Managing relationships is hard. While we are quarantined, we spend more time together than ever What gives? In my own relationship, I experience this dichotomy. As I reflect on the past few weeks, it has brought me to a better understanding of my relationship, what I want from my marriage, and how to show up in a way that delivers on what I desire. Why is it that when my husband is working round the clock and I am feeling neglected, ignored, and missing him that I greet him with a cold, distant, grumpy shoulder?
Instead of a warm embrace when he finally does get home from his new COVID induced car office, I signal a very different message than the one I want to send. My feelings are hurt and I want to protect myself by distancing, avoiding, and offering up some choice passive-aggressive comments. A real joy, as you can imagine! My husband has many talents, but mind reading is not one of them! In my case, my intention is to reconnect with him, but instead, my behavior shows the opposite. When we communicate in this indirect way to put it gently , our partners can only make assumptions about what is going on for us and how we are feeling based on our behaviors.
Then they will react to our reaction and we are off to the races! As a result, we end up getting in our cycle as we call it in Emotionally Focused Therapy. Our cycle is basically our pattern of communication when we fight that leaves us both feeling stuck and disconnected. This cycle can set the tone for the rest of the evening, or worse, the next few days. Sometimes a lot of emotions are wrapped up in it. The timing might not be great. Both of you have had a long day.
After all these years, you just want them to have figured it out by now, which goes back to the mind reading. But then we get stuck in the anger, resentment, anxiety, depression We develop our sense of self and other at a very young age and then develop strategies for dealing with these beliefs.
James Hollis, a Jungian Analyst, calls these anxiety management strategies. These beliefs of self and other and our strategies for managing them are often out of our awareness. Unless we become more aware of our own anxiety management strategies, we can become a prisoner to our behaviors. These tactics for managing our needs and getting through life were developed for a good reason. They helped us get through hard times and protected us in a world when we had little power growing up.
