Who is Responsible for People's Emotions?

Where's the line between codependency and someone accepting responsibility for how their behavior affects their partner?

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A reader asked:

“Who is responsible for one's emotional state? Now it's a given that men can be insensitive oafs, I can't argue that point.

“However, it's my learned experience that many women think they are going to change him, to make him the man that fulfills their needs.

“Many women, again based on my experience, need to learn to create their own happiness. If one is relying on someone else to provide their happiness they are going to be seriously disappointed.

“We can't all be that dream husband who is sensitive to every one of our wife’s needs. We also have our needs to take care of. We all have holes in our lives that no one can fill, and it's up to each of us to take responsibility for them.

“This is not to say that we can't be more sensitive to our spouse’s needs. But if the wife has princess syndrome, that she's going to be saved by her knight in shining armor, she's in for a rude awakening. He's not coming.

“If he is supposed complete you, you are codependent.”

…

These conversations are so hard because of the nuance.

There's a line somewhere and I don't know where it is. If someone is being emotionally manipulative, THEY are the ones who are behaving in a way that erodes trust in the relationship.

My general take is simple enough: I think we hurt people by accident because we don't exercise mindful, considerate care around stuff and situations that seem unimportant to us.

Almost everyone does this at least once in a while. And it makes sense!

You have ideas around what is important and what is harmful versus what is not, and you treat various situations in your life accordingly.

So when someone demonstrates a disregard for something important to you, or reacts as if you’re some kind of asshole because you’re not treating something they care about as important, things can get messy, especially in marriage and romantic partnership.

In This is How Your Marriage Ends, I talked about the totally absurd scenario of throwing cotton balls at someone, and then having them respond as if you were hurling stones at them.

You see cotton balls. Harmless. Maybe even fun. But they’re responding as if you’re trying to hurt or kill them. And that looks to you like lunacy.

This disconnect around diverse experiences is at the epicenter of the trust-erosion process in most relationships.

…

In a healthy relationship, we listen and seek to understand.

Maybe there’s a condition we’re unaware of where someone experiences cotton balls the same as you and I experience getting hit by rocks. I know that sounds stupid. But prior to the 1990s and early 2000s, the concept of dying from eating a peanut would have probably sounded stupid to you too.

But that actually happens, and most of us understand that. Something that seems harmless and delicious to us can hurt someone else.

It does NOT have to be that one experience is right and another is wrong.

Too often in our relationships, we don’t demonstrate mindful awareness of that idea—that two things can be true at the same time.

But in ideal, healthy relationships, we do.

We repair, we adapt, and that same scenario doesn't repeat itself over and over through the years. The one in which you hurt because I did something I didn’t realize would result in pain for you. But now that I know, you can trust me to not do it again.

But that's not what I usually encounter. Most couples get stuck on the conversation.

The one where you say she's overreacting, and the one where she says, no, “The thing that just happened really hurt me!” and you're not acting as if you care too much about that. (Not because you’re a heartless asshole, but because, to you, it sounds like they’re saying that getting hit with cotton is the same as getting hit by rocks.)

I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt in the beginning.

She's hurt and telling the truth. He really didn't intend harm, and really doesn't understand why she's behaving as in pain and emotionally as she is. (If we're stereotyping.)

And if we're going with my version of events, then the first domino to fall is you and I doing something the other person experienced as pain even though we didn't see that coming or even fully understand it.

…

The quality of your relationship depends on what happens next.

Do you ask her to totally change the way she experiences things and to keep her mouth shut, and never communicate when something hurts/scares/saddens/stresses her?

Or.

Do you invite your partner to communicate when something happens because of course you don't want them to hurt, and you lean in and seek to understand, and then moving forward make a slight adjustment on their behalf? (With the expectation that they will always do that same consideration work for you?)

I think the way most people do it (including me when I was still married) leads to high-conflict, sad breakups and divorces. And I think what I’m advocating for now is how to achieve trust in relationships.

And I just hope people will choose the latter.

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Matthew Fray is the author of “This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships”, a relationship coach, and formerly the blogger at Must Be This Tall To Ride.

P.S. - I know these things can present really small to some of you in your busy lives and marriages/partnerships. But that’s exactly why developing mindfulness and communication habits around these domestic scenarios is so critical to maintaining peaceful, loving relationships. If you have trust erosion, and/or pain points and frustrations around things like this at home, consider working with me as your relationship coach to develop these skills and habits. This stuff matters. Book your next appointment here. - MF