In Megyn Kelly’s memoir, she tells a story from her teen years of complaining to her dad one night in December as he sat by the Christmas tree. Her parents couldn’t afford her class ring, and she was upset and stormed off to bed. That was the last time she saw her dad because he had a lethal heart attack that night. Megyn was behaving as a typical adolescent – obsessed with self and peers. Teenagers don’t understand making financial ends meet – especially at Christmas. In her desire for the ring, she simply wasn’t thinking of her dad’s side of the story or his over all wellbeing.

That’s how it is for an addict in addiction. They just don’t think of the ripple effect of their actions. Men are naturally more compartmentalized in their thinking than women (men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti…), but addicts take this to a different level. In his must-read book “Worthy of Her Trust,” Jason Martinkus describes this compartmentalization like having the different parts of your life in separate shoe boxes on a shelf. Addicts tend to take one box down at a time. At work, I’m the “work” guy. Put that box back and now be the “home” guy. Later be the “addict” guy, and none of the different guys meet. Integrity is about opening all the boxes, dumping all the contents out. That’s you – all the stuff. Now let’s decide what gets to stay and what should be discarded.

Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., has done a great job of expanding the issues with our (really) compartmentalized behavior into a treatment modality that he calls Internal Family Systems. Many therapists take his idea and tweak it to fit their style. The general idea is that trauma acts like a sledge hammer to a young developing brain. The first order of business is to tuck the heart and feelings away so it can’t be hurt. Then, in order to function, the child becomes different people at different times. I have a school part, a good church part, a competitive performer part, etc. There are also unhealthy parts called firefighters. Addictions live in the firefighter parts as they’re intended to destroy debilitating pain in the child or help them escape. Jenna Riemersma does a great job illustrating the concept in this video at around minute 33.

We all have parts. For example, I use baby talk around my kids that I don’t use as a professional at my job. I’m adventurous on vacation and cautious alone in a parking lot at night… We say “part of me wants to eat those cookies but another part wants to stay on track with my fitness plan.” Competing agendas. This is normal. Traumatized brains take this concept further. In fact, some individuals have such distinct, separated parts that one part may not even be aware of what other parts are doing! This is called dissociation. This extreme level of dissociation is what’s referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder. In this state, individuals can have memories that are repressed from consciousness altogether.

Just like parts can range from normal to unhealthy, so does dissociation. When we blank out while driving or escape into our favorite TV show, we are dissociating, or disconnecting, from reality. I like how Jen DuBos puts a warning label on excessive dissociation: When dissociation is overused for entertainment and becomes an escape or addiction, it has been allowed to have sway over too much of your conscious and unconscious mind. In short, if you dissociate intentionally, excessively, you actually begin to believe an alternate reality is real. You are lying to yourself and believing the lies. Part of my husband’s progression back into addiction was precipitated by dissociative episodes. While he hasn’t specifically dealt with dissociation in therapy, this has changed a great deal in recovery. With a sober brain he realized how dissociated he use to be.

In recovery, the betrayed will learn many things that are just as helpful to her as to the addict such as defense mechanisms, attachment styles, and how we can function in parts. One question you can use to start bringing these parts into consciousness is to ask, “how old does that part feel?” I suspect many betrayed partners have over-functioning manager parts. Manager parts tend to be around 10 years old. Some therapists use the analogy of our parts being like passengers on a bus. All parts are welcome on the bus – because after all, these are all parts of us. But the younger parts don’t get to drive. We shouldn’t make decisions out of parts. We can’t let just any part (or emotion) drive the bus, and we can’t stuff them in the trunk either. The “functional adult” gets to drive the bus (this term was coined by Pia Mellody’s Post Induction Therapy.) We have to include all parts on our journey of maturation. I am sure anyone would tell you, who has had a therapist who’s good at parts work, that it’s actually much more natural to address this than it might sound.

I love how the Psalmist says he calmed a part of himself in Psalm 131:2 “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.” See it’s not that weird 🙂

If my coworkers witness how playful I am with my children who also witnessed my behavior in private moments or on vacation or at church, they wouldn’t be surprised. My various parts don’t keep me from being generally the same person in different circumstances. However, when a pastor is picking up prostitutes, that will shock the people who know him. That’s a more divided heart.

When it comes to our husbands’ parts, especially the addict parts, things get a little darker. These parts can cause a lot of pain and destruction. I am sure you have asked yourself how the same man who is a good dad to your kids, who is a hard worker and always eager to help at church can also act out the way he did. How can such different behaviors come out of the same person? How can he celebrate your anniversary, make love to you, then betray you by looking at porn after you fall asleep? His parts are much more separated from the others. Even in recovery our spouses can exhibit contradictory behavior like attending all their meetings and therapy sessions but not being open to talking to us about it. The more dissociated and divided a heart is, the more they will need a therapist’s help to bring these parts into consciousness and integrate them. His heart is likely tucked away, so he’s not feeling what you are.

Remember, these parts show up as a hero in a tough situation. Just like Megyn making her case for the ring, the parts don’t care about the people around them. Heck, the parts don’t even care about the wellbeing of the parts! If you feel you’ve slipped into a part, simply ask the part to step aside or have your functional adult tell the part, “You can’t drive. You need to move to the back of the bus and let me take over in this situation.”

Pro Tip: It’s important for the addict to speak to his wife about a part and not from a part.

It can be discouraging for a wife to learn that sobriety isn’t directly followed with her spouse being attentive, caring, and mature. [UNDERSTATEMENT] It’s a journey and a process. So take good care of yourself, sister! It’s down right traumatic to have a primary attachment figure functioning in extreme, contradictory parts. To the world they might appear to be a very sophisticated, well-behaved person. But you get to see them falling apart, lashing out, or being icy cold. While intellectually we can all understand how an addict or an emotionally immature person can think and behave like a teenager throwing a tantrum, the truth is our husbands aren’t teenagers. Their behavior is wrong. If your spouse can’t treat you as an equal and behave consistently, dealing with reality on reality’s terms, this is a problem. If these dynamics are present in your relationship, I hope this post has given you some things to look into to get the right help. This is a popular topic, so there’s a lot in mainstream about it right now!

Resources:

Excellent podcast on dissociation

Heartsync – a healing prayer ministry that also does parts work

Boundaries For Your Soul

The Adult Chair podcast

Jenna Riemersma on Carol the Coach