Do You Want to Feel Self-Righteous or Love?

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You may have noticed that focusing on changing your partner has led to considerable hurt and frustration. A better way to improve your relationship—and feel better about yourself—is to focus your efforts on changing the relationship dynamic.

Relationship dynamics are unconscious interactive patterns in which both partners automatically react to each other in set ways. You have the same argument or unpleasant discussion over and over. Once relationship dynamics are activated, the content of the exchange, whether serious or trivial, doesn’t matter; both partners slip into their habitual reactions.

Instead of working as a team to solve a problem, the partners see each other as the problem. They view each other as opponents at first, and eventually as enemies.

In the throes of relationship dynamics, we’re hypersensitive to the effect of what we perceive our partners to say and do but mostly insensitive to the effect of what we say and do.

The Engine of Dysfunctional Dynamics: Blame

Without blame, dysfunctional dynamics cannot persist. With blame, they can’t end. When partners blame each other, they fall prey to the original sin of relationship dynamics—monocular vision—the inability to perceive each other’s perspectives or discern how they appear to each other.

We think in oversimplified terms and behave badly when emotions run hot, in part because negative emotions feel different from the way they look. For example, when angry, we feel offended, mistreated, and entitled to retaliate.

On a deeper level, we feel hurt. But we look offensive, mean, and hurtful. Partners react to each other’s visible defenses against the hurt and hurt each other more.

To keep from crossing the line into emotional abuse, we must learn to replace negative labels with attempts to improve. Instead of condemning partners’ reactions, use them as a mirror of how we appear to each other—what we look like, not merely what we feel.

Below are examples of inflaming relationship dynamics, compared to improving them. The words you use are not as important as the motivation to feel self-righteous or love.

• Inflame: “You’re defensive.”
• Improve: “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound accusing or critical. We need to be more compassionate to each other.”
• Inflame: “You’re showing contempt.”
• Improve: “I must be sounding judgmental. We need to be more compassionate to each other.”
• Inflame: “You’re demanding.”
• Improve: “I know we hate it when the other sounds demanding. I’m sorry that I sounded that way. I can make requests that don’t sound like demands. We need to be more compassionate to each other.”
• Inflame: “You’re nagging.”
• Improve: “I need to do a better job making you feel heard, so you don’t have to repeat yourself. We need to be more compassionate to each other.”
• Inflame: “You’re criticizing.”
• Improve: “What can we do to make it better? We need to be more compassionate to each other.”
• Inflame: “You’re gaslighting.”
• Improve: “We can disagree about interpretations of facts, but not feelings. Our feelings are important. We need to be more compassionate to each other.”
• Inflame: “You’re a narcissist.”
• Improve: “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t use negative labels, we both hate that. I’ll try harder to see your perspective.”
• Inflame: “You’re controlling.”
• Improve: “I know you don’t mean to seem controlling because that lowers the value of our relationship. We can be more compassionate and respectful to each other in our behavior requests.”