Making Sense of Couples’ Painful Interactions

“Fear is the most pertinent and endemic emotion in distressed marriages.” -Dr. Sue Johnson  

Each couple’s negative interactions can be seen as a co-created dance based on their fears. Both partner’s behavior is motivated by fears and is a way to manage anxieties and vulnerability.

Do you watch yourself and your partner play out the same negative interactions time and again? Do you feel yourself get triggered by something your partner says or does and watch as your emotional reactivity hijacks your good intentions and good judgment? Or, do you see your partner being triggered by and emotionally hijacked by something you’ve said or done and find yourself pulled into your negative cycle seemingly outside your control?
There are many aspects to couples’ negative cycles that are confusing and despair provoking. It is often very difficult to understand why we (ourselves and our partners) act in such extreme ways. And it can feel near impossible to interrupt these negative reactions despite our hopes, desires, best intentions, skills training, or counseling that we’ve invested in. The good news is that it is possible to make sense of what’s going on and ultimately to change the painful dynamics.

Couples co-create their painful dances based on fears. Their extreme reactions are attempts to avoid or manage their anxieties rooted in insecurities and vulnerability. Dr. Sue Johnson says in her book The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy that “fear is a powerful motivator, one that can create fight or flight physiological reactions, one that constricts how partners perceive and interact.”

At first blush it may not make sense why relationship fears are intense enough to trigger survival level fight or flight (or even the more extreme freeze) responses. However, Attachment Theory and recent neurobiology studies are demonstrating that we are neurologically wired to experience threats to our attachments or connections with our partners not only as threats to our happiness but as threats to our survival. This begins to make more sense when we understand that human babies are born absolutely and totally dependent on their primary caretakers. If that attachment is threatened, their survival is truly at risk.

When we perceive a survival level threat or danger, our brains and nervous systems kick into survival mode – fight, flight, or freeze. Access to the parts of our brains that provide good, reasoned judgment based on grounded perceptions is literally by-passed because those functions are slower. This physiological response is exactly what happens when something happens that we interpret as endangering our connection with our partner. As a result, couples’ negative interactions can look extreme and out of proportion to what the triggers are. They can also be incredibly difficult to interrupt with reasoning or the use of communication skills, both of which rely on higher level brain functions. The key to changing these cycles is through working with the fears that hijack our brains.

In my next article I’ll explore some common relational fears, how they play out in relationships to create negative cycles, and ways to address and resolve anxieties and insecurities so couples can interact in relationally healthier ways. If you’re interested in understanding and shifting your negative interaction cycles with your partner or other loved ones, I would love to help. You can reach me at 720-363-5538.