Have patience with everything unresolved and try to love the questions themselves. Rainer Maria Rilke
Analects: n.pl. things gathered up, gleanings, ideas and energetic facts.
Updated - 29/05/08
LINKS: my visual art blog; writing on wikipedia, and to these analects archived - 2002 * 2003 * 2004 * 2005 * 2006
Item 1: Interview about smart women staying with cheating husband
Dear Peter,
Thankyou for taking part! Here are my questions -
1. Why is it that smart women stay with men who cheat on them?
Smart of course has to be defined, but one thing we know from research is that rejection drops a person's IQ by about 25% and increases their hostility. Intimate betrayal is a profound rejection that continues beyond the discovery of the affair into the core of trust and integrity of the marriage. In a way, the sense of rejection continues for years after, coming back to haunt the person in unexpected ways. One of my smart women clients who had thought she had dealt with her partner's affair 20 years before and stayed in the marriage, found it coming back to haunt her as they both approached retirement. Both smart women and smart men stay in relationships both straight and gay, where one has cheated on another for many reasons. Usually because the affair has ended and the cheater has sworn to repair the damage and make amends.
Progress in healing is slow, takes time and usually two steps forward and one back - sensing the truth of this smart people endure the hardships of humiliation and repair. One can't discount the obvious - that looking around at the market place of partners, the devil you know may be better than the one you don't know. Becoming a single parent is not a better solution than staying and mending with a cheating heart.
When the affair continues and where this is known to a smart partner, there are all kinds of compromises being made by the one who is being cheated. The one who has the least control in a relationship is also the one most likely to compromise no matter how smart they are. This is a manifestation of power in the relationship and one that has social, cultural, gender and economic influences that smart women are not better equipped at navigating than the not so smart.
More than all of that one can't discount the possibility that the cheating is not or not yet an unforgivable event in their marriage. What defines the unforgiveable for one person is often quite unexpected and unrelated to public persona of the individual.
When it continues without the partner's knowledge and yet any smart person one think, should have figured out that it would keep going, why do they stay? Denial or willful ignorance is a powerful psychological defense against knowing the obvious. Women whose father's cheated their mother's tend to be more tolerant of a husband cheating. It is likely they could only manage the real world distress of betrayal by using denial in one form or other - denial that it matters, denial that it is anything more than f--k buddies, denial that it will harm the marriage, denial that as long as I don't know it won't hurt me etc..
2. In the case of the New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer, his wife has a law degree from Harvard and is Chairwoman of a non-profit group called Children for Children and in her own right is a very successful and intelligent woman. Her husband just got caught after spending $80,000 on prostitutes yet his wife supported him at the press conference he gave when the news broke and even was reported to have been holding his hand. Why would such a successful woman still support the man that committed such an act of betrayal? (The couple have three children - would this be deciding factor for her?)
The financial aspects of this are paramount, especially as she would know the consequences of a criminal charge on the size of any later divorce settlement and maintenance. She would more likely be exposing herself to extra public humiliation standing by his side simply for the sake of the children and their future relationship with Eliot. A criminal charge would be less likely if he were seen to retain the support of his wife. If a criminal charge were effected he would automatically be disbarred from practicing as a lawyer and thus damage signficantly their future income and support. I doubt it had anything to do with her intention to stay with him, but only time will tell that.
3. What kinds of affects does infidelity have on a smart woman in relation to her career? Eg, would she be less confident or would she begin to second guess herself when making decisions?
People lose confidence in their ability to trust their own judgements especially about a person's character and their values, and as well to know what is going on around them even right under their noses. This inevitably impacts on their belief in the validity of data coming from their own senses and in the accuracy of their perceptions. It damages their self esteem and their ability to make decisions - since the basis of those decisions (especially within an intimate relationship) are now subject to a depth and breadth of self-doubt never before encountered. On top of that is the impact of emotions they may never have felt so intensely for so long at any time in the past. Typicaly these are humiliated rage, revenge, despair and depression and the other traumatic effects of intimate betrayal - flash backs and intrusive thoughts, hyper-vigilance and hyper-arousal.
4. Does being smart or well educated make a difference in how a woman reacts when she finds out her husband/partner has been unfaithful?
Not one difference in the way a person reacts that I have observe in 35 years of work in this area. Betrayal is betrayal is betrayal - it hurts like hell and we all react very badly to it no matter how well resourced we are. Marriage counsellors and divorce lawyers react in much the same way as plumbers and cleaners. Culture, however, does make a big difference and whether the cheating was unforgivable or not and whether the person cheated has a prior history of loss or trauma.
5. How does the aspect of power play into the equation of infidelity? The Governor of NY and Bill Clinton both held two of the most powerful positions in the U.S but both were compelled to cheat on their wives. Could one assume that the more powerful a position a man holds the more likely he is to cheat?
No. Cheating occurs roughly with equal frequency across all ages, cultures and socio-economic groups. What is shocking is that we are still surprised when men in positions of power and prestige behave as badly as those men who have with little formal power and apparently little prestige. Humans are all capable, no matter what they espouse, of a demonic dynamic in their private lives. All of us have a public life, a private life and a secret life to one degree or another. Few can share all of those aspects of themselves with their life partner - and some would argue netiher should they.
6. What would drive someone to spend $80,000 on prostitutes? That is a lot of money!
False beliefs that it will buy them privacy, time, quality and the security of feeling that the sex, the customer and the sex worker are all special. Some times the kind of sex purchased is for humiliation such as spanking and bondage, a powerful desire that the customer has and one which he keeps a secret from his wife and perhaps even from himself in any other context.
Addiction is a helpful way to think about what drives a person to spend more and more getting less and less out of behaviour that is increasingly at risk of producing the very humiliation in public that he has paid to keep private. Sex worker clients have told me that they spend most of their time with customers in effect counseling them, holding their hands and stroking their egos.
7. Is it a common occurrence in your line of work to have patients that are smart women who are staying with unfaithful men? If so how many would you say, one in ten etc etc?
Given that the majority of cheating goes undetected you'd have to say there are a lot of people living with a cheater who don't know it. In my clinical experience smart people stay in those relationship for all the reason I gave at the outset but I can't give you a percentage.
Thankyou so much for taking the time out to answer these questions. When I have finished my article I will email you a copy! It may be a few weeks as I have a few more interviews to complete.
Item 2. Coming off prozac by eliminating contributors to depression:
Q: I have a client with whom I've been working regularly for last X years. She's been on Prozac all that time for depression - 2 x 10 mg daily. She is now considering going off the medication given she is interacting with herself and life around her in very healthy and effective ways. I've suggested she get some expert advice about how to go about that so it doesn't have any undesired effects. Her GP knows next to nothing about this area of practice and I suggested she see a psychiatrist who can guide her in decreasing and if possible eliminating the medication. Can you suggest a sensible and cluey psychiatrist for her?
A: Prozac is a relatively easy one to get off gradually and mindfully with the protocol below, and with the extensive precautions that follow.
Prozac has a longer half life than Zoloft, Paxil or Effexor. Consequently, reducing the medication doesn't mean it reduces by an equivalent amount in the blood stream. One still carries a level of the SSRI for longer than the others and one which will gradually diminish. This is a built in tapering off since it leaves the body slowly. As a result extreme withdrawal symptoms are less likely but not impossible. Stay mindful of withdrawal symptoms as they arise and use nutritional, behavioural/cognitive and physical skills to self-manage them.
Depression forms a bit like the fruity christmas cake made early in the year - lots of ingredients that take time to brew, cook and ripen. An anti-depressant is only one ingredient with a dubious link to brain juice.
Depression is not only caused by learning helplessness from noxious family interactions, which leave a child for feeling they did not exist and loathing themselves and their life as adults. It is also caused or contributed to by a neurotoxic life style including food, fluids, breathing, thinking and exercise (or the lack of it). Any one or combination of those ingredients can be as or more damaging than the crap of a lousy family.
If an anti-depressant had suppressed reactions to a neurotoxic lifestyle, then those reactions will re-appear as the dosage declines if the lifestyle is unchanged. These can be mistaken for withdrawals when in fact they may be old reactions, say, to the food industry's processing of raw product, for example:
'Fresh' grapes are processed when sprayed with anti-fungal agents to increase shelf life; 'fresh' bananas picked green and treated to delay ripening during transport; 'fresh' apples specially refrigerated and held for months before appearing on supermarket shelves; 'fresh' milk homogenised and low fat milks re-constituted from dried skim milk. Soya finds its way into 60% of all processed food. Soya products are prepared from raw bean rather than first being fermented in the traditional way, as is miso. Soya is used in agricultural feeds for intensive chicken, beef, dairy, pig as well as fish farming. Most fish sold in Australia is farmed and their diet includes pellets of fish meal and soya. Intolerant of soya, you may find foods containing it are also intolerable.
More than half the population have unrecognised intolerances to one or an accumulation of naturally occurring food chemicals. That's not food additives nor food allergies. Common intolerances are to specific compounds in: dairy, wheat, and soya, and to salicylates, amines or histamine like substances and free glutamates.
A less common cause or contributor to depression is the persistence of heavy metal or agricultural chemical residues in body tissue. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is a massively comprehensive source of information on persistent chemical causes of nervous system disorders.
So, for example, assuming that her iron and hormone levels, thyroid and liver functions have been tested normal by her medical practitioner (and any others considered important in managing depression/fatigue such as long term use of oral contraceptives). And she is fairly sure of no heavy metal poisoning such as mercury from cracked or broken amalgam fillings in her teeth or lead from having grown up on a main road in an old house with flaking wall paint in the kitchen. And not exposed to dioxin e.g. from having eaten Sydney harbour fish all her life or living near a waste dump or incinerator, nor from DDT e.g. from living on or near a contaminated farm as a child.
Protocol
Provided none of the above are significant issues, one can finesse the reduction of prozac for a relatively easy ride out of drug dependence by reducing the dosage or the length of time between doses until a perceptible symptom appears. Then hang out at that dosage/frequency for a while until you get a handle on the symptoms or they subside enough to move on. Then reduce the dosage and or length of time between a dose further. And continue in this way.
Use a mixture of:
- Nutrition
- exercise/tai chi/yoga
- adequate hydration
- sleep hygiene and thought self-management, with
- acupressure or shiatsu to help reset the nervous system
- consider nutrition with advise of a naturopath/dietitian - some will vastly reduce sugar and grains and increase natural fats and
- use more salt - unbleached, unrefined sea salt only!
- supplement with Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids in a ratio of 1:1 (rarely achieved in average diet)
- folic acid (800 mcg a day proved effective in significantly increasing the mental acuity of over 50 year olds)
- a vitamin B, C iron, calcium, magnesium and phosphate in multi vitamin/mineral tablet, or
- get into black strap molasses as an alternative.
Search web for prozac withdrawals for further tips and tricks:
If your client is in an intimate, committed relationship then couples therapy/counseling/coaching is also going to be most advantageous for recovery, enduring health and happiness.
If you client is experiencing traumatic grief, then this is a good resource page for her and one for you.
Finally, I can't emphasise enough the importance of breathing through the nose and with awareness of breathing through the mouth. If she is an habitual mouth breather especially at night (dry, caked tongue in the morning) or also suffers sleep apnea, panic attacks, chronic respiratory (including hayfever) or digestive system distress then a course at a Buteyko breathing centre is essential. With Buteyko breathing alone she could reduce her medication.
Item 3 - how long does it take to recover from spousal death or relationship breakup
Question: a friend and I were having a discussion about spouse death and relationship breakups - she thought that it takes on average 9 years to get over the death of a spouse, and had heard stats of 2 and 5 years to get over a relationship.... What's your take? I do understand that there is great individual scope.
Answer: Some responses to a death are of course irreparable and some grieving interminable - for example sudden, violent death and witnessed by the spouse or disappearance on ski trip and no body is found until the snow melts next year. Some breakups likewise irreparable - spouse runs of with your younger sibling or twenty something daughter. In each of those cases we call that complex traumatic grief - so you have both PTSD and grief concurrently. Every individual deals so differently with even ordinary, common or garden deaths or breakups but in any event we are talking grief and mourning and for that it's a one year to 18 month minimum.
The more secure attachments the person has, and the closer the community around them, then in all of those events above the better the recovery. Attachment is nature's buffer for loss and trauma and the lubricant for resilient individuals, families and communities. If someone were still grieving and or traumatized 2 years after recovery of the body and burial or instrumental finalization of a relationship breakup - then I would say get help. 2 years is long enough for the body to be carrying those kinds of stress hormones and the mind reliving those experiences.
