Why We Fight

Fights between couples are inevitable; they’re going to happen. The closer we get to people, the greater the expectations we have for them. Which also means the greater the opportunities for them to let us down. In our current culture, we depend on our partner to meet most of our needs (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, etc.) in a very similar way to how we depended on our parents to meet most of our needs when we were younger. That attachment/bond/dependence is strong and any hint of a rupture to that attachment is jarring. We get emotional when we perceive the attachment bond to be threatened in any way because it’s incredibly important to us. If we didn’t care about our partner, we probably wouldn’t waste our emotional energy on them.

Fighting To Combat Disconnection

Just as with our parents, we want our partners to answer three big questions for us with an emphatic yes. These questions help us feel secure in our connection to our partner. If they don’t answer these questions with an emphatic yes, we doubt our connection to them and we feel insecure in the relationship.

These questions are:

1. Are you there for me?

2. Can I count on you?

3. Do I matter to you?

When we perceive any hint of a no or a maybe not, we respond in the way we learned to respond in our childhood to perceived threats to our attachment bonds. This usually looks one of two ways: a protest or a retreat. Which means you either have two partners protesting, two partners retreating, or one partner protesting and one partner retreating.

How We Fight

Two Protestors

Partner 1: “I have to stay late at work tonight.”

Partner 2: “Again?!”

Partner 1: “Well, someone has to make money!”

Partner 2: “You’re the one who wanted me to stay home to watch the kids!”

Partner 1: “Well, you’re the one who wanted to have kids in the first place!”…

One partner protests because they don’t feel connected and they don’t know how to ask for what they need to reconnect. The other protests back because they feel attacked and if they hadn’t already felt disconnected, they definitely do now. And on and on it goes.

Two Retreaters

Partner 1 inner dialogue: “My partner is going to be so disappointed in me for staying late at work again, I better just avoid them tonight.”

Partner 2 inner dialogue: “My partner must stay at work so late to avoid spending time with me, I guess I’ll just figure things out around here on my own so I don’t burden them further.”

The disconnection scares us, but we don’t believe there’s a point in protesting it because of the stories we have in our heads about how our partner feels about us. Our partner’s retreat causes us to believe our partner does not care about us and then we retreat out of fear. Our retreat causes the other to further retreat and then we’re more disconnected than we could ever imagine.

One Protestor And One Retreater

Partner 1: “I have to work another late night tonight.”

Partner 2: “Do you have any idea how much stress that puts on me?!”

Partner 1: “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Partner 2: “You just never think about how your actions affect me!”

Partner 1: *Comes home with feelings of inadequacy and quietly tries to avoid angry partner*

One partner is feeling overwhelmed and can’t communicate what they need to their partner without intense emotion, the other partner gets overwhelmed by the intense emotion and retreats to a safe place, their retreat causes the protestor to feel even more disconnected, which causes them to protest even more and round and round we go.

How do you respond to a perceived rupture in your attachment bond?

Do you find yourself protesting or retreating? Do you see you and your partner in any of these scenarios? Do you want to know how to step out of the cycle that further exacerbates the disconnection so that you can repair the connection in a loving way?

How to step out of these cycles of disconnection:

Vulnerability! Yes, it sounds too simple to be true, but I really do believe it’s the answer. The only way to step out of one of these nasty cycles is to communicate your needs in a way that isn’t going to trigger your partner in the way you always trigger them. You have to choose to admit that you feel disconnected and scared.

Examples of how this may look:

“When you work late, I feel super overwhelmed by the kids and I don’t feel supported by you. I’m wondering if there’s a way we can resolve this.”

“When you don’t spend time with me when you get home, I feel you don’t care about me. I want to feel closer to you.”

“When you criticize me, it makes me feel like I’m a disappointment to you and causes me to want to move away from you. I want to be close but it’s scary for me when you say the things you do to me.”

These kind of statements are much more likely to get a kind, compassionate response from your partner than a protest or a retreat. Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself.

What Is Trauma?

As part of an initial intake at my old job, I was required to ask new clients if they had undergone any kind of trauma in their lifetime. After doing these intakes over and over again, I realized that people don’t really know what trauma is and they don’t really understand how deeply their trauma has affected them. I believe trauma is at the root of most mental health issues, so today I’ll be talking about what trauma is and how it manifests in our lives post-trauma.

I’m sure there are tons of working definitions for trauma out there, but for today’s purposes:

Trauma is any kind of event or experience that is significantly physically or emotionally threatening or harmful.

This could include a lot of different experiences, including (but not limited to):

Birth (both the act of giving birth and the event of being birthed)
A medical procedure or surgery
A divorce (for adults or for the children of the adults)
Loss (of a job, pet, family member or friend)
Violence (witnessing violence or being violated)
Miscarriage
Sexual assault
Childhood neglect or abuse
Psychological manipulation or coercion (through cults or religions)
Being bullied by peers
Being shamed by authority figures

I could go on and on, but the point is that trauma encompasses so much more than just physical or sexual abuse (which is what we usually focus on). You may not feel your dog’s death counts as a trauma, but if it significantly shook you and caused you to feel negatively about your ability to care for another living being to the point that the thought of having kids now terrifies you because if you can’t take care of a dog you sure as hell can’t take care of a kid… I would consider that a trauma. Just because something might not look like a trauma on the surface, doesn’t mean it’s not a trauma. If an event or experience in the past is causing you to act in defense and out of fear in the present, you may be acting out of a trauma.

What does it look like to be acting out of a trauma?

Anxiety as a manifestation of trauma

Anxiety is a message our body sends us to alert us about a potential threat in our environment. Anxiety says, “PAY ATTENTION, YOUR LIFE MIGHT BE AT STAKE!” When we are exposed to life-threatening situations, our body remembers this. It notes: almost got attacked (or did get attacked) while walking through sketchy neighborhood at night, will remember to avoid similar situations in the future in order to stay alive. Whatever stimuli you were exposed to in your near-death situation can then be determined by your body as potentially threatening. So in turn, that neighborhood, the smells and sounds of the night, the clothing of the attacker, etc. can be stored away in your emotional memory as potentially dangerous and worthy of an anxiety response if encountered again. This is your body trying to protect you from future threats. The problem comes when we’re exposed to life-threatening situations often. I’m sure you can imagine if you have lots of situations like these, your body will begin to believe there is threat everywhere and respond appropriately with anxiety. This may result in feeling anxious when exposed to seemingly benign stimuli such as certain materials of clothing or certain smells. These things may alert us to a real threat, but oftentimes they just happen to be a random part of the trauma scenario you endured that actually isn’t a very good predictor of threat. If it snowed on the day you were nearly shot by a mass shooter, it doesn’t mean that snow is a good predictor of threat, but your body may respond to it in such a way because of the way it is stored in your emotional memory. Enough of these memories and we will begin to see threat (and experience anxiety) everywhere.

Depression as a manifestation of trauma

Depression is also a message from our body and it says, “something’s not right here; something needs to change.” It’s an adaptive message that’s supposed to help us get to a better environment where we can thrive, but sometimes we feel helpless in our ability to do anything but accept our crumby circumstances. When we have been traumatized in any way, we feel powerless. When we have been traumatized repeatedly, this feeling is incredibly exacerbated. If you are constantly being put in situations where you are powerless, you will begin to believe that your power is small or non-existent. You will learn to accept this fact and accept your situation as it is, miserable as it may be. Believing you are powerless to change your situation renders you stuck in your depression until you gain an ounce of strength or belief in your strength to make change.

Disassociation as a manifestation of trauma

Traumatic experiences are obviously not fun, which sometimes causes people to do whatever they can to avoid thinking about them ever again. This can result in disassociation, where people become detached from themselves as a measure of protection. Children who experience chronic trauma often learn to separate from themselves during the trauma as they have no means of escape and this is often the only way they can get through the trauma. They pretend like they’re elsewhere to blunt the effects of the horrible thing they’re going through. They may be able to fully return to the person who was traumatized after the trauma is over and they believe they are safe again, but they also may go back and forth between that person and the person they disassociated to as a way to escape the memories of the trauma and return to the safety of the person who was never traumatized in the first place.

Addiction as a manifestation of trauma

Another way we see people escape the memories of a trauma is through addiction. Drugs, sex, alcohol, work, exercise, social media, etc. can all act as a method of escape. They help get your mind off the traumatic memories and numb you from the pain temporarily. They are a safe, predictable place of comfort in a world riddled by trauma and chaos.

Eating Disorders as a manifestation of trauma

For those who are more apt to take action and work towards changing their situation or environment, we may see eating disorders develop. Binge-eating disorder can often be a result of sexual trauma as it is theorized that the individual is unconsciously trying to make themselves less desirable and therefore more protected from another sexual assault. Anorexia and bulimia can develop in individuals who have undergone emotional trauma or bullying in an effort to make themselves smaller (maybe even invisible?) so as to not be a target for further trauma.

We’ve all experienced trauma

Trauma happens to all of us and it affects all of us differently. Your trauma may manifest in big ways or it may manifest in small ways. You may have the resources and strength to deal with your past trauma and find adaptive strategies to thrive or you may just be barely hanging on with the maladaptive coping strategies you’ve developed over the years. Wherever you’re at, I feel you. This world is harsh and none of us get through unscathed. If you’re barely hanging on, find someone to talk to or schedule an appointment with me! Nobody’s meant to go through it alone.