Schizoid and Relationship Compromises
A Quora answer I'd normally be too cautious to share on here
Some less personal background
I considered leaving “schizoid” out of this title but figured it’s probably one of the most underserved areas of personality adaptations and personality disorders in terms of attention or research and could use some of the clout.
The past several years I’ve been interested in what would fall under the umbrella of “schizoid personality and adaptations”, initially because I wondered whether I might have the personality disorder.
Years later, I don’t believe I do, but I definitely have traits that resemble “schizoid” patterns and ways of living/relating. When I say “schizoid”, though, it should be noted that I’m talking about a more psychodynamic understanding of the concept (the DSM description, which focuses more on the outward appearance than the experience, would be fairly misleading.)
Rather than “schizophrenia” or the DSM description, think something closer to an extremely introverted person whose introversion is influenced heavily by an underlying sense that mutual understanding will be challenging or almost impossible. Where communication, safety, and ease among others typically means compromising in an energetically costly way, resulting in a sense that there’s no social group to which they can belong.
If that still sounds confusing or unclear, I pretty much wrote about how a lot of this shows up for me relationally here without the label. Some of the conflicts I have with these habits of relating I also write about in my poetry, particularly in Passivity, How, Walls and Winds, and To Be Seen.
If you want to know more about schizoid psychology in general, I’d recommend the work of Elinor Greenberg and Nancy McWilliams. If you’re interested in more of what the disorder can be like from people with it, I’d recommend this blog post and Schizoid Angst’s Youtube channel (which also features interviews with Dr. Greenberg.)
A more personal Quora answer
I recognize that a good amount of these compromises seem standard but with the context of what I described above, it can result in some ambivalence.
Q: Schizoids: What “relationship compromises” do you or have you made in the past?
A: This is probably going to be a bit messy because I guess I’m not as certain about what I mean by compromises so I’m putting whatever seems to fit under that umbrella that I recall from past interactions/relationships.
I also feel as though this was an opportunity to admit some things that I haven’t written about in more detail on here.
Compromises:
Attempting to create more consistent and predictable contact so others (family, friends, or partner) will feel less ignored, concerned, or abandoned. (I don’t do this that much in comparison to the norm but definitely more often than is habitual for me.)
More generally, a habit of making my desires smaller when I don’t believe they can be fulfilled or because I chose to be in a relationship with someone who showed signs of not being able to meet them that I ignored (either because I didn’t trust my intuition enough initially or assumed those desires were unfulfillable anyway.)
In my last relationship, often moving to resolve conflicts before being comfortable speaking again after a heated exchange because I was unsure how much of it was just avoidance and how much of it was distance required in order to reconnect more fully with myself. Also due to my partner finding distance less bearable after arguments. There was a sense that I didn’t know when a “natural” time to reconnect would be because the distance was more comfortable, stable, and calm than the challenges of interaction, so I felt I just had to make it happen anyway or I would drift away.
Sharing more than I was accustomed to even when it was almost certainly going to result in conflict and asking questions even when, taken at face value, my ex would be “fine” or not bothered by something. Sometimes to the point where the confronter/avoider dynamic in our relationship would flip.
Willingly answering questions or putting myself in situations where there was likely to be a protracted, difficult emotional exchange about something, whether it was about a belief I held or a way of feeling/being I have an unconventional relationship with.
Hiding parts of myself that I felt could never be accepted by anyone but myself. Temporarily convincing myself I could proceed in a relationship and feel satisfied without being more honest, suppressing myself for a partial sense of connection.
Staying with my ex after admitting having lied to her about my porn preferences and staying throughout the inevitably rocky fallout of that. And then, for better or worse, staying despite realizing our incompatibility on a much deeper level until she was able to break up with me herself. As presumptuous as this sounds on the outside of it, considering how she responded to my attempts to end things, it really seemed like she needed to be able to break up with me herself and have control over at least that aspect of the situation. And the breakup seemed inevitable, even if it took a month. If I’d been wrong, I’m not sure how much longer I would’ve stayed before having to end it myself.
And, on that note, sharing what were “to the grave” secrets that could easily lead to me being perceived negatively by the vast majority of the population.
More thoughts
Bit of a digression from the question so you can skip this lol, but, thinking about it, it seems like both of us in my last relationship had habits of accepting or choosing connections with people that we felt needed what we could offer but couldn’t actually give us what we wanted.
In my case, being with someone more emotionally unstable because then my emotional groundedness or calmness would be valued despite the challenges I brought to that relationship as someone less communicative or expressive.
Possibly, in her case, this meant being with someone less emotionally aware and communicative so her emotional fluency and sense of urgency or conviction would be valued despite the challenges of bringing more emotionally volatile interactions to the relationship.
I feel like this can create a situation where what you value, and what helps you feel valued, by the other person is also the source (or amplifier) of quite a lot of the relationship challenges. And, though I feel as if an arrangement like that can work, in our case I think, in addition to the errors I made in hiding parts of myself and not trusting my intuitions more initially, there was a deeper incompatibility that wasn’t going to resolve itself. Despite attempts to remedy this, there was always a subtle sense, on my end, that things could go from 0 to 100 quite easily and take more effort to resolve than seemed preferable, so even the calm parts weren’t really. And, on her end, there was likely an underlying sense that she would be blindsided or disturbed or feel abandoned by my behaviors or admittances.
Currently?
I think I used to be more drawn to people with challenges that paralleled or mirrored my own and still see similarity or compatibility in emotional sensitivity. But I think, to an extent, emotional volatility and sensitivity were too closely coupled in my perception of potential partners. There was an attraction to that which was, or seemed like, chemistry.
Now it does seem I find myself more able to recognize a kind of sensitivity that’s held more peacefully or gracefully within others and able to recognize a “sense of life”, a way in which people perceive and evaluate their actions and experiences, that, though rare, seems more compatible as well. But I don’t seem to have much of a desire atm to actively start a relationship which is kind of what’s necessary for at least romantic relationships to exist for me, being as introverted as I am.
I’m not even certain if the container of “explicitly defined conventional monogamous relationship” while not entirely undesirable, makes sense for me in reality given my disposition. So, currently, my compromise, given everything, is choosing singledom and appreciating whatever attraction I do experience even though I don’t feel a drive to act on it.