Grave-Dressing Phase

In Communication, Making Connections by William Seiler and Melissa Beall, the authors summarize communications scholar Steve Duck’s phases of dissolution in Chapter 14 pages 390-1. Steve believes that relationships breakdown in four phases: intrapsychic, dyadic, social and the grave-dressing phase. The latter phase is the most interesting because both parties give their account of why the relationship failed. Often one party is not convinced that the relationship is over and problems can arise. This makes me think of a coworker who battered his girlfriend. She went so far as to move to Kansas to escape his wrath. When he tracked her down at college he attempted to assault her and her new boyfriend. He was not allowed to enter the dorm by security, thank heavens, and instead went to the window of her dorm room and shot himself in the chest. He survived much to the chagrin of her parents, I’m sure. In Anatomy of a Violent Relationship by Neil Jacobsen and John Gottman, the authors define battering as “physical aggression with a purpose: to control, intimidate, and subjugate another human being.” They claim it is ALWAYS accompanied with verbal abuse. In the case of my ex-coworker, the only casualty was him, lets pray that doesn’t change.