Almost all the employees like working for one particular manager in a large firm. Her employees know that she will treat them with respect and dignity even when she disagrees with their point of view. In return, they honor her. She is the one supervisor that is never insulted or ridiculed.
* * * * * * * * * *
I had to get out of that marriage. My husband criticized everything I said or did. Now I’m in a relationship with a man who actually listens to what I say without interrupting or sneering at me. I can feel my pride returning.”
* * * * * * * * * *
“Sometimes I wonder if anybody in the whole world cares about me. Yes, I have a lot of people in my life. But they always want me to take care of them. When I have something I need help with or when I need to talk about my feelings, they all seem to vanish. I feel more like a servant than a friend.”
* * * * * * * * * *
It only happens when she returns home for visits and holidays. She starts to feel small by the time she opens the door. Then she gets weak and sick to her stomach. She may be thirty-five years old, but she can’t stop those old feelings of shame from coming back. “Oh, there you are,” says her mother. “Looks like you’ve put on a few more pounds, dear.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Shame begins with the infant, develops in the family of origin, and, as we will see in Chapter Eight, is encouraged by an overly shame-focused society. One significant source of shame is relationships.
Few persons are strong enough to hold up to continuing shame attacks by important people in their lives. Who will feel really good when told repeatedly that she is ugly, incompetent, worthless, or stupid? Who can feel healthy pride while listening to messages that she will never be good enough to satisfy her family, friends, or employer? The formula is simple: the more someone is shamed by others, the more shameful she will feel.
People who have grown up with shame often believe all relationships must be shame-centered. Either they must be told repeatedly that something is wrong with them, or they must do that to someone else. Shame-based persons have difficulty imagining that relationships can include mutual respect, dignity, and pride. The more a person has suffered shame, the more he expects it.
We believe that every person is entitled to a life free from excessive shame. Relationships can and must be built around respect for this to happen.
It is easy to have strong feelings when thinking about shaming relationships. Here again, you may react strongly, especially if you are now involved in a shaming relationship. Keep a few thoughts in mind as you read this chapter.
A shame-based relationship is one where the people shame each other routinely. Shame is so built into the relationship that it seems normal. A day would feel unusual if shame were left out.
What does a shame-based relationship look like? There are two kinds.
Shamers are overly critical of the person they are shaming. They watch for and are quick to point out mistakes, using each blunder (real or imagined) to prove their “superiority.” They know where others are most easily hurt, and they use that information to attack the other person when there is conflict (“Anyone who would behave that way is a slut, so don’t tell me what to do!"). They specialize in contempt and disdain for the persons they supposedly love. They attack the independence of their partners by casting doubt on the partner’s intelligence, common sense, and sanity. They actively seek to lower the other person by emphasizing shortcomings. In short, shamers diminish the people around them so they can feel better about themselves.
A relationship needs two persons, and shame-based relationships always feature at least one person in the role of shame receiver. These shame receivers may accept criticism and shaming passively, without argument. They may fight it ferociously, even shaming the other person back in all-out warfare. Either way, they remain stuck, unable to leave a bad relationship or to redesign that partnership around pride, dignity, and mutual appreciation. Shame-based relationships center on the unwritten rule that shaming is a necessary part of communication.
On the other hand, healthy relationships are built on mutual respect. Each person appreciates the other. Actually, the word appreciation is too weak; it is more appropriate to say that each person honors the other. Each recognizes the inner dignity of the other. They pay attention to the goodness they see and help bring out that goodness. Persons who find themselves in positive relationships will generally feel proud of themselves and of the other person.
How do you know if you are in a shame-based relationship? A clear signal is that you will feel generally competent and worthwhile, except in the presence of a certain person. For example, a secretary who types for several bosses might feel fine with all but one of them. The secretary dreads seeing that boss because he only criticizes and demands the impossible. The secretary can never do good enough work to satisfy him — a sure trigger for shame.
Notice that our emphasis is on repetition. Most people shame another occasionally. The real problem occurs when shame is innate in a relationship. Shame-based relationships are those in which a habit of shaming has developed and continues.
If we get shamed regularly by another, we will probably develop many of the symptoms of shame. Some symptoms are that
People in shaming relationships often feel like children, as well as small and weak. This may be because they experienced many of the same shameful feelings as children: “My husband does the same things to me that my parents did — he even calls me the same mean names.” Deficiency messages come in many different forms. They may be
All help to transform a healthy relationship between two dignified adults into a shame-based relationship that reduces at least one member to the status of a child.
Unfortunately, once we live in one shaming relationship, it becomes easier to get into others just like it. This means that if we grew up in a shame-based family, we may be “attracted” later in life to persons who repeat the shaming maneuvers of her family. It also means that even people lucky enough to avoid shame as children can become shame-based adults if they find themselves in long-term shaming relationships. At first, these people may only feel shame in the presence of one specific person. But once people start to feel ashamed of themselves, they begin to lose the ability to command respect from others. Many people finally discover that nearly every one of their significant relationships are centered around shame. It’s no wonder they feel hopeless.
Relationships often develop in which one member uses the ability to shame the other to increase or maintain control. For example, a man who repeatedly tells his wife that she is so bad in bed that no man could enjoy her, diminishes her belief in her attractiveness. Once she starts to believe him, she is less likely to consider leaving or even standing up to him as an equal. The more this man can shame his wife, the more power he gains in the relationship.
Shaming like this may or may not be done purposely. Certainly not all such messages are deliberately designed to undermine the self-confidence of another person. Nevertheless, the effect of getting shamed regularly is that the shamed person will feel less and less powerful. One-way shaming relationships will keep one member in control of the other.
Shame may travel down the family power chain just like violence. The strongest member of the family shames the next most powerful. That person then shames the next and so on. Dad shames Mom who shames the oldest child, and so forth.
Power and the ability to shame another may go together. The more power people have, the more likely they are to get away with shame attacks on others. What can people say or do when their boss tells them that they are ignoramuses? Unfortunately, some employers believe they have the right to humiliate employees. And shamed people seldom feel strong enough to challenge those in power, since they have lost their sense of inner worthiness.
Shame increases power differences over time. Two people who started out nearly equal will not stay that way if one is allowed to control the shame process. The shamer will gradually gain control of the relationship.
Some shamers use public humiliation to cement their power. Here, the shamer calls attention to another’s deficits in front of other people. A woman who stresses her husband’s clumsiness or his small paycheck may do so partly out of thoughtlessness or frustration. Frequent public attacks signify more than this — they make it seem like the person doing the shaming is superior. Here, this woman tells her audience that she is better than her husband since she has the right to complain about his deficiencies. She gains power and control unless her husband can directly challenge her accusations.
One-way shaming relationships distort human connections and are very damaging to the shame recipient. Shamers tend to be hurt less since they control the relationship. But they lose in being shamers. They lose deep intimacy with others while remaining aloof and superior. They lose the beauty of relationships based on mutual respect and dignity. The shamer pays a price for power.
Shame does not have to travel in one direction only; it is often two-way. In these relationships, each person attacks the other whenever the opportunity arises. Contests even develop where the goal is to see which person can best embarrass or degrade the other. Shame is used as a weapon.
Witnesses to these shame battles may feel horrified as they watch the pair try to destroy each other. The longer the fight goes on, the meaner it gets. The partners in this battle may finally forget about tact and discretion. Instead, in public they air things that ought to be private about the other person. One may score a victory over the other, but trust is destroyed.
Both participants in mutually shaming relationships get badly damaged. Their worst features are exposed as their personalities come under constant attack. Any dignity they have is drowned in an ocean of mutual recriminations.
Sometimes, shaming couples get locked into rigid roles that only increase their shame. One example is “The Drunk and the Bitcher” game in which the more the drunk drinks, the more the bitcher bitches, and the more the bitcher bitches, the more the drunk drinks. Each can eventually despise the other person. Each may believe the other is the shamer, and he or she is the innocent victim. Neither can think of any way to break out of these terribly destructive roles.
The theme of mutually shaming relationships is contempt. The longer people are in the relationship, the less they respect their partners. They may also begin to despise themselves for participating in these daily shame battles. How can I sink so low? I hate hearing myself calling him those names, and I know I’m hurting him just like he hurts me when he attacks. If only the shamers could stop lashing out. Unfortunately, she may not quit shaming him because she thinks she needs to defend herself against his shame attacks. The victim of a shame assault may attack the person who shamed him as a defense. Shame begets shame.
Shame can lock two persons into constant conflict. Neither one of them ends the relationship because that would be the final defeat. Their shame battles end in exhaustion, not victory for either side. Truces become harder and harder to arrange because both people feel too vulnerable when they put down their shame weapons. These people might have no relationship at all if they were not shaming each other. Shame itself becomes the cement that binds them together.
Most of the examples in the previous section refer to persons in intimate relationships. Shaming can also be a significant issue in many kinds of nonintimate relationships. One-way shaming relationships are most common when one person has power over another. Typical examples are
Two-way shaming occurs most frequently in relationships between equally powerful persons such as among
Shame attacks usually hurt, whatever the source. We have talked with many people who try to convince themselves that they should not let themselves be damaged in these situations. “After all,” they may say, “it’s only work. Sure, my co-worker is always insulting and making fun of me. But I shouldn’t let that get to me.” We believe that shame must be acknowledged whenever it is encountered. A person must admit if she is indeed hurt when someone deliberately shames her. Few people are so certain of themselves that they are invulnerable to shame attacks. Shame that occurs in nonintimate relationships, especially when it is a regular and repeated feature, cannot be ignored because it can damage a person perhaps as much as shame that occurs in intimate relationships.
Shame is corrosive. It eats away at a person’s dignity, pride, and self-respect. Unfortunately, many people become embroiled in shame-based relationships that feature daily episodes of humiliation. These relationships may be one-sided — only one member shames the other. One-way shame often occurs when one person enjoys a power advantage over the other. Two-way shaming relationships happen when both parties vigorously and regularly shame the other. These persons engage in shaming contests in which the object is to degrade the other more.
Shaming relationships are dehumanizing. All of us deserve to be treated with respect, no matter what the nature of our association with another person. Others equally deserve our respect. Any relationship that centers on shame dishonors its participants.
A shaming relationship is based on repeated and routine behaviors that send the message that there is something wrong with a person. Using the following checklist, evaluate your relationship with a significant other person by underlining each statement that is true.
The person
Now look at your own behavior with this person. Shaming relationships are all too often relationships where both people are shamers, but each only looks at what the other person is doing wrong. So reverse the relationship and do the following checklist, again underlining each statement that applies. Be self-aware and honest as you do this.
On a separate sheet of paper, do the following tasks:
Judy and Ray have been married two years. Judy comes from a perfectionistic family where she learned that shame keeps people under control. Judy says Ray should help her by doing the dishes, but when he does do them, she shames him for not doing the glasses first, not rinsing the plates in a special way, and not scrubbing the pans “correctly.” Each time he does the dishes, she seems to find something wrong in what he does. This same thing happens when he cleans the living room, does the wash, or drives the car.
How do you think Ray feels about himself? How does he feel about Judy? How does Judy feel about herself? How does she feel about Ray?