Impact and Artifact, continued

Kathy wrote in response to the prior post:

I agree with the message.

I also know that in relationships of intimacy, it’s very difficult to sort through internally what is an artifact from what is a present impact….particularly when the other person has no interest or capacity to help examine the dynamics. 

An easier way for me to think about it is, only I can be responsible for my emotions.  I can’t be responsible for yours…..any more than I can be responsible for your thirst or heart beat.  But if I fully know and acknowledge mine objectively, and decide how I’ll act on them….it helps the relationship move over “bumps.”

Thank you for these comments, Kathy.  I am preparing for a class tomorrow morning about “how to repair a damaged relationship” and one of my topics is the distinction between impact and artifact.  Your comments help to focus my thinking.

I agree with much of what you say.  Specifically:

The line between impact and artifact is often fuzzy and is especially important in our most intimate relationships.  The line is much clearer when the relationship is one in which the issues can be clearly and honestly addressed.  When the other can’t or won’t address the issues with us, it becomes much more difficult to know what we are responsible for…and thus what we can do something about.

I also agree that it is a good default position that my sensations, emotions, thoughts, and wishes are all my own.  To the degree to which they derive from the choices of others, they are artifacts of those choices.  I am the one who can address them creatively.

Still, if I am looking at the choices I am making, there are some ways those choices are likely to impact others.  If I were to speak to you in a tone of voice that implied anger, and told you what a sorry excuse for a human being you are using terms that were demeaning and derogatory, I could reasonably expect that you would get hurt feelings. If I were to then brush off those feelings as just artifacts that are for you to address, I would be abandoning my responsibility for the harm I have done to our relationship.  I would be failing to be accountable.

If I were then to come to you and express clear remorse and commit to what I was going to do to be sure that I never treated you that way again, you might find that you could clean up the remaining artifacts successfully.  But if I were to repeat that behavior again and again you would likely begin to find that you couldn’t clean up the mess on your own.  You might decide to address me about how my behavior is impacting you.  Or you might just choose to have nothing to do with me.

It is easy to choose to have nothing to do with people when they are not important to us.  But some relationships have such history and are so connected to others with whom we want to maintain attachments that we can’t walk away from them.  We have to address them.

At this point my response to your response explodes into a much bigger essay about how we might act to create what we need when we are not confident that the other is committed to our welfare… or to their own.  Rather than going there let me just make one other point.

From my point of view in this hypothetical case as one who is chronically abusing you (which I certainly never wish to do but which is a perspective I know from my work with men who do), I can see that I am harming you by how you respond to me.  I may think you are over-reacting.  That what I said wasn’t that bad and you should know that I love you so why don’t you just get over it already.  Still, I can see that I am upsetting you.  Is that what I want?

Is what I am doing in my relationships having the impact I am looking for?  Do I even know what I am trying to create?  From the point of view of an actor, as one who is choosing actions, do I know my own motivation?  This is the central question.  Do I want to know how my behavior is impacting those around me?  Is it the effect I am looking for?  If not, am I interested in changing what I am doing?