One has to remember that many “defense mechanisms” that narcissists use are criminal thinking errors or tactics to avoid change. When a woman has built up the image of themselves as a good person and someone points out that they chose to neglect their children almost daily you see a host of narcissistic behavior. This behavior ranges from reactive anger, dismissing the harm done, lack of empathy, envy of men or women without children, and a pervasive state of self-perceived victimhood at assuming the responsibilities of motherhood. In short, the exact opposite of what a caring and loving mother would do.

What else do emotionally deadbeat women with these delusions do when faced with reality? Quite frankly they lie or play stupid. They are in a state of arrested development. They use the skills that the learned in elementary school and are unwilling to learn or practice consistently more adult ways of behaving. Since they are older they can use these childish skills at a higher level than when they were in kindergarten. However, they are still emotional children because they have refused to grow up and accept adult responsibilities.

One we understand narcissism we can understand the enemies of sound research into excessive daycare. Part of this understanding comes with the horror of just how widespread maternal narcissism has become.

Understanding Narcissism

Everyone has some areas were they could improve. Many of us have some serious faults. Bad habits. Bad traits can range from mild to severe and people with this trait can either be low functioning or high functioning individuals in the professional world.  Sometimes a fault in a personal relationship can make someone successful in a soulless bureaucracy. Christopher Lasch puts it well:

“For all his inner suffering, the narcissist has many traits that make for success in bureaucratic institutions, which put premium on the manipulation of interpersonal relations, discourage the formation of deep personal attachments, and at the same time provide the narcissist with the approval he needs in order to validate his self-esteem.”
― Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations

Obviously, in one’s personal life being manipulative and having a lack of deep personal attachments is a bad thing. Who wants a emotionally distant but manipulative mother? Who wants to be that kind of father? No one that is well adjusted.

Narcissistic traits:

• A grandiose sense of self-importance
• Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
• Believing that they are “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
• Requiring excessive admiration
• A sense of entitlement (unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with their expectations)
• Being interpersonally exploitative (taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends)
• Lacking empathy (unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others)
• Often being envious of others or believing that others are envious of them
• Showing arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Narcissistic personality disorder – Wikipedia

Causes of narcissism range from genetic components, early childhood traumas, cultural or social reasons. Some people may just figure it out themselves. They get a rush when they lie and get away with it. All by themselves they discover the joy of taking their anger out on people. They learned at a young age to play the victim to blame shift their faults onto others. They learn to buy into their own lies and believe 100% that a lie told well enough is as good as the truth if not better. Getting out of their responsibilities is a game to them worth playing as is building up the lie that they are good people.

Psychologist define both psychopaths and narcissists by their grandiosity, inability to (honestly) accept responsibility for their actions, parasitic lifestyles, willingness to attack people that know and speak the truth, and so forth.  For people in tuned with sensing these traits there is an epidemic of narcissism.  Christopher Lasch published The Culture of Narcissism in 1979 and I dare say things have just gotten worse.  Narcissism has become more widespread and it occurs at more higher intensities. The idea that there is an epidemic of narcissism is still very common and accepted.  Dr Yeomans has over 40 years of experience in dealing with personality disorders:

Most people accept the notion of widespread or systemic narcissism so long as you are talking about another demographic’s behaviors.  Women easily see narcissism in men but not women, and vice versa.  Some nations are broadly culturally narcissistic as well but discussing that right now will get me bogged down.

People with different background and experiences are going to explain the key aspects of narcissism differently.  It comes with human nature and how individuals build models of understanding.  I focus on several key components that occur in a pattern of thoughts and behaviors.  Just because I cite some people does not mean they agree with my complete model.

Narcissistic Behaviors

Traits and thought patterns lead people to showing behaviors. Behaviors that are harmful are called maladaptive. Someone that has a lot of assertiveness or attention seeking behaviors could test highly on some narcissism tests. But what makes narcissistic behavior hurtful or maladaptive is when it causes pain to others or the narcissist. Things that can really damage relationships are the dismissiveness that comes from a lack of empathy, or the mental gymnastics they use to justify their reactive anger. Everyone may feel some jealousy or envy from time to time but it becomes maladaptive when the negative emotions lead to bullying or slander.

Time and time again when the experts discuss narcissism they mention the following:

Splitting: Internal Goodness Versus External Badness justifies Violence

Narcissists tend to view everything that is good with them as being internal to them and everything that is bad is external to them.  “Thick-skinned” narcissists are often very dismissive of legitimate or insightful criticism that so there is really no getting to them. On the other hand, “thin-skinned” narcissists take great offence to any criticism no matter how gentle, fair, and balanced.

Narcissism has a specific psychological structure:

Narcissism is about personal narratives:

Since narcissist views themselves as “good” every time someone tries to point out how they could improve or be better in some way they view that as a vicious attach. Anything that is not “good” is “bad” and what is “bad” is external to them. The narcissistic has a grandiose sense of their own goodness and anything that criticizes that is deeply degrading to them. As such, the narcissist views their intense counterattack as justified. The notion “the average person is average; and they are average” is violence to them.

They Morally Mandates Lies

Narcissistic people have a strange way of viewing the truth and the role that lying play in maintaining the psychological structure of their grandiose thinking.  Broadly thinking, truths are an aggression to the narcissist.

Narcissist often lies because the truth is offensive to them.  They believe the truth a greater injustice than the lie they tell.  If they have not achieved great things then the world is wrong for not giving them what they desire.  Their lack of glory is a greater injustice than their lie.  The lie is “what should be” and so it is acceptable and morally required.  To tell the truth is a version of self harm to narcissist.  It is ok to destroy or attack truths that go against the narcissist self image

Due to the narcissist willingness or excitement to be abusive it is easier to go along with the lies than to tell them the truth.  In other words, the narcissist tries to create a situation where is easier to be gaslight by them than struggle against the all the different kind of lies and anger they use.

Narcissists are in a state of arrested development

They use anger, tantrums and lies like a child.  They are not above playing the adult version of playground bully while also being the teachers pet while in the classroom.  This really limits their ability to develop in mature and holistic ways.   Since they are so childish transfer any faults or blame from themselves onto others. 

Much like psychopath; narcissist wear a mask of sanity.  They have one set of behaviors they use in public and a completely different set they reveal to people in private.  Or, in relationships they use one face they in the beginning of relationships when they childishly idealize the other person and later they use a different face to devalued and discard what they use to idealize.  Narcissistic Abuse Cycle: Stages, Impact, and Coping (verywellmind.com)

They are in the basement when considering Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development. Kohlberg’s  stages of moral development is itself a deeply flawed structure that I must needs address later but even within that flawed structure narcissists moral reasoning is childish.

Since they see themselves as “good” they want you to be overly cautious with their emotions but they have no need to be cautious about your emotions.  They can emotionally be a bull in a china shop with others but want others to walk on egg shells around them. They will try to convince you that y ou are the one that is childish if you don’t see how right they are.  This apparent emotional fragility is often dismissed as stemming from trauma. But there are a host of traumatized people that are more empathetic towards people, not less, due to their trauma. So that excuses is destroyed when we consider appropriate role models.

They set up “double binds” to make sure you are always wrong and they are always right

Double-binds are classic “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situations that narcissists set up almost without thinking about it.  If a narcissist is doing something wrong and you tell them calmly they will later blame you for not telling them clearly enough, they didn’t know how important it was too you.  When you are clear with them, they will blame you for being to careless with their emotions.  If you don’ tell them anything at all you are at fault for not trying to inform or support them.

Narcissist lie to themselves by rewriting their memories as needed to redefine normal actions as abusive by using the double bind.  In the beginning of a relationship when you are setting healthy limits they idolize your clear communication. They love how you have given them a clear path to a successful relationship with you.  Later, when they devalue you they come back with the double bind.  All the expectations and boundaries you set in the beginning of the relationship were now toxic, unrealistic, and abusive.  Narcissist attempt to convince you that they are not a deceitful monster for violating the foundational agreements of the relationship. Rather, you are the monster for wanting to maintain your boundaries.

The post The Narcissistic Enemies of Research into Excessive Non-Maternal Daycare appeared first on Against Maternal Abuse And Neglect.

In 2009 a research article threw me out a big piece of bait with this hook title: You Can’t Be Happier than Your Wife. Happiness Gaps and Divorce.[1] The article was provoking on several levels. A news site summed it up.  [B]ased on data from tens of thousands of marriages in Britain, Australia and Germany – found that a wife is much more likely to divorce a husband she thinks is happier than her; and that if her partner is less happy than her, she is much more likely to stay with him.

Psychopathy, the parasitic lifestyle & the Mask of Sanity

Having or wanting a parasitic lifestyle is one of the hallmarks of psychopathy.  Due to modern social norms about traditional relationships many psychopathic women go unidentified.  Usually on numbered lists of psychopathic traits is “glibness or superficial charm”.  Psychopaths wear a “mask of sanity” is their superficial charm that hides their negative traits from the rest of the world.  From time to time that mask skips.  Psychopathic women mask of sanity publicly says “I want a supportive man” when beneath the mask in private they a parasite looking for a host.  They won’t stop at just being parasitic to the men in their lives, they will use every family member and relationship they can.  We could view all other psychopathic traits in this article but for length we are just going to address two: callous lack of empathy and sexuality.

Callous Lack of Empathy

Glibness and a parasitic lifestyle also combine with a callous lack of empathy.  When parasitic women sees a man is happier than her in any way she becomes envious and feels compelled to attack his happiness. She wants him to support her happiness to the point his happiness is ruined. If he does not she will attack his happiness until what she sees as the proper balance is restored. Her deeply ingrained anti-social expectations see her abusive behavior as an act of self-righteous justice.

If the psychopathic woman perceives an activity she does with her husband brings him “too much” happiness she finds ways to sabotage that activity.  She will sabotage birthdays, anniversaries, any holiday he enjoys if she perceives that he enjoys the event more than her.  She will passive-aggressively put in less effort into things that he enjoys until he no longer enjoys them. Or she will become abusive during those events until she has conditioned him to not enjoy them anymore.

Sexuality

A parasitic woman may sacrifice her sex life with her husband if she perceives he enjoys sex more than her.  She enjoys sex herself, especially when she is making sure she is getting parasitically attached to her new hosts.  Eventually sex becomes another aspect of the relationship to toy with (sexuality thinking error).  She will demand greater and greater concessions to engage in an activity she enjoys but she will do less and less when she does have sex with her partner.  She will crush his advances with an approach designed to cause the most emotional damage. Later she then mocks him for the pain of rejection. 

After doing so, she may gossip and slander him saying he isn’t being romantic anymore.  She portrays herself completely as the victim when she does this.  It is all justified due to the happiness gap in sex. If called to account, she will make a false confession. While doing so she hides behind confusion that men would even be hurt by this pattern of behavior.

This manipulation becomes apparent when she is single again.  She has sex with her exes that is once again reenergized, and she is again giving and generous.  All of a sudden, she seems to remember that the more you give the more you get in the bedroom.  Or she has a string of shallow sexual relationships so she can enjoy sex.

Visual Representation of the research

For the visual leaners, below is an of a happiness gap against the woman’s favor. The man is perceived as happier than the wife.

Below is an example of a happiness gap in the wife’s favor when the wife isn’t even happy.

The woman in situation one is actually happier than the woman in situation two. If she is parasitic she is willing to destroy a relationship that makes her the happiest so she can get into a relationship where she feels she is winning.

The Costs of Parasitic Woman’s Behaviors

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Divorce

Everyone that is being honest knows how bad divorce is for children.  Remember, it is an Adverse Childhood Experience for a child to be raised with divorce or separated parents.  Having a reckless attitude to raising children without a father is similar to deciding to physically or sexually abuse them. It is as bad as a sober person deciding to get on some street drugs.

Below is a chart that shows co-occurrence of specific ACES from respondents with serious mood disorders. Kinship/foster care scores the highest for mean cooccurring events but foster care happens after other ACES have happened. The two highest primary ACES are having a mentally ill parent or having parents separated or divorced.

Two of the highest covariant of ACES (those that predict other ACES scores) are the mental health of the mother and divorce. Having a psychopathic/sociopathic mother is certainly having a mother with a mental disorder.

Hostage Taking

If the parasitic woman has children, she is implicitly engaging in hostage taking. When she attacks her husband’s happiness the children are automatically taken hostage.  Depending on his religious views towards divorce she can also take him hostage on that front as well. She is playing a game of “chicken” when it comes to the blame game for the divorce to see what she can get away with

Codependent Sabotage

The process of beating someone down so you can be happier than them is part of codependent sabotage. The relationship is now stable at a deep personal cost to the husband. Since she has had so much practice on her husband at this point there is no stopping her into codependently sabotaging the lives of all of her children. Should they ever become estranged from her she can enter a victim stance on that account.

Even worse, now that the codependent sabotage is complete the marriage has undergone a lot of harm. The parasitic woman is unlikely to have the relational attention she wants so she has primed herself for further abuses. She has laid the groundwork to engage in affairs, sexual abuses out of the family or emotional incest or literal incest to get her wants met within the family.

She has also basically pushed her husband into the arms of another woman. Pushing the other partner away is a recognized pattern of behavior during emotional incest. A very perverse win-win for her. She has set up a double bind for her husband: A loveless marriage till death or adultery or divorce. If he wants any affection he has to cheat or divorce her to get it. She then tries to win the “blame game” for the divorce, ignoring perhaps decades of her parasitic behavior. If the court system works in her favor, it helps isolate the chosen child for more enmeshment.

Sexual Abuse

There is a wealth of research proposing women are underrepresented as sexual offenders in the legal system. My own experience working with both traumatized boys and under-prosecuted girls confirmes this for me. They have been for decades. Even more confounding is a lot of the assaults perpetrated by women fall short of categories like “forced to penetrate.” There is a wide range of behavior in between emotional incest and literal incest that is hard to capture in the research.

Women staff are over-represented in violations of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). They engage in a variety of abuses of the Act involving “abuse of power, trading in favors, offers of special privileges and protection, and offers of alcohol and drugs, which co-occurs with female staff sexual misconduct.”  (Staff Sexual Misconduct: Implications of PREA for Women Working in Corrections – Allen J. Beck, 2015 sagepub.com).  One of the leading events around female staff misconduct is personal relationship problems.

Recommendations Based off of Key Concepts & fundamental Frameworks

Birds of a Feather Flock together

When rating someone for psychopathy on the Hare Checklist someone either scores a 0, with the behavior not present, or a 1, mixed findings, or a 2, with the behavior clearly present.  Women that are mildly parasitic will defend these anti-social values and behaviors as a first line of defense of their own atrocious values and behaviors.  There are other large portions of the female population that think this behavior is wrong but fear the backlash of advocating for a less psychopathic version of femininity.

Recommendations for women

Intentionally separate yourself from the Flock.

Women wanting a stable marriage will guard who they engage with in person or via media.  They separate themselves from women that have parasitic values and behaviors and especially anyone that brags about winning arguments for the sake of winning arguments.  These women also avoid women or media that advocates for using sexuality as control.  They do not watch media that normalize conflict within a relationship and especially media that normalizes being upset that someone is happier than you.

This also means not watching media that normalizes envy or jealousy towards people that are successful in prudent ways.  Efforts to rebrand certain levels of successes as bad just because everyone can’t reach them is toxic.  There is always going to be a top 1 percent of any class (income, happiness, etc.) and hating them for being at the top even though they have not done anything abusive or neglectful means you are in the flock.

Recommendations for men

First, don’t consume trash media.  Second, avoid women that consume or produce trash media.  Third, avoid women that have friends that have not separated themselves from the flock. 4. Trust your gut if you think she is wearing a mask of sanity and create distance quickly

The Anger Thinking Error

The psychopathic person uses the Anger Thinking Error and has a lot off neurotic irritability other negative emotions that contribute to their struggles to control their emotions and anger in this way. Like the narcissist they wear their mask of sanity very well in shallow relationships but when faced who is beginning to know them their mask of sanity begins to slip.

Signs the mask of sanity is slipping

• Psychopaths become emotionally vicious they cannot control themselves when they are ask to stop being parasitic.  For example, to follow a budget and stop running up debt.
• They become dysregulated at the idea they are not the primary beneficiary of a relationship.
• They also create conflict very easily as a way to deal with their boredom.  The very fact that someone might be happier than them is all the excuse they need to target them.
• They can be extremely confrontational and aggressive characters, seemingly turning on a dime.
• They can be hyper-sensitive, and suddenly fly off the handle with little or no provocation.
• Psychopathic women will often “test the waters” to see just how physically or emotionally abusive they can be and will constantly seek to erode whatever boundaries they find. (they can’t help causing trouble).

The anger corrective targets this neurotic anger and helps people use the Emotional Intelligence personal skill of Emotional Regulation.  It is literally impossible to be an angry person and a emotionally intelligent person.

CORRECTIVE:  You must eliminate Anger, not just control it.   Remember that anger is never necessary to resolve a problem.  Find Thinking Errors that lead to anger and use their correctives.   Recognize the short and long term costs of anger.  Apply rational thinking and reasoning. Learn to accept that frustration (not getting want one wants) is common to everyone and does not have to lead automatically to anger.

Recommendation for Women

Use the corrective, obviously and do it without exception.  Every time and place you feel anger work on using the corrective. If you have to prioritize where to feel the least amount of anger go it first with your husband and children. Realize it is never ok to take your anger out one someone, it makes you look like a total psycho. You cannot use this thinking error without a robust self-awareness into your other thinking errors.

Recommendation for Men

Avoid angry women no longer how reasonable their excuse seems.  This is doubly true in your personal life. Lots of angry women look for excuses to be angry, causes to champion so they can take their anger out on someone. Eventually, out of convenience they will turn that anger on you.  As such, you should avoid anyone that is a part of outrage culture and most feminist.

The Sexuality Thinking Error

Sex is a fundamental part of human existence and a happiness gap there becomes another plaything. Women that want stable marriages are also going to want to make sure they don’t harm their relationships with the sexuality thinking error.

Recommendations for Women

Simply use the corrective. Very likely following the other four recommendations will make working on this recommendation much easier.

CORRECTIVE:  Eliminate power, control, conquest, and exploitation and replace with mutual, dignified, respectful, loyal, interpersonal relationships. Eliminate stereotypes and learn to view others as whole human beings instead of just a way to get what you want.  Consider feelings and rights of others in all interactions.  Develop sensitivity to needs of others.  Look for mutual fulfillment instead of exploitation and short-term excitement.

Recommendations for Men

Be sensitive to a woman that appears to use her sexuality in a parasitic way, even if it is just for attention. Look out for the woman that dress provocatively but then plays the victim when she gets extra attention. Small versions of this include women revel in having the upper hand in the dating scene and are dismissive to how exploitive dating can be for men.

Emotional Competency of Service Orientation

The Emotional Competencies of Emotional Intelligence are the competencies that help thrive in organizations so they can have successful careers.  A marriage is a relationship most people want to thrive in.  The social skill of service orientation is the exact opposite of a parasitic lifestyle.  Interestingly, most people are happier when they are doing good acts for others.

Recommendations For Women

Women wanting a thriving marriage will continually develop their service orientations skills within the marriage.  They can decide to be lazy and smart or hardworking and smart when it comes to service orientation.  Any gap in willingness to use their service orientation in a relationship versus their personal life is a sign of a lack of integrity. (get anchor).

Remember the 12:1 ratio for maintaining positive relationships and be excited to use that within your marriage.  Find ways to work on the altruism personality trait What Is Altruism? Definition, Types, and How to Cultivate It (verywellmind.com)

Recommendations For Men

Men, you obviously want a woman that is high in service orientation.  But you should make sure that they have this orientation towards their families above all else, and not their job.  The skills and lessons they learn working should make them better with their service orientation and not be an excuse to slack off.  The mask of sanity psychopathic women wear enjoys the game of trapping men and then slowly eroding their expectations and boundaries to see what they cannot get out of.  This is grooming you for future abuse and neglect.  Look for drops off in service orientation as she tries to take the relationship to the next level or if she gets less responsive after a personal success.  Those are black flags in a relationship.

And as always, don’t be a hypocrite.  Set the standard and work to improve your altruism within the relationship.

Increase Positive Emotions Generally

It stands to reason that perhaps one reason women are not happy in general is their personality traits for happiness are underdeveloped.  Basic personality theory understands there is a biological component to personality, but people can work on their own mindsets and adjust their personality with enough work.

Recommendations for Women

A central refrain for this blog is unilateral self-improvement.  Women can undertake by themselves actions that will make them feel more positive emotions more frequently with a little bit of effort.  It is hard to feel resentment at someone else’s happiness when you have worked on driving down your negative emotions while improving your negative emotions.

Part of this will mean removing any anti-social values and expectations you have that create a false sense of victimhood. Improving your dependability and integrity mean you have less reasons to feel a false sense of victimhood when you justly asked to improve.

Here are some recommendations for nurses to avoid burn out

Central among them are improving their ability feel positive emotions. If this works for nurses under their stress level it can work for everyday women.

• Noticing Positive Events: Take time to savor everyday positive moments, such as celebrating a patient reaching a milestone toward recovery or appreciating meaningful interactions.
• Capitalizing: Amplify and extend the impact of positive events to strengthen the connection between the event and the emotions. This skill could include telling a friend about the event, sharing it on social media or writing about it in a journal.
• Gratitude: Nurture a sense of thankfulness and express gratitude to others.
• Positive Reappraisal: Reframe the significance of negative or stressful events in a more positive way.
• Mindfulness: Pay attention, focus on the present moment, in a nonjudgmental fashion, such as through formal meditation or informal activities that incorporate mindfulness into everyday workplace activities.
• Personal Strengths: Recognize and appreciate one’s unique set of strengths, skills and talents, and acknowledge those of colleagues.
• Attainable Goals: Establish and pursue personal and team goals for a greater sense of control in a sometimes hectic and often unpredictable work environment.
• Self-Compassion: Be kind and understanding toward oneself and help create a workplace culture where personal experiences with errors and feelings of inadequacy are openly shared and addressed.
• Compassion Toward Others: Help colleagues with seemingly small gestures that provide emotional support and build an overall culture of collaboration and teamwork.

Recommendations for Men

If you ever find yourself having to lower your positive emotions when a woman is around because she becomes hostile, you may be dealing with a psychopathic woman.  The anger, the shallow affect, the parasitic attack on your happiness are all you need to see.  You cannot change her.  Any effort to change her will give her what she sees as a valid excuse to get even worse.  Protect yourself at all times and consider your options.  Destroying the relationship is a game to her. Extracting what she can from you is also a game to her. 

Simple Strategies to Increase Positive Emotion Skills – AACN

Closing Thoughts

A simple thought experiment often used in Moral Reasoning exercises is a simple role reversal.  I have laid out the situation where divorced women report that a perceived happiness gap was a leading reason they got divorced.

Do a simple role reversal. 

Imagine if divorced men reported the reason for their divorce was a happiness gap and it was because their wives were happier than they were.  It would be instantly clear to the women men should improve his own happiness rather than risking his children having a higher ACE score due to men’s inability to regulate their negative emotions.  A man attacking his wives happiness would clearly be seen as psychopathic.  A man even attempting to have a parasitic lifestyle is seen as way more psychopathic than a woman doing the same.

Many women initiate more divorce than men in large part because of their parasitic attitudes toward happiness.  These women need to be seen as accurately as they are.

Societal Recommendations

Society, and by that I mean the legal institutions like the courts and police departments and the social institutions like Office of Children’s Welfare need to start taking a serious look at women displaying parasitic behavior.  There is a lot of debate between sociopathic and psychopathic behavior but if a woman is displaying these behaviors courts should not treat those women as acting in good faith.

A legal system that is trauma informed is going to understand the traumatic behaviors of  parasitic or psychopathic women as much as it the understand parasitic or psychopathic behavior of men.  Unfortunately Birds of a Feather Flock together and many of these organizations are filled with neglectful and abusive women that lack the moral standing to be in a position of public trust and authority.  They are filled with women that use excessive amounts of daycare, or they cannot maintain a relationship with a good man due to their own parasitic inclinations and other anti-social values and behaviors. As such, caring and loving parents of both sexes cannot look to existing institutions for solutions.

Research Quotes

“In general, the higher the degree of caring, the narrower will be the range of conflict”[3]

“there is no reason to expect that the remaining happiness gap should affect the likelihood of divorce. In terms of empirical investigation, controlling for the variables that capture the gains to marriage and the value of exiting the marriage for each spouse, and the total happiness of the couple, there should thus be no statistical association between happiness gaps and divorce….. This paper tests this prediction. It finds that on the contrary, ceteris paribus, happiness gaps are robustly associated with a higher likelihood of a future separation.”

“the effect of happiness gaps is asymmetric. Happiness gaps are associated to future divorce only when they are unfavorable to women, but not to men.”

This is consistent with the idea that some divorces are initiated by women, not only because they are unhappy, but because they are less happy than their husband.

Women also more often than men declare that “it is all right for a couple with an unhappy marriage to get a divorce, even if there are children”, or that “marriage is an outdated institution”, and less often agree that “marriage is a lifetime relationship and should never be ended” (all these differences are statistically significant). This suggests that the new generation of German women do not exclude exit (rather than voice or loyalty) as a possible solution in case of marital conflict.

[1] (PDF) You Can’t Be Happier than Your Wife. Happiness Gaps and Divorce. (researchgate.net)

[2] Why you mustn’t be happier than your wife | Express Yourself | Comment | Express.co.uk

[3] ResearchGate

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Thinking Errors and Correctives is one of the major frameworks this blog will use to dissect abusive and neglectful women’s thoughts and behaviors.  A lot of anti-social values are tied up into institutionalized patterns of thinking and they become really easy for regenerate people to understand and refute with the right vocabulary.

Thinking errors (aka distorted thought patterns) are the thoughts that make someone abusive or neglectful to themselves or others.  Each thinking error comes with an attendant corrective.  Thinking Errors and correctives make up the foundations of cognitive based treatment.  People will get the most benefit from this information by using it to improve their own thinking and behavior rather than using it to try and “fix” others. 

Very often, people with a lot of thinking errors do not realize when they are getting the consequences of their abusive and neglect behavior and lack of integrity.  When they improve their behavior by improving their thinking, they stop getting that painful feedback.  Likewise, as their behavior and integrity improve, they reap the benefits.

Whether it be an assault cycle, a neglect cycle, or a substance abuse relapse, thinking errors are foundational to understanding any relapse cycle. Using the correctives is vital to overcoming the Tactics to Avoid Change.  Overcoming the Tactics to Avoid Change is of primary concern for people that want to truly improve their emotional intelligence and leadership abilities.  In the terms of Hammerstein-Equord Leadership Model, using the Thinking Errors is stupid and using the correctives is smart.

Thinking Errors dovetail very well with tactics to avoid change. Those are collections of thinking errors that stop us from self-improvement. This blogs self-improvement recommendations are based on the emotional intelligence framework as well as the Marine Corps Leadership Traits and the Marine Corps Leadership Principles.

As the blog develops, I will write articles using each thinking error and place a link in each section. I used Yoast to make the thinking errors text SEO and readable for anyone that wants to steal the content for their site.

ENERGY

You are extremely energetic; want action, want to move when bored, and you have lots of ideas at what would make life more exciting.  You don’t know how to cope with boredom.

CORRECTIVE:  Redistribute your energy and fill all responsibilities first.  Apply effort to overcome boredom (anger + self-pity = fatigue).   Develop self-generated enthusiasm for healthy activities.

FEAR

Your fears are widespread, persistent, and intense, especially fear of being caught for something you did, fear of injury or death, and fear of being put down

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to use fear constructively as a guide for responsible living.   Fear stops you from injuring yourself and is a way to improve yourself.

ZERO STATE

You often feel like absolute nothing, a zero, feel absolute worthlessness, along with feeling hopelessness, and that nothing matters in the end. Your greatest fear is that you are a nothing and you compensate by attempting to prove you are everything.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to see yourself as others do.  Lower your unrealistic expectations.  Continue to make rational decisions with a focus on the long term.  Learn to have faith that feelings of worthlessness are temporary.

ANGER

To work with you is like a war against anger.  You respond with anger to anything or anyone you use as opposing what you want for yourself.  Anger is a major way of controlling people and situations.

CORRECTIVE:  Anger must be eliminated; not just controlled.   Remember that anger is never necessary to resolve a problem.  Find Thinking Errors that lead to anger and use their correctives.   Recognize the short and long term costs of anger.  Apply rational thinking and reasoning. Learn to accept that frustration (not getting want one wants) is common to everyone and does not have to lead automatically to anger.

CRIMINAL PRIDE

Criminal Pride is having pride in one criminal’s acts.  Also, you think you are better than anyone else, even when this is clearly not the case. Criminal Pride preserves your rigid self-image as a powerful, totally self-determined person.   “If I bend, I break,” sums up the thinking of risking everything for a small issue.  Threats of consequences may mean nothing to you when you see yourself as having to choose between compromising (backing down) or maintaining your Criminal Pride. 

CORRECTIVE:  Revise definitions of adulthood or success.   See others’ points of view. Revise your self-image based on realistic accomplishments.  Develop trust and respect for other people’s rights.   Consider the effects of injuries on others.

POWER THRUSTING

You need power and control over others; especially to bring yourself out of a zero state.  You spend your life seeking power over others instead improving yourself.   Your greatest power and excitement is doing the forbidden and getting away with it.   You seek power, control, and dominance in all areas of your life.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to put yourself in others’ place.  Know what you are doing and why.  Reduce pretensions.   Apply control to yourself instead of others.   Work towards legitimately acquire authority to benefit others. Learn to tolerate feeling bad and work through it with realistic expectations

SENTIMENTALITY

You may express a lot of sentimentality about mothers, old people, the weak, babies, animals, etc., but the sentiments are not backed up by responsible and caring behavior.  The people you “love” are often those you hurt most, and are often the people who are easiest for you to control and dominate.

CORRECTIVE:  Keep your commitments to those you say you care about instead of isolating (fragmenting) them.  Practice enduring care for others and show it by serving others.  Learn the difference substantial concern not just wishing someone well.

RELIGION

You may be very active in religion but are isolated on the inside —you don’t practice its principles in your daily behavior.  Like sentimentality, your religious beliefs do not stop you from Criminal Thinking actions. Your beliefs support your self-image as a “good and decent” person if you feel guilty in the moment, (but not enough to change).

CORRECTIVE:  Practice your religion in every day behaviors.  Do a daily moral inventory and use religious or spiritual beliefs to realistically judge yourself instead of others.  Recognize that church attendance and words do not make a person good; good actions are necessary.

CONCRETE THINKING

You focus on particular objects and events and don’t understand abstract principles or see larger patterns or general concepts.  Often, you miss the point of important conversations.  Not understanding deeper meanings to words; you misuse them. Terms like “love”, “friendship”, “trust”, etc. are beyond your understanding.  You pay attention to the surface appearance without looking for deeper meanings.    You use words like “love” and friendship” to get what you want without having to give back.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to think conceptually.  Develop concepts of family life, money, morality, etc.  Learn to see the “big picture” instead of isolated events. For example, there are not ‘friends’ and ‘true friends’.  Look for the overall meaning or message in situations instead of just the detail alone.  Apply inner principles to thoughts and actions. 

FRAGMENTATION

xtreme changes in your mental state occur within short periods of time.  There is a pattern of starting something then changing your mind.  You go with whatever you’re thinking about at the moment, “forgetting” anything that might go against your current plan.   Fragmentation is used to ignore your sentimentality and religion when they don’t fit with current desires or plans.

CORRECTIVE:  Set values that can guide your whole life.  Stop and check out your current plans against higher principles before acting.  Integrate thoughts, words, and actions.  Learn to weigh out conflicts instead of dismissing facts.

UNIQUENESS

You consider yourself to be special, one-of-a-kind, and totally different from others, especially other criminals.  Although in reality you may be very predictable and very much like other criminals, you want to be “above” the rest and stress your “unique” set of circumstances.

CORRECTIVE: In group, find similarities with others.  When pointing out others’ problems or errors, follow up by examining how this relates to yourself also.  Observe ordinary (non-criminal) people solving life problems and apply to yourself.

PERFECTIONISM

You have extreme standards of perfection but do not apply them consistently.  You may apply your high standards to others to tear them down when they fall short of what you think is important.  Your perfectionism depends on what you value in the moment. You also use perfectionism to avoid a difficult task because you might not succeed perfectly.

CORRECTIVE:  Use high standards for self-improvement, but don’t improve yourself just to prove yourself to be better than everyone else. Try and be the best version “you” that you can be. Learn proper balance and proportion.  Check out standards to see if they are realistic.  Learn tolerance of others.

SUGGESTIBILITY

You are easily swayed toward any behavior you like, especially when you are bored and looking for action or excitement.  In order to get something, you want you may take huge risks with behavior.  You are not “suggestible” to responsible thinking and behavior and do not look towards responsible people for role models.  You do not want to be boring like them.

CORRECTIVE:  Change the direction of suggestibility away from crime and towards responsible conversation, legitimate success, entertainment, and peers.

LONERISM

You lead a secretive life: one against the world.  You feel you are apart from others even if you’re socially active.  Although you voice sentimentality, you are never so tight with anyone that you can’t get up and go on a moment’s notice if something more exciting comes along.  You are willing to jeopardize relationships by committing crimes and going to prison, etc.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to become an active, complete part of a social groups or family. Learn the meaning of interdependence, making and keeping commitments, opening up and tolerating vulnerability.  Learn the meaning of intimacy and apply effort to overcome fears.

SEXUALITY

For you, sex or your sexuality is another way of gaining power over people.  Your sexuality is motivated by wanting to bend someone to your will or to obtain something you want. Getting what you want is essential and your “partner” is a merely a means to get what you want, be it status, money, drugs or physical things you value.  The rush of sexual attraction becomes its own addiction.

CORRECTIVE:  Eliminate power, control, conquest, and exploitation and replace with mutual, dignified, respectful, loyal, interpersonal relationships. Eliminate stereotypes and learn to view others as whole human beings instead of just a way to get what you want.  Consider feelings and rights of others in all interactions.  Develop sensitivity to needs of others.  Look for mutual fulfillment instead of exploitation and short-term excitement.

LYING

Lying is a way of life for you.  It’s another way to gain power and to save you from consequences.  More common than planned-out lying is automatic and habitual lying.  You lie by omitting important facts or distorting them.  Lying defines your reality and helps you maintain control by keeping control of information.  You know the best lies contain just enough truth to be believable.

CORRECTIVE:  Stick to facts. Imagine that a situation was videotaped and compare your version to one the viewer would see if she had access to the whole picture.  Learn to accept consequences as part of life and practice telling the truth even when it will put you in an unfavorable light or lead to negative consequences.  Establish honesty as a consistent value, not something to be thrown away when inconvenient.

CLOSED CHANNEL

You don’t give out information about yourself.  Secrecy = power. You have a closed mind and do not take in messages that contradict your way of thinking.  You are not receptive to challenges to your point of view, you ignore what you don’t want to hear.

CORRECTIVE:  Develop a wide-open channel of two-way communication.  Ask for self-criticism.  Look for help to correct thinking errors.   Be honest about inner thoughts and actions and ask for feedback, responses—then listen to them with an open mind.    Eliminate secrecy as a way of life.

 “I CAN’T”

The passive aggressive thinking erro.: You say “I can’t” when you mean, “I won’t,” when you are not willing to do something and do not want open and honest about your refusal.  You use this to escape responsibility, but at the same time you believe there is nothing you can’t do if you want to.

Recognize that this is really a statement of refusal rather than inability.  Remind yourself of willingness to go out of your way to get things you want, and apply this willingness to required tasks.   Implement free choice “I can” and “I do.”

VICTIM STANCE

When you are held accountable for your actions, you blame others and portray yourself as a victim.  Having no regard for the rights of others, you demand total respect for your rights and desires.  If you do get what you want, you see yourself as a poorly treated victim but you refuse to see that you have victimized others.  Importantly:  A criminal who refuses to give up the Victim Stance will not change.  According to Samenow and Yochelson (the original creators of Thinking Errors) this particular thinking error is the single best predictor regarding the change process.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn the difference between being held accountable for one’s own actions (receiving consequences) and being a victim (harmed or having rights violated with no control or choice in the matter).  Take responsibility for your decisions and actions.

LACK OF TIME PERSPECTIVE

You demand immediate success and ownership of what you want—and you want everything now.  You don’t use the past to learn from your mistakes, nor do you learn to make realistic plans for your future. 

CORRECTIVE:  Stop making the same mistakes over and over again. Get a realistic perspective of time by developing patience and delaying gratification.  Plan realistic goals and practice working slowly and steadily toward them.

FAILURE TO PUT ONESELF IN ANOTHER’S POSITION

The Lack of Empathy Thinking Error.  While you demand every break and consideration for yourself you don’t stop to think about what other people think, feel, or expect.  You may not only disregard another person’s point of view; you may even ignore another person exists when planning to get your way.  You don’t recognize how many people are affected by your actions, or how each is affected.

CORRECTIVE:  Stop and list all people possibly affected by an action before acting.   Imagine being in another person’s place, and then review the situation from their perspective.  Recognize that others’ rights and feelings are as important as your own. Develop empathy – the ability to actually feel what another is feeling by putting yourself in their situation mentally.  Practice being considerate and helpful to others.

FAILURE TO CONSIDER INJURY TO OTHERS

our life has caused a lot of injury to those around you, but you don’t view yourself as hurting others.  When held accountable you see yourself as the injured party.  You can witness tears, physical and verbal pain and even physical symptoms of injury and still deny that you have hurt someone.

CORRECTIVE: Develop empathy and sensistivity to the feelings of others.  Consider impact on all people.  Inventory the cost of your actions to others.  Develop and experience self-disgust for injuring others.

FAILURE TO ASSUME OBLIGATION

You have no sense of real obligation and use any excuse to not meet your obligations.  Obligations get in the way with what you want to do.  Being obligated to another person is to be seen as weaker or lesser than them.  Obligations are irritating to you and, if pushed, you will respond with resentment and anger.

CORRECTIVE:  Make a commitment to fulfill obligations—to do work, pay bills, obey laws, and develop moral sense inside self.  Recognize that everyone has obligations.  Carry out obligations to others, as you would want others’ to honor their obligations to you.

DEFERMENT

You are going to stop hurting other people and you’re going to do your hardest work—tomorrow.   But today you can’t.  You think that one day in the future it will be easier to change but that day never comes.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to see things in stages.  Learn from the past.  Recognize that there are three options:

1. Continue to live without changing and continuing to hurt yourself or others;
2. CHANGE with no more half measures; 
3. Die.

Set responsible, realistic goals daily and carry out work required.  Do it now.  Eliminate excuses and “I can’t” attitude.

FAILURE TO ASSUME RESPONSIBLE INITIATIVES

You don’t want to assume responsible initiatives (planning and starting projects) because:

1. You don’t get the same rush as when you do forbidden activities.
2. You are not guaranteed success or attention.
3. You are often afraid that taking on responsibilities will expose your lack of knowledge or ability.

You are a get-by artist, expecting others to figure out everything that needs to be done, tell you how, and make it easy for you to accomplish.

CORRECTIVE:  Learn to create your own plans and jobs to help improve yourself or help others.  Remember motivation develops only after an initiative is taken.  Learn by doing.  Actively look for ways to improve yourself and situations then act on a responsible plan.

OWNERSHIP

You don’t really recognize that there is such a thing as “theft. You don’t recognize that other people own things. If you are looking at it and want it, it’s yours (including human beings). Considering yourself a decent person, you have the right to have anything that suits you—you “deserve” to have it.  You see people as pawns or checkers waiting to be dealt with as you wish.  You justify to yourself taking something from someone by saying they don’t need it as much as you do, they don’t deserve it, and they don’t care if I have it.

CORRECTIVE:  Earn everything you own through honest work. Learn to accept that you cannot have everything you want.  Respect the boundaries of others.  Refuse to excuse taking things by analyzing how or why someone else got them.

FEAR OF FEAR

You are afraid that fear will keep you from doing things.  Fear is your enemy and you are angry about it.  Sometimes you use drugs or alcohol to eliminate fear.  When you see fear in others you point it out, scorn it, and are ready to pounce. 

CORRECTIVE:  Use fear smartly and recognize its value as a guide to reconsider plans.  Discuss fears with others and see if a fear needs to be faced and overcome or if it is rational and needs to be obeyed.  Abstain from drugs or alcohol when making decisions or doing thing that may hurt yourself or others.  Recognize that fear of failure keeps you on your toes to make a good effort.  Develop empathy for fear in others.  Recognize doubt, concern, apprehension, and anxiety as helpful and normal.

LACK OF TRUST (Criminal Trust)

Trusting someone is a show of weakness to you. Although you refuse to trust others you demand that they trust you, even though your behavior clearly shows you are not trustworthy.  You believe in a ‘criminal’ trust, meaning that someone will back you up in a crime or keep silent when questioned.  “Trusting God” means that if you pray at the right time God will get you out of a tough spot.  You rely on power for control, not trust.  Your favorite victims are those who are most trusting, those you ha e manipulated to believe you have their best interests at heart while you actually exploit their trust.

CORRECTIVE:  Earn trust by responsible behavior over time, pay attention to how people treat you and others.  Recognize that trusting requires strength and ability to take risks, not weakness.  Recognize the harm to society that criminal trust causes.

REFUSAL TO BE [SEEN AS] DEPENDENT

Like anyone else, you have received help from others for some things in life.  But you don’t see yourself this way because to you dependence is weakness and that makes you vulnerable.  Therefore you downplay or deny the support you have received.  You do not understand the concept of interdependence.  You like others to depend on you even though you not dependable.

CORRECTIVE:  To build relationships, learn to experience Interdependence, the give and take of caring and nurturing.  Learn to share.  Make allowance for others’ faults.  Accept that everyone is vulnerable in some ways at some times.

LACK OF INTEREST IN RESPONSIBLE PERFORMANCE

You do not experience the feeling of satisfaction that comes from doing something responsibly or putting out long-term effort.  Responsible performance looks dull and boring because it does not guarantee immediate excitement.  If you do become interested in a responsible project, your interest is short-lived unless you can continually attention seek.

CORRECTIVE: Act responsibly to develop interest from the experience. Emphasize doing rather than feelings.  Learn to give self-credit where due instead of demanding recognition from others.

PRETENTIOUSNES

You think you are the best, will be the best, but not that you will do your best.  You may like to flash money, drive a big car, or appear superior to others, feeling you don’t need to put forth the same effort as others to be a success or get what you want. Your opinion of yourself is tremendously over-rated. You set unrealistic goals but are not willing to follow through with the real work involved in honest achievement.

CORRECTIVE:  Replace pretensions with reasonable expectations.  Responsibly earn what you get and be willing to start from the bottom and legitimately work your way up.  Learn patience, tolerance for tedious work.  Accept lower voltage excitement and enthusiasm.  Base your self-worth on inner qualities and good deeds instead of superficial standards.

FAILURE TO MAKE AN EFFORT OR ENDURE ADVERSITY

“Effort” means doing what you don’t want to do, or not doing what want to do.  You put out little effort in being responsible but you may put out a lot of energy doing things you do want to do.  Instead of putting up with the adversity of life, you escape into criminal fantasies and actions.  Adversity is anything that isn’t going your way, which you see as a failure to control, and you refuse to accept this.

CORRECTIVE:  Accept that there must be consequences to the failure to put forth effort.  Remind yourself of how much energy you have when you want to misbehave, and direct it toward responsible efforts instead.  Remember that everyone experiences adversity and work to find solutions instead of giving up.

POOR DECISION-MAKING FOR RESPONSIBLE LIVING

You don’t use sound reasoning, fact-finding, or consideration of costs, risks, or options.  You are reluctant to ask questions to learn facts before making decisions.   If your pretensions or desires are contradicted by the facts you don’t want to hear them.

CORRECTIVE:  Be cautious and careful in considering consequences.  Replace ‘cold blooded’ decision making with concern for others.  Use integrity, flexibility, open-mindedness, fact-finding, and time management.  Ask questions, get feedback from responsible people.  Consider impact of all options on others.

CORROSION AND CUT-OFF

You may stop yourself from a criminal activity because of your conscience, a sincere wish to change, sentimental or religious thinking, or fear of getting caught.  You overcome these inhibitions by the processes of corrosion and cut-off.  Corrosion is a mental process in which you gradually drown out the “conscience” by repeating and increasing thoughts of the crime, until your desire to commit the crime out-weighs the other thoughts which might have stopped you.  Cut-off is a mental process that gets rid of the “conscience” thoughts quickly and completely—you use fragmentation to block out the conscience and shift your entire focus onto the crime.  You block out thoughts of how bad you’ll feel later.

CORRECTIVE:  Experience self-disgust and use it as a tool to remind self of consequences of crime.  Recognize guilt and fear as useful tools to guide daily behavior.  Inventory the results of past crimes and weigh long-term consequences. Do not allow yourself to fantasize about the excitement of criminal acts.

BUILDING UP THE OPINION OF ONESELF AS A GOOD PERSON

You convince yourself that you are really a good and decent person and resent the idea that you are a criminal even though you clearly committed criminal acts which are not “good and decent.”  The false image of yourself as a good person gives you permission to continue committing crimes.  You minimize the harm you have caused and may refer to a planned, serious crime as “a mistake”.  Your crimes may lead to lifetimes of devastating pain or even death for victims, but you will view the fact that you have done some good deeds as “canceling out” the harm you’ve done.

CORRECTIVE:  Recognize how the harm done in a criminal lifestyle outweighs the good you have done.  Do a balance sheet of right and wrong acts.  Make a daily inventory of conscience.  Do the right thing for the right reasons.

SUPEROPTIMISM

If you decide you want to do something, you consider it as good as done.  As you approach a criminal activity you reach a state of absolute certainty that you won’t get caught, no matter how unrealistic your plan. You don’t listen to reasonable doubts about anything if you want it done.  If someone tells you “maybe” you regard it as “yes”.  If you decide to become a responsible person, you are sure of your success and consider the change to have already happened just because you want it that way.  You use super optimism to convince yourself that you don’t really have to do any work to make things turn out all right – this applies to release, future job, future relationships, etc.

CORRECTIVE:  Eliminate super optimism by fact-finding, researching, weighing alternatives, and asking for input and feedback from responsible people.

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