Four Patterns of Response to the Inevitable Anxieties of Life
While there’s no escaping the existential anxiety of life that we humans face, i.e. we know we will die, I’d like to focus your attention on the anxieties that occur in relationships, particularly committed ones. It is inevitable that tensions will occur between two people. What they do with them can make all the difference in the world. The three most common approaches to handling anxiety are other-focused, meaning that the coping style is done in reaction to another person. The fourth approach to handling anxiety is determined by oneself, it’s self-focused. Rather than reacting to or being dependent on another to define oneself, a differentiating person strives for stability or a sense of self coming from within herself rather than from without.
By being able to tolerate more anxiety, we can tolerate both more uncertainty and more novelty – both are essential ingredients in intimate sexuality. Intimate sexuality is the purview of mature adults and provides almost limitless opportunities for sexual experience within a relationship. Maturity can have a negative connotation in our culture. What I mean by maturity is the quality that helps you avoid compliance, defiance or isolation in your sex (or life).
Dominate:
This approach to anxiety involves asserting the pre-eminence of one’s own reality onto someone else. Excluding or diminishing your partner’s reality can do this. Examples of dominating can look like the following: Defensively arguing; taking affront when challenged; sulking or punishing when you don’t get your way; taking the moral high ground; threatening or attempting to coerce a partner to give up his or her position; ignoring what your partner is saying. This stance holds the often unspoken notion that reality is singular and that there is only one right answer or way of proceeding.
Submit:
This approach to anxiety involves giving oneself up – excluding the validity of one’s own reality and experience in an effort to avoid the experience of difference and separateness. Examples of submitting include: underestimating oneself; choosing not to choose; living by an external standard; individuality is traded for togetherness – “What movie shall we go to?” “Oh, I don’t care you decide.”; caving under pressure from another; keeping the peace by accommodating to another.
Distance:
This approach to anxiety is through avoidance. By keeping distance, one can avoid one’s own internal experience or can avoid seeing and knowing one’s partner which could trigger an unwanted internal experience. This approach can give a person a false sense of self-mastery by protecting him or herself from the anxiety of experiencing vulnerability or existential otherness. Examples of distancing include: denial of feelings, values or abilities; being confused, forgetful or obscure as a way of disowning oneself; a whole continuum of being ‘out of touch’ with oneself, including substance abuse, overworking, hyperactivity, hypersexuality; treating oneself and others as things or objects; living parallel lives with intersections only around ‘safe’ topics.
Differentiate:
This approach to anxiety involves being responsible for yourself because it’s important to you to do so and not because you are compelled by someone else or society to do so. Similarly, you operate this way because it is important for you and not because you are attempting to compel or control someone else. Approaching anxiety in this way means that you are facing up to the anxiety you experience, not pretending it’s not there or blaming someone else for it. You quiet yourself down rather than looking to someone else to do it for you. Examples of differentiating include: defining yourself; living up to your own values; distinguishing between wants and needs and expectations – you know as an adult what you want and go for it without blaming others for ‘not meeting your needs or expectations’; saying honest yes’s and no’s; sharing experiences and ideas without requiring that they be important or useful for anyone else; being willing to differ with other important people in your life; being honest with yourself by having an accurate sense of yourself; being able to acknowledge when you’ve responded in one of the other three responses to anxiety; being able to manage yourself when people important to you are reactive. It is the capacity to be oneself in the presence of anxiety that makes genuine empathy and altruism possible. Differentiation is about self-determination and means recognizing that who you are as an adult and how you engage in the world is completely up to you.
Differentiation is an especially important concept for intimacy and sexuality. It is the ability to maintain your sense of self when your partner has lapsed into one of the other three ways to handle tension or anxiety. I often think of differentiation as akin to Gortex – strong, lightweight, permeable and sheds water. You can remain close to a partner even if that person is trying to manipulate you. You can speak matter-of–factly on matters of great importance to you without trying to limit your partner’s reaction. You are resilient in the face of another’s anxiety or reactivity. You don’t take your partner’s behavior personally even if he or she would like you to. You are be open-hearted and engaged because you value these attributes not because your environment makes it easy for you to do so. When you are clear about what’s important to you with regard to your values, then you will be able to change without losing your identity.
It’s important to understand that differentiated people are feeling, not indifferent, people. They are able to handle greater complexity in their lives. They can take care of themselves while also considering someone else simultaneously. They have the capacity to put their own interests aside temporarily for the benefit of their partner because they do so freely, there’s no expectation of quid pro quo.