Criticizing - Love - Respect
This continues entries 385 and 382.
Beneficial criticizing by giving and accepting feedback concerning specific behaviors and habits is an important part of the process of a couple's adaption to each other.
As long as a couple's mutual respect is due to shared basic values and attitudes, they have no reason to criticize anything, that is part of the core personality of the other. All criticizing is supportive concerning habits. Beneficial criticizing implies the respect, that the other is able and motivated to improve some peripheral imperfections.
When infatuation is experienced as the selfish love for the benefits of using another person's body for instinctive homeostasis, this does not require respect. Bonded, committed and caring love between adult and mature partners is not possible without mutual respect.
Bonded love is expressed by behavior aiming to enhance the subjective wellbeing of the partner. The beloved partner perceives proactive acts of caring as deliberate and voluntary favors, not as duties, dues or something to be taken for granted.
This has a strong impact upon the perception of being criticized. The difference between experiencing the other's beneficial behavior as either an expression of caring love or of fulfilling a duty and serving a purpose is also the difference between perceiving criticizing as supportive and beneficial or disrespecting, devaluing and rejecting.
When someone feels securely loved and respected by consciously perceiving the other's behavior as expressing care and affection, this enables him to interpret being criticized as supportive. The expression of caring love is an expression of respect and nevertheless interpreting criticizing as disrespect would be a contradiction.
Caring includes also the Epicurean imperative of not doing harm. A person, who cares enough to have the wish to protect the partner from harm needs to be receptive to feedback. To avoid harm to the other requires to know, what the other experiences as harm, and this is not always noticeable. Sometimes only feedback can convey this information.
But when a man considers and perceives a woman as a commodity and utility, whose purpose is to serve his needs, then he is unable to ever perceive anything of what she does for him as an expression of love. He is deprived of the experience of being loved by his own entitlement delusion. This makes him perceive criticizing as expressing disrespect and this makes him feel even less loved. As a consequence, he is inclined to use control and coercion to get his needs met, because he projects and believes, that otherwise she would also use him selfishly for her needs. As long as he feels entitled to the priority of his needs, wishes and whims over hers, he is realistic in his evaluation, that he cannot get this by any other means except control and coercion.
This continues entries 385 and 382.
Beneficial criticizing by giving and accepting feedback concerning specific behaviors and habits is an important part of the process of a couple's adaption to each other.
As long as a couple's mutual respect is due to shared basic values and attitudes, they have no reason to criticize anything, that is part of the core personality of the other. All criticizing is supportive concerning habits. Beneficial criticizing implies the respect, that the other is able and motivated to improve some peripheral imperfections.
When infatuation is experienced as the selfish love for the benefits of using another person's body for instinctive homeostasis, this does not require respect. Bonded, committed and caring love between adult and mature partners is not possible without mutual respect.
Bonded love is expressed by behavior aiming to enhance the subjective wellbeing of the partner. The beloved partner perceives proactive acts of caring as deliberate and voluntary favors, not as duties, dues or something to be taken for granted.
This has a strong impact upon the perception of being criticized. The difference between experiencing the other's beneficial behavior as either an expression of caring love or of fulfilling a duty and serving a purpose is also the difference between perceiving criticizing as supportive and beneficial or disrespecting, devaluing and rejecting.
When someone feels securely loved and respected by consciously perceiving the other's behavior as expressing care and affection, this enables him to interpret being criticized as supportive. The expression of caring love is an expression of respect and nevertheless interpreting criticizing as disrespect would be a contradiction.
Caring includes also the Epicurean imperative of not doing harm. A person, who cares enough to have the wish to protect the partner from harm needs to be receptive to feedback. To avoid harm to the other requires to know, what the other experiences as harm, and this is not always noticeable. Sometimes only feedback can convey this information.
But when a man considers and perceives a woman as a commodity and utility, whose purpose is to serve his needs, then he is unable to ever perceive anything of what she does for him as an expression of love. He is deprived of the experience of being loved by his own entitlement delusion. This makes him perceive criticizing as expressing disrespect and this makes him feel even less loved. As a consequence, he is inclined to use control and coercion to get his needs met, because he projects and believes, that otherwise she would also use him selfishly for her needs. As long as he feels entitled to the priority of his needs, wishes and whims over hers, he is realistic in his evaluation, that he cannot get this by any other means except control and coercion.
If her baseline is getting as much as giving, then giving more than she receives is from her point of view an expression of love.
If his baseline is getting all his needs met before bothering about hers, then he experiences even all her expressions of love only as deficient compared with his baseline, and he feels justified to use pressure and coercion to get, what he cannot get otherwise.
The result is a very unfortunate vicious circle of deterioration. A woman, who feels loved, cared for, cherished and appreciated has few reasons for peripheral beneficial and supportive criticizing, and he can appreciate it and do his share in improving the relationship.
But the man, who uses her as commodity, dominates and coerces her to ascertain his selfish benefits gives the woman real and serious reasons to criticize him and even to lose respect. He needs much more improvement and he needs much more feedback. But instead of accepting her support, he blames her for daring to criticize him at all. His denial and defiance to accept feedback and learn how to treat her destroys the relationship.
Feeling loved, respected and supported by criticizing is a congruent experience in a bonded couple.
Without the reciprocal perception of expressions of caring love by the other, there is no respect and no trust, that criticizing is benevolent and beneficial. This effect is independent of the reason of not feeling loved, either by not being loved by a man confounding infatuation with love and domination or by being oblivious of being loved due to confounding expressions of love with fulfilling a purpose and a duty.
The result is a very unfortunate vicious circle of deterioration. A woman, who feels loved, cared for, cherished and appreciated has few reasons for peripheral beneficial and supportive criticizing, and he can appreciate it and do his share in improving the relationship.
But the man, who uses her as commodity, dominates and coerces her to ascertain his selfish benefits gives the woman real and serious reasons to criticize him and even to lose respect. He needs much more improvement and he needs much more feedback. But instead of accepting her support, he blames her for daring to criticize him at all. His denial and defiance to accept feedback and learn how to treat her destroys the relationship.
Feeling loved, respected and supported by criticizing is a congruent experience in a bonded couple.
Without the reciprocal perception of expressions of caring love by the other, there is no respect and no trust, that criticizing is benevolent and beneficial. This effect is independent of the reason of not feeling loved, either by not being loved by a man confounding infatuation with love and domination or by being oblivious of being loved due to confounding expressions of love with fulfilling a purpose and a duty.
