SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've been thinking about the phrase "meet someone where they're at," particularly in the context of supporting waywards who are still trying to understand their own thinking. I wonder if sometimes we confuse challenging someone's thinking with giving them the opportunity to actually examine it.

I can be very stubborn. I often think being told I am "limerent," "addicted," or on a "dopamine high" would make me less likely to consider the idea and more likely to argue about why you're wrong.

As a wayward spouse with a long history of being told "this is how it is" or "this is what you're supposed to think," I've become very sensitive to having someone interpret my experience for me (in case you haven't noticed ). And because of that, I often think the right question opens the door to further contemplation rather than being told what I should or shouldn't feel or believe.

It gives me room to ruminate and consider the possibility without feeling like I have to defend my internal world—and for me, in particular, it's an incredibly valuable experience in a dynamic where there can already be a lot of conclusions made about what a wayward thinks, does, or believes.

And I understand the culture of wanting to throw a bucket of cold water on the wayward to wake them up. I'm just not sure that approach works for everyone.

For some people, I think the most productive thing you can do is give them enough space to arrive at the conclusion themselves. They may get there more slowly, but when they do, it's something they've actually integrated rather than something they've been argued into accepting.

So, what does "meeting someone where they're at" mean to you?

It is hard to grow without a hefty dose of humility. Growth comes much faster if you say - "I am this way but clearly that is not working, I need to change! Maybe it’s my response when I think other people misunderstand me that needs to change?" Because that’s probably part of how you ended up as a wayward. It’s usually multifaceted and there are many things that need at least polishing or to be flat out discarded. If you are on your knees, desperate to change, you’ll look for truth and wisdom wherever you might find it, including when it’s buried among a lot of unhelpful stuff. That doesn’t mean people should let loose and respond without thoughtfulness or intentionality. I am happy to scold someone and report them to the mods and I would plead the 5th on whether I’ve tried to bait people into getting banned. But we’re all a bunch of amateurs here and a huge dollop of grace js helpful.

Okay, I will try. Meeting someone where they are means interacting with them in a way that is effective due to taking into account their capabilities, needs and internal state. A niche skill that some posters here have, though from what I see no one has 100% coverage of people they can have useful communication with and many people together have a much larger coverage then any single person.

I think that it's easier for people that are more layed back to take more value out of public forums, because it's easier to ignore things that are not helpful for them and focus the discussion on what they feel they need. More neurotic people will focus the discussion on what upset them, often trying to convince other neurotic people that won't budge and sometimes it spirals.

As an example how different perception can be, recently one WW wrote that the forum convinced her BH to not openly discuss his feelings. I personally got a strong message from here to be very open about thoughts and feelings. It's a proof how individual and subjective the reception of the content here is.

I personally cringe sometimes when betrayed spouses, especially men get called doormats or cucks. I know that the authors of the posts want to throw a bucket of cold water, it almost never works.

Generally waywards that get a warm reception here are the very humble ones, not saying it's good or bad, but I think it's natural.

[This message edited by Itiswhatitis000 at 11:32 PM, Tuesday, September 8th]

I think the best way to go about it is to set your own emotional response to what they're saying aside, figure out exactly where they're coming from and where they presently are, and then ask questions, whether they're requests for further information, or questions that are meant to lead them into potentially more productive thinking. When people make assumptions about a WS's internal state-- their feelings, their motivations, what they're really wanting or seeking, their values, their personality traits, etc-- that's when the misunderstanding and the judging starts, and when somebody feels they are having to constantly correct the narrative being spun about them or perceives judgement, they are less likely to remain in the conversational environment long enough to change.

Because that shit is exhausting.

Someone could come in saying, "Should I have sex one more time with my AP, just to get it out of my system?" and of course that generates outrage. But are we stepping outside of our own feelings about it in a way that lets us understand that individuals thinkingl and help them see that that's a terrible fucking idea? Or are we just hitting them with "That's a terrible fucking idea and here's what that says about you as a person..."

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 2:49 AM, Wednesday, September 9th]

I think one of my responsibilities here is simply to be compassionate. But I don't think compassion necessarily means avoiding interpretations that might be uncomfortable to hear.

If I mislabel something, that can still create an opportunity for someone to try that particular hat on and decide whether it fits. Self-awareness is difficult to achieve inside an echo chamber. Sometimes having someone say, "I wonder if this is what's happening," gives us something to examine that we wouldn't have thought to examine otherwise.

Personally, I grew through a lot of the things people pointed out to me. Some of them were right, some weren't. But even when someone was wrong, having to examine and ultimately rule out their interpretation was useful.

Having to defend a position repeatedly also forced me to figure out what I actually believed rather than simply assuming that what I initially felt was true.

With that said, I assume you're referring in part to my calling the recent WS limerent.

He's describing someone he became deeply attached to, continues to want in his life despite the damage that relationship has already done, and is devoting considerable intellectual energy to constructing a framework under which he can retain the relationship while also preserving his marriage. He is actively looking for a way to make the thing he wants possible.

That doesn't necessarily mean "limerence" is the perfect clinical description, and I don't think anyone here can diagnose him. But I do think it's worth asking whether the attachment itself has become something he is defending rather than something he is objectively evaluating.

Someone doesn't have to be consciously choosing "I want to hurt myself and other people" in order for an attachment to become self-destructive. They can sincerely believe they are managing it responsibly while continuing to find increasingly sophisticated reasons why they need to preserve access to the thing they're attached to.

I also tend to think many affairs begin or intensify around some kind of existential crisis. When someone is already struggling with identity, loneliness, aging, purpose, self-worth, depression, or a sense that something essential is missing from their life, an affair can become extraordinarily powerful because it doesn't just provide another person. It provides a version of the self that feels different.

And that's where I think projection matters.

Like you, I knew my AP for years. That didn't mean I wasn't projecting onto that relationship what I needed it to mean. I could look at a real person and simultaneously use that person as a screen onto which I projected whatever I needed to escape my pain.

The push-pull dynamic can make that particularly powerful. You get the very high highs and very low lows, and the contrast itself becomes reinforcing. Whether we call that limerence, affair fog, an addiction to the neurochemical rush, or simply an extremely reinforcing emotional pattern, the important question is the same:

Is this relationship helping me see reality more clearly, or is my attachment to it causing me to construct increasingly elaborate arguments for why I need to keep it?

And that's why I don't necessarily think telling someone "you're limerent" is the opposite of meeting them where they're at. It can be an invitation to investigate a possibility.

Maybe they'll reject it. Fine.

Maybe they'll go read about limerence, affair fog, attachment, intermittent reinforcement, or whatever else and discover that some of it describes them and some doesn't. That's useful too.

What concerns me about the other thread is that he seems to have arrived looking, at least in part, for affirmation that someone has successfully converted an affair relationship into a friendship. He may genuinely be asking an open question, but there is a difference between asking, "Is this possible?" and asking until you find someone willing to tell you that the answer you want is possible.

If the latter is what he's doing, then I don't think this particular forum is going to be very useful to him until he's willing to consider answers that don't support the outcome he's already chosen.

And I think this is where "meeting someone where they're at" gets complicated.

If you need the advice to be delivered in a particular way before you're willing to hear it, I don't think that necessarily has anything to do with meeting someone where they are. That impulse belongs to you. There may be times when pushing past that impulse leads you to a hard-won discovery.

I've watched people's situations evolve here over months, and sometimes years. There are arcs that contain familiar patterns, and I think those patterns are worth investigating. I tend to challenge what people think they know, not because I assume I'm right, but because sometimes the thing we are most certain about is the thing worth examining.

And I will absolutely meet you where you are. But I also need some indication that you've thought through the position you're asking me to meet you in. If you've genuinely examined it, considered the alternatives, and still arrived at the same conclusion, okay. I'll take you in where you are.

But if what you're really asking for is affirmation of a conclusion you don't want challenged, that's something different.

To me, compassion means making room for both.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:01 AM, Wednesday, September 9th]

Thank you all. I think there’s something useful in building on all of these perspectives rather than deciding that one approach is right.

Hikingout, I agree that an interpretation doesn't have to be right to be useful. Sometimes hearing a possibility we hadn't considered is exactly what opens something up, and sometimes having to defend a position really does make us examine what we believe. I don't think challenge and meeting someone where they're at are opposites.

Where I differ a little is that we can't always assume the receiver is capable of recognizing why they're resisting something. If they don't yet understand their own thinking or how they got there, they may simply think, "That's not me; you're misunderstanding me."

Which means I don't think all the responsibility for understanding belongs just to the receiver. If we're trying to help someone get to introspection, their ability to receive the message is part of the equation. We're trying to open the door for them to walk through it, not blame them for not being able to walk through it yet. Like Morbs said, debating why something doesn't match your experience is tiring and doesn't leave much room for introspection.

And Pippin, your comment about possibly having tried to get people banned based on your interpretation of them actually gave me pause. We can feel very certain about what we think we're seeing in someone and still not have the whole picture. But I also sometimes have a hard time settling on an interpretation because I can see so many possible explanations. 😂

And btw, Hikingout, I also used to be similar to him. Someone was gracious enough to ask me the right questions and then leave my analytical, ruminating brain to figure some of it out. 😂 That probably has a lot to do with why this approach resonates with me.

This also came about from multiple threads that have exploded in the general forum. I can't even remember who said it now, but the response was essentially, "meet them where they are," in the context of betrayed spouses. It stuck with me and got me thinking about what that means in practice here too.

[This message edited by NotMyIdentity at 4:40 AM, Wednesday, September 9th]

Even if they aren’t taking anything in right now, maybe somewhere down the road something I’ve said will make more sense to them. Some people will never look for something that has never been suggested to them before. I’ve had plenty of things introduced to me that became clearer over time, even when I initially resisted them. In fact, some of the things I pushed back against the hardest ended up being things I eventually needed to take in.

Have you ever learned something new and then suddenly started seeing it everywhere? A new word becomes part of your vocabulary, and suddenly you hear it all the time. There are so many things I never noticed until someone, or something, drew my attention to them.

There are people I can help and people I can’t, and I’m okay with that. There’s no way to be compatible with every poster or to be the right person for everyone. I’ve just seen a lot of success over the long term with some of the people I’ve invested in, so I’m willing to keep offering what I can when I think it might be useful.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:34 AM, Wednesday, September 9th]