Hard to Love. Joseph Nowinski
serious ones. But as Meg pointed out to me, she didn’t know anyone who had a perfect marriage. She didn’t have any friends, she said, who she’d readily trade places with. She and Paul had two lovely children, and Paul was a steady worker who rarely missed a day of work. Though he occasionally spent money in ways she didn’t think they could afford, such as an above-ground pool for the kids, he was not personally extravagant. She could typically expect Paul to get into one of his “moods” once or twice a week, but at other times there was relative peace in their house. Did she feel like she had to walk on eggshells around Paul? Yes, to an extent, but she felt that she was more or less aware of what could send him into a tailspin of depression or an explosion of anger. A little extra attention from her made daily activities go more smoothly between them.
Meg felt that staying together was her best alternative. So why did she come to see me? Because, although she had decided to stick with her marriage, on another level Meg knew that it could be better. Also, she knew that the one incident in which Paul had pushed her could not be repeated, both for her own self-respect and to spare her children from believing that such behavior in a marriage was acceptable.
It’s safe to say that there are many men like Paul out there, and an equal number of women, like Meg, who want to make a relationship with a man like him work. These are the men and women for whom this book is written.
What will you learn here? You will learn, first, why men with MBPD are typically misdiagnosed and misunderstood. This is important because, as in Paul’s case, it most often leads to a dead end. For example, simply telling Paul that he should do something about his drinking, or attributing his explosive outbursts or bouts of depression solely to his drinking, falls short of understanding the personality and temperament that contribute to both. Of course Paul may need to address his drinking, his temper, and his episodes of depression, but that is best done in the context of helping him (and Meg) to understand the context in which these occur (which is his MBPD) and what he can do to manage it.
Based on an understanding of MBPD, we can move on, in Part Two, to looking at a number of solutions these men (and those who love them) can pursue in order to “tame the beast” that troubles them on a deeper level. Facing those inner demons then sets the stage for men like Paul to lead more satisfying, less frustrating lives, and for those who love them to be able to share in those lives.
Beginnings: The Myth of the Tough Boy
As psychologists (and virtually all parents) have long known, children show definite sex differences and preferences when it comes to behavior, including play and risk-taking. And although research into the field of gender differences is opening up new thinking all the time, it is generally the case that from early childhood, most boys are more interested in rough-and-tumble play, and most girls are interested in more inwardly focused play. Boys are more likely to climb trees and have skinned knees, and girls more likely to favor imaginative, relationship-focused play. Boys are more likely to be fascinated with dragons, girls with horses. And though many boys are drawn to video and computer games based on combat and survival, most girls are not. There are exceptions, of course, but these generalizations are largely sound.
Behavior versus Personality
Behavioral sex differences like those just described appear to be the basis on which our society stereotypes boys’ and girls’ personalities. In other words, we’ve been inclined to see these outer differences as indicators of inner differences. These latter stereotypes, however, are not only generally inaccurate, worse, they can be downright dangerous. The specific stereotype I’m speaking of is the one that goes like this: girls are sensitive, boys are tough. Or, as the old rhyme goes:
“What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails, and puppy dog tails
That’s what little boys are made of!
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice
That’s what little girls are made of!”
Again, the implication is clear: boys are tough, inside and out; girls are sensitive, inside and out. Not true!
If anything, research suggests that boys, despite their preference for rough-and-tumble play and their attraction to risk, may actually be more emotionally vulnerable and less resilient in the face of trauma than girls. We will look at this issue more closely later on, but for starters consider the following facts:
• The prevalence of alcohol abuse among men is almost three times as high as it is among women. People don’t just drink for fun; they also drink as a means of coping. They drink because they believe it helps relieve anxiety or depression. This is especially true among people whose drinking—like Paul’s as discussed in the previous chapter—falls outside of what you could call “normal social drinking.”
• Almost four times as many males as females die by suicide. People don’t kill themselves if they are happy and psychologically resilient. So if we men are so tough, why do more of us resort to suicide?
• The incidence of “conduct disorders” is twice as high among boys as it is among girls. These disorders are typically associated with difficulty dealing with emotions. Boys are thought to be emotionally resilient, but in fact, they are just as emotional as girls; however, the myth of the “tough boy” may be what prevents boys from feeling their emotions and expressing them in anything other than the limited socially acceptable ways for boys: fighting and roughhousing. After all, “boys will be boys” and “boys don’t cry.”
This thinking that boys are emotionally thick-skinned is one reason why boys can grow to become men with MBPD.
Attachment
Attachment is one of the key developmental tasks facing a young child—basically, a child between the ages of birth to five. It happens to be one of those rare psychological terms that is actually self-explanatory. Beginning at or soon after birth, children become “attached” to others. They also can become “attached” to places and to objects.
The most common first attachment is to the mother, who is usually the first person to hold, cuddle, and nurture the newborn. However, attachment is not limited to the mother, but can include the infant’s father, as well as others who provide comfort and nurturance and who interact with the infant on a regular basis. The key to attachment appears to be nurturance and comfort. Attachments form the “home base” where a child feels safe and from which he or she will venture forth to discover and learn.
Abandonment, abuse, and rejection hold the potential to seriously undermine or disrupt attachments that are either being formed or that have already been formed. The same is true for parents whose behavior reflects ambivalence toward a child. In Paul’s case, described in the first chapter, his father left him at an early age and his mother remarried twice, each time to an abusive alcoholic. And she, at least according to Paul as well as his wife Meg, was not a model of consistent nurturance or comfort, perhaps as a consequence of her own alcoholism. She acted with ambivalence toward her son, protecting and nurturing him at some times, while abandoning or rejecting him at others. This parenting style breeds the kind of insecurity that is common among people with BPD. The sexual stereotypes just described, however, can make us “color blind” (or “gender blind”) so that we fail to see this cause-and-effect chain in boys as much as we are open to seeing it in girls.
When attachment becomes problematic the result can be long-term insecurity. That insecurity can manifest in several ways. First and foremost it can lead to what is called “free-floating anxiety.” This is a form of anxiety that more or less hovers over a person. They can tell you that they are anxious, but they typically can’t say what they are anxious about. You can also think of insecurity as a nagging feeling that the people you love won’t necessarily be there for you if you need them. Insecurity leads a person