Written by admin on 2009-04-09T03:34:44+0000">April 9, 2009 – 3:34 am
This man could not grasp for a moment that he had an unconscious need to infuriate his wife, so as to feel right and superior—since she was always the person who was “losing her cool.” He had developed this way of defending in connection with an obsessive-compulsive mother, who had wanted to organize and control every aspect of his life and know everything he was thinking and feeling. To survive, he retreated into a world of passivity and meditation, keeping his thoughts and feelings locked up where she could not get to them (and therefore to him). Now that same mode of operation had been displaced onto his wife.
Meanwhile, the wife had experienced a passive father, who gave her anything she wanted materially, but was completely absent emotionally. She always had the impression that her father, a politician, married and had children only because it was politically expedient to do so. Just as her own mother had ranted and raved at this passive father, so now she too became enraged at her passive husband. The more monstrous she felt, the more she hated both herself and him, and the more she would resort to name-calling, guilt-tripping, and temper tantrums.
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