Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Couples You Meet In Counseling #7: The CEO And The Resentful Employee

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Couples You Meet In Counseling #7: The CEO And The Resentful Employee · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:06
  Hi everyone, and welcome to the doctors.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show today. We are going to be talking about
• 0:12
  a new couple you meet in counseling.
• 0:14
  That I don't even have a post about yet and it is called the
• 0:19
  CEO on the resentful employee. But before we get into that, I
• 0:23
  want to talk about subscribing as usual.
• 0:26
  The most recent one was what your wife means when she says,
• 0:29
  I'm overwhelmed and there's about 50 other episodes that can
• 0:32
  enhance your understanding of male-female.
• 0:34
  Dynamic. Says, well as parenting.
• 0:37
  Okay, so let's move on. So obviously, as you know, I've
• 0:40
  had other podcasts and posts about couples you meet in
• 0:43
  counseling, which is what I call common dynamics that I see in my
• 0:47
  practice over time and I had a good one on mr.
• 0:51
  Perfect. And it's crazy wife and the
• 0:53
  annoyingly satisfied husband and the wife who wants more both of
• 0:55
  those I believe or subscriber only.
• 0:58
  And in this one what I'm talking about is a very common Dynamic
• 1:02
  that I see where one partner, Mike.
• 1:05
  Or manages the shit out of the other partner.
• 1:07
  And the other partner is real passive and interns
• 1:10
  passive-aggressive and neither one really owns their own part
• 1:16
  in this Dynamic. And so, what I'm intending here
• 1:19
  is to kind of outlay, the reasons that neither party is at
• 1:24
  fault unilaterally for this Dynamic, which of course, sounds
• 1:28
  obvious, that neither party would be solely responsible for
• 1:32
  a dynamic that involves two people.
• 1:33
  But that in that entire Your philosophical idea is lost on,
• 1:38
  about 100 percent of the people who come into counseling,
• 1:42
  because they usually think that, even if it's, you know, dually
• 1:46
  created, it's 99% their spouses fault and that's just not the
• 1:51
  case. It's really 50/50.
• 1:53
  So what sort of couples get trapped in this sort of dynamic?
• 1:57
  Well, it's usually a type, A anxious person, and a more
• 2:04
  passive other. A person.
• 2:06
  And over time, they just become caricatures of themselves.
• 2:10
  They become increasingly polarized.
• 2:12
  Such that one person. Barely wipe their ass without
• 2:14
  asking the other person how to do it or without the other
• 2:16
  person volunteering a better way to do it.
• 2:19
  And this really ticks up massively after a child is born
• 2:25
  because I usually see this with women being the micromanagers
• 2:30
  the CEO, they are doing a lot of research in Apps about how to be
• 2:36
  the best parent. They could be and they feel that
• 2:39
  the guy is just asleep at the switch, not doing a good job
• 2:42
  potentially going to kill the kid or traumatize them or
• 2:45
  something. And so they start to give the
• 2:47
  guy extremely specific advice on how to, you know, parent and
• 2:54
  deal with the child, everything from how to feed them to how to
• 2:57
  talk to them, to everything else and the guy usually becomes
• 3:01
  increasingly more resentful and even more and more passive.
• 3:05
  As a response but then of course, it's a vicious cycle
• 3:09
  because the more passive and almost like passive aggressive.
• 3:14
  They get then the more the other person thinks that they are a
• 3:17
  true idiot. That really needs to be
• 3:18
  micromanaged in every way. Otherwise, they will hold the
• 3:21
  baby from the feed instead of, you know, right side up and it
• 3:25
  and, and so then as the children get older, this gets locked into
• 3:28
  place and this is the same. The CEO becomes a CEO of all
• 3:32
  children and the household frequently.
• 3:35
  The finances, everything. And the things that the employee
• 3:39
  does are always at the behest of the CEO party.
• 3:43
  So even if they are doing a lot of, let's say the yard work or
• 3:47
  what have you, it is frequently because the CEO person has said,
• 3:52
  the yard looks bad. You got to do XYZ and you should
• 3:55
  go. And there's a sale at Home Depot
• 3:56
  and you should do that today between the hours of 2, 45 and
• 3:59
  445 because that's when I don't have something to do with the
• 4:03
  kit, you know, whatever the case may be.
• 4:05
  So this can build on itself such that, it's an almost comical
• 4:10
  level of micromanagement. And the other person has almost
• 4:15
  forgotten how to think on their own.
• 4:17
  So it's not like they are coming back and being like no actually
• 4:20
  245 doesn't work for me. They're usually like okay and
• 4:23
  then either they do it or they're asleep on the couch up
• 4:26
  to 45 because they're passive-aggressively protesting
• 4:30
  being told what to do constantly.
• 4:32
  So why do people on a More distal level.
• 4:37
  Why do these individuals get locked into such a dynamic
• 4:40
  frequently? It's because they saw it growing
• 4:42
  up one parent bossed around the other parent and so there was
• 4:47
  usually one who was in charge and one who is not, and they
• 4:51
  knew which one was and they have Allied, if they are the CEO,
• 4:55
  they've allied with the one who was in charge and if they're
• 4:58
  not, then they were familiarly. Kind of subconsciously drawn to
• 5:03
  such a person you know, So men who get involved with women that
• 5:07
  are bossing them around, they got to think about what their
• 5:10
  upbringing was like, you know, like, did they see this same
• 5:13
  thing going on and then on some level where they drawn to it,
• 5:17
  you know, because it was familiar to them and at least
• 5:19
  they know how to literally execute on tasks.
• 5:23
  So frequently people with low self-esteem become the one who
• 5:27
  is the employee because they are not exactly sure of how to do
• 5:31
  things in the world. And originally, they were very
• 5:34
  drawn to But neither did and this reminded them of being
• 5:37
  bossed around by a parent when they were growing up and why
• 5:41
  would somebody become the CEO? A because they saw this at home
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  but also out of anxiety they seem like a real, you know, kind
• 5:50
  of asshole but they're not. They are somebody who's super
• 5:54
  anxious about getting things wrong and therefore they
• 5:57
  compulsively research and think and think and think about how to
• 6:00
  make things best and how to optimize which is of course, an
• 6:04
  illusion, you know, No, because control is an illusion and most
• 6:07
  regards, you know, you could try one way of parenting and it
• 6:10
  goes, well, well, you may have a kid, that many ways of parenting
• 6:13
  could have gone well with, you know, you'll never know.
• 6:16
  So the I, so there's some people, I mean, this is a
• 6:19
  different sort of zooming out sort of thing.
• 6:22
  But when you think, oh, wow, I'm like such an awesome parent,
• 6:25
  because whatever I'm doing is really working to make my kid,
• 6:29
  great. Well, you know, your kid may
• 6:31
  have been great with a lot of different sorts of parenting, so
• 6:34
  it's almost Us to believe. So unfailingly in that, whatever
• 6:38
  you did created something that otherwise would have been bad
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  and while it's good to have high self-esteem, this can be very
• 6:46
  bad in terms of comparing two parenting Styles between two
• 6:49
  parents because the CEO person may be like oh our kid only kind
• 6:53
  of does well at school because I am so regimented about doing
• 6:57
  their homework with them and you the husband let's say who have a
• 7:02
  more laissez-faire approach if the child.
• 7:05
  I was listening to you only than they would not be doing well at
• 7:09
  school. Well, that is not true.
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  We do not have a control group where this specific child is
• 7:15
  cloned added a more laissez-faire environment.
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  That child may be doing Justice fine or the see the difference
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  may not be significant so it's never good as an aside to focus
• 7:25
  on your way of parenting or whom management or whatever.
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  As the only way based on the result because you don't have a
• 7:33
  control group, you know, like I don't know what would have been
• 7:36
  going on? If things would have been going
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  your spouse's way, you can only get to this control group, if
• 7:43
  you truly let go completely and try whatever, your spouse is way
• 7:47
  is of doing it, which most people don't want to do.
• 7:50
  And when people do that, sometimes it is really not as
• 7:52
  big of a deal as they thought. And the difference is not
• 7:55
  anything, but that anyhow, that's just something to think
• 7:58
  about. If you were really wedded to one
• 8:01
  philosophy of home management child-rearing etcetera.
• 8:05
  The the point here is that this is a newly created dynamic as
• 8:09
  these all are, and the person who is more passive has gone to
• 8:13
  a place where they're very angry and resentful, which usually
• 8:16
  they do not admit openly. But how they're acting indicates
• 8:20
  that they are because they're basically trying to gum up the
• 8:24
  works. There so annoyed by the constant
• 8:27
  emphasis of the other partner on efficiency and optimization and
• 8:30
  and whatever that they just frequently do things real slow
• 8:34
  or they don't see them at all. All or they quote, unquote
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  forget, and a key part of moving forward on out of this toxic
• 8:40
  Dynamic is for this employee role person to say.
• 8:45
  I'm really angry and I feel that in many ways I'm not being
• 8:49
  allowed to self-actualize as an adult, but it is very hard to do
• 8:53
  that if you don't have alternate ideas for how things should go.
• 8:57
  So it's also key for this person to think about have a vision of
• 9:01
  the way they want the family to look because frequently they All
• 9:05
  they thought about is that they don't want it to be running this
• 9:08
  sort of like stressful, businesslike, way that the other
• 9:11
  partner prefers or perpetuate. So and then when the other
• 9:16
  partners like, well what's your idea for how to do homework with
• 9:18
  the kids or not do homework with kids or whatever?
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  They don't really have an idea. So and again, this ties back to
• 9:23
  low self-esteem and the idea that when you were a kid, if you
• 9:26
  weren't really allowed to have any ideas about anything that
• 9:30
  it's hard to come up with some on the spot as an adult.
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  Even if you know that the status quo Is not what you want.
• 9:37
  So individual therapy can frequently help the people that
• 9:40
  are more in the employee role. Figure out what they really want
• 9:44
  out of their life and how to grab the bull by the horns in
• 9:48
  many aspects of their lives parenting.
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  Co-management work, etc. Etc, etc.
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  Now, the other person, the CEO person, they may feel like they
• 9:59
  have a lot of self-esteem, but usually they have a lot of
• 10:01
  anxiety, and it's just because they think that things are Able
• 10:05
  to fuck up or go wrong. So easily is why they think they
• 10:09
  have to be on top of everything so that they could catch any
• 10:13
  potential problem. And they also have quite a lot
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  of resentment and anger toward the employees spouse.
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  Right? Because they think that they are
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  in charge of everything. And this is when that big
• 10:24
  emotional labor thing comes in of that they have to be in
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  charge of everything, everything everything.
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  Now, the majority of the people who are complaining about
• 10:31
  emotional labor, have real specific ways about how they
• 10:34
  want it to be done. So they employ motional labor,
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  as I've discussed numerous times in my pose, I don't think is a
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  very useful construct at all because it is it does not
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  capture what's actually going on.
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  It's overly simplistic and reductive right because the
• 10:51
  person isn't just saying, hey I don't want to have to worry
• 10:54
  about, you know, bill payment, they're saying.
• 10:57
  I don't want to have to worry about bill payment.
• 10:59
  I'd like you to execute on bill payment.
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  Exactly. The way that I would, though.
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  So what I really want is for you to be me.
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  Me. So you know, and I'm very angry
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  that you cannot just be a second me.
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  Well that is not very useful because the other person will
• 11:11
  never be a second you and so that kind of you know wish kind
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  of sets one up to fail. And now the level of anger that
• 11:20
  each of these Partners feel toward one, another this leads
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  to, for there are frequently, massive empathic ruptures.
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  You can go back to my empathic rupture podcast in the history
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  of this couple, so like the one who is the employer He may have
• 11:35
  had times where there was a big empathic rupture where they
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  tried to take charge of something in the other one, in
• 11:41
  their perception, minimized them and dismiss them, and kind of
• 11:45
  send it to them and refuse to go along with it so much that they
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  just threw their hands up. And it abdicated, and just
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  basically turned into this worker bee role because then
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  they don't get criticized and yelled at and the other partner
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  frequently, as empathic ruptures, went to, in their
• 12:01
  mind, they did try to give over a large chunk of Some sort of
• 12:05
  responsibility to the other and were massively disappointed when
• 12:08
  they were unable to do it. So for example, let's say a
• 12:13
  woman that isn't the CEO role said I am going to I'm going to
• 12:19
  go back to school you know. I want to go to this
• 12:21
  informational session on getting your Masters and the
• 12:25
  informational session is it for today and you can do it, right?
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  You can pick up our kid from from daycare and let's say the
• 12:33
  other one is late to pick up. To get from daycare.
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  And so then this woman decided you know what it just goes to
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  show. I can't really do anything.
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  And I'm going to have to remain a stay-at-home mom because he
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  cannot obviously do the smallest thing that I asked him for and
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  this is indicative of how it would go.
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  If I went back to get my masters, I'd be unable to do it
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  anyway, right? So there could be some, some
• 12:54
  large empathic rupture like this that there was a time where
• 12:59
  usually each partner has tried to get out of these roles that
• 13:03
  are generally fairly Fulfilling and stressful on both ends.
• 13:07
  But to in their mind, they're, they were unable to move out of
• 13:12
  this dynamic because of the limitations or the lack of
• 13:18
  caring of the other partner. So, there are P, couples
• 13:21
  counseling can be very useful at sussing out what specifically
• 13:24
  these empathic ruptures are in the history, how they
• 13:27
  contributed to the current Dynamic perpetuating and how
• 13:31
  they could be worked through in a way that both feel like they
• 13:35
  are Understood by the other person, probably for the first
• 13:37
  time to the extent of how badly. This this this made them feel
• 13:43
  and how it kept the current dynamic in play.
• 13:46
  Now, you might ask if you're, you know, if this is your
• 13:51
  situation, you might say, well, can this be gotten out of, you
• 13:55
  know, can do people successfully get out of this Dynamic and they
• 13:59
  do? The certainly people can learn
• 14:01
  to be more egalitarian in their home and this Is this isn't like
• 14:06
  in any sort of, you know, political way or anything,
• 14:11
  egalitarian, by gender role, or anything.
• 14:13
  Because often in these situations, it is, this is not
• 14:18
  split according to gender lines. People that are in these
• 14:20
  situations, the man could be doing.
• 14:22
  Literally everything, including the child care.
• 14:24
  The woman could be do, literally everything, including finances
• 14:27
  and yard work. I've seen both directions, but
• 14:29
  what I'm saying is it has to be split in some sort of way moving
• 14:34
  forward. Both people find more fair and
• 14:38
  more like they can have their own dignity as a specific human
• 14:41
  being. Because they do not feel that
• 14:44
  they're trapped in these roles of CEO and employee.
• 14:46
  And I have seen this happen over time and with discussion.
• 14:50
  And after working through some of the deeper level, emotional
• 14:53
  issues, that go along with this Dynamic, people can move forward
• 14:58
  into a different sort of way of being where they both feel more
• 15:02
  respected. Because neither person in this
• 15:04
  feels Expected. You may think that the CEO one
• 15:07
  feels respected, but they don't because they're not respected.
• 15:10
  It's not like the employee partner is like, boy.
• 15:13
  You're so right about this man. You're just like so smart about
• 15:17
  organizing our life. Didn't say anything like that?
• 15:19
  They're like, all right. Fine, where do you need me to
• 15:22
  be, huh? All right, well, alright, like,
• 15:24
  that's what they say because they're so resentful.
• 15:26
  And of course, the worker one does not feel respected at all.
• 15:29
  They feel like they are just a pair of hands to be helpful
• 15:33
  which of course. Should go without saying but
• 15:36
  I'll say it. Anyhow the sex life of this
• 15:38
  couple is crap because as you can imagine it's not very sexy
• 15:42
  to be. Screwing your boss unless you're
• 15:43
  in Secretary and it's not very sexy.
• 15:47
  Certainly to be screwing, your passive aggressive employee who
• 15:53
  you feel, is laying down on the job.
• 15:55
  That one's really not hot and it's not hard to be, you know,
• 16:00
  screwing your slave master either because that's really how
• 16:03
  how the person feels those who is being told what to do all the
• 16:06
  time. So it's integral for the sex
• 16:11
  life and the emotional life in general.
• 16:13
  And for, with the children, see and model on when they're older
• 16:17
  so that you can break this intergenerational cycle.
• 16:20
  It's essential that both partners are thought to be
• 16:24
  adults, worthy of love and respect who have opinions and
• 16:28
  input. And if and if individual
• 16:32
  therapy, can help both people again, the CEO with the anxiety
• 16:37
  and the employee with their self-esteem then that should be
• 16:41
  done before couples counseling. So today you can expedite your
• 16:45
  couples counseling. You know, when both people are
• 16:48
  working on their individual issues and this goes for any
• 16:51
  Dynamic that I talk about when both people are focusing on
• 16:54
  their individual issues as well. Then, you've course couples
• 16:57
  counseling is going to be better.
• 16:58
  The worst thing with couples counseling is when you come in
• 17:00
  and at least one person's like nah, I don't have any problems.
• 17:03
  Well, listen, you know, Why are we talking?
• 17:06
  We're not just going to be both ganging up on the other person
• 17:09
  because I don't ever believe that that's the case is that one
• 17:12
  person's just that fuck up. So both have to look at their
• 17:16
  individual contribution to the dynamic of the relationship, no
• 17:19
  matter what the issue is. It takes to unless we are
• 17:23
  talking about people that were in an arranged marriage that are
• 17:26
  struggling. Right from the beginning, these
• 17:28
  people were not meant to be together.
• 17:30
  That's a different situation. Not one that I haven't seen.
• 17:32
  Either I have seen people who were in a Marriages and that's
• 17:36
  kind of different because it doesn't have anything to do with
• 17:38
  who you subconsciously pick. But in the origin story of other
• 17:43
  Dynamics, where people choose each other, there's always a
• 17:46
  self-motivated reason, subconsciously.
• 17:48
  Why you end up in this dysfunctional Dynamic, the CEO
• 17:52
  chose somebody who would be more passive so that they could on
• 17:55
  some level always realize that they could outthink and out
• 17:58
  argue this person because they're so anxious.
• 18:01
  They think they need things done their way, and so they need
• 18:04
  someone who will not obstruct. Truck them on some level and
• 18:06
  during the courtship it was shown that this person would go
• 18:09
  along with what they said to do and the other person has low
• 18:12
  self-esteem so needed to Hitch their wagon to a star to
• 18:15
  somebody who always seems to have a decision.
• 18:18
  And always seems to know what to do.
• 18:20
  And this same thing that was appealing.
• 18:22
  During the courtship of this decisiveness is now thought to
• 18:25
  be, you know, slave Mastery. You know, like this person seems
• 18:30
  to be a slave owner. And this person.
• 18:32
  Now, feels like a slave, when, as originally They felt like,
• 18:36
  oh, I'm lucky this person, really is very decisive in ways
• 18:40
  that I'm not. And at the beginning, of course,
• 18:42
  the CEO person thought boys has such a laid-back person.
• 18:46
  I'm with, that's great. You know, like, I love being the
• 18:48
  one to pick where dinner is everything.
• 18:50
  Doesn't have to be a fight and I am very picky about dinner, but
• 18:54
  then these sorts of things, get forgotten as animosity and
• 18:58
  empathic ruptures build and build over the years and they
• 19:01
  caricature one another and instead of looking at their
• 19:04
  strengths, And why they do appreciate and love one another,
• 19:08
  and how they are into each other's Yang, in many ways, they
• 19:12
  start to only look at the downside now, couples counseling
• 19:14
  can help them again, focus on the yin-yang thing and they can
• 19:17
  understand how they work together very well.
• 19:21
  And also their innate personalities may work together
• 19:25
  well. And also neither of them is
• 19:28
  fully self actualized and really a full person because they are
• 19:34
  each stuff. In these very small boxes of CEO
• 19:38
  and employee and that does not allow them to like kind of grow
• 19:41
  and evolve into the best versions of themselves.
• 19:44
  So a lot of this good work and insight can transpire and
• 19:49
  counseling. Of course for some people even
• 19:52
  who are not yet fighting and very upset with one another even
• 19:55
  just listening to podcast like this with a spouse and
• 19:58
  discussing can help you kind of divert off of a track that is
• 20:03
  headed nowhere, good before it really Get somewhere bad and you
• 20:06
  could say, wow, we're kind of falling into this pattern and
• 20:09
  what are ways that we can balance the decision-making and
• 20:14
  be more respectful to one another.
• 20:15
  So that's why it's really good to listen to these podcasts with
• 20:18
  your partner. All right?
• 20:20
  So I hope everybody got something out of this and I will
• 20:23
  talk to you all soon and please do subscribe.
• 20:26
  Bye.