The Nice Girl Syndrome (28 page)

My mother was a Nice Girl. She was very charming and seem- ingly agreeable, and people felt instantly comfortable with her. Yet she was extremely critical of them behind their backs. If someone came over to visit she was extremely nice to her, nodding her head in agreement when the person spoke, laughing out loud at her jokes. But once the person left, my mother would criticize her mercilessly. One women friend in particular used to come by unannounced. She would always say something like, “Oh, I’m probably keeping you from something; I should be going,” at the beginning of the conversation. Instead of admitting to her that yes, in fact, this visi- tor was interrupting something, my mother would graciously say, “No, no, please stay. I’m enjoying your company so much!” Yet as soon as the woman left she would complain, “I thought she’d never leave. My God, that woman can talk. I wish she’d stop coming by like that.”

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Childhood Experiences and Conflict

Although everyone has some conflict in his or her family, not all people express their conflicting feelings openly. Some erupt in a rage; others silently seethe, refusing to even acknowledge conflict. In a typical dysfunctional family, there is either too much or too little conflict. When there is too little conflict, everything is kept hidden. Problems and issues are never fully discussed, and no one ever fights. Unfortunately, when people avoid conflict, the tension between them builds.

On the other hand, when there is too much conflict, there is often emotional or physical abuse. The atmosphere is tense, and the children never know when the next explosion will occur. Fighting becomes a way of life. Children become hypervigilant in anticipat- ing the next attack.

Those raised in families where there was a lot of conflict, anger, or violence often grow up to be afraid of conflict and what they fear it might lead to. This fear of conflict can create very unhealthy ways of behaving. It can cause women to put up with inappropriate, even abusive behavior to the point that they endanger themselves and their children.

One of the most extreme examples of how avoidance of conflict can create a dangerous situation is the case of my client Sedona. Sedona came to see me at the request of her parents, who were at their wit’s end about how to protect her. Sedona had been hounded and eventually stalked by a man for nearly five years. This had cul- minated in his holding her against her will in her apartment until her parents called the police to rescue her.

It all started when Sedona met the man at a party. The man, who I will call Carl, approached her and starting talking to her. Even though Sedona wasn’t attracted to him, she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so she was polite. They talked briefly and then she excused herself and went into another room. But the man didn’t seem to take the hint. Later on in the evening, he approached her again and asked her out on a date. Again, not wanting to bruise his ego, she made an excuse, telling him that she was too busy to date. Not taking no for an answer, Carl said that since she had to eat, perhaps they could go out to lunch sometime—not a date, just lunch. Sedona didn’t know what to say to that, so she reluctantly agreed, just to get him to leave

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her alone. She had no intention of actually going through with it. She left the party early to get away from him, without giving him her number.

About two days later, she was surprised to find Carl on her doorstep when she came home from work. A little frightened, she asked him how he had found out where she lived. He didn’t give her an answer but explained that she had left the party without giving him her number, so he couldn’t call her to set up their lunch. Once again, in her attempt to avoid conflict, Sedona now gave Carl her phone number, thinking that when he called she’d just say she was too busy.

That evening, Carl called to set up their lunch. Sedona told him she was busy all week. Carl said he’d call her the next week. Of course, he did call and once again Sedona wasn’t direct about not wanting to see him. She again tried to make an excuse, but this time Carl wasn’t having it. He confronted her, saying that she was just leading him on, that she was like every other woman he knew. Sedona didn’t like being seen in such a negative light and told Carl that she hadn’t intended to lead him on. He said he thought she was different, that he thought she was a good and honest person. Sedona assured him that, in fact, she was a good person and tried to be hon- est. Carl challenged her by saying, “Okay, then, prove it. You prom- ised we could go to lunch, so if you aren’t a liar, keep your promise.” Sedona took the bait—she did, after all, see herself as someone who kept her promises. By this time, she had begun to feel a little afraid of Carl. Since he knew where she lived, she was concerned that he might show up at her doorstep again. She finally broke down and agreed to have lunch with him the following day.

This was just the beginning of a tumultuous relationship between the two. Sedona explained to me that she was never really interested in Carl but just couldn’t seem to get rid of him. She con- tinually tried to appease him by doing as he asked, hoping that it would satisfy him and he’d stop pressuring her. For example, he hounded her for weeks to let him kiss her. She tried explaining to him that she wasn’t attracted to him physically and therefore didn’t want to kiss him in a romantic way. But Carl was very good with words. He told her, “How do you know you won’t start feeling attracted to me once you kiss me? You’re not giving it a chance. Kiss me just one time, and if you don’t like it, I’ll never ask you for

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another kiss.” As Sedona told me, “His arguments always seemed to make sense to me at the time. I’d always think to myself, ‘What do I have to lose with just one date, or one kiss, et cetera?’ I know it doesn’t make sense now, but at the time, somehow it did.”

Before Sedona knew it, she was in a relationship with Carl, including having sex with him. “I guess I gradually came to think of him as a friend in some weird kind of way, but I was always pushing him away and he was always pushing for more. I always thought that I could avoid an argument with him if I just agreed to what he wanted and this worked in the moment. But he was never satisfied. He always wanted more.”

As time went by, Sedona felt more and more trapped by the rela- tionship with Carl. She finally told a friend about him and her friend told her that Carl sounded like a stalker to her. This surprised Sedona. She always thought stalkers were dangerous people who watched and followed strangers. She didn’t think of Carl as a danger- ous person—just a persistent one.

By the time the incident occurred that finally brought Sedona into therapy, she was beginning to come out of denial about the fact that Carl had indeed stalked her and just how dangerous he really was. She told me how the incident of being trapped in her apart- ment had occurred. “I had tried to break it off with Carl many times, but each time it ended up in a big fight with him screaming and yelling at me and causing the neighbors to complain. I didn’t want to be kicked out of my apartment so I always agreed to go back with him just to keep him quiet. The last time this happened, I decided I’d break up with him in a letter. That way he wouldn’t have a chance to argue with me in person. But I underestimated him. He came over to my apartment in the middle of the night, begging for me to let him in. He said he just wanted to talk and that if I still wanted to break up, he’d leave. I told him no, I wasn’t letting him in—I really meant it this time and I wanted him to go away. He started yelling at the top of his lungs that he couldn’t make it without me, that he was going to kill himself. That scared me, and I was afraid the neighbors were going to complain to the owner, so I gave in and let him in.”

Letting Carl in was a major mistake. He refused to leave, and the next day, when Sedona started getting ready for work, he held her down on the bed and refused to let her get up. He told her she

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needed to take the day off, that she was tired and stressed and that she looked terrible. She gave in and called her office.

Carl held her in her apartment for three days, constantly trying to talk her into not breaking up with him. Sedona even tried giving in to him and pretending that she had changed her mind and wanted to be back with him, but this time Carl wasn’t buying it. Sedona began to fear for her life. Fortunately, her parents, worried when she didn’t call them back for three days, called the police.

Although Sedona began seeing me mostly at the urging of her parents, she did tell me during our first session that she wanted to know why she was so passive and why she wasn’t more angry at Carl. I started by asking her some questions about her parents. It turned out that they were both very overbearing, and she had grown up in a household where there were a lot of arguments. “I let people get away with a lot because I hate arguments. I didn’t ever want to be like my parents, who argued all the time. I wanted to be reasonable. But Carl could talk circles around me.”

Bingo. It wasn’t much of a mystery after all. Helping Sedona to believe that it is okay to be confrontational and/or angry was going to be more difficult. I started by encouraging her to stand up to her parents. While it was understandable that they were now afraid for her safety, she still needed to assert herself about her right to make her own decisions. She also needed to insist that they respect her personal boundaries.

Even before the Carl situation, Sedona’s parents had been overly protective of her. During one of our sessions, she made an important connection. “You know, my parents are just like Carl. They treat me like I’m five years old.”

After we met for a few more times, a lot more came out, such as the fact that Sedona’s mother was very suffocating. As Sedona explained, “She calls me several times a day to ask me, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Who is with you?’ Sedona realized that when Carl treated her the same way, it simply felt familiar.

Sedona was actually afraid of Carl from the beginning, but she was so used to placating her mother to avoid her wrath that she took on this coping strategy with Carl. Unfortunately, Carl was as control- ling as her mother. He went through Sedona’s e-mails, and if she didn’t answer her phone, he called around looking for her. These were the same types of behaviors she had experienced with her mother.

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We also needed to explore why Sedona had let things get so out of hand. We started by reviewing what she told herself each time Carl was too controlling or over the top. First she would tell herself, “It’s not that bad.” Then she would reason with herself that she didn’t want to get him in trouble. But the thing she told herself most often was, “He could get more angry” (meaning violent).

This was at the core of Sedona’s fear of conflict—the fear that if she stood up to Carl he would become physically violent with her. Although her parents had never become violent with her or with each other, the threat had always been there.

Although you may have never experienced a situation as extreme as what happened to Sedona, most women need to learn how to han- dle conflict in healthier ways. Because girls are socialized away from aggression and expected to have perfect relationships, they are often unprepared to negotiate conflict. The information and strategies in the following remedies will help you feel more confident when it comes to dealing with conflicts, whether they are with your part- ners, your friends, or your family.

Remedies

Remedy #1: Determine Whether Your Avoidance of Conflict Is Mostly Cultural, Familial, or Experiential

Few of us learned effective conflict resolution skills when we were growing up. In fact, those who come from dysfunctional homes learn unhealthy ways of resolving conflict. The following questions will help you explore what lessons you learned from your parents about solving conflicts.

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1. Did your parents discuss problems rationally, or did they blow up at each other?
   

2. Did they express emotions easily, or did they hold in their feelings?
   

3. Did your parents tend to blame each other for their problems?
   

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4. Did your parents argue often?
   

5. Did your parents give each other the silent treatment?
   

6. Did they yell at each other?
   

7. Did your parents punish each other?
   

8. Did they emotionally abuse each other?
   

Think about the lessons you learned from observing your par- ents behave in any of these ways. Write your feelings about this in your journal.

Remedy #2: Begin to View Conflict in a Different Way

Conflict-free relationships simply do not exist. In fact, no relation- ship can survive without conflict. Think about how many relation- ships you have walked away from in your life because you were unwilling to tell the person how you felt and to work through the problems. Women and girls have a tendency to alienate those they have conflicts with instead of even trying to work those conflicts through. Knowing that conflicts are periodic and that relationships survive them may help you to walk away less often and to engage in repression or passive-aggressive tactics less often.

Conflict cannot be avoided. It is a natural by-product of every relationship. Indeed, conflict
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not be avoided since it can inspire more effective communication and greater intimacy. It can lead to better understanding between you and the other person. Current research shows that couples who openly disagree or argue actually stay together longer. Conflict does not have to equal loss, as many Nice Girls have been led to believe. On the contrary, it can equal gain. Once you understand this, really understand it, not just intellectually but emotionally, you will stop viewing conflict as a vio- lation of a relationship, and you will no longer be controlled by the fear of loss.