When I Say No, I Feel Guilty by Manuel J. Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

prompting us to invent rules to control behavior applies to other more significant things. What is the “right” way to have sex? The standard missionary position? How about the things they describe in the Kama Sutra? If those are okay too, how come it was not published in most countries until a few years ago? In other areas of living, how do you tell your mother to stop bugging your wife? What are the rules on how mothers and daughters-in-law “should” behave to each other? How come your wife doesn’t take care of this problem herself? Are only sons “supposed” to deal with mothers? Where did all these arbitrary ways of “properly” doing things come from? The answer is a simple one. All of us invent the rules as we go along, using the beliefs taught us in childhood as an outline. We then manipulatively use them with other people to control their behavior, through violation of their assertive rights, and thereby relieve our feelings of personal insecurity about not knowing what to do and how to cope. But when we act as if we are the ultimate judge of our own behavior and someone’s arbitrary rules must first be approved by us before we follow them, we will severely threaten this arbitrary structured order that nonassertive people use to cope with us. Consequently, the nonassertive person will be loath to grant other people any assertive rights and powers to influence their relationship with him. As a self-protective measure, he will psychologically manipulate you with rules and standards of right andwrong, fairness, reason, and logic to control behavior that may be in conflict with his own personal wants, likes, and dislikes. The manipulative person will invent this type of external structure or assume it already exists in a relationship in order to control your behavior. The tragedy of this manipulative coping is that the manipulator is unaware that the only justification he really needs to negotiate a change in anything is the fact that he wants a change . He does not need external structure or arbitrary rules as a manipulative backup for what he wants. To negotiate his wants with you, all he need do is to make a judgment that his likes and dislikes are sufficient justification for the effort he will expend in negotiation.
    Does the manipulator’s use of structure, i.e., the way he determines and tries to convince you of the “right, wrong, fair, or logical” way of doing something mean that all structure is manipulative? Does it mean that if you rely on rules and structure to make your relationships a bit simpler and easier, you open yourself to manipulation? These questions are difficult to answer with a simple yes or no. An answer more in touch with the reality of how structure can be used is “probably yes,” depending upon how the structure in the relationship was worked out and what type of relationship exists between the people in conflict. How can structure in a relationship work for you or against you? What are the important things about structure and relationships that allow you to make the distinction between structure used to manipulate and structure (workable compromises) used to make things easier, more stable, and less chaotic? First, all structure or rules in any interaction between two people is arbitrary. If one particular blueprint on how things will operate can be designed, you can usually find a half dozen other ways that will more or less produce the same results. For example, if you and your business partner design a scheme whereby you handle the office while he meets the public, that is not the only way you could have arranged things. You could have shared the bookkeeping or hired a part-time bookkeeper or any of a number ofthings that would produce the same result, i.e., a successful business with you doing more of what you want. If you take care of the kids while your husband works, that is only one arbitrary arrangement. You can share the responsibility with him, hire a