The Clean Up Rule - The Clean Up Rule says that everybody gets to clean up their own messes. It is a principal that encourages us to take responsibility for dealing with our own messes and leave other people to clean up theirs.
Description:
There is a tendency in relationships with a personality disordered individual for the Non-PD to begin enabling the the neglectful or abusive behavior. This enabling often takes the form of the Non-PD going out of their way to compensate or try to cover up for the shortcomings of the personality disordered individual.
The incentives for doing this may be:
In an attempt to demonstrate to a challenging person that the Non-PD really does care for them.
Out of a sense of fear that abusive behavior may be triggered or escalated.
Out of a desire to restore a sense of normalcy to the home environment.
Out of embarrassment or shame at what others might think if they witness chaos.
The problems caused by this kind of cleaning up after a person who habitually creates a chaotic environment can be:
Loss of self esteem for the person who does the cleaning up after another.
Non verbal communication that the chaos created is acceptable to the victim and/or will not be challenged and therefore is "OK".
Creation of an environment where the chaos creator is encouraged to escalate their behavior.
Denial of the opportunity for the chaos creator to learn from their own mistakes.
Communication to other dependent bystanders - siblings and children - that there is no hope of things improving.
Therefore cleaning up someone else's messes is typically a short term gain for a long term loss. It is a healthier alternative to use the clean up rule wherever possible. Everybody Gets to Clean Up Their Own Messes.
Examples:
A teenager gets fined for vandalism and his parents refuse to cover the cost but require him to get a job and pay it off.
A woman has an affair and her husband refuses to blame himself for it.
A man destroys objects in the home and his wife leaves and refuses to return until the mess is cleaned up.
A parent begins swearing at her adult children over Christmas Dinner and one decides to leave and refuses to bear the responsibility for "ruining the event for everybody"
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