How to Communicate When You & Your Partner Trigger Each Other
It is easy to think that if you and your partner trigger each other, then your relationship is destined to be an emotional rollercoaster. And it will be, until we can shift our focus from being right to being responsive. When you and your partner can make this shift, triggers within your relationship help heal the initial trauma fueling the conflict.
There are two reframes to make that will support your relationship as you navigate trauma:
Conflict isn’t the issue. How you approach the conflict is.
Being responsive is more important than being right.
To understand how conflict can become a part of your healing, let’s take a look at the impact of relational trauma.
How Relational Trauma Impacts Your Attachment to Others
Deep down, there is a lingering question within us: Will you have my back?
When we experience trauma in a relationship–especially as children from our caregivers–it distorts the lens through which we experience other relationships. For this reason, we have to talk about attachment because relational trauma is an attachment wound.
Attachment behavior is all about seeking closeness to someone who seems capable and dependable, especially in. moments when we feel vulnerable. Attachment boils down to two phrases: Safe Haven & Secure Base.
Safe Haven & Secure Base
We all need safe havens–someone we can go to when we need comfort. We also need secure bases–people who give us enough stability and security that we feel comfortable venturing out in the world, taking risks, and growing into the people we will become.
This was the task of our parents in our early stages. As a child, the hope was that you had a parent who was capable of caring for you and responding to you in ways that helped you feel safe in the world. When you have this, you develop a secure attachment.
But what happens when you aren’t given this? When you don’t have this sense of safety and security because your caregiver(s) invalidated you, asked you to take care of their emotions, tried to fix you instead of be present to you, or maybe even was a threat to you, you develop an insecure attachment.
If you’re curious what your attachment style is and how it’s affected you, you can explore this here.
When you have relational trauma, that insecure attachment tends to surface in your closest relationships. You didn’t have someone who was able to be fully responsive and present to you and so you struggle to develop a healthy type of connection with yourself and others. You are operating from survival, and the question, “do you have my back?” may be one that you are desperately seeking your partner to answer, or you may have thrown the question out entirely to avoid pain. In the later case, self-sufficiency may be the way you cope with this attachment wound.
Your attachment pattern becomes a lens through which you experience your partner
The attachment pattern you developed as a child serves as the lens thoruhg which you experience other close relationships–it was the water you swam in for so long that it has become the expected norm. You may stil ache for a safe haven, but you expect the other person to not respond to you in the way you long for. you expect the “norm” to be maintained.
This is where we start developing trauma lens’. Our partner misses us, walks away from us, gets defensive and invalidates us, etc. All of a sudden, our minds and bodies are thrown right back into that familiar experience from childhood. Your brain screams trying to warn you that your partner is a threat. You find yourself in survival mode relying on old survival skills because your whole system is telling you that you need to survive this threat.
For partners of someone with trauma, this can feel like a losing battle. You might feel like anything you do is going to trigger your partner and you feel like you are on trial, having to prove that you are a “good” person (whatever that means) and that you aren’t the same as the person from their past.
For the person with the trauma, it’s hard to relax into a relationship. You’re in survival mode and you just want to know that someone cares and has your back, but your brain will try to convince you otherwise by presenting thousands of micro-moments serving as evidence that your partner isn’t for you.
No wonder your relationship feels like a rollercoaster and connection feels impossible. You just keep missing each other.
Developing Secure Attachment Alongside Your Partner
Humans are incredibly adaptive and we can thank our minds and bodies for doing what they had to to help us get through the unmanageable situation, but the ways we learned to survive don’t serve us in our adult relationships. In fact, they are a huge part of the painful conflict cycles we play on repeat.
This is why it is so important to learn how to approach conflict and triggers in ways that get us out of survival so we can start healing within our relationship. Walking on eggshells and trigger-proofing our lives only leads to more disconnection. So we pivot, and find an alternative.
Earned Secure Attachment
I like to think about attachment styles as the culmination of
Our survival strategies that got us through our traumatic environment
The narratives we hold about ourselves and others
It’s important to understand that these can shift over time and you aren’t destined to always have an insecure attachment–through the work you do as a couple to help make safety the new normal, you can develop what is called “earned secure attachment.”
What if your purpose in each other’s lives was to help you each feel more and more safe in the world so that you can thrive both individually and as a couple?
If this was the case, triggering each other means you are the perfect match for healing each other’s wounds and developing more secure attachment together–IF you can make a commitment to an intentional partnership centered on responsiveness.
If you aren’t sure what your attachment style is or what the different types are, I’d encourage you to head over here for more context.
Clearing Your Lens So You Can See Each Other Clearly
I’m going to encourage you to do a little reframe around your behavior patterns and those of your partner: rather than seeing these patterns as “who they are,” try seeing these patterns as an indicator of the toolbox that they (or you) received. What shifts in your mind and body when you stop seeing your partner as “an xyz person” to someone who is ill-equipped. Maybe they were handed a toolbox with scissors when the moment at hand is asking for ten other tools that require more than a small child’s skill level.
Maybe you get frustrated with your partner’s constant need for assurance. Or maybe the way they shut down and push you out amidst a conflict makes it feel impossible to resolve any conflicts. Maybe you wish they were less self-reliant and would let you in, or that they would embrace you when you feel scared or emotionally vulnerable.
There are two things to reflect on here:
What you wish was different about your partner speaks a lot about the unmet needs you have from your attachment wounds.
Beneath these patterns is something much more vulnerable–they are showing up this way because they are surviving and something doesn’t feel safe. Let that sink in.
What if the patterns you see aren’t just the kind of person they are, but are indicators of how they learned to survive relationships? They are ill-equipped and leaning on what they’ve always known to get them through. Most of the time it isn’t even intentional. It’s been practiced so much that it is now autopilot.
A little compassion-building reflection for you: Just as we would look at a rock or a tree’s rings and see the signs of what it went through to become how it is, we can see these patterns in ourselves and our partner as a sign of all they’ve had to go through and overcome (and still overcoming!).
Why Responsiveness Matters
Loving, safe relationships are the greatest antidote to trauma. Strengthening the most significant relationship in your life will be the most healing intervention you can do–it is what will allow for safety and responsiveness to become the new normal. It will help you develop earned secure attachment.
The Safety Bank
Together, you get to make safety the new normal. It isn’t about the grand gestures as much as it is about all the small moments that add up to create a new sense of safety in your nervous systems.
When you respond to yourself rather than push down your feelings or invalidate your needs, you are creating safety within your nervous system.
When your partner responds to you in your vulnerable moments, they are directly placing an experience of safety where there was once unsafety.
Consistency is key. Consistent small moments of responsiveness and safety heal more than big moments of connection.
How to Shift Your Communication
Don’t Problem Solve Prematurely
One of the biggest mistakes I see in couples is they dive into problem solving before laying a foundation for connection. And it makes sense, because when we get into conflict with our parnters, out instinct is to make the uncofortable tension go away as quickly as possible. We fight to be right or we defend ourselves, all along, causing our partner to feel more alone and unseen than when the conflict started.
The problem is that this directly reinforces the patterns we learned from our attachment trauma. The familiar experience of not having that safe haven is reinforced. Once again, we have an experience of someone who leaves us alone with our pain or invalidates us. We don’t feel seen or held. The question, “Do you have my back?” seems to be a resounding NO.
This is why being responsive is more important than being right. Before you can problem solve, you need to know what the real problem is. You have to lay a foundation of safety and presence with each other so that the question, “Do you have my back?” is a clear YES.
Once you truly see each other, you now know what the actual problem is that you are trying to solve (or not—some problems can’t be resolved, but knowing the other person is for you and cares about you can help you heal and grow in connection even without resolution). Because 99.9% of the time, it’s not really about the dishes in the sink, but what the dishes represent. You may be wasting your energy fighting over how many times you do the dishes when your partner makes a complaint, and all along, missing the fact that what they really want you to know is that they feel pain around not being considered or that they feel taken for granted.
So start by getting curious and responding to your partner’s pain. Let them experience being seen by you, THEN you can explore a solution productively from a collaborative, creative place rather than one where you are in opposition. Not only will you be more effective in the problem solving, but you will actually address the real source of the pain at hand.
TIP: If a seemingly small thing produces a large reaction, that is your cue to look deeper, because chances are, there is some deeper trauma or pain showing up that needs tending to. There’s no such thing as an overreaction, you just haven’t discovered what your partner is truly reacting to.
2. Stop Trying to Be Right. Focus on Responding.
When we fight to be “right” and stay in this head space, we miss each other and reinforce the attachment narratives we hold. Focusing on defending yourself, correcting facts, or proving anything will automatically put your partner on the defense. You are subtely (or not so subtely) communicating to your partner that you are in opposition to each other—you lost connection from the get-go.
When you tune into your partner and respond to the pain they feel and stop fighting on the surface level about facts, you communicate to your partner, “I see you. I’m with you. I’ve got your back.” You invite each other into a connecting space that feels secure, safe, and collaborative. In doing so, you insert a safe experience where there was once unsafety. You are doing the complete opposite of their caregiver who tried to change, push away, or overrun their experience.
In other words, you are building a new normal together by depositing safe experiences into your Safety Bank.
Responsiveness build trust, and from trust, comes collaboration. We stop seeing our partner through the lens of our trauma and see them as someone safe we can draw close to and get creative with.
What Responsiveness Looks Like
Being responsive to yourself looks like being present in your body enough to know what your feeling and what you need. You stop saying things like, “I’m just being emotional” and instead tune into what your emotions are saying you need. From there, you become a person who responds to those needs, and in doing so is trustworthy with yourself. This not only becomes a large part of healing your trauma, but allows you to “get squishy” with your partner. You can communicate what is actually going on within you on a deeper level. In giving them access to this more vulnerable part of you, you invite each other into a responsive space where conflict becomes connecting.
Being responsive to your partner looks like being deeply present. You take the time to get to know what the other person is experiencing before jumping to a solution or trying to change their perspective. You validate. You empathize. You slow down. Slowing down is an important piece of this because you open up space and energy to notice the subtle cues in your partner and rather than plowing through the conversation, you enter into a call-and-response. You respond to what you notice rather than riding on assumptions. This becomes your safeguard against missing them completely.
Conclusion
The truth is, having a relationship with no conflict is not reality. You most likely will trigger your partner, but that doesn’t mean you will have an unhealthy relationship. Every trigger is an invitation to form a deeper connection–and more than that, every trigger is an opportunity to make a deposit into that Safety Bank. You insert a new experience of safety where there once was unsafety, and moment by moment, conflict by conflict, heal each other’s trauma and develop earned secure attachment.
