The atmosphere in the room was really charged. The children were crowding around my little daughter with their hands out, asking to play with the presents they had just given, and my daughter was adamantly refusing. I said to myself, “Certainly I should teach my daughter to share. The value of sharing is one of the most basic things we believe in.”
I first tried a simple request: “Honey, would you please share with your friends the toys they’ve given you?”
“No!” she replied flatly.
My second method was to use a little reasoning: “Honey, if you learn to share your toys with them when they are at your home, then when you go to their homes, they will share their toys with you.”
Again the immediate reply was “No!”
I was becoming a little more embarrassed, for it was evident I was having no influence. The third method was bribery. Very softly I said, “Honey, if you share, I have a special surprise for you. I’ll give you a piece of gum.”
“I don’t want gum!” she exploded.
Now I was becoming exasperated. For my fourth attempt I resorted to fear and threat: “Unless you share, you will be in real trouble!”
“I don’t care!” she cried. “These are mine! I don’t have to share!”
Finally, I resorted to force. I simply grabbed some of the toys and tossed them to the other kids. I said, “Here, kids! Play with these.”
Since our daughter’s birthday party, both Sandra and I have come a long way as parents in understanding that children go through developmental stages. We now understand that expecting that kind of sharing for a child younger than five or six is not realistic. And even then, tiredness, confusion, or special issues of ownership may make it difficult.
But when you’re caught up in a moment like that—with all that emotion, with all that pressure—it is hard! You feel you’re right. In fact, you know you’re right. You’re bigger. You’re stronger. And it seems so much easier to go for “win-lose,” to have your own way.
But what’s the result of that choice in terms of the relationship, in terms of the Emotional Bank Account? And what’s going to happen if you keep thinking win-lose down the road? And what about a marriage? What happens when win-lose is the typical interaction?
I know of one man who worked in a profession that was not interesting to his wife. She didn’t like what he did or the people he worked with. They weren’t “her kind of people.” When his work group planned a Christmas party, he hopefully but skeptically asked her to go. She flatly refused, saying that there was no way she would be at a party with people who engaged in activities that were repulsive to her. He attended the party alone. She won. He lost.
Two months later her social group sponsored a lecture. A noted author was coming to speak. There would be a reception prior to the lecture. She was to be the hostess. She assumed that he would go with her. She was shocked when he told her that morning that he wasn’t going to go. In an annoyed tone she asked, “Why not?” He curtly replied, “I don’t want to be around your friends any more than you wanted to be around my friends at my Christmas party.” He won. She lost.
She didn’t speak to him that afternoon when he came home from work. She left for the reception without saying good-bye, and he went to the family room and turned on the TV to watch a football game.
Now what is the impact on the relationship and on the family when a marriage is filled with ego battles, when partners are more concerned about having their own way than in building the relationship? Does anyone ever really “win”?
The Consequence of Lose-win
On the other hand, what happens if the typical interaction is lose-win?
One woman shared this experience:
I was very successful in school—captain of the debate team, editor of the yearbook, first chair clarinet player. I always seemed to excel at whatever I decided I wanted to do. But as I went away to college, I knew that I really didn’t want a career. I felt that being a wife and mother was the most important thing I could do with my life.
After my freshman year of college I married Steve, a young man I had been dating from the time I was fourteen. Being Miss Overachiever, I had several children in a very short period of time. I can remember feeling overwhelmed by all the tasks related to having that many young children.
The most difficult part was that I had virtually no help at all from my husband. His job kept him on the road quite a bit, but even when he was home, he basically felt that it was his job to provide, and all the responsibilities for the care and upkeep of the home and children were mine.
My idea had been very different. I thought we were functioning together as a unit, and while I understood that I was at home to nurture these children and to help take care of their physical needs and all that, I had thought that we would be working together as husband and wife in deciding what the course of our lives would be. But that wasn’t the case at all.
I can remember getting through days when I would look at the clock and think, “Okay, it’s 9:00. I can do this for the next fifteen minutes, and I can do it with a good attitude.” I almost had to manage myself in those fifteen-minute increments because if I tried to look at the whole day, it just seemed overwhelming to me.
My husband’s expectations of me were extremely high. I was expected to be the perfect housekeeper, the perfect cook, the perfect mother. He would come home after being gone for a week, and the whole house would be immaculate, the children would be asleep, and I would offer him a piece of a cherry pie I had baked. It was his favorite kind of pie. He would sit down at the table, look at it, and say, “You know, the crust is burned a little bit.” I felt worthless. I thought I had failed. Regardless of what accomplishment I made, it seemed it was never good enough. There was never a pat on the back or praise—always just continual criticism and, ultimately, abuse.
He became more and more violent. He also became involved in extramarital sex. On his business trips he would go to places for the purpose of meeting people with whom he could have sex. I even discovered later that he had membership cards for such clubs in eight different cities across the country.
At one point I begged him to go to counseling with me. He finally agreed, but there wasn’t any real interest on his part at all. One evening when we went in, he was particularly angry. As we walked into his office and sat down, the counselor turned to my husband and said, “You seem really agitated tonight. Do you have something on your mind?”
My husband said, “Yes. I am sick and tired of having to constantly clean up after everybody.”
I was dying inside, thinking that I had put all that work and all that energy and years of effort into creating the perfect home. I had made all my own curtains and toss pillows and all the children’s clothes. I had baked bread, kept the house very, very clean, and was always caught up with the laundry, and so forth. What had I missed?
The counselor said to Steve, “Could you help me understand exactly what it is that you are picking up after other people?” There was a long silence, and we could feel Steve thinking. He was thinking and thinking, and finally, with a lot of passion, he blurted out, “This morning when I took a shower, someone had left the cap off the shampoo bottle!”
I can remember feeling as though I was growing smaller and smaller as I sat there in my chair and thought, Something doesn’t feel right here. It just doesn’t feel right.
Then the counselor asked another question: “Steve, what else did you have to clean up today?” Again, the long pause. You could feel Steve thinking and thinking, and his response was “Well, that was enough!”
It was right at that point, when I was feeling about one inch high, that I realized for the first time that no matter what I did, he would continue to criticize and see things wrong. For the first time I began to realize that the problem was his—not mine.
I went through a lot of internal struggle during those years. I spent a lot of time trying to please him and to fix me. I even went to the hospital emergency room to ask them to admit me. When they asked why I felt I needed to be admitted to the hospital, I said, “I have created an answer to my problem, and the answer frightens me.”