A Remedy for Walking on Eggshells
Creating Healthy Headspace in Conflict
I know someone who is unpredictable and volatile. I walk on eggshells never knowing what will trigger this person. I become wary and calculating, but I still find myself in the line of fire. Outbursts seem out of proportion to circumstances. Silent treatments are especially unsettling. They send me into a flurry of searching for causes and simple solutions to relieve the distress. I turn my interior house upside down, like the woman searching for her lost coin, the cherished reason which will bring an end to my distress. Why do I believe finding reasons will make it all better?
Humans look for reasons to restore order and equilibrium in their lives. Four-year-old children are known for asking why as they seek to manage the world around them. Adults are no different. Why does the traffic always slow in the same section of freeway? Why did she look at me that way? Why did the man in the news attack that woman? Asking why offers control over the unknown—and untamable.
Having reasons helps us tolerate discomfort and accept change. If your boss informs you that you will be working late for a few days each week for a while, you might understandably become irritated until you find out that a colleague is taking time off for chemotherapy treatments. Interestingly, our willingness to accept change has to do with having reasons for it, even if we are inconvenienced.
What happens when we encounter behavior or situations that defy reasons? How do we handle outbursts, harm, and betrayal? Do we simply abandon a search for reasons? No, that begets cynicism, but brooding thoughts keep us tethered to an unsafe person’s whims. Our voice grows silent, and we open ourselves to further abuse.
Years ago, I learned about setting boundaries as a self-protective measure. It wasn’t easy for me because I was raised in a home where boundaries were viewed with suspicion. Setting boundaries felt unloving and selfish until I read Drs. Cloud and Townsend’s book Boundaries. I came to see that there are people I just can’t please or placate, people who, no matter what I do, leave chaos and whirlwinds in their relational paths. They operate by confirmation bias. They believe that people aren’t safe or loving, won’t give them what they need, or will reject them, and they go around unconsciously looking for their bias to be confirmed. They bifurcate people into categories of good and bad, nice guy and creep, friend and foe. They certainly would not accept this diagnosis, but their behavioral patterns reveal this reality. Setting boundaries around such people is sometimes necessary, but that is the easy part.
Sticking to the boundaries is the hard part. I have a friend whose mother alienated her with numerous hurtful texts based in irrational assessments of her daughter’s behavior. She claimed that her daughter lacked compassion and concern as she endured a bout of cancer. My friend was her sole support through this time, while also working full-time and getting ready for the birth of her third child. She could not be as physically present as she wanted to be, but she was there for her in other tangible ways. This wasn’t enough for her mom, so she accused her of lacking concern and wrote off the relationship in a one-sided lop, falsely claiming she did her best to salvage the bond. Her mother’s version of the story was out of sync with reality, which made my friend want to correct the mistruths. She could not, however, change her mother’s mind. She had no alternative but to set boundaries.
Why is keeping boundaries so hard? First, there’s the guilt felt for the breakdown of the relationship. In the absence of reasons for her mom’s volatility and harshness, my friend struggled with accusations that clawed their way into her sleeping and waking life, destroying her peace even after she learned that most of her siblings were estranged from their mom except for one who lives at home. Then there’s the ongoing need to make sense of the situation. The irony is that searching for reasons can make us act irrationally as we slap on simplistic assessments that confirm our priors. Most significantly, there are the unmet desires that never go away— holidays, birthdays, and milestones that pass without acknowledgement. My friend fears her children’s questions about grandma. She wishes they could see her, but there is a gap of silence for now. Self-accusations scream loudly into that chasm.
That deafening silence makes us prone to abandon boundaries, but we do so at our own peril. Volatile people often want to float back into our lives without acknowledgement of the harm done. It’s not that we should punish them, but that the truth needs airing. Without this, it’s just a matter of time before the next explosion comes. That’s why we need to be led less by my emotions and desires and more by logic and wisdom.
Ancient wisdom tells us that irrationality is a key part of being human. This is hard for moderns to accept, but older thinkers before the Enlightenment better understood this. Sixteen-hundred years ago, Augustine identified the intractability and prevalence of irrationality:
“… even after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see.”— City of God Book II. Ch. 1
I must be honest about my own “opinionative obstinacy.” Desire is at the heart of irrationality, the desire to be right and to have my biases confirmed. Why do I experience irrationality in myself, but I insist on reasonableness in others? Self-awareness is a good starting point for dealing with irrationality in others.
My best strategies focus on controlling myself, not the behavior of the volatile person. This means not letting my need for closure dominate me. I also have a “justice gene” that motivates me to fix—I like to say, improve, haha—the world around me. It’s hard for me to leave mistruths uncorrected and live with unresolved conflict. As a child, I was called the peacemaker in the family, but finding peace of mind with strings untied and messes unfixed is as difficult for me as resetting a default mode. So, I need more than behavior modification; I need a new mindset to keep from abandoning healthy boundaries.
Two seemingly opposite words “realistic” and “receptive” provide a framework for creating healthy headspace in conflict. I often resist accepting hard realities because I don’t want to be unhappy and sad. I must tell myself it’s okay to name and feel such realities. It’s not just okay; it’s vital for letting go of my desires and the things I lost. There’s a power in honestly accepting loss, but it doesn’t end there.
The word “receptive” is just as important because it keeps me from shutting the door to the relationship and becoming resentful. Being receptive means staying open to gifts amid the loss. Perhaps it’s the gift of another person who is currently in my orbit; or it’s a new relationship; or even a real change that happens in the volatile person. Being receptive does not mean I chase the difficult person in my life or fix the mess that person has created. It means waiting patiently until there is a softening of heart. This is not to say the other person comes back on my terms with a full apology and reckoning. It means I look for movement in my direction.
Meanwhile, I remain resolute to release the grip this person has on my happiness and life. The relationship may not be fixed for a while, but the burden of fixing it shifts onto the volatile person. Until that person is willing to take responsibility instead of blaming others for the relational chaos, my efforts are a temporary Band Aid. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees. My responsibility is “if it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18 ESV).
Loss is not the final reality, but grace is. Gifts never stop coming, but they often come from unlikely places and people. Realistic and receptive to deposits of grace, I do my part and surrender the rest.