"I Made You Smaller, Dear." The Destructive Power Of Devaluation

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

"I made you smaller, dear." The destructive power of depreciation

I recently wrote an article on the destructive power of reproach. But in addition to reproach in relationships, people use another form of emotional violence, which, like a reproach, is not so easy to recognize, but which, being built along with reproaches into a person's value system, destroys the lover to devalue himself and those who find themselves in the nearest radius. actions of such a person.

This time it will be about depreciation, which differs from reproach only in that it exploits feelings of shame. The reproach is directed in a vector towards the feeling of guilt. When we are reproached, we feel our own “badness” and the reproach always sounds with a hidden message: “You are bad. Something is wrong with you."

As for depreciation, it always contains some value judgment or comparison with someone better, and in depreciation there is always a feeling that you are becoming less than you are. You sometimes feel very ashamed that you are exactly who you are, and you want to get praise all the time, but alas, in a relationship you get a bad rating from a significant person again and again. You are told all the time that you are falling short of the expectations of the evaluator. Criticism is devaluation. Criticism is a fairly common form of depreciation that many parents use, both as a form of parenting for their children and for communicating with a marriage partner. After a critical comment, you may still be given advice and recommendations on how best to act for you, although you did not ask anyone for advice.

Thus, depreciation is aimed at making you feel like a complete insignificance, insolvent, dependent, infantile, stupid and absolutely unsuitable for life.

Why does one partner devalue the other?

If reproach allows you to manipulate a person, driving him into feelings of guilt, then devaluation is manipulation in shame. The depreciating person tells you that you are not fit for an independent life. This is hardly a deliberate manipulation. Most likely, the devaluating partner does this so that you do not disappear from him and more and more depend on him and his opinion. By “diminishing” you by devaluation, he increases his importance in your eyes and grows in his own status against your insignificant background. It is difficult for such a partner to accept that if you believe in yourself and break out of his depreciation trap, then you can spread your wings and fly into the sky. He is very afraid of this. He does everything to manipulate you, to keep you close to him on a short leash. After all, logic dictates: if I am so insignificant and bad, then why are you still with me? What are you doing here?

This is a narcissistic mechanism in which the depreciating person, in addition to keeping you close to him in the position of a complete infantile, has another benefit. In fact, such a partner, who often depreciates, lacks self-confidence, he has very low self-esteem and thus increases it constantly at your expense. Such a person does not need a relationship as much as he needs a sense of his own greatness against the background of other people. And if at some point you turn off the tap of praise and praise addressed to him, you will immediately feel an increase in depreciation in your address. The one who depreciates is always hungry for praise and gratitude, and if he does not receive them from you openly, he will receive praise anyway by devaluing you. That is, he, devaluing you, thus praises himself. Gains a sense of his own worth.

I notice from my practice that women still use reproaches more, manipulating men's feelings of guilt, but depreciation is a more favorite technique of men who “multiply by zero” their soul mate, depriving her of faith in her own strength. As a matter of fact, both reproach and depreciation, which has been used for a long time in the family as a form of communication, can rightfully be called emotional violence of one person over another, but more often it happens in both directions and then the family becomes a union of two (or one) slaves and two (or one) gentlemen. And this is the place where everyone suffers, including children, who find themselves in the field of this imperceptible domestic violence.

You need to work with this relationship phenomenon in the same way as with reproach.

1. Devaluation is always replaceable with a request or a question.
2. Devaluation sounds where the need for recognition is unmet. And if your partner or you communicate in this particular format, then ask each other to say mutual praise and express gratitude to each other more often.
3. And also legalize the fear of loss in a couple. Talk to each other about how afraid you are of losing your relationship and how you use your fear of losing your partner to meet your own needs.
4. Discuss the fact that your couple has emotional abuse in shame.
5. Learn to communicate in the form of "I-messages" and eliminate "You-messages". As soon as you hear depreciation, stop it immediately with the phrase: “I hate your words. If you need something now, just ask me."
6. Begin your work with depreciation by realizing that this is a phenomenon that you and your partner have already dealt with in childhood. And that it was your parents who applied these methods of upbringing to you. They did not know then that it hurts you and did the best they could for you. Now it's up to you to stop doing this to each other.
7. If you find it very difficult to work on your own with reproaches and depreciation, contact a family psychologist who can “train you” for healthier forms of communication in your family.