of using a song-and-dance routine like theirs to meet unspoken needs, remaining detached as you go about your business, afraid to rock the boat and risk disturbing the balance between you. No matter who you are in the song-and-dance routine, both parties are trapped by a need to exclude give-and-take, ignore ups and downs, and, above all, hide vulnerability.
The detached “non-feeling” of irrelationship is usually experienced as depression. But the depression is actually a cover for a psychological defense known as dissociation—a state in which all experience is whitewashed so everything feels much like everything else.5 This is another aspect of the protective function of irrelationship that keeps us safe from exposing our hearts to the risk of losing someone we perceive as valuable. The depression-like dissociative state short-circuits any anxiety connected with the risk of loss. Many of us have begun relationships that looked like they worked until they disintegrated, sometimes in terrible ways. And yet we do it again and again, seduced by romantic stories and images from movies, television, literature, songs, and opera, all promising that just the right fit is out there. But once again we find out that Mr. Right wasn’t so right, and Ms. Perfect wasn’t so perfect after all.
Toward Positive Change
Open your journal and let’s get started.
1. List ways in which you have acted as a caregiver for your parents, both as a child and an adult. Write brief descriptions and details from specific episodes.
2. What did you believe you accomplished by helping your parents as a child? How did success feel at the time? Did success last or did you have to step in repeatedly?
3. Think about ways in which you have acted as a caregiver for other significant people in your life—other family members, coworkers, friends, and past lovers. Describe each briefly, including what the person needed and what you did to help.
4. Do you have a connection in your life—romantic or otherwise—that seems to have the characteristics of irrelationship? Looking back on your acquaintanceship with that person, explain what initially drew you to that person. Then describe what didn’t work out as you had hoped.
Performer or Audience? Performer or Audience?
Both the Performer and the Audience share the fear that the world is going to fall apart if he or she doesn’t do something to fix or save the caretaker. Although the methods are different, both Performer and Audience are motivated by fear and anxiety.
Performers tend to use intrusive, self-centered maneuvers in their caretaking—planned actions whose real purpose is self-protection. Aggression, of course, can show itself in passive as well as active forms. The Audience may operate in a passive-aggressive manner at the expense of the Performer, who is generally determined to stand out as the active member of the relationship but is usually unwilling be cast as the bad guy by the Audience—at least not explicitly.1 The Performer actively pursues fix-it activities that allow the Audience to hide in the role of non-participant or even victim. From that position, the Audience can passively punish the Performer by not responding to treatment, namely by not feeling better. In reality, however, few cases are this black-and-white.
A more typical pattern emerges when two people are caught up in conflict, and the Performer, seeing him- or herself as the injured party, acts out by criticizing and blaming the Audience. In this type of scenario, the Audience provides space for the Performer by deliberately assuming a passive posture. After their relationship collapses, the Audience consoles him- or herself by believing this is the natural consequence of getting involved with a personality so aggressive that it can’t be controlled.
Ready, Aim, Backfire!
What does the dialogue between a Performer and an Audience sound like when they are brainlocked in a blame-game? Let’s take a closer look at an exchange between Performer Laurie and her Audience husband Lou.
Laurie: Your secrets are killing me, Lou; they’re killing us. I cannot believe after all I’ve done for you and all I keep doing for this family, you can just sit there and say nothing. How can you be so completely unwilling to tell me what you have been up to? I’ve tried and I’ve tried—I’ve done everything. What else can I do?
Lou: [silence]
Laurie: The more I do for you, the more you shut down. The more I ask from you, the more you disappear. What’s wrong? How in the world can I possibly make things any better between us?
Lou: [silence]
Laurie: How can you just sit there saying nothing? I really believed that when I took on that second job, when I started teaching again, when I, at great personal cost to me, supported you on your new business venture and found more childcare and then wound up taking on more care of our son, you’d finally see how much I do, how much I’ve done for you—for us.
Lou: I do.
Laurie: Then why won’t you tell me what you’re up to all day? With all that I do for you, Lou, why should I have to worry about what you’re doing? Why do I have to be the one who does it all—and still feel like the bad guy?
Lou: I know how much you do for me—for us. I know we would not have made it through these difficult times without everything you’ve done. And I thank you.
Laurie: Well, well! Thank you.
Lou: [silence]
With the expertise of these irrelationship veterans, both Laurie and Lou were able to thwart yet another opportunity for intimacy—or the threat of intimacy. Although their roles are dramatically different, this example demonstrates how their agreed-upon roles collaborate with a single purpose. And most of all, they clearly built this routine together.
The observant eye might notice that while Lou quietly acknowledges, and even applauds, Laurie’s contributions, he resists any obligation they might place on him—especially commitment to what might be otherwise considered their joint purpose in taking care of their family. He keeps to the sidelines allowing Laurie to take all the responsibility or blame for what is right and what is wrong in their life together.
“After all I’ve done for you,” is this type of Performer’s refrain. The Audience’s role provides lukewarm acknowledgement and applause—a lame stand-in for silence.
As we can see, the Audience is an exceptionally hard target, which is actually the point. Lou has allowed Laurie to take all the responsibility for the relationship while he emotionally slips out the back door, leaving Laurie unaware of why she feels lonely, suspicious, and afraid. Lou’s silence reinforces Laurie’s performance in a scenario in which his actual presence is not required. Caretaking provided and interaction avoided. Mission accomplished.
Stuck in the Song-and-Dance Routine
Sometimes what appears beneficial—the “feel-good” parts of doing the song-and-dance routine—are so compelling that getting out of it isn’t nearly as appealing as staying in it. If you are the Performer, it’s heady to be told by others that you’re like a mind reader; you seem to know what your Audience is feeling even before he or she does. Who wouldn’t like being described as selfless, sensitive to others, and always ensuring others’ needs are met? It sometimes feels like a full-time job, but the payoff in admiration and praise