purity
Boundaries and Emotional Blackmail
http://www.boundariesbooks.com/boundaries/boundaries-emotional-blackmail/
by:
“Every time I disagree with my mother, even on little things, I feel this terrible sense that she’s not there anymore,” mused Ingrid over coffee with her friend Alice. “It’s like she’s hurt and withdrawn, and I can’t get her back. It’s really a horrible feeling to think you’ve lost someone you love.”
Let’s be honest. None of us enjoys being told no. It’s difficult to accept another person’s refusal to give support, to be intimate, or to forgive. Yet good relationships are built on the freedom to refuse and confront. Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
Good relationships are built on appropriate no’s. Even when we’re children, young or old, we need to know our boundaries will be honored. It is crucial that our disagreements, our practicing of saying no, and our experimentation will not result in a withdrawal of love.
How often do we hear the statement that “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin”? It’s true. His love is constant and never fails. When parents detach from a misbehaving young child instead of staying connected and dealing with the problem, God’s constant love is misrepresented.
When parents pull away in hurt, disappointment, or passive rage, they are sending this message to their youngster: You’re loveable when you behave. You aren’t loveable when you don’t behave. A child translates that message something like this: When I’m good, I am loved. When I’m bad, I am cut off.
God created people with a need for attachment and relationship. In essence, parents who pull away from their child, whether young or old, practice spiritual and emotional blackmail. The child can either pretend to not disagree and keep the relationship, or he can continue to separate and lose his most important relationship in the world. Thus, he will most likely keep quiet.
Children whose parents withdraw when they start setting limits learn to accentuate and develop their compliant, loving, sensitive parts. At the same time, they learn to fear, distrust, and hate their aggressive, truth-telling, and separate parts. If someone they love pulls away when they become angry, cantankerous, or experimental, children learn to hide these parts of themselves.
Parents who tell their children, “It hurts us when you’re angry” make the child responsible for the emotional health of the parent. In effect, the child has just been made the parent of the parent— sometimes at two or three years old. It’s far, far better to say, “I know you’re angry, but you still can’t have that toy.” And then to take your hurt feelings to a spouse, friend, or the Lord.
By nature, children are omnipotent. They live in a world where the sun shines because they were good, and it rains because they were naughty. Children will give up this omnipotence gradually over time, as they learn that needs and events besides theirs are important. But during the early years, this omnipotence plays right into boundary injury. When children feel parents withdrawing, they readily believe that they are responsible for Mom and Dad’s feelings. That’s what omnipotent means: “I am powerful enough to make Mom and Dad pull away. I’d better watch it.”
A parent’s emotional withdrawal can be subtle: A hurt tone of voice. Long silences for no reason. Or it can be overt: Crying spells. Illness. Yelling. Children of parents like these grow up to be adults who are terrified that setting boundaries will cause severe isolation and abandonment.
Please don’t misunderstand this. Parents setting boundaries with their children is crucial. Children need to know behavioral lines that should not be crossed. They need to suffer biblical, age-appropriate consequences for acting out. (In fact, when parents do not set and maintain good boundaries with their children, the children suffer another type of boundary injury.
What we’re talking about here isn’t allowing the child free rein. Parents need to stay attached and connected to their children even when they disagree with them. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get angry. It means they shouldn’t withdraw.
Men of the Bible – Samson
Samson
His name means: “Little Sun”
His work: To deliver Israel from the Philistines. His character: Samson’s erotic attachments to foreign women eventually led to his death. A man of mythic strength, he was inwardly weak, given to anger and unfaithful to his Nazirite vows. His prayers as well as his actions against the Philistines seem to have been motivated by the desire for personal vengeance. His sorrow: To have been blinded and imprisoned by his lifelong enemies. His triumph: To have killed more Philistines by his death than he had while living. Key Scriptures: Judges 13-16
A Look at the Man
One of the first Bible stories children hear is the story of Samson, the man who defeated his enemies with a superhuman feat of strength. But it is such an unsavory story that we find ourselves leaving out certain details, for example, Samson’s boasting, his visits to prostitutes, or his murderous rage. Even the man’s prayers were selfish, focused as they were on his own desire for revenge rather than on God’s glory.
Why would God, knowing the future, choose such a person to play such a role, even sending an angel to announce his birth? The question is not easily answered. But it is certainly true that Samson would have been a better man had he paid attention to the call God had placed on his life. Instead, he seems to have squandered the promise of his life by living it in a self-centered, self-directed way.
Ironically, the pattern of his life formed a vivid picture of Israel’s own unfaithfulness during a period when it seemed incapable of resisting the allurement of foreign gods. And so the people God had set apart and called his own, the nation he intended to build up and make strong, grew progressively weaker in the land he had promised.
Samson’s story reminds us of God’s faithfulness, of his ability to deliver his people regardless of the circumstances and despite their sins. It also reminds us of what can happen when we allow ourselves to become attached to things and people, however enticing, that might end in our own self-destruction.
Reflect On: Judges 16:23–31 Praise God: For his sovereignty. Offer Thanks: For God’s strength working within you. Confess: Any promises you have made to God and not kept. Ask God: To make you a person who is strong on the inside.
Today’s devotional is drawn from Men of the Bible: A One-Year Devotional Study of Men in Scripture by Ann Spangler and Robert Wolgemuth. Visit AnnSpangler.com to learn more about Ann’s writing and ministry.
Journal Through Recovery Entry 28: The Wounds
The wounds aren’t just my spouse’s. The wounds aren’t just mine. Others have received the fallout from the depth of my years of lying, manipulating, and self satisfaction. My kids. Their wounds are hidden. Sometimes I don’t even know they are there. Until they are. There they are, bursting forth. The results of my sin and the sin of a fallen world. The results of my deep ingrained defects of character.
I am working on Step Six. It seems easy enough. I have to be entirely ready to have God remove my defects of character. It seems simple enough. All I have to do is say I am ready, right? Actually, this step is unfolding in a way I didn’t expect. My awareness of the stark differences in my fundamental core character defects when compared to the perfect example of Christ doesn’t leave my thoughts as I pray and ask for Him to make sure I am ready.
As I list each of my primary flaws, I try and focus on specific examples of how I have exemplified those flaws in my life. I can only go through one at a time. Cumulatively they are too much for me to comprehend and emotionally handle. The scope of the impact of my flaws on the people I love is just so great. So, I follow my sponsor’s advice and ask God to reveal each to me in His timing as I am ready to accept them and turn them over to Him.
This has been an exercise in patience, trust, and prayer. Specifically, I have asked God to go through each of them. To give me awareness of the impact of each and to prepare my heart and mind to release them to Him. First was pride and selfishness. I thought I was prepared to turn that one over. I thought I had dealt with all of pride and had released it. I didn’t pay too much attention to when my counselor told me he for some reason thought there was still pride ingrained in me that I hadn’t let go. So, I was ready to turn that over. But I really wasn’t.
I was walking with my wife. It’s a way we have connected again, spending time walking our dog and just having conversations. Intimate conversations about her damage, my recovery, our future, our kids. I told her that a division connected to my company had reached out to me, had interest in me for a job, a promotion, a level that I badly had wanted in the past. How awesome was that? We had talked about a new start and a move at some point, so I obviously thought this was a great idea. Thankfully, my wife is a truth teller. She looked at me and asked what was I doing? I was only 5 months into my recovery and why on earth would I want to mess that up, move our kids, uproot any sense of stability she and we had. She reminded me that my constant chasing of career led to strain on our marriage, instability for our kids, and ultimately enabled my acting out. Her wounds are there, always. Sometimes I don’t see them. Sometimes they are just below the surface. But her wounds are still there.
God is sovereign. God is consistent. God answers prayers. I asked him to prepare me to give over my defects of character. He is doing so by making sure I am clear on what they are. And I am clear on the wounds they have caused.
Castimonia Purity Podcast Episode 42: Step 5 – Sex Addiction Recovery – Confession
Jorge and Doug discuss how to work Step 5 in sex addiction recovery. They discuss the practical steps in confession to God, to yourself, and to another person. There is freedom in admitted all of our brokenness and still finding acceptance.
They talk about resources at castimonia.org as well as other recovery tools.
After working on Step 4, we have a clear picture of our character defects and our need to change, so Step 5 allows us to “grow up” and start living in the light in an authentic way.
As always, email us at puritypodcast@castimonia.org for more information, and remember that you are not walking on the road of recovery alone!
