A way to recognize if your emotional response is actually an activation of past relationship trauma
After an argument where we both had made a negative and wrong assumption about what the other person was thinking and our intentions behind actions, my partner and I found a simple solution to most of our challenging moments together. First, I’ll back up and share a little more about us and a couple of caveats for this solution and approach to resolving conflict. My partner and I have been together a little over 2 years and we both work in the mental health/substance abuse fields. We have both experienced toxicity in relationships in the past, as well as other traumas, so like other people with what society calls “baggage”, we are aware we are bringing those memories and on some level the lasting trauma responses into the relationship as well. Since we have been together for awhile, have professional education on healthy relationship indicators, and have had many discussions on what is healthy and what would be considered toxic in our relationship, we have trust that neither of us are trying to manipulate, control, or otherwise emotionally abuse each other. This is KEY and is the first caveat to this approach. I DO NOT recommend trying this with your partner if you are already certain they have a habit of turning your words around, gaslighting [insert gaslighting is more than lying post link] you, or otherwise using your insecurities or feelings to further hurt you. My second caveat is this is recommended for occasional use, not every difficult thought or moment of difficult emotions. I am recommending this to be used frequently enough to start to get the information you need to be able to handle the negative and assumptive thoughts when they come up, but not so frequently that every negative emotion and accompanying thought process are being discussed at length with your partner. The goal is to get clarity about what they are really thinking versus the negative assumption you have so you can begin to combat those automatic negative assumptions on your own, as this activity will help you to reality test those negative thoughts. With all that said, here is the solution: we’ve started using the sentence “Right now I’m telling myself that you are thinking…”. We tell each other the story that we tell ourselves.
Our first discovery of this was a few weeks ago when my partner made a strong commitment to work on her overall physical wellbeing, including getting better sleep. I am very much on board with this plan and am happy to see her making this effort for herself. Since I have a flexible schedule as a therapist in a group practice, I tend to want to stay up until about 10:30 or 11pm since I do an evening therapy session and I don’t need to get up until after she does. As we were decorating for Christmas and talking about the changes she was planning to make, I noticed hesitation as she told me she wanted to start going to bed at 10pm. I told her that was a great plan and I’d likely join sometimes but might still stay up a bit later some nights. She seemed a little relieved, so I asked what she was worried about and she said she knows I like her to stay up with me and didn’t want me to be upset. I scanned my memory for a time when I got upset about her being tired and came up blank. Talk about an AHA! moment! I instantly said “Babe! I have no problem with you going to bed before I do. I’ve been thinking you are annoyed with me wanting to stay up because you don’t like going to bed alone.” Now it was her turn to laugh, turns out she has absolutely no problem going to bed alone, she just hasn’t wanted to upset me. We chuckled together and reaffirmed our enjoyment of when we do go to bed at the same time, as well as talked about what we each like about when I stay up later or when she stays up later.
Since this interaction, we’ve been able to reality test those negative and assumptive thoughts in our minds on a couple of occasions and each time we’ve discovered that one or both of us has made a negative assumption about what the other person was thinking or feeling toward the other in the moment. Being able to do this reality testing has helped both of us to take that step back on our own (because there is not always time or emotional energy for this whole process) and reevaluate our negative thoughts before the emotions take over and create a non-existent conflict. Talk about a game changer!
Not only has this helped reduce emotional spirals for each of us, but it has also deepened our relationship as we are learning more about what each other think and what concerns we have for ourselves and each other. Recognizing our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) takes practice on our own, as most of us have ANTs hanging out in our subconscious [add blog post link here] that we are not aware of and addressing ANTs is an exercise in mental health treatment on its own. It takes vulnerability and trust to be able to share our automatic thoughts with someone else and it’s this vulnerability that can deepen your connection and cut down opportunities for unproductive and hurtful conflict.
Gaining a Fresh Perspective 