Breaking Unwritten Rules

Thanksgiving Day and Christmas are just ahead of us. The kind of image we see here is not what we want but it is what it is. Dysfunction within our relationships is often experienced at this time of the year when families gather for holiday celebrations. From generation to generation we can become carriers of dysfunction actively repeating behavior we once experienced passively as children and passing on dysfunction to those with whom we should have the healthiest relationships.

What we live with we learn. What we learn we practice. What we practice we become.

No one is 100 percent dysfunctional nor is anyone perfectly healthy. If we look at ourselves and our families honestly we will see that we are somewhere on a contiuum with the possibility of moving more towards healthy, maturing relationships.

In this post I want to talk about three unwritten rules that are part of unhealthy scripts learned in the roles we play opposite each other and how we can begin to break them. It takes time and work but is worth the effort. I know that from personal experience and from years of working with addicts and their families.

Don’t Talk

This is the first unwritten rule. Don’t talk about the painful things that go on in the family. Don’t talk to those in the family about anything really important and certainly don’t talk outside the family. Most children growing up in dysfunctional environments learn this well by the time they are eight years old or earlier. It is a pattern carried with them the rest of their lives and leaves them guessing at what healthy is and struggling with a certain level of loneliness.

Even when we don’t have secrets in our families, if we are unable to talk to one another we are susceptible to moving further apart rather than closer to one another when faced with a crisis.

Don’t Trust

The second unwritten rule is don’t trust. Experience teaches those in dysfunctional relationships that promises are made and promises are broken. They cannot count on what others say. People they thought were trustworthy are not. The only thing that is consistent is inconsistency. Among other things this leads them to grab what they can at the moment because it may not be there later.

Don’t Feel

In these settings where needs are not met family members also learn a third rule: don’t feel. No one will validate their feelings. People tell them how they should and should not feel about people and experiences. They also have others tell them how they are feeling or not feeling and how intensely. They come to doubt and question their own feelings.

These unwritten rules isolate family members from others and isolation keeps them from realizing how common their problems are. The only way to begin to get help is to break the unwritten rules.

For any of us, whether we have a mildly unhealthy relationship or a seriously dysfunctional one, we can do something that will make a difference.

Breaking the rules

When I was growing up my relationship with my father was not what I wanted it to be. There was no abuse or problems to hide in the family. There was simply silence; we didn’t talk about anything significant or important to us and therefore we didn’t know each other. As an adult, I didn’t know how to change the relationship until an activity I did with a university class I taught gave me an idea. On the first day of class I asked the students to introduce themselves and tell the class something they liked about themselves that they got from either of their parents. I told them I would start so they would have a moment to think.

I told the students I liked my love for learning, my creativity, and my curiosity and those were characteristic of my dad. When I got home that day I wrote a letter to my dad and told him about the class and what I had said and thanked him for modeling those things for me. We never talked about that letter but I know he kept it. However, that was the beginning of a 12-year journey to disclose more to one another and appreciate each other more. When he died, I still did not have the full relationship I wanted but it was so much better and I had no regrets.

Another activity that I have done with those I want to know better is to share with each other what we consider the most memorable event of the first 15 years of our lives. I like this kind of activity because it allows each person to choose what they feel safe in sharing. Telling my grandmother and my dad about an experience I had with this activity led them to spontaneously share their memories. My grandmother told us of her brother coming home from the Spanish-American war. Dad said he remembered the end of World War I and the German kaiser being burned in effigy at the end of a streetcar in downtown Holland.

These are tiny things that are like baby steps in getting to know and understand each other better and they can add joy to a family gathering. What was dysfunctional in my relationship with my dad was not huge but it was there and I’m glad I didn’t ignore it.

Breaking the rules in major dysfunctional relationships takes more, of course, but it is worth every bit of the time and work it takes. Support groups made up of people with a common problem are often a good place to start. For years Joe Ann and I participated in Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-anon groups respectively. They were safe places for people to break the unwritten rules. They provided a place to learn to talk, trust, and feel. We saw miracles happen in the lives of those who kept at it.

Knowing and understanding others and being known and understood by them is what we all want, isn’t it?