Isolator & fuser relationship pattern - aka pursuer & distancer or abandonment & engulfment polarity
1. Of six reciprocal patterns in marriage, this one has the highest rate of divorce, especially when it goes beyond a benign courtship dance. Romance novels dress this pattern up in combinations of three stories: 'Taming the Shrew', 'Cinderella' and 'Beauty and the Beast'.
In my clinical experience this and the criticize/defend pattern are the most frequently encountered dance of distressed couples seeking help. It is one of the toxic drivers on both sides of domestic and community disputes that escalate to verbal and/or physical abusive.
These two patterns tap into the brain chemistry of both shame and safety/survival, fight and flight. This can completely distort perceptions of one another's intentions and actions, which then become self-reinforcing. Intimate partners with the deepest knowledge, love and respect for each other behave abominably under this chemical influence. They come to believe the other has neither knowledge, love, care nor respect for them. Their shame based perceptions confirm it.
These patterns are paradoxically enmeshment polarities. They result in those caught in their spell feeling unable to disentangle themselves, even when their own behaviour has exceeded what they themselves can respect - ashamed of the person they have become. Yet they keep on engulfing and abandoning each other, criticizing and defending even when their perceptions of each other would say it's either over or it's time to get help.
Why would you stay with someone who thinks so little of you, demeans you and vice versa?
I think each are restrained from leaving by unspoken knowledge that neither have got the big picture - something like 'I know mine's not the whole story but it FEELS like the whole story at the time when the other's version IS perceived as completely wrong.' Do you want to be right or happy?
The isolator fuser pattern is driven by each over-functioning and under-functioning in different ways and at different times. For example one the compulsive breadwinner the other compulsive home maker, with the former doing no housework and the latter having no external validation. It grows especially well in dysfunctional families and cultures.
Raised to value intimacy, women are usually eager to discuss problems and feelings. Brought up to value stoicism and control, men are more comfortable avoiding confrontation and arguments. The result: The more she pursues discussions, the more he withdraws. 'In the long run,' the authors write, 'the male-female tug-of-war over communication and intimacy eats up so much goodwill that the marital bank account goes into overdraft.'
A people pleaser married to an injustice collector is a particularly virulent form of this pattern. See item 3 below.
This BBC article has more patterns of love and marriage.
2. Here is a description of the dance of isolator and fuser:
When change or stress enters the couples' life, the pursuer will move toward the distancer, seeking some sort of connectedness and the distancer will move away, seeking a comfortable emotional distance (Step 1). Of course, as the emotional pursuer's need for a comfortable (and comforting) connection are frustrated, he/she will pursue the partner with greater intensity, causing, in turn, the distancer to withdraw further (Step 2). At this point, the pursuer will become frustrated with the effort and stop the pursuit, moving away and often withdrawing. This usually causes the distancer to take a step toward the partner, usually saying something like, "What's wrong?" to which the common response would be, "Nothing." (Step 3) However, the step taken toward the pursuer will often satisfy that person (though marginally) and the response which closes off further communication ("Nothing") satisfies the other's need for distance. This dance is repeated over and over in pursuer/distancer relationships and at the end of Step 3, they have achieved a sort of equilibrium.
Guerin, et al. note that the couple is in real trouble if they proceed through two additional steps in which the pursuer, in response to a tremendous build-up of frustration over time, attacks the distancer in response to the "What's wrong?" question and the distancer attacks the pursuer, defending him/herself (Step 4) and then the partners remain at a fixed, hostile distance from each other (Step 5), diverging from the ebb and flow of the repetitive cycle of Steps 1-3. Quoted from shaublaw
It is something like a cocktail party where people from different cultures are juggling personal space.
Or perhaps it is something about finding the emotional distance where I can focus on you with comfort. That may differ between us because of differences in the acuity of our senses. For example, in our hearing ability (poor hearing - I have to be close; acute hearing - you have to lower your voice or I move away a bit); or in ability to see (long sighted I have to move out to focus on you; short sighted I have to be close to focus); and our ability to feel (slow to access and articulate feelings, so I find the right distance to become aware of my feelings and to express them; quick to know one's inner feelings in which case I can be up close and still in touch with me).
I wonder how much our preferred pattern shapes our senses of distance and closeness - a chicken and egg?
In hooking couples up to blood pressure and heart-rate monitors during arguments, Gottman found that partners tend to stonewall (distancer) as a protection against feeling emotionally "flooded" (the pursuer in your face).
As a chronic pattern in a committed relationship it is likely about being flooded with shame.
Escalating shame most frequently occurs when partners end up in the roles of pursuer and distancer. When the distancer withdraws, the pursuer wants more contact and reassurance. The more the pursuer pursues, the more the distancer distances, leading to a seemingly endless conflict or impasse. An important element of this cycle is the fact that both partners often feel shame for their respective feelings or needs. The pursuer may feel rejected and shamed for “wanting too much,” while the distancer may feel shame for either being uncomfortable with closeness, or for wanting more space. Each person feels criticized (shamed) by the other, each not realizing that both are having the same experience of shame. Source.
3. The people pleaser/injustice collector is a fuser/isolator pattern:
People Pleasers are often the unwitting contributors to family dysfunction, although they are far from being the only culprit in a dysfunctional family. People Pleasers tend to have Injustice Collector counterparts: the Injustice Collector in the family remembers every slight, real or imagined, and throws it back in the People Pleaser's face, while the People Pleaser scurries to set things right with the angry Injustice Collector.The cycle will repeat indefinitely, because the particular dysfunctions of the People Pleaser and the Injustice Collector are a perfect fit with one another: Injustice Collectors feel entitled and People Pleasers feel that everyone ELSE is entitled. Source.
The unfortunate outcome in the dysfunctional family is that either the People Pleaser has to become progressively more crippled and entrenched in their subservient role in the family, or else they become healthier and stronger and ultimately are accused of breaking up the family. Source.
4. Notes from a workshop
Below are Kam's notes from a Harville Hendrix workshop retrieved from Gold Coast Yoga Centre and which is still available with their other excellent yoga articles at the internet web archive. There is more on Harville Hendrix's theory about the maximizer and minimizer process within these patterns in this 50 page pdf thesis chapter.
This article on "fusers & isolators" gives some general patterns of behaviours possible from each one of us in the dance of relationship. It is also possible to change; being a fuser in one moment & an isolator the next or a fuser in one relationship & a isolator in the next. kam
The fuser grew up with an unsatisfied need for attachment.
The isolator grew up with an unsatisfied need for autonomy.
The fuser is relieved by commitment, as it reduces the fear of abandonment.
The isolator is triggered by commitment fearing absorption.
Everyday of their married lives, husbands and wives push against this invisible relationship boundary (fuser/isolator dynamics) in an attempt to satisfy their dual needs for attachment and autonomy. Most of the time, each individual fixates on one of those needs: one person habitually advances, in an effort to satisfy unmet needs for attachment; the other habitually retreats, in an effort to satisfy unmet needs for autonomy. For a variety of reasons, the person who typically advances begins to retreat. The partner who habitually retreats turns around in amazement: where's my pursuer? To everyone's surprise, the isolator suddenly discovers an unmet need for closeness. The pattern is reversed, like the flip-flop of magnetic poles, and now the isolator does the pursuing. It's as if all couples collude to maintain a set distance between them.
An Isolator's guide to Fusers & reactivity
Reactivity: The fear & automatic self-protectiveness that arise when, to the old brain, one's psychological or physical survival has been threatened. This automatic survival instinct has been programmed into us over millions of years of evolution.
Fusers primary sense of safety & security in the world comes from maintaining close emotional contact with others. (at that time with that partner) Events which separate or threaten to separate them from important others in their life, even brief or minor ones, can trigger their worst unconscious fear, that of abandonment (& death). Fusers seek to avoid losing their relationship with others in a variety of ways, including:
1 Actively pursuing physical & emotional intimacy & closeness 2 Being willing to put aside their own needs or expression of self, in deference to their other's needs 3 Attempts to force the other by "upping the emotional thermostat" when other methods fail
Two types of events will trigger strong reactivity in fusers;
Conflict because conflict equals distance & distance hints at potential abandonment
Withdrawal & lack of follow through because the fuser's childhood caretakers were so good at giving & then withdrawing their love & availability
Perceived or real rejection via emotional distancing (silence, excessive exiting, etc) will thus cause reactivity in a fuser. The single greatest cause of fuser reactivity is an implied or outright threat to end the relationship. It is not necessary that the threat state a decision to leave as the fuser will quickly add that interpretation to even the most remote suggestion that the relationship might someday terminate. The fear of losing a relationship, even a poor relationship, is so intense that a fuser would rather assume the worst is happening rather than live with the possibility it might happen. Also, assuming the worst offers the fuser his/her best hope of preventing a life threatening event from occurring.
The reactive fuser, if he or she is also a Maximiser, will not be shy about expressing his/her needs & feelings. They may raise their voice, cry, slam or throw things, try to instill guilt or otherwise manipulate their partner into re-establishing harmony & contact.
While isolators need space to calm down, fusers need just the opposite: closure & contact.
A Fuser's guide to Isolators & reactivity
Isolators 'unconscious' fear is that of psychological suffocation or engulfment by the needs or emotional demands of another person. (At that time with that partner) Not surprisingly, isolators are most at ease when given space. Isolators might enjoy closeness, but only in measured amounts. Isolators tend to be Minimisers & often not very in touch with, nor do they care to be in touch with, their feelings.
The greatest source of reactivity for isolators is the feeling of being controlled by the emotional demands of another person. As soon as isolators begin to feel pressured, they will dig in their heels & refuse to comply with even the simplest of requests, even those that they themselves would describe as perfectly reasonable. This is reactivity in the isolator, & once it has been set in motion, the isolator's attention shifts almost exclusively to the process rather than the content of a discussion. The isolator's goal at this point is to re-establish a sense of personal control over his or her autonomy & space. To this end, he or she will typically "shut down" all systems until a feeling of safety has been regained.
In general, isolators achieve & maintain their sense of personal safety by:
Being in control of themselves at all times
Keeping a degree of psychological & physical distance (i.e., a safety zone) between themselves & others
Minimizing or denying their own feelings, needs or wants, both positive & negative
Discouraging strong or upset feelings in others by "keeping the peace" & "walking on eggshells"
By increasing physical or emotional withdrawal when other methods fail.
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