*Artwork by Margaret Donohue
I’m preparing curriculum right now for a weekend Zoom workshop I’m teaching in September with my partner Jeff Rediger, called Healing Attachment Wounds In Relationship. The workshop is intended to support those who are more securely attached and trying to love someone with severe attachment trauma. Jeff and I have been trying to unpack, in a compassionate, trauma-informed way, the behaviors that severe attachment trauma in childhood often causes in adult relationships. It can be very bewildering for people who grew up in reasonably healthy homes, where attachment needs were more readily met, to understand why someone they’re trying to love would behave the way they do.
Because they tried to trust untrustworthy people growing up- and it went very badly for them- those with severe attachment trauma often have trust issues that are not their fault. As I wrote about here, this causes them to test people who dare to get close to them in ways that might feel unfair, They also tend to be conflict avoidant, because conflict was so dangerous at one point in their life that any conflict- even just a sideways glance or disappointed or angry look- might kick off an autonomic nervous system threat response that causes them to dissociate or act out. It’s not their fault, but it is their responsibility to get treatment for something not easy to treat. The conflict avoidance creates messes in relationships that would be avoidable if someone had the courage, resilience, and nervous system flexibility to handle healthy confrontation. But it can be quite confusing for some folks whose moral compasses are kind of backwards because of severe attachment trauma.
Saying “YES” When You’re Really A “NO”
Let me give you an example. A while back, my friend, who I’ll call Lily, went out on a hike with me and asked if she could process something she felt shame about. Because we’re both Internal Family Systems (IFS) practitioners, she knew I’d be inclined to be gentle with any parts of hers that had caused her to act out. She was trying to make sense of why she’d done what she’d done, because she’d gotten herself in an avoidable bind that was threatening to destroy her marriage to her partner Tessa.
Her wife Tessa had asked Lily for her consent to allow Tessa to go on a Hawaiian vacation with Tessa’s ex-wife Riley, who got along well with her ex and had transitioned to a sweet friendship after their break up. Riley had been granted a free plus one companion ticket for an event she was teaching on the Big Island. She wanted Tessa to accompany her, just as a friend, but only if it was okay with Lily.
Lily, who has always felt threatened by and jealous of Riley, didn’t want to disappoint either of them or threaten Tessa’s freedom, so she granted Tessa her blessing. But the backlash in her own internal family system was swift and merciless- and in a blind spot of hers. After saying yes when she was really a no, she almost immediately began plotting her revenge. She had a resentful part that passive-aggressively thought up the most triggering thing she could do to get back at Tessa- and she initially felt justified in doing so. She thought that if Tessa could just run off with her ex to Hawaii, then she could do whatever the f*ck she wanted too.
She then initiated an affair with Tessa’s best friend Carrie while Tessa was in Hawaii. Then when Tessa asked her what she’d done while she was away in Hawaii, Lily withheld what she had done and made up some other story. Even though Lily realized it was a secret she probably couldn’t get away with hiding, given that she’d cheated with Tessa’s best friend, she rationalized in her head that withholding the information was not exactly the same as lying. She promised herself that if Tessa suspected anything or asked her directly, she’d fess up. But Tessa didn’t suspect anything, so Lily kept quiet and prayed Carrie wouldn’t say anything.
Lily was filled with fear and regret afterwards, because she really loved Tessa and didn’t want to lose the marriage. But in the moment, a part of her had convinced her she was sincerely justified in pursuing this extramarital affair, in spite of their monogamy agreement, because this part processed Tessa’s request as an entitled demand and a devastating betrayal. Only afterwards did she realize she had been blended with a people-pleasing, conflict avoidant part that had said yes to Tessa, when she was actually a no. And then her passive aggressive punishing part had done something to potentially sabotage the relationship. Then the conflict avoidant part had come in again and tried to cover up what she’d done instead of instantly confessing to her mistake.
The Pressure To Comply
Her disclosure initiated a conversation between Lily and I about conflict avoidance and integrity, and it reminded me of a dawning awareness I had as a twenty-something young adult who had been trained to be a compliant, people-pleasing “good girl” by my narcissistic mother. I had realized fairly early on that my moral compass was at risk of being upside down my whole life if I stayed committed to being a compliant people pleaser. I realized that being “good” wasn’t about being compliant or saying yes in order to avoid upsetting someone else. Being a person of integrity actually requires confrontation, healthy boundaries, taking a firm stand for issues we care about, and being willing to let others down or upset people in order to stand in our own integrity.
When I was growing up, the idea of morality was all tangled up in my mother’s fundamentalist Christian beliefs. She tried to teach me bigotry, homophobia, misogyny, patriarchy, and racism, all dressed up with Jesus. But the programming didn’t take. My little 7 year old self knew Jesus was a Civil Rights activist and my mother was just dead wrong, but that’s only because I also had the influence of other family members, who were card carrying ACLU members and pastors in support of gay marriage.
Mom’s outright bigotry didn’t get passed down to me, but the one moral teaching of hers that did stick was the way she indoctrinated me into believing that the worst thing I could ever do is to disappoint or let someone down, especially her. In order to be an effective narcissistic extension of my mother, I’d have to be pleasing, accommodating, acquiescing- and conflict avoidant. I’d have to say yes when I was really a no. I’d have to silence my dissent. I’d have to face her wrath if I ever took up a picket sign to fight for something like abortion rights (or God forbid, to actually perform them as an OB/GYN.) And I’d have to get really good at being really good– by her distorted definition.
What I realized in my twenties is that if I continued to operate under the terms of my mother’s idea of integrity- to never rock the boat or piss off anyone or let anyone down- I’d lack any real integrity as a mature adult. When one’s moral compass is pointed towards conflict avoidance, it disables our ability to be truly authentic and honest about who we really are, as well as what’s okay and not okay for us. When conflict avoidance is programmed into your operating system, you can’t say no, communicate your needs, confront injustice, set boundaries, take sides and risk upsetting the other side, or hold perpetrators of abuse accountable.
The integrity problem then escalates. If your goal is to please everyone, you’ll wind up being two-faced. You’ll appease one person by agreeing with what you think they want to hear in the moment. Then you’ll have to lie to someone else who wants to hear just the opposite. Then you’ll have to lie to cover up your lie, and next thing you know, you’ve got a Gorgian knot of dishonesty and inauthenticity, buried by mounds of passive aggression and resentment.
I learned that resentment is almost always on me. If I’m feeling angry, it’s very likely that someone else has violated my boundaries and I’m protesting the boundary breach. But resentment has a silent, seething, slow burning quality that’s quite somatically different than the quick flush of healthy anger. If I’m feeling resentful, it probably means I’ve crossed my own boundaries or said yes when I was really a no. And that’s on me, not on anyone else. If I failed to speak on behalf of my parts and communicate my needs and feelings, even if someone else doesn’t like it, that’s my bad.
Spiritual Bypassing
Robert Augustus Masters, the author of Spiritual Bypassing, defines spiritual bypassing as “conflict avoidance in holy drag.” We can spiritualize our conflict avoidance and glorify it, rather than realizing we’re blended with a part that’s afraid of rocking the boat, but might also cause us to step out of integrity. For example, Lily told herself that she was being unconditionally loving when she granted Tessa her blessing to go on holiday with Riley. One part of her judged her jealousy as an unspiritual emotion. This part bullied her into believing she should be happy for Tessa to have a good time with her ex. She told herself she was being petty and unspiritual for being so jealous and insecure when Tessa and Riley were alone together. But really, she was bypassing her jealousy, fear, and anger, and using her spirituality to rationalize why she didn’t speak up and express her fears and insecurities to Tessa.
Lily had been reading my Substack The Body Is A Trailhead about healthy boundaries and spiritual bypassing recovery. She had only realized, after the fact, that her conflict avoidance and passive aggressive codependence had caused her to put her marriage at risk, something she’d never thought herself capable of doing. She realized that telling Tessa the truth- and dealing with the clean pain of her honest disclosure- was the only way to avoid the dirty pain that more lies and cover ups would create.
I referred Lily to an Esther Perel-trained couple’s therapist, and with the safety provided by a trained mediator, Lily was able to confess to Tessa, express her sincere remorse, and beg for her forgiveness. Tessa was devastated and her trust in Lily was shattered. Their therapist validated that the marriage they’d had before the trust breach was essentially over, and that it was up to the two of them to decide whether they wanted to endure the process of starting a new one and going through the intense and lengthy process of rebuilding trust. Tessa was initially hesitant, and they wound up separating for a period of months. But Lily’s sincerity, humility, and commitment to doing the work to heal her conflict avoidance impressed Tessa enough to try to repair the rift. Her friendship with Carrie, however, was destroyed- because Carrie wasn’t willing to take responsibility for her part in the betrayal- and she blamed Tessa instead of holding herself to account.
When there’s a disparity in the degree of attachment trauma between two people who are trying to have a close relationship, it can lead to confusing, bewildering trust breaches like the one Lily, Tessa, and Carrie experienced. Some people just write folks like Lily off as assholes or label them as narcissists- and move on with righteous certainty that they can do better. And that’s understandable, when trust is breached in such an egregious way.
Others have more patience and tolerance for the trust issues and conflict avoidance that those with severe attachment trauma struggle with and create in their relationships. The workshop Jeff and I are developing curriculum for is for anyone who’s at least considering being willing to work through some of the difficult behaviors that the “safe object” for someone with severe attachment trauma often endures.
I’ll be writing more about this issue- about how severe attachment trauma and conflict avoidance can flip your moral compass upside down and lead to integrity breaches- and what you can do to build a new compass- in my next essay about this. So make sure you’re subscribed here if this interests you.
I also invite you to register for Healing Attachment Wounds In Relationship. Please tell anyone else you think might benefit from this weekend Zoom workshop. We’ll be offering emotional support for those who have taken on this challenging role- and also giving you tips to protect yourself and avoid the traps of codependent enabling, passive aggressive resentment, caregiver burnout, failing to hold your loved ones to account when they hurt you, and spiritual bypassing.
You’re also invited to deepen your personal growth about boundaries and spiritual bypassing at your own pace with three prerecorded courses that might be useful if you struggle with some of the issues we’ve been discussing.
Spiritual Bypassing Recovery 101
Spiritual Bypassing Recovery 2.0
Recent Comments