Is it possible to move the dial forward when someone rejects and feels victimized by the feedback and results they keep getting from the world on account of that behavior?
Risa’s kids frequently complain to her about her husband, their father. All three of her children tell her that he’s constantly shouting at them, telling them what they’re doing wrong, and instructing them on what they need to do to change—hammering at them with the same message over and over again. They tell her that he doesn’t listen or ask questions about why they make the choices they make; he barrages them with criticism, which he says is “advice and guidance.” Each child has said the same thing, and indeed, Risa has witnessed this exact behavior, this relentlessness and aggression from her husband, again and again.
Perception Versus Reality
Recently, her husband recounted an interaction with one of their children. As he described what he’d said to their child, he became agitated and angry, raising his voice to nearly a shout. After listening for a while, Risa gently asked him whether the tone he used in describing the interaction was the same as the tone used when delivering the message to their child. Risa had been in this situation many times, listening to his report on an interaction while having witnessed something very different than what he described. Her husband became even angrier after her question and insisted that, of course, he had not spoken to the girl that way; he knew better than that. He had, of course, lovingly and patiently presented his points, just as he always did to their kids. He knew how to be a dad, and she was implying that he was unaware and blind to the situation. Then he went after Risa—for judging him and claiming to know him better than he knew himself.
Interactions like this left Risa between a rock and a hard place. She loved her husband and also knew exactly how he sounded when he was trying to make a point, share his wisdom, and offer guidance. For years, she had watched him go after their kids hard, speak aggressively, and be critical even while he thought he was being helpful. She’d experienced him that way as long as she’d known him, the same way her kids experienced him.
Risa had lovingly tried to suggest to her husband that the way he thought he was speaking to their kids might not match what he sounded like when he was speaking to them. And, that it might be a good idea to pay attention to the feedback that he consistently received from everyone in the family, the responses that were repeated over and over. She’d reminded him that they were all on his side—not criticizing him, not shaming him—and that the kids were trying to share their experience of him, how he came across. In as many non-threatening, non-wounding, non-shaming ways as she could come up with, while always pointing out that she knew his intentions were loving, Risa had tried to convey that the way their kids actually experienced their father in reality was as someone unhelpful and critical (which were very softened versions of what the kids had actually expressed).
But no matter what she tried, her husband insisted that he was communicating the way he imagined he was communicating, and behaving the way he thought he was behaving. His narrative on who he was didn’t align with reality, at least when it came to his behavior. No matter what response he received from the people he loved, he vehemently denied any suggestion that he was anything other than the character he’d written for himself in his own self-story, who he’d decided he was. His identity in his narrative: He was aware of his own behavior, and also a wise and loving dad. And nothing, not even reality, was going to change that.
The Need to Protect Self-Image
You could say that Risa’s husband was delusional and out of touch with reality; the truth is, he was just a normal human being—living the way most people live—in their own story of reality, their own story about themselves, their own narrative of who and how they are. He trusted that what he believed, what he needed to believe to feel good about himself, was truly happening. The movie playing in his head, in his private cinema, was real. The narrative her husband had written about the kind of “dad” and “conscious” human he was, which he continually pointed out, needed to be upheld no matter what reality dictated. Any suggestion that something else might be true (at times) had the potential to destabilize him.
Ultimately, any kink in the armor that protected his self-narrative, his sense of self, threatened to unleash a deep and underlying shame and sense of not-enoughness that he’d carried since childhood. Allowing the reality of his kids’ experience of him brought him into direct contact with his own fear that he might actually be like his own dad—an emotional bully. Any suggestion that he could be experienced as something other than who he was in his own narrative had to be thoroughly rejected.
In Part 2 of this series, I’ll suggest options for dealing with someone who’s behaving in a way they don’t think they’re behaving, and at the same time, when they won’t let in the reality of other people’s experience—of them. I’ll offer a way to move the situation forward when the process seems stuck—a soft place to land between your rock and hard place.
Hinweis: Externer Inhalt von https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inviting-a-monkey-to-tea/202607/some-people-are-the-last-to-know-how-theyre-being-perceived. Rechte bei den jeweiligen Urhebern. » Mehr… » Melden
