ERP 156: What Happens When You Feel Like a Victim in Relationship

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Dr. Jessica Higgins: Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 156, “What happens when you feel like a victim in relationship.” Before we get started, I want to set the tone with intention with you. Here on the Empowered Relationship podcast, conversations, interviews and stories shared are intended to support you in developing your growth individually, as well as your growth in your relationship, so that you can experience more happiness, more connection, more love and fulfillment.

In previous podcast episodes I’ve talked about the intention really spanning the full spectrum of a relationship, knowing that the hardships, the stressors, the conflict will sometimes activate pain in us, and that that actually is information for us to work with, and that it can be used as a source of curriculum in furthering our growth, if we so choose… As well as the beautiful ecstasy and joy that sometimes that also will challenge us to expand our capacity to experience more love, more beauty, more connection, more intimacy than we have known before… As well as the in-between – the normalcy, the consistency of a stable, lasting relationship, that that takes a certain level of investment, of being solid and being able to manage the everyday in a way that creates a secure bond.

As I’m sharing this intention with you, I’m recognizing inside myself, in reflection on my relationship with my husband, that I can feel in the last several weeks, month or so, the closeness and the bond in our connection, and the deepening of that. And I know on this show I talk a lot about how the interpersonal dynamics are so important – how you relate to your partner, how you show up for them, how you ask for what you need and share your vulnerability etc, but what I’m noticing as I’m talking about the intention here on the Empowered Relationship Podcast, that my husband and I have mutually, respectively, individually been really investing a lot in our inner growth, and that that has offered a level of wholeness and wellness individually, that has supported the way in which we connect in our relationship, and I have been feeling so much connection, so much attraction even, and just interest in being closer with him in that space.

I don’t know that I have all the words to articulate it right now, but I wanna say that there’s something really beautiful when two people are in a place of wholeness and can meet each other in that presence, that allows for new terrain really, and I feel that with my husband; that’s why I’m sharing it with you, that I feel like even — we’ve been together almost 13 years now, and I can say from this vantage point I am so excited about what’s possible for us. I look back on our history and I feel as though we’ve both done so much to invest in our relationship and grow ourselves individually, and all the things we’ve accomplished, and there’s been such a sweetness and a care and consideration as we’ve worked our patterns, as we’ve healed our individual wounds and pains, and also grown in a sense of security together, in our commitment, in our relationship, in our marriage, and also just the excitement, as I mentioned, around where we go from here.

As I’m saying this, I’m like “Well, that’s just life, right…?” We are forever, if we so willing, are growing, expanding and evolving ourselves, so there’s always new possibility… And I think the thing I’m sharing with you is just this inner kinesthetic emotional sensation of being in this place of gratitude, as well as just excitement and possibility of new creation.

Before we get into the meat of today’s episode, I wanna take a moment and just say I am sorry that I have not been able to publish an episode in the last several weeks. I basically had a severe cold for 2+ weeks, where I’m still getting over it. Actually, in two days it will be three weeks, and I’m still clearing my throat and coughing in the morning. It was really pretty severe for at least two weeks, and it was really difficult to actually even conduct my sessions with my clients… So I just really wanna appreciate your patience for the delay.

In late September I took a trip to Bimini, Bahamas with a dear friend to celebrate her birthday with a group of her closest friends. This was a week-long trip, and on a side note, I highly recommend Wild Quest. This is an organization that runs retreats, and the purpose of the retreat is to be with wild dolphins. Now, they don’t feed them, they’re not captive; they have this whole protocol in which they approach the dolphins, if we’re in open sea and we find a pod, and really seeing if they’re interested in engaging. Now, the Atlantic-spotted dolphins are very social and interested in engaging and interacting with humans, but sometimes they’re traveling, or feeding, or not that interested.

This particular organization is very respectful, very mindful, but also wants to give humans an opportunity to engage with these beautiful creatures, the dolphins, and it was phenomenal. If you’re interested in learning more, I highly encourage you to check out Wild Quest; I will also put the link on today’s show notes, or you can contact me, and I’m happy to share more about my experience.

Nonetheless, my closest friend – I was rooming with her, and she had a cold the entire time, and it was unfortunate, because she was celebrating her birthday, but she rallied and enjoyed the trip nonetheless. So I think that on some level I’ve been exposed to that, and then when I got back and just catching up with all my clients, and work, and then a couple weeks later my husband and I went to Minneapolis, Minnesota… Now, we went for a long weekend and really enjoyed a lot of the family festivities, and going to a pumpkin patch, and being with all the nieces and nephews, and it was a really great time… And it snowed, and I didn’t get a lot of sleep before we flew on the plane, and people were sneezing and coughing and hacking… It was very much exposure to lots of people’s colds and whatnot.

I got back, and then played volleyball in really cold weather, and then there was a few other things that I think just compounded, and basically it all caught up with me. I did get a tip, and then I’m curious if any of you guys have experienced the benefit of this, but when flying, if you’re gonna be flying particularly in a season where people are prone to getting sick, you can put Sesame Seed Oil on the inside of your nose, and I guess this is a natural anti-inflammatory/anti-viral/anti-fungal/anti-bacterial… I don’t know, I’m gonna try it and I hope that it works, because I definitely felt like “Oh my gosh, I’m getting exposed to all these germs” and I feel a little captive around it. Usually, my immune system is pretty strong, but again, all these variables caught up with me. Nonetheless, I appreciate your patience and thank you for sticking with me, and your understanding.

Again, this is episode 56, “What happens when you feel like a victim in relationship.” If you’re interested in the show notes, that can be found on my website, which is DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find all the links mentioned, as well as the show notes there.

What to do when you feel like a victim in relationship – this is an awful disempowering feeling, which can occur when we feel betrayed, harmed, oppressed, injured, and it is a really uncomfortable sensation, particularly with someone we care most about, and that we often perceive as our safe refuge, our person, if you will, our spouse, our place of comfort and reassurance and love… So to feel like a victim in relationship is extraordinarily painful.

Now, if you’re experiencing an immediate hardship or crisis, it might be helpful to check out other podcasts that I have related to grief, loss, a breach of trust, trauma in relationship, or possibly even toxic relationship. I will put the links to those podcasts on this episode’s show notes, so if you wanna have direct access, I’ll make that easy, and put those links there for you.

Today I’m gonna be bringing our attention and our focus to how we deal with an upset in our orientation, whether or not it’s to our significant other, or the circumstance in general. Now, if you listened to the podcasts that I did around pain, there’s  a two-part series, and again, that’ll be in the show notes if you miss that. But these episodes address the fact that when pain occurs, in and of itself it’s awful and hard and difficult, and the way we anticipate future pain, or perhaps ruminate on past pain, or how we resist it and fight it and protest against it creates that much more suffering and that much more pain.

Dr. Steven Karpman developed a social model of human interaction called The Drama Triangle. This triangle maps destructive interaction that can occur between people in conflict. This interpersonal dynamic can occur in any type of relationship, be it with your significant other, a family member, a friend, a colleague, you name it. In my connected couple program in the second module I actually go into this curriculum in much more detail, much more extensively, but I actually pulled a few slides that will help me illustrate the drama triangle with you here on this podcast. I’ll put those slides on the show notes for this episode… So again, you can check that out at DrJessicaHiggins.com, Podcast and find episode 156.

The drama triangle… This includes three positions: the villain, the hero and the victim. As we talk about these positions, I wanna encourage you to consider that we may actually take each position at different points in time, that they all are interconnected and we may actually participate in each role, and that this actually happens on a subtle level, or very overt. So just keep an open mind as we go over what this drama triangle entails.

The villain. The villain is known for being aggressive, angry, domineering, judgmental. Also known as the persecutor. It might use the language of “It’s all your fault.” They might be controlling, blaming, critical, authoritative, rigid and superior. We may see the villain as the bully, the reason for pain and the cause for the hurt. In relationship, we can feel that the villain is the one that raises their voice, uses critical language, name-calls, characterizes unfairly, or distances, ignores, stonewalls… Or the one that forgets things, doesn’t follow through, doesn’t honor their word.

The hero. The hero is known for being overly helpful, self-sacrificing, and enjoys being needed. The hero, also known as the rescuer, might use language like “Let me help you.” A classic enabler feels guilty if he/she doesn’t come to the rescue, almost as if it’s their responsibility to save. They focus their energy on someone else, and it actually preoccupies them and helps them avoid their own anxieties and issues. They’re so focused on other people and helping them that they don’t actually deal with their own stuff.

The hero might look like the overly-involved parent, the one that consumes their life with their children’s activities, so much so that fast-forward, when their children are graduating and going on to college or pursuing their own lives and dreams, they are feeling lost… “Who am I? What’s my purpose?” Perhaps it’s a partner that does the lion’s share of the work in the home, in the relationship, and is the overly responsible one. Everything tends to fall back on this partner’s lap.

I remember several years ago I was working with a client, a gentleman who was troubled in his marriage, and he was describing the arrangement he had with his wife as they cared for their relatively young child. He worked full-time, where his wife did not. He did all the cleaning, all the shopping, all the cooking, and when he wasn’t working, he was the primary caregiver. He described that his wife was still upset with him, still unhappy, and that he felt responsible.

Maybe it’s the fact of walking on eggshells, accommodating your partner, attempting to prevent their reactivity. If they have a tendency to lash out, be angry, or maybe they have some substance abuse issues, and it’s the co-dependent behavior, all in the attempt to feel overly responsible and to caretake.

The victim – often feels downtrodden, hopeless, helpless, and really has a difficult time feeling as though their needs matter and will be met. They often have the language or the thought of “Poor me.” Again, the victim feels victimized, oppressed, powerless, ashamed, and often feels unable to make a difference or create a different circumstance, or make decisions that solve their problems, and they have a difficult time feeling optimistic, feeling the pleasure in life, and that they can achieve more.

An example of someone that feels like a victim in relationship might have the experience that their vote doesn’t count. Their needs, their preferences, their desires don’t really matter. When push comes to shove, their partner is gonna do what they wanna do, and they’re gonna assert their preferences and their partner doesn’t really care.

A client comes to mind who has the experience that her husband does not listen. She doesn’t feel seen, she doesn’t feel known, and she doesn’t feel valued in relationship with her husband, after years and years of description, articulation, communication, all resorting and resulting in the experience of feeling like she doesn’t matter. When they parent, when there’s decisions to be made, she feels as though he doesn’t hear her.

As I mentioned, if you have a partner that resorts to destructive behavior in conflict, be it character attacks, name-calling, yelling, even violence, it would be very natural to feel like a victim in that circumstance. Or perhaps in relationship one of you or both of you have some type of health issue, or mental health concern, or substance abuse issue, or a family crisis. All of these things can lend to hardship and crises that we can feel victimized by.

As I’m describing these positions, you might be conjuring up some of your own hardships and struggles, or recognizing perhaps a way in which you’ve played one or more of these roles. I wanna share a client example that illustrates how easily we can move from one position to the next.

This particular couple – husband and wife; the wife initiated getting support. Now, her concern was her husband’s ADHD, where he would be hyper-focused on his career, and he would often forget, neglect some of his domestic duties, be it for their marriage or for their children. At times, she would describe her pain and how she felt ignored, felt not important, wondered if he cared, wondered about his loyalty, his investment and his commitment to the marriage and their family. That’s kind of the victim role or the position.

Then from the hurt and the injustice of it she would shift into furious anger, and really blame him and point out how he was hurting her, and the harm he was causing and how it was not okay how he would not follow through, let her down, and the disappointment he was to her and the children… And she would be very angry and she would have no qualms about letting him know.

Other times she would pick up the slack, she would fill in the areas where he had dropped the ball, she would make justifications, rationalizations for his behavior, and she would try to remind him and really take responsibility for some of his disorganization and inattention.

Several months ago I was working with a couple and the gentleman in the relationship recommended the book called The power of TED. TED is the Empowerment Dynamic, written by David Emerald. I will put the link to the book on the show notes of this episode. I’ve been reading this book, and it’s a rather short book – you could probably read it in an afternoon. However, I’ve been contemplating the principles, because I believe he offers a layer of insight that just adds to the dynamic of what’s very problematic, and then he also gives a lot of insight around how to shift into a more constructive dynamic, which I also cover in the Connected Couple program, but I wanted to share a bit of this with you on the Empowered Relationship Podcast, because I believe this dynamic is so important to be aware of.

David Emerald writes about the victim, that victims may be defensive, submissive, over-accommodating to others, passive-aggressive in conflict, dependent on others for self-worth, overly sensitive, and even manipulative. They are often angry, resentful and envious, feeling unworthy and ashamed about their circumstances. He notes that in the victim position there’s often a death of a dream. This could be a desire or a dream; having a harmonious, loving, peaceful relationship… Or perhaps having health, vitality, strength; if there’s a health condition, that loss of vitality, that loss of that dream of feeling capable in life.

The victim feels out of control, believing life can’t change for the better, and the victim reacts with depression and shame, and often feels sorry for themselves. It’s important to note that when we experience an upset, something painful, that we are gonna respond with a certain level of upset, and we might have certain levels of fear and anxiety that go along with that, and when the circumstance is perpetuated and we don’t feel that we have control and possibly feel overwhelmed, that often lends to feeling a sense of hopelessness, not feeling as though we can change our circumstances, solve the problems and really make decisions that allow us to go after what we really want and what we dream for… And that we’re really programmed to react with that fight, flight or freeze. If you’ve listened to other episodes, you might have heard me talk about that when we feel threatened, it’s gonna activate the very primal part of our brain, and hence our nervous system, and that we’re wired up to protect and to survive.

In description of this all, I really wanna invite, again, a sense of curiosity around what happens when we are stuck in this drama triangle. There’s really no blame or shame. The idea here is to evolve our consciousness when we are aware of what’s going on and what’s operating, and recognizing we have choice in how we deal with the difficulty – that’s where we can evolve our experience.

The persecutor is sometimes an actual person, but also it can be a circumstance or a condition… Like I mentioned, it can be a health issue, a financial concern, a natural disaster even, that we can feel victim to an actual condition or circumstance. When talking about a person who is participating in persecuting acts, they’re often in a space of wanting to dominate through blame, criticism or oppression, or even the attempt to try to be right. They may try to exert power through their views, through their intellect. They might try to debate and argue, or they might try to prove somebody wrong, or keep a sense of position and power, invoking a sense of “I know more, I have more education, I’m older, I make more money”, whatever it is – that they have a position, that they have more authority.

Shifting into the persecutor’s role can be subtle. For instance, let’s say I’m getting engaged in a power struggle with somebody, I’m debating with them, and we’re going back and forth around who is right. I’ve lost the position of caring about that other person’s perspective and valuing their input, as well as valuing my input, and that now we’re in a position of one-upping each other… And in some sense, we’re both trying to exert power over, with that persecutor approach.

Emerald points out, “Often times when we are being grandiose, or self-righteous, a part of what might be happening there is a masking of our own insecurities.” What he points out here is that almost always, the persecutor was a former victim; almost to say “I will never be a victim again” and fear the loss of control, so they over-control, in the attempt to protect from ever being victimized again.

I can look back on my early relationship history in my early twenties where I would get into real debates and arguments with my boyfriend, and we would go back and forth and the language would get increasingly escalated, and a little cutting, and harmful, and cruel at times, if I’m really being honest… And that clearly demonstrates the toxic, damaging, destructive dynamic of the drama triangle.

We were both feeling victimized, hurt and injured, and then protested from a place of dominating and trying to one-up each other and get a position of power through really the persecutor’s role.

David Emerald points out for the rescuer that sometimes using substances, whether or not it’s alcohol, sugar, sex, computers, computer gaming, TV, shopping – they’re all ways to rescue from painful feelings. When it comes to rescuing someone else, often times there’s the sincere intention to help, but the lens is “Poor you. I don’t think you can do it for yourself. I wanna help. I’m gonna take the responsibility, because I don’t think you can actually do it”, and it enables the victim to stay small. In response, the victim often feels some level of shame, needing to be rescued, and feels dependent.

The rescuer fears a loss of purpose. They want to feel needed, and there’s a sense of superiority and indispensable worth that they get from being needed… And even further, a fear of abandonment. “I want you to depend on me, so that you’ll never leave me” type of thing. Ironically, the rescuer will feel victimized if the victim doesn’t want his/her help.

One of my early insights in recognizing how I show up in relationship – again, this was in my young twenties – how I would get overly involved with my boyfriend’s psyche, if you will… How he related to the world his process, his interpersonal dynamics, his intrapersonal dynamics, and I attempted to be helpful, with pure, beautiful intentions. But in the process of being overly involved, it felt emasculating.

I was offering insight, ideas, possibilities around what might be going on, but he wasn’t coming to it on his own, and therefore he couldn’t take ownership of it, and therefore couldn’t be fully responsible for it and be fully bought in, because it wasn’t his, it was mine, and almost as if I was trying to be so helpful and that he would feel gratitude to that, and that somehow would further increase the worth of my value.

One key point here is often this was unsolicited, because there’s nothing wrong with offering input and insight, if it’s solicited, if the person is interested and desiring feedback… But if it’s unsolicited, that is a sense of over-responsibility.

When couples initiate support in the way of coaching or counseling, often times the way in which they’re talking about the dynamics or the way in which they related to each other, or their problems, if you will, is from a position of being victimized, feeling hurt, feeling wronged, and almost as if they want the helping person (the therapist, the coach) to basically referee and really take sides.

Now, not every couple does this, but it’s a natural tendency to feel desire for validation, and recognition, and empathy. Where this becomes problematic is when partners are so steeped and hurt in their pain that they’re stuck in this drama triangle. This could look like endless arguments. Gay Hendricks writes, “Arguments are caused by two people racing to occupy the victim position… “Why are you doing this to me?” and then tries to get person B to agree with that assessment.” In other words, person B has to agree that he/she is the persecutor; therein lies the problem. It’s almost impossible to get the other guys to agree that it’s their fault.

In nearly 5,000 sessions of assisting people and resolving conflicts, I have never witnesses the following exchange:

Partner A: “Why are you making me so miserable? This problem is entirely your fault!”

Person B: “Wow, thanks for pointing that out. I agree completely. It’s clear I’m the persecutor, you’re the victim, and your misery is entirely my fault.”

He writes, “However, I have seen 5,000 variations on the following:

Person A: Why are you making me so miserable? This problem is entirely your fault!

Partner B: I’m making you miserable? I’m the one who’s a victim here. It’s your fault, not mine. I’ve been putting up with your stuff so long that I ought to get some sort of martyrdom prize.

Partner A: That’s absurd. Let me tell you all the reasons I’m the real victim here!

Partner B: Great! Then, when you get through, I’ll tell you all the reasons why it’s your fault, always has been and always will be.”

This is an excerpt from The Big Leap. I will also put the link on today’s show notes. I love this just quick excerpt, because it really encapsulates what people are often saying when they’re in the drama triangle.

In the next podcast I’m gonna share with you how to shift out of the drama triangle, shift out of the victim orientation, so that you can feel more empowered, more in co-creation with your significant other, and really have a sense of what David Emerald is talking about when he describes the Empowerment Dynamic, also known as the Winning Triangle, versus the Drama Triangle.

If you have any comments, questions, or would like further support, feel free to reach out to me at my e-mail, [email protected]. Until next time, I hope you take great care.

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