This is part 2 in my review of John Townsend’s Handling
Difficult People: What to do when people
try to push your buttons.
My wife asks me
to cook for her, massage her, and fetch her a drink. If I don’t do what she asks, she will sulk
for days. I am feeling used and
manipulated to do what she wants. I feel
like I have no choice. To keep the
peace, I yield to her constant demands for my time to do things for her. I am concerned that if I stop doing these
little things for her, we will fight and she will keep me at a distance for too
long. I feel lonely and in pain. She is too strong for me to stop. I am thinking of our 4 kids. I don’t want
them to be exposed to heated discussions, bickering, and my wife running away
from home.
When
you hear this story, you might feel pity for the person sharing their problem
and feel irritated with the difficult person who is taking advantage of
them. We might see the person as a
victim who has no option in the relationship.
We might see the difficult person
as the whole problem. However, the
difficult behavior of the difficult person does not exist in a vacuum and we
must consider the whole system of relationships in order to understand why the
difficult person continues to behave in this way. There are things that we do that will reinforce
the difficult behavior. Many times the
difficult person has people in their lives that are very “caring” and “loving”
toward them and willing to sacrifice for themselves for the difficult
person. But they are also afraid of
conflict and not willing to confront the difficult person strongly and allow
him or her to feel the true consequences of their behavior “because they care
too much.”
But
the only way that the person will begin to change is feel those consequences,
and feel them for a long time to the point where they realize they are no
longer going to be rescued by that “caring” individual. Difficult people will not change their
behavior on their own out of a good heart.
So if they will not change, who will change? Whoever is uncomfortable is the one that
needs to change and must seek to create healthy space for himself or herself.
So when the difficult person displays toxic
behavior, instead of being caught in an ambush of her mood swings and feeling
out of control and angry about yourself or feeling guilty for giving in when
this difficult person displays her toxic behavior, you need to be able to be
aware of the discomfort you are experiencing and evaluate the situation. Difficult people have the tendency to push
you until you break, then blame you for victimizing them. This is their strategy to make you feel
responsible for their problem by making you reap what you did not sow. We feel manipulated, guilty, angry, helpless
and hopeless to change our situation.
We have proven many times that when we do things to
pacify the situation, it does not yield a good and lasting change. Many times in our feelings of helplessness we
simply deny our reality and hope that the problem will simply go away. We try to understand, cover up or even lie
for them, hoping that they will see our effort and in turn, they will consider our
feelings. But when our hope does not
come true, we get angry and threaten them or we completely give up on
them. By doing this, we become part of
the problem.
Townsend gives very good advice in dealing with this
kind of situation:
1. Identify your inability to separate yourself from
this difficult person. His thoughts,
feelings, and actions are his. Since it
is his, he is completely responsible for it and completely in control of it. You and he are completely different persons
even if you are twins or he is your spouse.
2. Pause for a moment; evaluate the situation;
differentiate yourself; identify you goal; and plan your course of action.
3. Take a specific behavior & examine it: How severe is the problematic behavior? Then rate it.
- Not very severe (annoying
but not damaging and only occurs sometimes)
- Moderately severe (happens
often causing prolonged chaos)
- Extremely severe and
urgent (Infrequent but violent; or the person is enraged much of the time)
4. Evaluate the person’s sense of personal
responsibility. Then rate it:
- Minimal problem – the
person response accepts and change the behavior
- More serious problem –
when the person accepts but makes excuses or minimizes it.
- Severe problem – when
the person is unaware and blames others.
5. Be aware that there is a big difference between “I
can’t” and “I won’t.” Difficult people
tend to confuse these. They would say,
“I can’t.” when they actually mean they won’t.
“I can’t” means the
person really has no ability.
“I won’t” means the
person is simply resistant.
6. Empower them by teaching them what to do and how to
do it once or twice. Then let them do it
themselves. Be consistent and stand on
your ground. Do NOT do things for them because
you are happy this time or because it makes them have a good attitude (That is
manipulation and they will manipulate you back) Do not nag or remind the difficult person what to do
– he knows what to do and how to do it right.
(You already showed him and taught him.
Also, he has already done it himself before when he was in the mood).
Examples:
If your mother is
staying in your house and constantly complains about your situation and change
the way you run your house. It is
important that you consider the validity of her comments and concern. She might be giving you better ideas about
life and discipline. Comparing you to
your other siblings and accusing your husband of something he did not do is
really not acceptable and must be confronted.
Be careful the way you do this because it will cause a heated
argument. This requires some communication
skill and self-control not fall into the trap of guilt tripping. Even when you approach it slowly difficult
people has a hard-time accepting the possibility that they could be wrong….
If your 17-year-old
daughter refuses to cook, then don’t cook for her so that she does not have a
good cooked meal to eat. If she did not
clean her room, let her room stink. Do
not cover it up. Do not be afraid of what
other people say. Do not clean it
yourself or let the maid or helper clean for her.
If your son is
already 7 years old and refuses to feed himself, then let him go without
eating. When he is hungry, he will decide
to feed himself. (This is very common
here in the Philippines because we spoon feed children even when they are
older.) If he cries or pouts give him space for his emotion and let him deal
with it. But do not allow any tantrums
or damaging of property.
We might tend to nag because we believe that this
difficult person needs to be reminded to do the right thing. However the problem is, they don’t see what
you are doing, instead they see you as controlling. They may be reminded of an authority figure
like their mom or dad that they did not function well with and regress into a childish
state and rebel against your authority.
Loving and enabling are not the same thing. Love can be very kind and caring, but have
zero tolerance toward irresponsibility, selfishness and manipulation. On the other hand, enabling allows the person
to get away with their misbehavior while protecting them from the pain that
their misbehavior causes. When you are
enabling, you may do what they ask of you when you are in their presence, but
deep inside you want them out of your life or may even have developed a hatred
against them.
The transformation of a difficult person requires
the whole system to change. It starts
with you (the one who is bothered) restraining yourself from over-functioning
and enabling their immature behavior. When
you choose to stop over-functioning, you will engage in a real battle for a
while, but it is very important that you are consistent and do not
over-function. Instead allow this person
to reap the consequence of his behavior. The goal is not to punish them.
And you don’t want to quit on them.
Instead the goal is to help them develop a maturity that is appropriate for
their age and expected developmental tasks.
If you over-function for them, you will cripple them and set them up for
failure.
For example:
A parent may really value the education of their child. The parent always helps with homework and
sometimes ends up taking over. The
student gets good grades on his projects, but is not learning how to be a good
student. When the students goes away to
college, he may not have the perseverance necessary to finish difficult
assignments because he never hard to before.
In
short, it takes a lot of hard-work and self-discipline to restrain yourself. Be committed that you will not be a part of
problem by separating yourself and holding this difficult person accountable to
choose good behavior. It is a temptation
to jump back into the cycle when they are showing progress because you think
the problem is over now. Be sure to find
ways to reward them fully with praise, appreciation and encouragement, but DO
NOT begin to take on their responsibility again (this would sabotage their
recovery). This kind of discipline will
bring about emotional health, personal growth and maturity. If they are less than 18 years old, it is
your responsibility to make them follow your household rules and the order of
your home. If they are above 18, they are
already capable of feeding and supporting themselves and they can live on their
own and have their own personal rules if they do not want to abide by your
rules.
To be gracious and kind is what we desire, so as we
wait and expect this difficult person to change we also provide space, time,
and more affirmation when they achieve the desired behaviors.
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