of being loving, caring, or giving. By refusing to accept what others around us have to offer, we tend to devalue them. This is an essential marker of irrelationship.
Who Is Who?—The Performer and the Audience
The components of a song-and-dance routine are choreographed to sustain irrelationship. The Performer overtly delivers care to the Audience, while the Audience covertly administers care to the Performer by pretending the Performer’s part in the routine is desirable and helpful. Thus the Performer sees him- or herself as the giver who administers care to the Audience, while the Audience, appearing to accept what the Performer offers, appears to be the receiver of the Performer’s ministrations. The behavior of both, however, is deliberately constructed to block the possibility of a genuine, reciprocal connection. The missing connection prevents the development of shared experience enjoyed in authentic relationships. Each participant’s role devalues the other by refusing to validate anything genuine he or she has to offer. Perhaps the most insidious aspect of the irrelationship is that each party experiences isolation and a vague dissatisfaction with the other. Both know on some level that something essential is missing.
Irrelationship as a Survival Tool
Irrelationship is not the result of a failure on the part of either party. In fact, irrelationship is better described as a survival technique that gradually developed in a child who continues to use it in later years. As small children, we experienced the world as unstable, frightening, and sometimes hostile. This experience of instability, however, was actually generated by our caregiver’s emotional state—depression, anxiety, unhappiness, or other negative emotion—and made him or her unable to provide conditions that made us feel secure. To manage our anxiety, we used the skills at our disposal to create a song-and-dance routine that we hoped would make our caregiver feel better so that we could feel safe. Flipping roles, we became our parent’s caregiver: Julie brought ice packs to her mother in bed or massaged her feet; Liam tried to be funny and make his mom laugh; and Stanley listened quietly while his father complained about his boss. We did whatever our parents’ cues told us to do, hoping it would change their mood. When it worked—when their emotional state improved—we felt safe again and could relax.
As can be seen from these examples, the child’s routine may be that of either Performer or Audience, but sometimes it may include elements of both. In any case, the child is providing care that enables the ineffective caregiver to believe he or she is a good parent.
Having learned as children that our song-and-dance routines worked, we took them forward through our lives and used them whenever necessary to make those around us feel better and ourselves safer. Relating to others in this way is a project doomed from the start; it sets up situations that allow only emotionally guarded interactions that are neither open nor spontaneous and leave no space for sharing, closeness, or intimacy. In fact, the routines stifle awareness of actual human needs and prevent our learning how to meet those needs. Ironically, these routines establish and sustain a defensive dynamic—irrelationship—between parties that does not address the deep, perceived lack of safety, even in close relationships. Whether we’re acting as Performer or as Audience, neither touches the other meaningfully to relieve that unease.
Part of the deception of irrelationship is that it feels right, which is a clue that something is badly wrong. It’s comfortable because it’s numbing, although it looks real from the outside. The participants have unconsciously, but deliberately, chosen to protect themselves from participating meaningfully in the lives of one another. Therefore, use of irrelationship results in a “no winner, no loser” situation.
In abusive relationships, one participant exercises more power than the other, resulting in a winner and a loser. In couples affected by irrelationship, neither participant wins; both participants’ anxiety keeps them emotionally locked down. The joint investment in this mechanism is called brainlock. Brainlock is an emotional logjam in which nothing gets in and nothing gets out. Both participants selectively ignore the same things together. Most significantly, they ignore the fact that they are using a false connection with one another to defend against intimacy. It can be compared to two people who bury a treasure and then forget where they’ve buried it.
This doesn’t mean that when Performer and Audience interact nothing is going on between them. Their defensive constructs are interlocked so firmly that when they go into recovery, their most challenging task is to step back far enough from their anxiety to allow them to see that the song-and-dance routine they’ve created has been a stand-in for genuine caring behavior.
Sam and Claire’s Irrelationship Storyline
Two wannabe stars, Sam and Claire, met one another under the bright lights of New York’s Broadway theater world. Each of them sought to escape the unhappiness of failed former relationships. They were immediately attracted to one another, sharing a sense of familiarity and instant comfort. They joined their lives to love and support each other as they made their way toward stardom—at least that is what they thought. And it partly worked.
Sam succeeded in making it on Broadway. Claire’s less dramatic success in Off-Off-Broadway productions meant keeping her day job while continuing to struggle on the periphery of show business. After a short time, they began to question their love. They became uneasy with one another and began to act out an obvious song-and-dance routine. The question was, who would be the Performer, the overt caretaker, and who would be the receptive Audience? Before long, the exciting promise of healthy connection slid into the abyss of irrelationship. And because they were actors, their song-and-dance roles became exaggerated. Eventually, they sought couples’ therapy.
From the first session, Sam came on larger-than-life as the Performer. He ranted and raved, rarely sitting down. He expected Claire to play the role of adoring Audience, watching him strut on stage, which was their silently-agreed upon script. Sam bragged about how much he did at home and at work—paying the bills, organizing activities and, generally, catering to Claire’s every need. In therapy, he made it obvious that he believed all the heavy lifting was necessary to keep their relationship on track.
Claire seemed to be an unappreciative and even disrespectful Audience. She mutely, but ostentatiously, knitted during session while Sam congratulated himself. When Claire remained quiet during Sam’s pauses for breath, he’d shout accusingly, “You just don’t get it, Claire!” and redoubled his performance, finally shouting, “What about me?” Claire, still knitting, would admit that Sam took care of her and thanked him for it, but she remained withholding and passive.
What was going on? Clearly, Sam was driven, but, just as clearly, Claire never affirmed that Sam’s actions contributed anything of value to their shared life. This continued for some months, until one day their therapist told Sam, “You need to stop being so selfish.”
Sam was aghast—speechless. The therapist continued, “Yes, it’s true—you give and give and give until it hurts you and everyone around you. You give with a vengeance without allowing anyone else to contribute—to do anything that has an impact on you. And the message is simple: No one is allowed to believe that anything he or she has to offer is worthwhile—especially Claire. And it’s all because down deep you believe that if you don’t hold things together, the whole world will fall apart. Living this way has put you in an isolation that neither Claire nor anyone else can penetrate.”
Sam was caught red-handed in his song-and-dance routine. Fortunately for both him and Claire, the road to recovery began that moment. Sam was so burned out that he was ready to accept what he was told. He could see and admit to both controlling and suppressing all Claire’s attempts to care for him. This enabled him to take the first steps in the frightening but rewarding process of creating a relationship in which he and Claire could trade places, take risks, and learn to care for each other.
Performers are always on the lookout for a work-in-progress to focus on—preferably indefinitely. For Sam, Claire’s behavior and passivity was like job security. Claire’s non-stellar theater career was full of frustration and disappointment that Sam could fix without having to examine what was going on between them. Sam’s enthusiasm for caretaking blocked his self-awareness, giving Claire opportunity to