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106Part II: The “Work” of Abiding Love: Building Your Attachment ProgramFigure 6.1:Tomkins’s Nine Innate Affects (Feelings)Positive Affects:Enjoyment/Joy: physically smiling, lips wide and outInterest/Excitement: physically, eyebrows are down, eyes are tracking and looking, and there is closer listeningNeutral Affects:Surprise/Startle: physically, eyebrows are up and eyes are blinkingNegative Affects:Anger/Rage: physically, the face is frowning and red, and the jaw isclenchedFear/Terror: physically, the face is pale with a frozen stare that exhibits coldness and sweating, and the hair is erectShame/Humiliation: physically, the eyes are lowered, the head isdown and averted, and the face may be blushingDistress/Anguish: person is physically crying with rhythmic sobbing,eyebrows are arched, and the mouth is loweredDissmell (reaction to bad smell): physically, the upper lip is raisedand the head is pulled backDisgust: physically, the lower lip is raised and protruding whilethe head is forward and down

110Part II: The “Work” of Abiding Love: Building Your Attachment Programhuman is foreign to me,” Rogers felt he was adequate. He wasnot perfect because, as he says, “If we were perfect, we wouldnot be human. Perfect would not be enough.” We may be able toget a perfect score on an exam created by another human being,but we can never be perfect in our very being. Why? Becauseas human beings we are, as we say at The Meadows treatmentcenter, “perfectly imperfect.”One of our innate affects is shame, which is the maker ofour finitude. We are the animals who blush, because we arethe animals who can and will make mistakes. We make a hugemistake when we try to be more than human, that is, when wetry to act shameless and be perfect. Chart 7A is an adaptationfrom my book Bradshaw On: Healing the Shame that BindsYou (revised edition, p. 27).Chart 7A:Dynamics of the Affect ShameShamelessShameShamelessLess Than Human“Neurotic”An Innate Affect ThatMarks Our Finitudeand Forms our Senseof Self.More Than Human“Character Disordered”Just HumanWholly Imperfect“Perfectly Imperfect”PerfectTo Blame forEverythingSelf-ResponsibleNot to Blame for AnyMess-ups

Realistic ExpectationsLetting Go of Control111Balance Between Holding On &Letting GoHolding On—Trying To Stay InControl All The TimePower Thru VirtueSerenity Prayer*A False Sense ofPOWERConfessing Defectswith Little or oundariesInvulnerable RigidBoundariesUnderfunctioningCuriositasKnows Nothing“I am a Mistake.”Fully Functional SelfDocilityStill LearningMistakes Are MyTeachers.Over-FunctioningPridefulKnow It AllNo MistakesAnger As RageAnger As BoundaryPassive AggressiveAngerTo Blame forEverythingResponsible for Selfand BehaviorsNever To Blame forAnythingCompulsive:Moderation avingTemperanceAlcohol/DrugsTotally Flawed& DefectiveGod As I Understand—Humble, Being NobodySpecialAuthoritarian GodPower ThroughFailureA SinnerResigned to DamnationElitistKnow I’m Saved*AA uses the Serenity Prayer—“God grant me the serenity to accept the thingsI cannot change, help me to change the things I can and give me the wisdom toknow the difference.” It is believed that the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr firstsaid this.

118Part II: The “Work” of Abiding Love: Building Your Attachment ProgramIndependence as the Gateway to Interdependency,” involves thefull discovery of each partner’s feelings of true selfhood. It isthe world of “me and mine.” Stage 3, “The Realm of ‘Ours’:Interdependence” is the discovery of the true world of “ours,”the world of connection, commitment, and deep intimacy.Chart 7B: Six Fundamental ProblemsInherent in All Relationships1. The Difference Between Being:In-love (attraction and infatuation) and in-love and lustLove (secure attachment, attunement, caring connection,presence, and intimacy), understanding love as energetic workinvolving stages of commitment and maturation2.  Differences1.  Gender2.  Temperament, tastes, idiosyncrasies, values, and needs3.  High-T (testosterone) and low-T people4.  Discrepancies in sexual desires5.  Family rules—overt and coverta.  Ethnicityb.  Religionc.  Moneyd.  Parentinge.  Householder—how the house should be keptf.  Vocational

Realistic Expectations119g.  Sexualh.  Educationali.  Celebrational—how to celebrate birthday, holidays, etc.j.  Political3.  Nonpathological and Pathological Wounds1.  The normal biased world2.  Attachment trauma3.  Abuse and neglect4.  Developmental dependency need deficits4.  Degree of Solid Selfhood1.  Ego strength and “true self” actualization2.  Internal and external differentiation3.  Developing semipermeable boundaries4.  Level of emotional literacyCommunication Issues5.  6.  Familiarity (the Frozen Image) and Fate1.  The terrible “dailiness”2.  Projection3.  Disaster (misfortune)4.  Betrayal5.  FamiliarityWe’ve already dealt with number 1, the false beliefs surrounding our understanding of the romance program. Mostresearchers see being in-love as a nonworking prelude to love, notlove itself. I’ve discussed how the “love molecule” dramatically

Realistic ExpectationsChart 7C:121

134Part II: The “Work” of Abiding Love: Building Your Attachment Programterms, when one or both partners in a marriage have DDDs,their marriage will be “immature.”Look at Chart 8A.Chart 8A:In this family, Mom and Dad are getting their needs metthrough their own resources, and through their loving relationship with each other. The parental relationship is the chiefcomponent in the family. Mom and Dad are in the process ofbeing up-to-date with the developmental dependency needs oftheir inner child (i.e., they have grieved the loss of their earliest developmental dependency needs and are in the process ofmaking them fully conscious and learning how to repair them).

Growing Up: Exorcising Your “Hauntings”137Chart 8B:need a life apart from their children, a life that will hopefullybe growing after the children have grown up and left home. InHope Springs, Arnold and Kay failed to build their relationshipso that when their children grew up and left home, they hadnothing going for their lives. They were like two ships passingin the night. I think that it is almost “sacred” for Mom and Dadto have a night out every week, or as often as they can afford

140Part II: The “Work” of Abiding Love: Building Your Attachment ProgramChart 8C:Dad from dealing with the issues he has with his wife. Basically,his neglected inner child thought that his wife would motherhim in a way that his own mother never did.His wife has made her middle son (her oldest boy) her surrogate spouse. The son is quite a star in baseball and football,and is the salutatorian in his class. Mom confides in this son,sucking him into her marital problems (including how disgusting sex is with his father).

154Part II: The “Work” of Abiding Love: Building Your Attachment Programrecipient can only view the partner as a grave threat, set updefenses, stop listening, and ultimately withdraw emotionally,and, if possible, physically.Chart 9A: Self-Generating Cyclesof Negativity that Destroy RelationshipsThe Four Horsemen:Criticism: Judgment of partner’s behavior as badContempt: Judgment of partner’s very being as badDefensiveness: Loss of listening, contact, and empathyWithdrawal and Distance: Stonewalling, pouting, refusing tospeak, and separatingAs couples move down the stairs of degeneration, both partners begin to form an absolutized negative image of their marriage. Each feels like their spouse is the offender and that theyare the victim. (I am a huge fan of Gottman and his wife, Dr.Julie Schwartz Gottman, and I recommend all of their work. Itake full responsibility for any misinterpretation of the conclusions they have reached.)The Seven Deadly D’sBefore I read Gottman, I had developed my own model forthe stages of degeneration in a marriage. I called my model

158Part II: The “Work” of Abiding Love: Building Your Attachment Programyour partner when you were in-love?” A common answer is, “Iwas duped! I should’ve seen the handwriting on the wall.” It’sas if that mighty rush of tasty love chemicals had morphed intopoison.Chart 9B: The Seven Deadly D’sIf you look at the following, you will see that there are healthyD’s. They are:Healthy D’s: Disclosing your feelingsDeclaring your desiresDiscussing your dislikesDivulging “shame secrets”Declaring your desires or dislikes can easily lead to denigrating.When any of the healthy D’s lead to: Denigrating attacks on your partner’s behavior. The denigrating criticismmust be stopped.If not stopped, denigrating leads to: Devaluing and demeaning your partner’s very being, which are visciousforms of shaming.Shaming leads to: Defensiveness and the early formation of a negative image about your marriage. You begin to see your partner as an enemy. Seeing your partner as anenemy initiates chronic anxiety and causes reactive verbal conflicts.You then seek: Distance and detachment. Either “wild” childish disputes or pouting andrefusing to talk causes both partners to seek real distance and detachment.Which, if not dealt with, leads to:

Three More New Discoveries!159 Dissmell, which leads to isolation and dismissiveness. Dissmell isthe core of all prejudices, gender, race supremacy, elitism, and discrimination.Which leads to: Disgust: The queasy feeling that makes one say, “She makes me want tovomit,” the exact opposite of romance, “I want to eat her up.” The wholemarital relationship is now defined as doomed from the beginning. T his results in despair, one or both partners feeling caught up in a gamewith no end. One or both feel like they are the victim and their partner isthe repulsive offender. This most often leads to:DIVORCEPestilence and FamineI had other couples arrive for therapy acting like they wererepulsed by each other. I call dissmell and disgust “pestilenceand famine.” They are the sure markers of the end of a relationship. Not all couples actually (legally) divorce at this point, butthey definitely emotionally and sexually divorce. They are finished with each other and set up a nonverbal contract to avoideach other. This is a tragedy for any family. If there are childrenand they are living at home, they become acutely aware of theirparents’ dislike and contempt for each other, even though inpublic the parents put on the facade of a “happy couple.” Thechildren feel helpless to change it.I’ve often asked each partner at this stage of their impendingdemise: “What was it that you loved and found magical about

170Part II: The “Work” of Abiding Love: Building Your Attachment ProgramChart 9C: The Awareness WheelThe most critical part of awareness is our interpretations.Every time we interpret our partner’s communication, we arefantasizing—we are making something up. We use that exactlanguage in our therapy work at The Meadows treatment center. We say, “I saw . . . or I heard . . . and what I’m making upabout that is [whatever I imagine], and please note that since

Three More New Discoveries!175people who understand the same sentence the same way.” Epistemology is the study of the deep structure of language. Anepistemologist wants to know how we know. I first presentedChart 9D in my book, Healing the Shame that Binds You.Chart 9D: