The root of all relationship problems is not poor communication. It is not a lack of intimacy. It’s not selfishness, family issues, pent up resentment, or any other relationship-killer you’ve heard before. The number one destroyer of any good relationship is the ego – and more specifically, the ego making a person believe that their own poor reactions are justified.
Every relationship issue you can imagine – ineffective communication, resentment, infidelity, or neglect – is simply a symptom of the belief that if someone feels slighted, hurt, or triggered, they have the right to react however they want to.
Here’s how most people think in relationships:
“You said something hurtful and triggering, so I reacted by yelling at you, ignoring you, or shutting down.”
“You made me feel like you weren’t paying attention to me, so I reacted by accumulating resentment and eventually checked out of the relationship.”
And so forth. You did X, therefore, I reacted by doing Y. If you hadn’t done X, I wouldn’t have done Y. This is the premise by which most couples operate.
Well, it’s also the reason that 6 out of every 10 couples get divorced within the first 5 years of marriage. Clearly the formula isn’t working out so well.
In any other context, most reasonable people would be able to understand that this eye-for-an-eye operating system is childish. For example, let’s say that you hurl a slew of hurtful insults at me, and in reaction, I decide to physically assault you.A reasonable person would say: you shouldn’t have hurled insults at me, but it was my responsibility for choosing to react by assaulting you.
Somehow, though, this logic goes out the window when it comes to our interpersonal relationships. And that is because our ego misleads us to think that our reaction is justified according to the stimulus that triggered it. That is, “if you push my buttons the wrong way, I have the right to react however I want.” But this is exactly where all potential relationship repair goes to die.
If you want to have a successful relationship of any kind – whether it’s with a friend, a family member, or an intimate partner – you must internalize two principles:
First, the full responsibility for your reaction is yours and yours alone. It does not matter what the other person has said or done, no matter how innocuous or how terrible. You (and only you) are in charge of how you handle yourself in response.
Second, there is never a justification for reactive behavior. Reactivity is only ever animalistic or childish – never effective, never acceptable.
Until you accept these two inescapable truths, you and your partner will find yourselves spinning your wheels in a never-ending cycle of “well I did this because you did that” – which we all know leads nowhere.
Who is the calmest, most mature, most grounded person you know in your life? Try to show up to handle a conflict the way you think that person would handle it, emulating their emotional regulation and egoless communication. Worst case scenario: you’ve kept your side of the street clean. Best case scenario: you just set the example for what healthy connection and conflict resolution in the relationship will be going forward, and rid yourself of destructive, reactive behaviors in the process.
