what to do when your partner is upset
Something I've noticed in my own relationships and in my clients' relationships is that often, when our partner gets triggered, we get triggered. I don't mean we get mad back (necessarily), I mean that we react with a pattern that was conditioned in us from when we were younger. This type of trigger clues us into how we handle emotions and conflict.
For example, when my partner seems angry, I can sometimes react by shrinking - I get quieter, I might avoid eye contact, and I will even sometimes change my posture, literally shrinking myself. This isn't because I'm actually afraid of my partner, it's because I was afraid of my father's anger when I was young. The pattern can still get triggered for me, even though my partner is a safe person.
The most critical phase of relationships is the Triggered Phase, when we discover that many of our patterns don't fit with what we're creating. These patterns are on autopilot until we become conscious of them. We don't realize that they create disconnection, confuse conflict, and misrepresent us.
We don't realize we're acting out of fear.
Below are a few simple steps to get a handle on your conditioned reactions to your partner's emotions and how to go about creating something new.
awareness
First, we want to build awareness. By becoming aware of our emotions and conditioned responses to feeling them, we can have a choice.
When our partner is experiencing a challenging emotion (anger, frustration, sadness, anxiety, etc), how do we react? Choose just one emotion for now.
What emotion do we feel in response? Anxiety, disgust, anger, fear, mistrust?
Do we try to soothe them, reassure, or comfort the emotion away?
Do we feel a need to get away, to give them space?
Do we try to use logic to convince them not to be upset?
Do we go into solution-finding mode, offering advice or suggestions?
Do we collapse and fall into a kind of despair?
Once we know what our automatic reaction is, it can be helpful to recognize where the pattern originated from:
What early relationships did I witness this pattern in? (Parent-to-Parent? Parent-to-Child?)
What relationships have I repeated this pattern in? (Child-to-Parent? Siblings? Work relationships?)
From here, building in bigger insights:
What do I fear happening if I respond in a different way?
What do I fear my partner will think, feel, or believe if I don't respond in this way?
How is this fear limiting me in my life?
What could open up for me if I didn't need to fear this?
Once we have awareness, we can begin to create a new pattern.
creating something new
What are we supposed to do when our partner is upset? If you've been here a while, you know about Emotional Hotness. This is the ideal: We're able to hold space for our partner's experience, without trying to change or "fix" it.
Listening attentively while they describe their feelings.
Ensuring we understand by reflecting back to them when we're unsure.
That's it.
This is way harder than it seems, because of the conditioning that goes on autopilot when our partner gets upset. Now that we're aware of that conditioning, when the urge to repeat it happens, we can choose something different.
We'll very likely have to work with the fears that are underneath those conditioned patterns in order to really change our patterns. We're also likely to need to learn about our own emotional reactions, our Shadow and Persona, and our relationship to conflict. This is all healthy and an important part of getting through the Triggered Phase into the Committed Phase.
Are you ready to dive in deeper? Check out my free workbook Triggered No More. It's full of simple and effective exercises to help you uncover the patterns that are keeping your relationship stuck in the Triggered Phase. Click the button below to get it!
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