Common Stories
S
tories are characterized by a number of common traits. The first and most obvious is the use of the words “always” and “never.”
For instance, a husband may say to his wife,
“You
never
support me!”
His wife may retort:
“You
always
accuse me of that!”
Other common stories
include:
“I have to do everything around here.”
“You never take responsibility for your actions.”
“Why don’t you ever just sit down and really talk to me?”
“You never lift a finger around here unless I tell you what to do.”
“You’re just so passive.”
“You never take initiative.”
“You’re just lazy.”
“You’re so vain.”
“It’s like you’re
married
to that computer!” (Sorry, my voice recognition software was running when my wife came into the room…)
You never support me…
Let’s take a look at this statement and see how we know that it is a story.
If I tell you that you never support me, then that is either true or it is abusive. In other words, any time I tell you something negative about yourself – particularly if it is an absolute statement – then either I am telling you the truth about yourself or I am lying to you in order to hurt you. (For more on this, see my book: “
On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion.”)
If it is
true
that you have never supported me, then either you lack the capacity to support anyone, or you have the capacity to support others but choose not to support me.
If you lack the capacity to support anyone, ever, in any way whatsoever, then criticizing you for this lack is the direct equivalent of criticizing a man with no arms for his inability to play basketball, or calling a non-Greek speaker
“stupid” for not being able to speak Greek.
Clearly, when we criticize someone, we can only do so with justice if he is capable of correcting his behaviour. This is why no person with any sensitivity
calls a mentally retarded person “stupid,” a woman in traction “lazy,” or a man with Tourette’s syndrome “rude.”
If the behaviour cannot be corrected, then criticizing it is abusive.
Assuming you can…
Assuming that you are capable of supporting me, if I tell you that you never support me then either you
have
a desire to support me – but choose not to – or you do
not
have a desire to support me at all.
If you know
how
to support someone, but do not have a desire to support me at all, then clearly you believe that I am not worthy of being supported. In other words, there are people in your life that you
do
want to support – and do support – but I am not one of them. This must be because I am behaving poorly relative to those other people that you support, since supporting someone is an act of love.
If my bad behaviour is causing you to refrain from supporting me, even though you could, then if I attack you for your lack of support, this will only make you
less
likely to want to support me.
It is ridiculous for me to criticize your behaviour in such a way that I reinforce that behaviour. This is exactly like a woman giving her husband money
to gamble, going with him to the casino and cheering him on, and then laying into him about his gambling habit. It certainly happens, of course, but it is quite ridiculous.
Furthermore, supporting someone must involve believing in his better nature or potential and helping him to achieve it in a positive manner. If I roundly criticize you for failing to support me, then I am saying that it would be better or nobler for you to support me. However, I am not at all helping you to achieve that
“better” state in a positive manner, but rather just attacking you for failing to achieve it.
In other words, attacking you for failing to support me is the exact opposite of being supportive.
In this way, I am modeling the exact same behaviour that I condemn as unjust and unworthy in you.
Is it any wonder, then, that you hesitate to support me?
When I attack you for failing to support me, it is exactly the same as if I were a chronic liar proclaiming my honesty and demanding that you tell me the truth.
Yuck.
Lacking Knowledge?
On the other hand, if you have a desire to support me, but do not, then clearly what you lack is the
knowledge
of how to support me.
If the only thing that you lack is a knowledge of how to support me, then the only way that I can practically get you to support me is to give you that knowledge.
If I am Chinese, and I want you to be able to talk to my parents, who do not speak English, then I would respectfully ask that you learn Mandarin.
If you agree to learn Mandarin, then the question is whether I or someone else will teach you.
If I will teach you, then obviously I must be able to speak Mandarin in order to be able to teach you. If I do not speak Mandarin, then it would be highly hypocritical of me to criticize you for
your
inability to speak Mandarin.
Also, at a very practical level, I would be unable to teach you the language.
If I told you that it was of great value to be able to speak to my parents in Mandarin, but I did not speak Mandarin myself, then clearly the solution would be for both of us to take classes in Mandarin.
If I did speak Mandarin and I offered to teach you the language, it would only make sense to accept my offer if I was in fact a good teacher
.
If my
“courses” in Mandarin consisted of me yelling at you that you just aren’t getting the language – in an incomprehensible foreign language no less – then clearly I in fact have no interest whatsoever in actually teaching you Mandarin.
Instead, I am using my knowledge of Mandarin to humiliate you, by setting up a standard called
“learn Mandarin,” and then making it completely impossible for you to learn that language.
If, at some point, you found out that the incomprehensible foreign language that I was yelling at you in was not in fact Mandarin, but some sort of gibberish, and that I did not know Mandarin at all, then you would very likely become completely enraged at my hypocrisy
, condescension, and manipulation.
What are the odds that you would ever respect me as a teacher
, friend or companion again?
Such are the perils of manipulative storytelling.
What on Earth?
What on earth could be the motivations for such a dysfunctional interaction? Why would I want to attack someone for not supporting me – distinctly unsupportive behaviour – when I actually
could
be supported if I modeled better behaviour, or chose a better partner?
In other words, if I so greatly fear being unsupported, why would I create conditions which will inevitably result in me being unsupported?