Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When Scorekeeping Is Positive For The Marriage

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When Scorekeeping Is Positive For The Marriage · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hello everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:08
  Psych mom show. So today, I'm going to be
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  talking about how to flip the script on a pattern.
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  That is really bad for most marriages, which is called
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  scorekeeping. So this is that tit-for-tat sort
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  of dynamic, that develops when everybody's looking out for
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  themselves and trying to see how they are doing more, and they
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  are the one who is suffering more.
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  And they are the one who is giving more and they are just
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  all around the one who should be receiving all of the empathy and
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  sympathy in the marriage because they're doing so much compared
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  to the other person. Now, obviously, from the way
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  that I am framing this, you can see how this probably isn't
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  accurate, right? I mean, people see things
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  through their own lenses. People are not objective about
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  their own situations or really about anything.
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  There's a, the myth of the rational actor and And
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  obviously, in Psychology people, see things that they want to
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  see. So if you are the one who says,
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  I do everything around here, my spouse doesn't do anything.
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  Now this can go both sides. So like I see this particularly
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  with men and women where the woman's a stay-at-home parent,
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  right? So the man would on his end, say
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  I make all the money. I worry about the finances.
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  I'm the only one who has to get up and get out of the house in
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  the morning. I bust my ass all the time and
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  what is she? Adieu, right?
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  And so she doesn't do that, she doesn't do this.
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  The house is a mess, the kids run, wild, whatever.
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  And then on her, and she may say, I do everything around
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  here. He doesn't even know where the
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  kids, you know, dentist is located.
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  He is completely oblivious to the things that they need at
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  preschool regular school. I am the one who always does the
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  school shopping. I am the one, who knows what
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  they want for snack? Etc.
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  Right. So in this case, you could see
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  how the marriage. Very badly impacted by both of
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  these Partners dysfunctional beliefs that they are.
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  In fact, the one who is more valued more, the adds more value
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  to the family unit and that they are the one deserving of more
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  empathy because it's really a very short leap to the idea that
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  they should get more privileges because they suffer more.
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  So, for example, the man would say I do do all of this stuff
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  supporting our family, and we don't even have sex, right?
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  Thus, creating the, this set up where he should deserve sex,
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  because he suffers so much, which, as you can imagine, women
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  don't respond well to that. And then on the other and the
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  woman may say something like, well, I'm home with the kids all
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  the time. So I deserve to have time to
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  myself to relax, which does not include you.
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  I deserve to basically do whatever I want in the Names,
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  including not to be with you and basically not be a partner to
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  you. So that of course is also very
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  unhealthy. So if any of this sounds like
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  you and oh, by the way, of course, and I'll link to this.
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  There's also Dynamics where it's a competitive marriage, where
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  both people work, right? And then it's who is juggling
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  more, who is working and then doing more with the kids who is
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  cleaning more? Who cares, more about the
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  long-term Financial goals of the couple etc, etc.
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  So this can be in any sort of dynamic and of course also we're
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  in the man, it's the stay-at-home partner, I have a
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  post, I could link to about that.
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  So in all of these situations there's a very binary black and
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  white way of viewing the world which is a victim perpetrator
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  mentality. That is usually really always
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  learning the family of origin. You know, if this stuff rolls
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  off your tongue to be a martyr and to I do so much and you do
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  so little I am treated worse than you.
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  And if this is very subconsciously familiar and this
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  is your comfort zone to talk and think like this, then you have
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  to think about why. And usually, this is because
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  there was a victim perpetrator or a martyr dynamic in your
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  family of origin. So what would this look like?
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  It would look a lot like what you are doing right now.
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  It's except maybe, you know, tweak tweak the roles of the
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  parents or how much money you have or whatever.
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  So, this would be the mother who says, I do everything around
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  here. God damn it or the father who
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  says, look at her living the life of luxury.
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  While I bust my ass to pay the bills or whatever else.
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  Okay? So this is fighting, you know,
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  there's a lot of whether it's like real overt screaming or
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  there's just like these little little snide, Barbed remarks
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  This is what you saw growing up. If this is familiar to you and
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  sometimes like, let's say you had a single parent, it would be
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  another version of a black-and-white mentality such
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  that this person is always suffering.
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  Everyone is out to get them. If you grow up with a parent
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  where everybody's out to get them, you got to go back and
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  think about whether that was true because the influence of
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  that sort of belief system is really powerful and An Insidious
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  and can seep into your thinking without you even knowing it so
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  that you also engage in similar. Negativistic Styles where
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  there's this real paranoid flavor to how you think about
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  the world, like, everybody is out to get everybody and this is
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  a dog-eat-dog world and you have to be this kind of Scrappy
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  Survivor. I mean, there's parents and
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  you'll know this if it was your parents who make like a trip to
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  the bank or a trip to the grocery store, Into some kind of
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  like tragic narrative. So that sounds like Odysseus is
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  Journey over here. You know, we're like well I
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  asked the teller for Change and she didn't want to give me
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  change. So I didn't give up.
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  I went to her boss and I said this and I think you know what
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  the cheese going to get fired, and she would deserve it because
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  that's not how you treat a customer.
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  Now, if if this sort of Storytelling where there's
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  always a good guy, which invariably is the parent telling
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  the story and a bad guy which is either the other parent or the
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  World At Large. If this resonates with you think
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  about how this bleeds into the subconscious of a child that's a
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  perennially exposed to this sort of, you know, really caricatured
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  vision of the world. So as an adult.
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  So first of all, as a Teenager that child's probably going to
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  have problems with either friends, or school or authority
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  or within intimate relationships because they have this binary
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  again, in their head of good versus bad.
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  Good versus evil, is biblical type of stories.
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  And of course, if you're raised very religious, this can also
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  contribute, right? Because there are ways to be
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  religious and mentally healthy on there are ways just like with
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  anything to be unhealthy and to instead be very religious and
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  very rigid in your thinking and Have a lot of these, good versus
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  evil framings in your mind, and transmit that in your
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  storytelling, right? So if you grew up like this,
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  then as a teenager you probably had problems right seeing like
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  all that teacher is out to get me or this friend is never liked
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  me. Anyway, and now they're they're
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  always trying to bring me down or this boyfriend.
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  I can't trust because he did whatever, whatever, whatever it
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  was. You know, and then in your
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  marriage, you are really bound to see things.
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  Similarly, so that you are the victim and the spouse is the
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  perpetrator. Now if you are partnered with
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  somebody who was raised similarly, which so many people
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  are because, you know, I mean, if you're not emotionally
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  healthy in certain ways, who's going to be drawn to you people,
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  similar the emotionally healthy people.
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  You're going to tell them something like some thing where
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  they're the bad guy and you're the good guy and instead of
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  trying to defend themselves, they're just going to get out of
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  Dodge because they should sounds.
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  Crazy to them, but the ones who remain are the ones that also
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  kind of understand this way of viewing the world and will fight
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  you to, then be for you to think they're the victim.
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  So then it's a big fight about who's the bigger victim, and
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  this really only happens in families or in couples where
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  both Partners were raised with this sort of black-and-white Me
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  versus you mentality. Because again, people who were
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  not raised like that or not going to understand it, it's
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  going. In Crazy to them and they're
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  going to get the hell away from it.
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  So this is how kind of people with issues self-select, you
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  know, similar partners, and then their issues, exacerbate one
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  another's issues. This is how we end up with the
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  pursuer, distance or relationships.
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  Where one is preoccupied. Attachment one is avoided and
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  then they engage in that dance forever.
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  Neither partners with somebody securely attached, at least
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  until later in life, when they could potentially have worked on
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  their issues because the securely attached people are
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  going to be like, Not into the drum.
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  So anyway, going back to the scorekeeping idea.
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  There is a way to really flip this script which would be that
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  for a week. And I talked about this in a
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  post that I wrote about this. But will it expand on it here
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  and I'll link you to that in the description?
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  But anyway, for a week you could try to give more than you get,
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  you know, and you could actually try to not be accounting up and
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  tallying every little thing. You do more than that person.
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  You could be trying with a like holistically to with an open
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  heart give more than you get. Like you probably do with your
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  kids you know with your kids. Hopefully you don't say well I
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  fed your breakfast then I fed you lunch then I fed you.
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  Dinner says three for me. You didn't feed me any meals
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  zero for you. You suck.
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  I win. No, that's crazy right now.
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  Don't delude Yourself by the way that you will not if you don't
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  work on this. Now, you may engage in these
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  sorts of patterns with adult children and I see it all the
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  time, when they're your actual child.
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  They're in a protected sphere, but then when they move out,
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  they become more like a peer in your mind and then the toxic
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  scorekeeping starts there. How many times are you going to
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  your in-laws? Instead of to me on Christmas?
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  Who did you call first? To tell that you were married,
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  your sister or me or? Oh my God.
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  Somebody else, or how frequently are you visiting me versus how
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  often? Am I visiting you?
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  How often do the other to the In-laws?
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  See the grandchildren. How often am I?
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  Am I allowed in the hospital room when you give birth?
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  No. Well, how about that?
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  Your sister, let me don't think that you won't be drawn to this
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  type of crazy shit work on it now, so that it doesn't end up
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  like that with your children, but that is again related, but
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  not the focus of this episode. What we are talking about is can
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  you flip this script and actually try to give more than
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  you get with a full heart. If you do this frequently, your
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  partner will. Not know what hit that, they
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  will finally be receiving the sort of unconditional love that
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  they wanted because yeah, you could make dinner every night,
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  but if you hold it over your spouse's head and bring it up
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  every few months, then that's not love.
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  They don't experience it as love.
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  They experience it as some sort of weird control martyr shit,
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  right? The other way to flip the script
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  is to actually start scorekeeping in the other
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  direction and tally up even to the point of writing down what
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  Partner does for you every day and this can be really really
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  eye-opening because we all know very positive, happy emotionally
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  healthy people and how they talk about loved ones.
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  Right. So these are the women that they
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  say, oh my husband so great, he works so hard for our family,
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  then he plays with the kids and, you know, he still makes time
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  for us as a couple that exact man if he was partnered with a
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  different woman, who viewed things through more of a
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  black-and-white. Tim perpetrator lens, she could
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  say he's out at work all day. You know, leaving me with
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  everything to do, he gets home and yeah, he plays fun, dad, big
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  whoop, goes out and plays catch and yeah, I guess who still
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  wants to get laid, the same man, could be viewed.
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  So differently. Similarly, with a stay-at-home
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  mom, let's just use that easy example, there's different sorts
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  of men that view it. So differently, one man would be
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  like, thank, thank God that she has everything under control at
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  home. And that she's fun.
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  And spontaneous, I never have to worry about the children, having
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  a boring or sad childhood. She has she plays with them.
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  She does all of these things that house thankfully isn't a
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  museum like mine was, and it really looks lived in and played
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  with. And on top of that, she always
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  does little cute things. For me, same woman with a man
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  who has a more negative style, he could, say, house is a
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  fucking mess. I bust my ass all day.
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  I come home. She craps all over.
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  The garbage. There's glitter who the hell
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  wants to deal with this? My mother kept the house clean.
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  She can't even do that. She has, she leaves me a little
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  note now and then you know what I really want?
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  I want sex. So what is that?
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  Cute little note, do I rather hurts?
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  It never do it again. And it said, give me what I
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  really want, like, how about a clean house?
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  And some sex, right? So, that guy was obviously
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  raised in a very different home than the previous one.
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  The woman is the same woman. So, and this leads into, by the
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  way. Another That I've written which
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  is how would all other people respond to your partner, which
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  I'll link you to. But anyhow what you can do is
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  actually make a list of the things that if you were trying
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  to be positive and not trying to be a martyr things that you
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  would tell other people that your spouse does for you, right?
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  And not added in with your like passive aggressive.
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  Well, of course he could do that because I set it up because I do
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  this, you know, so not, yeah, he goes to work and provide for the
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  family, buddy can only do that, because Cuz I stay home.
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  Not that. So it would be, he goes to work
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  and provides for the family. He's a loving father, he does
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  chores around the house or home project.
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  He's a sweet guy in general to friends and family, whatever it
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  is, right? So you can tally this stuff up
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  without tallying your stuff up, right?
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  So so many people are looking at themselves as a victim that this
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  is almost impossible to do when you're used to.
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  Victim mentality. It's like really.
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  You're like paralyzed. You're like, but wait, but he,
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  yeah, I mean, I guess like he, you know, does go to work, but
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  don't do that. Just say, literally he goes to
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  work and provide for a family. Good.
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  All right. That's one.
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  Can you get some more likely? Yes, right.
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  If the children like him, there's one on the other side.
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  If it's a man who is thinking about his wife and has the
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  common one for manager, Doesn't sleep with me enough.
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  What else does she do, right? I'm sure she does.
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  A lot of other things to the children.
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  Love her. Do other people seem to like
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  her. She a good person in her heart.
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  Does she have good intentions or you ever worried about what
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  would happen if you would drop dead to the children?
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  Probably not, she would have that under control, you know,
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  there's a lot of ways to look at somebody and when you're used to
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  looking at them through a lens of negativity and blame, it can
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  be very, very hard to open up your Mind to the fact that that
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  isn't accurate. That isn't like, what is real,
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  there was no real, right? There's only are subjective lens
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  through which we view the world. If you were to follow your
• 16:16
  partner around with a video camera, do you think 100% of
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  people would say? Oh that is the quote worse
• 16:25
  partner in this relationship. That's very very unlikely if you
• 16:30
  are with somebody. That is substance.
• 16:32
  Using that is abusive If that is violent get out you need to get
• 16:39
  out of that. If truly you know in your heart
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  that 100% of people would say, yes, of course, that is the
• 16:45
  worst partner. And why is this person still
• 16:47
  with this partner? Then you need to get out of
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  that. And if you don't, then that is
• 16:52
  something that you deeply need to work on in therapy, right?
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  But the majority of people are not in any sort of situation
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  like that. They're in a situation where if
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  there was a video of what went on.
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  Their house. Probably 50% of people would
• 17:07
  think that each partner was the catch.
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  I mean, that's just honestly the truth of it and if you want to
• 17:14
  start thinking of your partner as a catch score, keep but write
• 17:18
  down all the things that they are doing.
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  Instead you can get to a like 10 things before, you know, 8 a.m.
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  in most couples with kids, they got up, they were pleasant.
• 17:31
  They try to give me a hug they engage with the kids.
• 17:34
  Nice. SLI.
• 17:35
  They mentioned something about some Bill they're going to pay
• 17:38
  or something for the house that they're going to do.
• 17:40
  I mean it doesn't really take a lot if you really train your
• 17:44
  brain to focus on positive things, then you will if you
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  train your brain to focus on negative things, because this is
• 17:52
  how you were raised, then you will do that.
• 17:55
  Now, this is such an important point, but if you can even
• 17:59
  remotely flip the script like this recognize that you would be
• 18:02
  a good candidate for cognitive behavioral therapy.
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  Because the stuff that I talked about on this podcast is really
• 18:08
  an outgrowth of that and you then have the capacity to move
• 18:14
  the needle on some of your dysfunctional long-held beliefs,
• 18:19
  and that is really what therapy does when it works.
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  Is it moves the needle on these long-held beliefs that you hold
• 18:27
  close to your heart? Such as I am, the victim, I am
• 18:30
  the one who deserves the praise and the sympathy and then if you
• 18:33
  can even 1%, Sent you be like, wait, hold on.
• 18:36
  Maybe that's not true. Maybe some people would think
• 18:39
  that my husband / wife deserves the praise of the sympathy.
• 18:42
  That little opening that inflection point can be the
• 18:46
  transformative moment for you. So think about it this whole
• 18:50
  week like I tell my clients for assignment, think about this
• 18:53
  idea this week, what if other people might think I was a
• 18:58
  problem and that my spouse was actually doing more.
• 19:02
  How would that change? How I think he's They're a world
• 19:05
  in which my spouse is actually doing a lot of stuff, even more
• 19:09
  than me on some people might actually think that.
• 19:13
  Anyway, I hope that this podcast opens up your mind to, at least
• 19:16
  a slightly different way of envisioning.
• 19:18
  This toxic Dynamic that many people think into, I will link
• 19:23
  you as usual to anything that I think would expand, you know,
• 19:27
  give a little more depth and flavor to this topic and please
• 19:32
  subscribe if you're a paid subscriber the next one.
• 19:35
  That I'm going to record. I want to record one about re
• 19:38
  parenting. That's a real popular topic.
• 19:42
  How we parenting Works within a marriage?
• 19:46
  You know, this is actually healthy for each person to
• 19:49
  receive kind of the emotional parenting, that they never got
• 19:53
  from the spouse. But not, that's one's going to
• 19:55
  be one of my bonus episodes next and please subscribe, it's only
• 20:00
  five ninety-nine a month and follow me on Facebook follow dr.
• 20:05
  If Mom.com and I'll talk to you guys soon.