The Real Enemy of Your Relationship

Except in the case of systematic emotional or verbal abuse, violence, or infidelity, the real enemy of your relationship is not the personality, selfishness, ill-will, poor behavior choices, personal preferences, anger management deficits, or communication skills of either of you.

The real problem in your marriage is the hypersensitive, Automatic Defense System (ADS) that has evolved between you. In other words, you inadvertently push each other's buttons. You probably know what it feels like; it reaches a certain point and you can't turn it off, the missiles start flying on their own, in the form of criticism, yelling, stonewalling, sulking, insults, resentment, anger, emotional abuse, and, in general, failure of compassion.

 

 

AUTOMATIC DEFENSE SYSTEM

                                                                                                          

                           YOU                                                                                      YOUR PARTNER

 

It's important to realize that in the vast majority of cases the button-pushing is automatic and inadvertent. It may seem that your partner is out to make your life miserable, but the fact is neither of you likes the way you feel when your ADS gets triggered. It makes you both feel:

  • Powerless
  • Out of control
  • Hopeless
  • Exhausted
  • Despairing

It makes you both do one or more of the following (circle which ones you do):

  • Stonewall, ignore, avoid, or shut down
  • Get irritable, impatient, or angry
  • Criticize
  • Resent
  • Yell
  • Devalue yourself or your partner
  • Undermine your partner as a spouse, parent, provider, lover, or protector

 

 

Hypersensitivity

There are certain times when your ADS is likely to become hair-trigger. It will help enormously if you are aware of these particularly sensitive times:

  • Your physical resources are low – you're, tired, thirsty, hungry, sick
  • Transitions – stopping one thing and starting another, such as coming, going, waking, driving, starting dinner, finishing dinner, cleaning up, etc.
  • Stress
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Within a year or two of attachment losses – friends or loved ones move away or pass away

Your ADS becomes increasingly sensitive over time as you come to expect that your partner will let you down in some way. You start looking for ways that he or she might trigger your ADS.

 

In its hypersensitive stage, anything – serious or trivial – can set off your ADS, as long as it stimulates core hurts:

 

Disregarded

Unimportant

Accused

Guilty

Devalued

Rejected

Powerless

Inadequate/Unlovable

Almost always, the core hurts that trigger your ADS are the same in both of you. If you are feeling devalued, it is almost certain that your partner is, too, even if he or she seems resentful, angry, or aloof. If you are feeling powerless, inadequate, or unlovable, you can bet that your partner is, too.

 

Incendiary Triggers

Certain incidents are so powerful that anything that remotely reminds you of them will set off your ADS. These usually involve some form of past betrayal. Circle all that apply to your relationship:

  • Infidelity
  • Abuse
  • Financial secrets
  • Deception
  • Threats of abandonment
  • Using intimately revealed vulnerabilities (childhood wounds, fears, past failures, etc.) against your partner
  • Attacking your partner's family members

 

Preemptive Strikes

Like all defensive systems, the hypersensitive ADS has an unconscious, preemptive strike capacity to “get” the other before he or she “gets” you. It may seem like you are always being defensive, but many times you are striking first in anticipation that you partner is about to do the same.

 

Good News and Bad News

The bad news about your ADS:

  • It runs on automatic pilot
  • Like any habit, it's hard to break
  • An anger management class or and anger control course won't help

The good news about your ADS:

  • You still care about what the other thinks
  • Your emotional well being is still tied up together

You probably know couples who are numb to one another. They don't hurt because they don't feel. Where there is pain, at least there is life, and a motivation to heal and improve, which requires disarming your ADS.

 

Disarming Your ADS

To Disarm your ADS, you have to:

  • See it as a pattern between you rather than something your partner does to you
  • Make a core value decision of which is more important to you: giving in to your ADS or disarming it to connect with your partner
  • Maintain the will to disarm your ADS, even when it feels awkward or even scary
  • Appreciate times of ADS hypersensitivity
  • Appreciate the enormous power of incendiary triggers
  • Be compassionate
  • Be allies against it – it's bigger than either one of you but not bigger than both of you
  • Be able to say, “Oh, we're triggered again; let's set it right. You're important to me; I want us to be close.”

 

Because your ADS is reflexive and habitual, it will need some brain rewiring to eliminate, such as that provided by HEALS.

Help is also available in the Stop Walking on Eggshells Boot Camps