Relationship What To Do When Your Partners Fight Or Flight Triggers Your Emotional Response?

[blackswan]

You're back together :) back on the roller-coaster together anyway. I remember how heart broken you were previously, it's nice to hear that things have progressed positively :)

My boyfriend finds me tidying or talking about cleaning triggers his fight/flight, it's so mundane that I (still) constantly forget about it. Triggers are not about the objective experience, but often about how these events tie into someone's history (and boyfriend's history is that he was often physically assaulted by his caregivers while they engaged in domestic tasks).

We've been dealing with his flight/fight triggering my fight/flight response recently ourselves. His hypervigilance and current not-doing-so-good-because-of-two-month-flu means he's been noticing and reacting to the smallest amount of irritation in my voice, even if it's directed at my phone for not working. When he tells me off for expressing reasonable frustration I feel like I'm being punished for expressing my feelings, which is how I felt when I was small and living with a very unwell mother and... KAPOW - we've been having the worst fights of our relationship. We have had to have some very very abstract and intellectual discussions about our response modes and needs to just begin addressing this, because any time there was any emotional content we were both just flipping into attack mode. And it seems to be getting better.

It's been horrible though! Normally I'm the one anchoring our arguments in a calm place (though it's becoming more equal over time), and to not be able to do that felt rotten.

My advice is to break the discussion down into tiny bite-sized chunks, like I have to approach discussions about cleaning. It would be lovely to just do it all in one hit but just gotta work within the limitations of the system you're in! Your girlfriend seems to only be able to currently tolerate only very small amounts of relationship discussion, so just restrict the amount you expose her to in one go :) Get the time out rule up and running and then try to slowly tackle the other things.

 

[blue_eyes18]

That's exactly how I feel blackswan. I started feeling scared to express any emotions long ago because I felt I would get punished for it because so many times, I did. To the point where I held everything all inside for so long, I felt I was about to implode. I expressed that over the phone the other day - that I don't feel safe communicating with her. She apologized for that. But we are still giving each other space and time right now.

A lot of hurt came from this last blow up. A LOT. Because when she left, she called a guy to come pick her up who she knows I am not okay with (she has a history with him). We struggled in the beginning of our relationship over their friendship. She backed off of him and all was fine. But when she stormed out the other night, she called him to come pick her up and take her home. She claims it was a first instinct in her panic because she had called him so many times before in the past before us, that it was her first instinct without thinking. To see her get in the car with that guy just did something to me. Something, since that moment, has just changed inside of me. I can't explain it. A part of me can't forgive her for it. I want to believe it was just her natural response. But another part of me will only accept that she meant it to hurt me. That it was intentional, malicious, and of the worst magnitude. She swears it wasn't, and just how sorry she is. But I'm so hurt. Unbelievably hurt.

She knows how messed up that was. She has apologized to no end. But if this is what my life is going to consist of - feeling asused and trampled, I can't do it anymore. That literally ripped my heart from my chest and I've been unable to recover since. I don't know if I will be able to. I just can't accept that it wasn't intentional.

We have had so many ups and downs and it's just so hard. Deep down, I do know she loves me. I really, really do. But these things HAVE to stop. They have to. I cannot take anymore.

 

[blue_eyes18]

Sorry, that last post was somewhat off subject. Breaking it up into small conversations is a good idea, also. I like that. Maybe that could work.

In a way, I blame myself for what happened the other night, even though I know it wasn't my fault. But I feel as though I should have known it was a bad time to talk. She had just had a really huge fight with her mom and was really stressed. Add some alcohol to the mix and you have quite a recipe for disaster. I should have thought that through. But I didn't. I just knew my feelings were exploding from inside and I needed them to come out. And I let them out. And boy did I pay the price for it.

When we spoke the other day, and she apologized, she did say how she can't take back what she did, but that it was the worst possible time for her to communicate. That with all that stress and alcohol as well, everything she had learned, she wasn't able to implement properly. And it wasn't until the next day, she woke up and realized just what she had done. I recognize my fault in the situation. It's just so hard to know when is okay to communicate to someone and when isn't with PTSD. And what will cause a blow up and what won't. It's like navigating a mine field and just trying not to step on a bomb. And if you accidently do, you watch your whole world spiral out of control.

I don't know if we will make it through this last fight. I don't know if we will get back together or not. I still have so much hurt and resentment to let go of and perhaps she has the same. We both agreed the love was still there, but that with so much damage having been done, we don't know if we can find a way. It wasn't that we agreed we couldn't. We just agreed to give each other time.

 

[GWhizz]

@blue_eyes18 I don't have time to read all the comments as it's late here and I know I'll be up half the night with a teething little monster and my insomnia :-B!

But I was really moved by your post. I'm going to show it to my partner when he gets back tomorrow night from being away.

Basically I DO THAT TO HIM ALL THE TIME. Then I get upset when he wants to talk it through and REPEAT.

I am so sorry. To you and my partner. I never acknowledged until now how much this must hurt him. But deep down I love him more than anything. I always apologize but I just have an inability to communicate my feelings.

Is she in therapy? I wonder how she communicates with her therapist? I ask as I am quite emotionally disconnected in therapy too. I can only write or draw most things as it's too triggering and emotive (ironically yes - but not the productive kind of emotions) to verbalize it. But I do feel (I mean I don't have a social disorder where I am not self aware or aware of other's feelings). And so my partner asked me to write some things for him like I do in therapy. Afterall my relationship with him is more important longterm.

I decided to start writing and then afterwards I talk a little (what I can manage at a given time). For me, this in some way is the beginning of bridging the gap between non-verbal communication and not wanting to use writing as a cop-out or longterm type thing. And he got to read about some of my worst traumas from a post on this forum last week and now he said it all makes sense.

Another thing that helped is bringing him into a couple of sessions. He got to voice his needs and he also got advice from my therapist about my tolerance threshold etc. She also explained to him that people with childhood trauma in particular, tend to do this with people they're most comfortable with - not because we want to sabotage every relationship - because we act-out like a child/adolescent in a safe space with someone we can trust not to hurt us. We never had that chance as children.

I'm sorry I cannot help anymore. But I really hope you both develop some communication strategies to bridge that gap. I know only too well how my partner is upset by me because it gets misconstrued and I misdirect it at him with poor communication. But I assure you, it's rarely him (and I would think rarely you in your case) that is really triggering her. It is her issue with conflict etc.

Thank you so much for this thread.

 

[blue_eyes18]

Gwhizz, that's fantastic advice. Thank you for sharing your story with me and your experiences. One thing that's so hard for me is that I just can't seem to understand her actions and it's tough for me because I feel like I'm constantly not doing my part to meet her in the middle, but I'm always trying. I'm ALWAYS trying. But I feel like a failure and that I just can't seem to know just what I need to do for her and when. Or that I just can't understand her the way I need to. PTSD is something that even with all my research and background in psychology, I just can't seem to master how I need to be for her. It's so hard.

My point being that it never really occured to me that she's not capable of verbally communicating/navigating through problems with me the way I need. That she doesn't know how to put it to words. I always expect her to be able to verbalize her feelings the way I do when I should know that she can't. Somehow, it just never occurred to me. That's what I mean about feeling like I fail her in knowing what to do. It's so out of my realm of understanding, that I just don't seem to get it. But like I said, I'm trying so hard. I don't want to fail her. :(

I know her well enough to know that she wouldn't be okay with me sitting in during her session because that is strictly her time. I know how she feels about that. That's her one on one time for her alone. I get that. But maybe the non verbal communication could work for us.

The way you described the acting out thing makes a lot of sense. A whole lot of sense.

I'm glad my post has helped you and you got something out of it. Thank you again for sharing your story with me. It helped a lot.

 

[GWhizz]

You know my partner is a social worker who has also studied lots of psychology. I have to tell him that he cannot 'fix' this. It's not his area nor his job and he is personally too emotionally invested, so it won't work anyway. You are not failing her. We all need to work with certain relationship differences. It doesn't mean we're incompatible. We just need to learn to adapt by making minor adjustments to suit that individual relationship and the dynamics within.

I only now read your comment about her leaving with that guy. I'm sorry she did that. She must know that's unfair no matter what she has going on. I hope she can reach a way of respecting your boundaries and triggers also. You reacted as most people would. I always say 'it's over' in the heat of the moment. But I've never walked out and I always always acknowledge how wrong of me it is to do this. It's so messed up why we act out like this at the ones who care for us most. But I hope you can see that she does this because she does feel it's safe to act this way with you. Not that I am for one second denying just how counterproductive it is, particularly in how it confuses and pushes away our supporters.

I'm glad that I could be of some help. I hope you do work it out and I think if you find a way to get through this, you will be stronger than ever.

 

[blackswan]

I often tell myself the phrase - you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Highlights to me that even with all the will in the world you don't actually have the power to change another person. No one can save anyone else or fix anyone else. All we can do is create an environment that supports change, and remember the choice/ability to utilise that environment is not within our control.

 

[obsidian]

My spouse leaves, then calls constantly or texts or both continuing the fight sometimes for days, drives me to turn off cell phones and home phones, then when the fight is over I turn on the phones and there are dozens of messages both text and voice she left anyway just so I'll get her part of the fight. starts the fight all over again. I've asked her to not do this but she doubles down when I do.

Some fights last for weeks this way.

I take my meds, if the weather is good and it's day light I go ride my road bicycle if not I walk the dogs or check the horses.

My main response is shoveling manure out of the stable.