Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

“Confrontation”

Sally was ending another relationship. I couldn't help feeling some regret for her, because I knew what she was doing to herself. Here's the scene:

…..Through the chemical-smelling little wisps of smoke that drifted up from the ashtray, she had a vision of a fading picture. That was about as close as she would get to there being any chemistry at all with the rapidly incinerating guy in the picture. The tears in her eyes were not from the smoke, but from the sad memories associated with the actual blackening picture that sizzled and shrunk in the ashtray. Even a smoke alarm would not have snapped her into reality. So far, the therapy wasn't helping. She just didn't get it. "What's wrong with these men!?", she screamed at the ceiling, perhaps sparing her the greater pain of wondering "What's wrong with me?" All she really knew was that he was just not the right one, and she had sent him away after the traditional let's-be-friends speech. This was one relationship skill she could perform with confidence…..

Such was the soap opera that passed for Sally's sad-but-real life. You want to know what is worse than divorce? It's the ending of a relationship that all parties thought had great potential. I mean a real drama situation where the two potentially great partners (fortunately?) never got married, which at least saved them a divorce indignity. But it was still surprisingly devastating when Sally had to let "Harry" go. She was like a refugee who had escaped from a Daniel Steele novel, walking around in a very incredible story of her own. Only it wasn't fiction. Well, O.K., the names are, because nobody names their daughter "Sally" anymore. Around her work-place, she became known as "The Terminator" because she ended so many relationships, including two engagements.

When she related this scene to me, I had to agree with her that Harry, and some of his predecessors, had treated her badly. I could be supportive, but pretty soon, in the therapy process, I began to get a glimmer of how she was managing to bring the relationship destruction to her door step. As this story unwound, like a tangled roll of piano wire, it seemed that Sally could never confront her lovers with what bothered her. Instead, in an effort to avoid controversy, she kept all these complaints to herself. Of course, she didn't want to be a nag, and thought she could overlook some things, like his wearing white socks. Eventually things mounted up, like the items on a grocery receipt you thought was going to be brief. But it wasn't brief, and, kept to herself, the list, with its accompanying resentment, drove her farther and farther away from him and any hoped for intimacy. In this predicament, she could never tell herself, "This is the one!"

The very thing that could have brought her closer, namely the confrontation with Harry, was ironically the very thing she could not do. She was creating her own problem.

There can be no intimate relationship without confrontation. The requirements of intimacy and the feeling of intimacy are not simple or easy. Sex won't accomplish it, even though a lot of people try to find intimacy through sex. Confrontation means that you have to use words. Words to break through the barriers of misunderstanding. Words to enlighten your assumptions and clarify your expectations. Otherwise, instead of a sense of a close and reassuring relationship with your mate, you are left with a sense of dissatisfaction, able to employ only your terminator skills.

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