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Small Changes Can Create Better Relationships

Men and women in law enforcement spend much of their careers making quick, clear, decisive and sometimes intuitive decisions. These decisions often involve life and death situations. Interestingly, sometimes these very same people find that in their own personal lives, they lack the same clarity and intuition to make sense of their relationships and move forward with the same conviction and passion.

The very strategies that can save police officer's lives when they are on the job, can be the very same things that cost them their relationships. That is, police officers often adapt a psychological stance of being "emotionally disconnected" as an important coping strategy to deal with the work they do. However, it can become difficult to switch gears, and be emotionally connected and vulnerable in an intimate relationship. There are very few jobs that require this kind of "emotional armor". So what might take years to develop in terms of a protective armor is not so easily removed just by walking into one's living room at the end of the workday.

Police officers are action oriented problem solvers. In relationships, communication is often more about listening and being heard, then doing something. In other words, this is a very passive activity; as opposed to the usual action oriented perspective the police officer takes.

In addition, a police officer's role at work is to protect, and enforce the law; essentially to take control of situations and to differentiate between right and wrong. Unfortunately, in personal relationships and feelings, there is usually a gray zone rather then a black and white, right or wrong answer. Again, this requires a very difficult "switching of gears" from the work environment to the personal realm. In our relationships with other people there is always an element that we cannot control; the other person. This can prove to be a challenge for the police officer who is trained to be the one who is in control. In personal relationships intimacy is created when one trusts enough to give up control. Here, too, the cynicism, which may develop from being on the job, may carry over into one's personal life interfering with the development of trust.

As complicated as interpersonal relationships are, sometimes just understanding the most basic elements of what we do and how we communicate can be enough to empower us to make great changes.
For example:
*If you are wearing your armor; leave it at the door.
*If you think you have to find a solution to every problem a loved one tells you; sit back and just listen.
*If you feel that you have to control everyone and everything; try to allow someone else to rise to the occasion and be as competent as you.
Sometimes the most important things to protect are the relationships that sustain us.

Cindy Grant, LCSW, Psychoanalyst