Linked here is a short Emotional Intelligence quiz put together by Berkeley University that will test how well you can read facial emotions:
After you have done the quiz please come back and say hello by letting us know how you scored in the quiz in the comments section below!
Who Deserves Our Empathy?
Our society often conditions us to believe we should only show empathy towards people who are good.
Bad people, we are told, don’t deserve empathy and should be punished instead.
I want to question this thinking in my members only chapter on Empathy today . . .
Chapter 3 – Empathy
https://www.thelovesafetynet.com/chapter-3-empathy/
I would say a person who is being selfish and irresponsible probably needs empathy more than a person who is responsible and kind.
Because without taking the time to put ourselves in their shoes how will we ever be able to help the selfish and irresponsible people on this planet to grow up?
The kind of empathy I am referring to is not about compassion or sympathy. Quite the opposite, once I started putting myself in Steve’s shoes; I stopped thinking my love could heal him and saw that there were more practical steps I needed to take instead.
Without finding a way to understand how he was feeling I don’t think I would ever have been able to help.
Can you put yourself in your partner’s shoes for a few minutes? I wonder if there is a bit less you could ask for and something more practical and solid you could give?
Chapter 3 – Empathy
https://www.thelovesafetynet.com/chapter-3-empathy/
Kim Cooper
The quiz link said, “Error…page not found.”
Same: – error 404 – page not found
Sorry it should work now!!!
it worked ~ 18/20
You can learn from the test itself about some of the things they are looking for.
It seemed a bit like acting school training, as opposed to actual expressions with deep emotional content, but was informative and interesting nonetheless.
The kind of compassion/empathy you are describing seems to be that of a “mature” person (as in parental), more so than as a friend or equal or lover,… it can be hard to get to that place, but I think that is your point,… as what “comes easy” to us is exactly what seems to be fraught with challenges, illusions and disappointments, rarely meeting our “expectations” (of ourselves or others),…
Hi gak, Yes you are exactly right, sometimes we even refer to our program as re parenting. If we keep going along with what comes easy we will keep ending up in the same kind of mess. It does take a lot of maturity to step clear of our emotions and see the situation from a different point of view. What tends to happen when we do is to see that what we thought as personal often wasn’t really about us at all.
As hard as it can be to get that place it will usually give a much clearer view of what is necessary and what is not.
I believe what you are saying. I haven’t always found myself willing to do/be that for someone else’s benefit, but have found it necessary to be so for my own benefit,… iow, to protect myself. Being “called” into someone else’s dysfunctional psychological aspects via some kind of “empathy” would have to be on a case by case basis for me,… once burned, twice shy! (And I’m kind of old at this point, with not much extra time and energy to waste anymore!) (-:
Hey I wonder if you read the members article linked above (Chapter 4 on Empathy)? If you read my story you will see that the process I discovered was as much for my own benefit as it was for Steve. It was not a pretty place he had found himself in. Taking the time to put myself in his shoes actually woke me up to just how tough I needed to be!
I’ve been following on and off with interest, the articles you send via e-mail for quite some time,… I consider myself to be a “survivor” who went through this in the comparative “Dark Ages” of psychological awareness, when there were no forums like this, or even the terminology,… It took “forever”, and I only managed to escape, and eventually to heal and find my own healthy direction, but had very little success with shifting anything for anyone else,… At this point, it is pretty much in a “water over the dam” category, or “letting sleeping dogs lie”,… I have no true/honest desire to resurrect a battle or even the slightest confrontation,… I realize and applaud your focus of working within the relationship, but it isn’t really my situation,… Nevertheless, I both recognize and glean very valuable “tidbits” from your sharings, and can usually vouch for the sound of truth coming forth!,… I am happy to feel reinforced by the things you share, even if I’m not working on the same types of things at this point,…
Hey Gak I am glad that you are somewhere safe now and that you feel our perspective is helping you in your journey – your insights are always appreciated 🙂
your thoughts are always validating and insightful,… for the average human in our times, I think this is “cutting edge” work!
Kim I have a question that I have often wondered about. What’s the difference between dealing with someone who is narcissistic and obviously troubled, with money/career problems, drug/alcohol problems, or problems with hitting his wife, and dealing with someone who is narcissistic but has a stable career, no mind-altering addictions, and is not violent? The second, “more ok” guy can still be narcissistic in terms of verbally abusive, unable to trust, believing in his heart that he’ll never have a good close relationship, being exceedingly selfish and irresponsible in everything besides his career. But the second guy’s false pride is actually a lot harder to take down, no? He’s never going to run up against a wall of finding himself in the courtroom for domestic violence, or finding himself bankrupt, and then have to realize that he’s doing something wrong. He can continue to blame his wife for every bad feeling that he has (and there are many). It’s been just a slow process over here… no real watershed moments. The walls are too strong. Assuming the leadership role is not the same as when the problems are more obvious.
just to say, I recognize what you are talking about,… it’s very difficult and also debilitating to live with,…
Definitely the worst sort for those who are their victims
Hi Tanya, Yes I hear what you are saying. I wonder though if his life is really as stable as he makes out? Steve used to be pretty good at hiding his drinking (he would come home and get straight in the shower and brush his teeth before coming to bed) and back then he had me fooled that everything was great at work and he would be the manager soon. It was only when I called his work saying that I was concerned about him because he had been acting unusually and wondered if anything was going on at work that I learned a whole different story.
I even knew a woman who thought her husband was stable only to discover that he had lost his job 6 months before without telling her and had kept pretending to go to work. Instead he was going to play the poker machines all day and by the time she found out he had mortgaged everything including the cars.
Because the truth is that if someone feels the need to belittle you, there is somewhere in their life that deep down they know all isn’t well.
Kim, well, we’ve been married for 14 + years. So far his career has seemed to go pretty smoothly. He not infrequently procrastinates to the point of jeopardizing things, but I think he is actually fairly gifted at what he does and can pull things out of his butt in the final hour. At least, he’s only been laid off once. Sometimes I wonder if he has some huge sin in his past… his brother died at age 18 in a car crash… sometimes I wonder if my husband could have had something to do with that… a prank gone bad? – because of his total disinterest in thinking about his brother and his total disgust at his mom & sister when they reminisce about the brother. But then, knowing his mother, I only wonder a little: most of it is explained by knowing her, and the distaste with which she described to me her initial years with my husband as a baby. She didn’t like him. And oh is she a princess, and oh does she like to trash talk people. And she becomes verbally abusive when angry.
Maybe it’s because his brother was the so-called golden child of a narcissistic mother and your husband was her scapegoat. I understand N mothers are usually like that, they pick a favourite child. My MIL is also like that. My husband is a narcissist because of her and also her golden child. Whatever he does, he ca do no wrong with her! Even if it;s something obviously wrong, his mother always says he is right and has an excuse for him, even when he hurts his sister.
i got 14 right. very interesting as I when I think about peoples faces I’d say I was pretty good as reading what they were signalling.
Hey 14 is not a bad score Stef 🙂 The great thing about this test is that as gak mentioned, you are actually learning about it as you go. That is one of the things I love about emotional intelligence the most. It is so natural to us that it is very easy to learn. I just feel bad it took me so long to discover. I know I hurt someone I loved in the past very badly because I didn’t understand the difference between stonewalling and emotional overwhelm. That caused me to get angry and mean when I though this person was deliberately ignoring me, when really they were just overwhelmed.
Is there a difference between stonewalling and emotional overwhelm? I thought they were two different words for the same thing. Is stonewalling always emotional overwhelm? And when stonewalling is more or less a way of life, that means there is just so much emotion that is having to be held in check all the time?
Yes I think there is a difference between stonewalling and emotional overwhelm and being able to read someone’s face can help. For instance a person could clam up and refuse to talk because they are in false pride (stonewalling) or because they are ashamed (emotional overwhelm). The person in false pride would be more likely to look angry or aloof than embarrassed or ashamed. True emotions also tend to pass in time. If someone is holding on to their anger that can also be called a ‘racket’ and has much more to do with false pride. Deep down the person in false pride might feel a lot of shame but as long as they cannot even face it themselves there is little hope that anyone else is going to get them to see or admit to it easily.
17/20 (shame & embarrassment tripping me up)
Hey that is a pretty good score!
Tanya,
I’m struggling with exactly what you are saying. There are problems I could push to make into a bigger “watershed” moment, but doing so I worry will make me be the “crazy bad guy.” I’d like to put some thought to post a richer response for you, and will do so. It has been a long hard struggle and I am really trying to take a firmer, but more disengaged approach.
Firmer and more disengaged sounds good. That’s been helping me. Especially the disengaged. At least, making sure I have my own sense of space & life & self. Though I’ve been trying, lately, to explain to him that just because he has a bad feeling, doesn’t mean I am the cause of it. He’s ok enough that I just might get that through one of these days. Occasionally he has the capacity to take things in. It seems like we have kind of worked from outside to inside, from behaviors (like, “it’s not ok with me for you to speak to me in those words”) to feelings. We are just getting to actually talking about his feelings. 15 yrs together, and we’re just starting to touch on the real feelings.
Kim,
I have problems with my soon to be X because he gets mad at the “looks on my face” . I get blamed for being angry or mad or mean or even if I have a stupid look on my face. He tells me what I’m feeling and when I would defend myself it would escalate into a fight. We share kids and I still have to engage but any time we engage and he is angry or feels threatened I end up a mess. How do I protect myself?
I have to say, I think that EQ test is also a bit of a test of abstract thinking. Because to have a good handle on all those feeling words & the sometimes subtle differences between them, well that is a skill. If they had listed example situations instead of feelings, like ‘a) this person just found out she won the lottery’, then I expect some people who did poorly with choosing feeling words would do well.
My 15th anniversary is in a couple of weeks … I will agree with Kim that there is something (probably many things) about which your husband is covering over. I am not “filling in” much any more, and the places where my high functioning, professional husband is slipping up are easier to see. It is unfamiliar and uncomfortable for me to step back and allow things to go undone. Will it make a difference? … I’m minimally optimistic. There are a few bigger items to let drop shortly, but I need to get myself a more separated and more ready to accept the consequences before I can do those.
I’ve been repeating ad nausium “that is not appropriate,” or “it is not appropriate to say that (about me) in front of your boys.” I’ve gotten much better enforcing a firm limit on that, and getting the kids away as quickly as I can. I know he intellectually knows that what I am saying is correct, … that it is absurd when he says he needs to “teach” them and protect them from how “messed up” I am. Maybe some part of him will start to accept that my actions are protecting him from his own bad habits. It doesn’t really matter, the boys are far to old to keep hearing mommy being insulted.
I’m impatient with all of this … I prefer jumping in and fixing things, which is probably how we got to this place in the beginning. So instead right now I have a spouse who is trying to pretend I don’t exist, and acting like he doesn’t need me at all. It feels horrible, and I fear it will not resolve to a place of unity, but of further division. However, from a higher perspective it is also somewhat comic to observe. Like a teenager flailing desparately to reinforce his independance. We shall see.
Oh, that is a painful place to be where your husband is trying to act like you don’t exist. I have 2 boys too (and a younger daughter). I do think that it is important for me to speak up when my husband insults me in front of the kids. To keep calm, but express that his speech is not appropriate. I do think the kids have to hear me respond to it & not ignore it. I mean, if they are unlucky enough to hear their dad insult their mom, they also need to hear their mom stand up for herself calmly. And then end the conversation.
But when he’s trying to pretend that you don’t exist, I think it’s best to find something to keep yourself busy. We women especially need community, so find other people to occupy yourself with. Your kids, a friend who needs help, a counselor for yourself, a women’s group, or something you can do with other people to keep you busy and dispel the terrible loneliness that comes when hubby is ignoring. As far as making things happen, at one point I did grandstand over the dishes – when we had 3 small children & I wasn’t getting any help from him at home. I told him if he didn’t start doing the dishes on a regular basis we would never have sex again. This enraged him, and still angers him when he thinks about it. But it did help our marriage, I’d say: he did start doing the dishes. Because I just couldn’t think of a way to drop balls around the house and wait for him to pick them up. Stop feeding the children in the evenings? So I issued consequences. And it is a natural consequence that when a woman is over tired and not feeling helped/loved that she doesn’t feel amorous. I had been overcompensating for him in that department for way too long… as in making love when I really didn’t feel like it. When I was not being loved. We make love less often now, but it is more real. And in general, I have found that keeping calm and having your own things to do that you do successfully earns respect from a man like this. They respect independence, it seems to me. Not that earning his respect should be a main focus.
Also, MFRS, what is your husband slipping up on and what balls are you thinking about dropping on purpose? Mine just ignores everything at home that needs to be done: yardwork, mail/taxes, kids’ needs, his expense reports from work (I think he is currently over a year overdue on those), talking with his wife, helping around the house, doing fix-it projects. Eventually, when something becomes sort of a crisis, he’ll do something in these areas. We had a tree fall down in our yard and knock over 3 neighbors’ fences, (including one with a dog that needed to be fenced in) and he didn’t get that fixed for a year and a half. (when the neighbor with the dog finally complained loudly & frequently enough). Myself, I do complain loudly when he doesn’t help with the kids, because that is one area that I need help with and is a ball he needs to not drop for both his and the kids’ sakes. When he talks about not doing all these things, he just says that “he can’t” – that it’s “his problem” that he “can’t” do things he doesn’t want to do. -An extreme lack of self-discipline, and he doesn’t want to see that self-discipline can be acquired at any age.
The little things are being responsible for supervising the boys (the difference between telling them to do something vs making certain it actually gets done,) or self-care issues most adults would do for themselves. The biggest thing I could let crash is our taxes, which includes his business taxes, and he essentially ignores, saying his time is better spent elsewhere. I am tired of doing for him, especially when being criticized for everything. (I am also professionally employed full time, but salaried, so my part is simple.) I feel like I handle most of the other items you mention, although many are done by contracting out, rather than actually doing them (again usually criticized and micro managed in post mortum.) My husband does have self discipline … but he is unwilling/unable to really compromise and coordinate with anyone … he says he can, because he does with his admin assistant, but she pretty much does whatever he says, as does anyone with whom he works directly. If they are not willing to do so, he eventually stops working with them … this is his model – he calls it “leadership.” He will do academic work with the boys, but that is a whole different dynamic – has to be his subject matter agenda and on his time table regardless. He is very invested in providing them every advantage and opportunity he can, but although he would deny it, it needs to be his way.
Hmmm, he sounds tougher than mine… higher walls… especially with the way he has other people whom he can boss around. I notice that after mine travels, he is less content at home, and he looks at the dinners I’ve made and turns up his nose like, “I’m supposed to eat this? I didn’t order this” because when he travels he gets whatever his whim is at the moment, usually. If yours has people he can boss around on a daily basis, well that sounds like a hard habit to break. Our taxes are still undone this year. I was all set to take them in somewhere before the deadline, and he insisted we would do them ourselves and I shouldn’t take them in at that time. But I will ignore him in the future & just have them done I think, because it bothers me too much to not have them done. I suppose, filing separately is an option? Probably not a good financial one for us. I am not working, but am homeschooling the boys. I recommend Marriage encounter (wwme.org)… you two might get something out of it. We did. It might wake him up a bit to the importance of feelings & let him see how other men treat their wives. Esp. if he’s intelligent/academic/an abstract thinker.
I started homeschooling in fall ’13 and I love it. It keeps me grounded. The closeness with my children seems both important and healthy for both me and my kids.
Tanya, thanks for sharing. Very similar things ….. my husband can also be pretty critical of meals I prepare – he will choose to go out a fair amount, or order in when he is working from home, which is the majority of the time. He was not young when we were married, so the pattern of eating out started long before me. He has gained a lot of weight from this, and is starting to pass his eating habits onto our children – one place he knows I am right, but can’t consistently change his behaviors. Not to mention the cost, but he won’t see that. A big piece of his mom’s self esteem comes from cooking (traditional Italian mother) and his dad generally likes what she prepares, yet even he can find something to criticize in what she does far too often for my liking. I’ve pointed this out to my husband (who is protective of his mom,) but I don’t know what really registers anymore.
Our older two boys are also homeschooled as of this year, and the oldest was out the year before. This is primarily driven by dad’s choice, but he is not “teaching” or “supervising” in the traditional sense, but rather using a collection of on-line programs and one day where he does take them to some shared theater and writing classes (the latter, he now wants the boys to set up themselves on-line as well.) I fill in when he can’t do something, and have scheduled some day progams myself. I find that especially with our middle son (we have 3, the youngest is still in school, but I suspect will be out next year) I need to be the enforcer to make sure assignments get done … actually in hind sight, I had to sit with the oldest last year to get “less preferred” assignments completed (writing tasks .) As I said, dad will do a lot with them, but it is inconsistent – when he wants to and on the topics he wants to cover. It is not a curriculum in the traditional sense – he self described this as tapas style, which is pretty accurate. They have learned a lot, but there is no schedule struture or plan. The boys are bright and curious, but there is a lot of “dabbling” into topics at will (mornings before dad’s first call, driving around on weekends or afternoons, pulling them to listen to something at bedtime 🙂 – it is all at dad’s will and on his timetable. It is nearly impossible to coordinate. The boys do listen to hours of BBC and history channel videos and nearly every “crash course” on Youtube. The culture of the household has really been self directed, life long learning. They learn a lot, but except for on-line math, the only “testing ” has been going through questions from various course books or test study guides which dad can purchase online. Because the level he selects is advanced, and they are all accelerated in math, it is challenging to push back about why this is wrong. I think one of the earlier places where my husband feels I did not support him was when the oldest was the summer going into 1st grade and I tried to reign him in from setting out very high “time expectations” for his academic work – I have since learned dad won’t sustain those goals, but at that point I felt I needed to push back .
I can work within this model when my husband is in an ok place with me; when he is like he is currently, I don’t want to make the effort and I find it difficult to see the good in what he does.
We actually did an Engaged Encounter weekend before we were married – in hind sight, I see how he was unable to honestly put thought into the questions being asked of him during that weekend, and I was frustrated he wouldn’t / couldn’t. Easily 5 years ago I contemplated trying to trick him into attending a Marriage Encounter weekend. I know he wouldn’t voluntarily go, and I felt that getting him there deceptively would backfire. Both of our family cultures are Catholic, but he doesn’t seem to have much if any real faith/spirituality behind it, so “degrades” anything related to these issues.
Kim – perhaps this discussion should go out of public space and just share emails?
Hey it is fine for you to continue conversing here MFRS – or if you would prefer, I can pass your email address on to Tanya?
Oh, I have been out of the loop for a while. Yes, Kim, feel free to connect me to MFRS personally. MFRS, we have a lot in common! At our house I am in charge of the homeschooling however, and I was the one who willed it.
16/20 for some reason love didn’t look like love to me LOL
15/20 Surprised I had so many correct. I get love and compassion confused as well as shame and sadness.
17/20. Like a couple others, I have a high-functioning husband who simply does whay he wants, when he wants. He owns 2 businesses, both of which are successful. In one business, he is known for innovation and people regularly joke about what he will do next to “save” the industry. But at home, taking out the trash doesn’t save the world, so he doesn’t do it. I have been filling in the gaps, including paying bills (we had power turned off 2x with a newborn b/c he forgot). I don’t know how to quit filling in. I get easily overwhelmed with visual clutter… if I don’t constantly work at keeping things tidy, I feel overwhelmed and unable to think clearly. So, I just keep on doing all this work. Even when I ask (using all the criteria he has for asking: a question that includes caveats for time and the word please), he will still say no if he doesn’t like how I asked or if he is angry at me or if he is tired, etc.
I am just reading through the Love Safety Net workbook. I am really hoping these workbook tasks really help life change here.
Hi Amy and welcome, Can you look at employ someone to help you manage the house? Also I wonder if you can give reminders about urgent household tasks to be done in a short note to his assistant / secretary at work.
Thanks, Kim. I have employed someone from time to time to do the odd project and I hire out chores like grass mowing and small repairs b/c I cannot do it all. He doesn’t have a secretary at work. His employees seem to work well with him; though, I don’t interact much with them to observe more than the most superficial interactions.
I realized this weekend that one of my core shame/anger triggers is something he does daily — he second guesses what I say. I read an article and I tell him, “the articles says x about this topic.” He will respond with, “really? Are you sure? Maybe you should do more research/get a second opinion.” If it is important to have his buy-in, I end up doing a lot of research and leg work for him to finally agree. Especially if he thinks he knows more (in a superior way) than the source. This occurs every day, from little stories in the news, to what the repair man said about the toilet, to what the latest law on health insurance may be. It is both exhausting and, I now realize, angering. I think I get angry because I feel as though I have been called a liar. Since this happens at least once per day, it is a huge stress/cortisol issue. I am thinking hard about what I can do to release myself from this… perhaps as some of my codependence work.
Hi Amy, You need to work on the exercises in the limiting abuse chapter of The Love Safety Net Workbook. Planning good comeback lines for when he does this so you are ready. You might say – I have done enough research to satisfy myself that things are all good. Then if he argues, you could say fine but I don’t have time for that, if you want to research it further I am going to need to leave that to you.
This may not be perfect – it is just an example. A perfect comeback doesn’t start and argument it nips it in the bud.