Demon Dialogues: Find The Bad Guy
As we discussed in the last post, Dr. Sue Johnson, founder and developer of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (my FAVORTIE model of couple therapy!) describes three patterns of conflict that couples get caught up in as Demon Dialogues. Today we’re going to really dig into the first of those three dialogues- Find the Bad Guy.
As an overview, Find The Bad Guy is characterized by mutual attack by each partner when it comes to conflict. This is a HOT argument. It feels like war with each partner hurling what they feel will hurt most at their partner. It increasingly escalates to a fever pitch. Both partners are vying for control. The tone of the argument (what Dr. Johnson terms the “emotional music”) is that of hostile criticism. Both partners are trying to take the moral high ground showing that they’re not the bad guy, you are. No one feels good after this.
If you were watching a couple have this argument on mute it could look like angry faces, facing one another, animated words, and potentially pointing fingers.
Find the Bad Guy is about self protection. Each partner is very focused on their own personal experience of the argument and have difficulty seeing the larger system or relationship “dance
at play. It’s so simple for one partner to categorize their partner’s behavior or comments as hurtful, devaluing, or abandoning. Rarely do those partner’s take their own behavior into account. Because relationships do not exist in a vacuum, each person’s behavior is in response or reaction to the behavior of the other in the system.
As this hurtful pattern or dance persists, partners become increasingly more emotionally disengaged. It is not safe to stay connected and be vulnerable with their partner. The partner begins to be seen as “the bad guy” and as emotionally dangerous. This sucks for relationships because even if you think your partner is the bad guy, YOU are still in a relationship with the bad guy!
Because this pattern requires so much emotional energy, it is difficult to maintain over time. More often this relationship dance is a prelude to the Protest Polka, the most common distress dance or demon dialogue, which we will get into in detail next week. This is because often the attack will continue until one person backs down or emotionally disengages. The dance has then changed, though not for the better.
For now, since you have a picture of what the find the bad guy dialogue is, let’s get into the why. Why do partners engage in this? How is this serving them in their time of distress? Dr. Johnson explains that blaming behaviors or the mutual attack of Find the Bad Guy allows couples to move into self-protection mode. If they’re feeling less vulnerable and more in control as a blamer, then they do not have to take responsibility for their own behavior. It’s similar to misdirection. If someone is paying attention to where one hand is pointing, they’re not seeing what the other hand is doing. It allows each to feel like they’re keeping the moral high-ground when in reality, no one is winning.
Now what? “The secret to stopping the dance is to recognize that no one has to be the bad guy. The accuse/accuse pattern itself is the villain here, and the partners are the victims” (Johnson, 2008, p. 70). Partners can externalize the demon dialogue or negative relationship dance to create a common enemy in order to start developing a path of escape from this dynamic. Couples can start slowing down and softening the exchange in order to share more vulnerable emotions. This can also help couples get to the heart of the matter rather than slinging mud. This shifts a couples’ attachment to one another from an insecure place to a more secure place. This also allows the relationship to start becoming safe again. Rather than a dangerous adversary, your partner can start to be seen as hurting and in need of affirmation and comfort. It then becomes easier to express needs for connection and comfort and to also provide it. Over time, and with ongoing practice the Find the Bad Guy dialogue is replaced with an emotionally bonded couple that is able to deal with and find solutions to relationship issues.