The Couples Institute

Last time we discussed resentment. It’s one of the two major bogymen that cause most of your ineffective couple’s communications. The other is fear. When you are feeling fearful or highly anxious in a contentious discussion, you are most likely to regress into being one very ineffective communicator. Remember “”The Five Demons?” They are withdrawal, blaming, whining, resentful compliance and confusion.

Fear is a primary instinctive reaction to a threat. Anger is a secondary emotion that gets expressed after we feel the fear. Here’s what I mean.

If someone recklessly cuts you off when driving, your quick outward reaction may be one of anger, “You  #$!!*%*%%#.” But you felt fear before you expressed your anger.

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Last week I wrote about the five major categories of ineffective coping responses that people use when under stress. They are withdrawal, blaming, whining, resentful compliance and confusion. We’ll call them The Five Demons of Couples’ Communication.

Today we’ll consider the first of two basic emotions that are the basis of The Five Demons. Like Abbott and Costello, fear and resentment tend to travel in pairs. These two emotions are the twin pillars of most dysfunctional communication.

It’s tough to eliminate resentment because there is often a big part of us that doesn’t want to give it up. An enlightened voice within us may believe we should release it, but it’s often the less influential voice on our internal board of directors. So we hang on to the resentments. One client argued, “It’s my reward for suffering and putting up with so much B.S.”   But nursing our resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die.

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As couples therapists, my wife, Ellyn and I hear every kind of ineffective communication. Under stress, people do a lot of unpleasant or nasty things to their partner.  Most ineffective reactions can be classified into one of five categories. Although we use all of them once in a while, most of us have favorites we use when feeling threatened, fearful, inadequate or some other kind of emotional pain.

These reactions are basically ineffective coping mechanisms developed to reduce emotional pain. But their ineffectiveness doesn’t stop us from reflexing to them when the stress gets high enough.

Being able to recognizing the five major categories can help to recognize your habitual patterns and start to break them.

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