Alienating Practices Essay Research Paper Some Alienating

Alienating Practices Essay, Research Paper

Some Alienating Practices

“This is to much see you later I’ll be back some other time!!”

This is a classic signature of a fight tactic known as fight evading. Fight tactics are designed to create distance between the feuding couple. While many may think that this is helping the situation in reality it is making it worse. Other fight evading tactics used by many especially conflict-habituated couples are:

 Leaving the house or the scene when a fight threatens

 Turning sullen and refusing to argue or talk

 Derailing potential arguments

 Using the “hit and run” tactic of filing a complaint, then leaving no time for an answer or for a resolution

(Marriages and Families, Mary Ann Lamanna Agnes Riedmann,6th ed. p 251)

This form of expression is part of a repeated cycle by a wife and withdrawal by a husband.(Kurdek 1995) Some researchers think this is so because the wives usually are more attuned to the emotional life of the relationship and have less power. This thus gives them the intuition to bring conflict out into the open using tactics that are attention getting in a negative tone. In return husbands attempt to minimize conflict by leaving the scene before things get out of hand. This in turn gives the wife the impression that the husband does not care enough to stay and work things out in the relationship in order to make them closer. While the husband sees it as a way to ease tension and work things out at a calmer more stable time.

These fight evading tactics lead couples to hold in anger and store it away in the back of there minds. This is known as gunnysacking. Over time these stored emotions will eventually become overwhelming and their imminent release will be ten times as furious as any lone feud.

This evident course of action leads to what social scientist call the “kitchen sink fight” . This is when the couples fight is not focused on the situation at hand but rather tainted by issues and situations that may be years old. This kind of fighting rarely, if at all leads to the resolution of the situation at hand or those brought up which occurred prior to this one.

One other fighting tactic is known as the mixed, or double messages. A simultaneous message that contradict each other. It may be verbal or one verbal and one nonverbal. For example, a woman tells a man, or vise versa, that he or she loves him or her while picking an invisible speck on there sweater showing there indifference to the subject. This mixed message or double message along with many others are done sometimes without the assailant being aware of there actions. Sarcasm is also another form of these messages and is readily used in such. (Marriages and Families, Mary Ann Lamanna Agnes Riedman,6th ed. p 254)

All of these tactics create distance between the couple and cause unnecessary pain and anguish to the relationship. My experience with these tactics are vast. I’ve been the victim as well as the perpetrator in most of these fighting tactics. From somewhat a measure of experience I can tell you that distance between the couple is the least of your troubles when you come home after alienating your wife or girlfriend.