Love, Responsibility, and Empowerment in Relationships

High emotional reactivity is a hallmark of bad relationships. When a negative feeling in one partner causes chaos or shut down in the other, emotional reactivity spirals out of control.

Once reactivity becomes habit, the initiating negative feeling may have nothing to do with the partner or the relationship. It can be a reaction to losses in politics, sports, finances, or any number of ego offenses at work. It’s often physiological: irritability from weariness, hunger, diffuse concentration, or discomfort.

Relationships with high emotional reactivity are not necessarily high in conflict. Conflict-avoidant partners tend to argue with cold shoulders instead of raised voices and pointed words.

Regardless of whether the reactivity is loud or silent, one partner is likely to be anxious, the other cynically depressed, with the only visible emotion some form of anger or indifference. They regard each other as opponents more than partners. They develop automatic defenses that activate with neither doing anything wrong. They feel a little tense when their partner comes home or simply walks into the room. Both feel powerless to improve the relationship or focus on what the other should do to improve it.

High emotional reactivity rises from a chain of resentment and tends to be degenerative. It rarely gets better on its own. Only concerted effort can effectively change habituated patterns of interaction.

The Hidden Hurt

When emotional reactivity is high, anything can be a measure of love and a signal of inadequacy as a partner.

“If you loved me, you would do this.”

“If you loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to do this.”

Accusations in love carry the implication:

"The way you love isn’t good enough."

But most complaints in love relationships have a hidden plea:

“Please care about me. Show that I matter to you.”

The best way, if not the only way, to get our partners to show that they care about us and we matter to them, is to show that we care about them and they matter to us.

Responsibility Is Power

Empowerment is the ability to make your experience and your life better. In love relationships we have enormous power over the well-being of partners, whether we want it or not. With power goes responsibility. (The exertion of power without responsibility is one definition of abuse.) Responsibility empowers us to improve.

The ultimate relationship empowerment: both partners embrace responsibility to improve negative interactions, regardless of who “started it.”

The alternative is blame, which quickly escalates the intensity, hurt, and frustration of interactions.

Responsibility Is Not Blame

We’re quick to blame our partners for negative interactions, while evading responsibility to improve them. This isn't hypocrisy; it rises from a confusion of responsibility with blame.

Responsibility and blame are mutually exclusive. Blame is about the past; responsibility to improve your well-being lies in the present and future. Blame induces shame, to which we typically react with anger. Accepting responsibility to improve evokes pride and efficacy.

Examples

This is a dialogue that clients recorded and sent to me. The couple has a home-based small business, with no physical boundaries between work and family spaces. Physical boundaries help the brain transition from performance-driven, hierarchical work mentality to the egalitarian acceptance-support mentality required of love relationships.

One partner interrupts the other with a work issue.

“We need to talk about this.”

“I took care of it!”

“Without consulting me?”

“It’s taken care of!”

“You’re being rude.”

“I’m just trying to finish this.”

“You need to apologize.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That wasn’t sincere.”

“I’ll apologize better when I finish this.”

“You have time to hurt my feelings but not apologize?”

“Let me finish this, then I can deal with your feelings.”

The argument escalated with increasing accusations:

“You're abusive!”

“You’re too sensitive!”

The interrupting partner left the room in hurt and exasperation. The frustration of the interrupted partner kept him from finishing the task anyway. They went three days without speaking before declaring a temporary truce.

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The point isn’t who was right and who was wrong. Neither was assuming responsibility to improve the interaction and their relationship. Partners are human, they make mistakes. High emotional reactivity compounds the mistakes. Responsibility ameliorates them.

If the couple acted on their desire to improve their relationship and all its interactions, it would go something like the following:

“We need to talk about this."

“Oh, honey I took care of that.”

“Without consulting me?”

“I’m sorry, I should have consulted with you first. I was scatter-brained, but I meant no disrespect. I’ll remember in the future.”

“I’ll appreciate that.”

If the interrupted partner fails to regulate his frustration about the interruption, the interaction could still improve with something like:

“We need to talk about this.”

“I took care of it!”

“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, but I’m sensitive to a gruff response.”

“No, I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take out my frustration on you. You deserve my attention.”

Both partners would feel better about the interaction. Neither would accuse or indulge in defensiveness. If they practice self-regulation in the future, their relationship will become more secure.

Emotional Abuse

Abuse is a self-regulation matter, not a relationship issue. Abusers are solely responsible for their abusive behavior. There’s no such thing as uncontrollable abuse. No matter how upset they might get, abusers make a choice to hurt their partners, rather than calm themselves.

Unfortunately, the inadvertent consequence of this truth renders victims of abuse powerless over their emotional well-being. If you suffer emotional abuse and choose to stay in the relationship for whatever reason, you can still empower yourself to improve interactions rather than make them worse. But always put safety first, both within the relationship and if you choose to leave it.

The Right to Express Anger

Some couples resist the responsibility to improve because they think it means relinquishing their right to express anger. You have a right to express anger and a responsibility to recognize that expressing anger is devaluing and bound to make the interaction worse.

Note in the third interaction above that the partner expressed the hurt causing her anger, which is apt to get a positive reaction, though not with the certainty that expressing the anger will get a negative one. You have a right to make things better and a right to make things worse.

Relationships improve when we accept that we’re all responsible for improving interactions and that we’re all guilty of escalating them.

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