• 29 October, 2021

Why are we really fighting?

How did you react to your parents' scolding in your childhood? Do you remember? I do not. But fortunately my mother has a good memory and says that when I was very little and she was angry with me there was something very particular about my way of reacting. It seems that after some scolding, and when I heard her say my name with that characteristic tone of an annoyed mother, I approached her, looked her in the eyes and said “Tell me Coquito”.

Do you remember the face Puss in Boots made in the movie Shrek? Surely that's how I looked when I came to touch his hand and ask him to say "coquito", which was the affectionate way he called me since he was a baby. I think sometimes I even told him crying. Probably many children do similar things, it can be inferred that they are trying to arouse sympathy, remove punishment or something similar; but, in my case, I suppose that what I really wanted to get in those moments with that particular nickname was a means of measuring the relationship, that is, something that would allow me to calculate how angry she was with me and approximately how long the things to normal between us.

Today, many years later, I can look at these interactions through the lens of my profession and find new complexities in them. In fact, it is possible for me to relate it to something that happens very frequently in our relationships. And no, this article is not about the Oedipus complex, I am referring to attachment, that powerful emotional bond that we have with the people who took care of us in childhood and that is later re-created with very particular styles when we fall in love with someone.

We come into the world completely dependent, we need someone to take care of us, feed us and also connect emotionally with us. That need for emotional connection is part of our mammalian brain; Today we have scientific studies that show that, from birth to old age, our lives seem to depend on this connection. And that is the controversial part, because everyone agrees with the idea that babies need to be cared for and loved, but if an adult dares to say that he needs another almost immediately, he will be considered immature, codependent and will receive a professorship. about why you should correct yourself and strive not to depend on anyone. "Love yourself !!, love yourself !!", the most loyal followers of some popular guru of those who speak beautifully in public will tell him. While it is desirable to love yourself, it is not really enough; Our ability to regulate our emotions, especially negative ones, does depend largely on the presence of another nervous system. We need another human being who is there for us and who really sees us, who empathically tunes in and responds if we are in need.

Have you ever been made the law of ice? Do you remember how it feels when your partner closes in and refuses to keep talking leaving you in the middle of emotional chaos? Or the experience of seeing that your spouse feels so much anger and disappointment that it makes you feel that perhaps you no longer see anything good in you and will not be able to love you anymore? Today we know for a fact that in scenarios like these the pain centers in the brain are activated and that people genuinely suffer. It is from this pain that people do one of two things: a) they protest intensely seeking a lawsuit, clinging, jealous or attacking; or b) they get defensive, shut down and walk away; all with the same goal: to make that pain disappear. These extreme reactions are not tantrums or exaggerations as they often seem at the time; they make sense because we are in true emotional agony, they are literally choke kicks. The pain we feel when we fight with our partner and become disconnected from each other is registered in our brain as a threat of isolation and since we are mammals we need others to survive, our nervous system triggers alarms because it identifies that we are in danger of death. This is how we enter a state of attachment panic that is identical (in physical and emotional sensations) to what a child feels when he gets lost in a shopping mall (have you seen how desperate they scream?). When those alarms go off within us, we immediately feel that we have lost all security, that we will die and that there will be no one there for us. In other words, when we feel rejected by our partner it hurts and we feel terror. Couples therapists often hear how people use death analogies when trying to explain what it's like for them when, after a fight, they can't repair or reconnect; They often say things like “you kill me with that look, with the resentment you have for me” or “I feel like I'm drowning and you don't come to help me, that you stay on the shore watching me die and you don't care”.

A few days ago I was reflecting on a session with someone to whom I suggested approaching his partner to tell him that he was feeling insecure because there were too attractive women in the meeting. My advice was: "Tell them how it feels to think you can't compete with them and ask them to hold your hand while you feel better." I finish speaking and I realize that he is looking at me with a frown as if I had said something nonsense; I ask him what is wrong and he tells me that he does not think that this can help him to feel better; And I answer: “And getting angry with him and making him a scene of jealousy that puts him on the defensive with you does it help you feel more secure? Does it bring you closer and can you feel that what you have is special? Or rather it drives them away and then you not only feel insecure but also anxious ”. He got the point.

The strategies we commonly use to manage that panic make sense to us at such times but are ineffective and have the power to create vicious cycles of interaction in which we end up trapped. One protests and the other also. They begin to pass the "hot potato" to each other to see who is the "bad guy" in the movie. Either one protests and the other walks away to defend himself from what he perceives as a deadly ambush. In another, more dangerous variant, the two choose to walk away and learn that it is safer not to expect anything good from the other. In all these possibilities, we usually end up badly: suffering in silence and trying to distract ourselves from that pain with the cell phone, with some substance and sometimes with someone else. No one wins, no one gets what they really want, the relationship starts to wear thin. A viable and certainly more effective alternative is to go to the heart of the matter and show what is really happening, go to the other, ask for help.

Being able to reach out to another human being and ask for emotional support when we need it is a sign of how much we have evolved as a species. Effective emotional dependence is neither immature nor pathological, in fact it is our greatest strength. But, I have to admit that my client's disbelief has a perfectly valid point: today the expression of vulnerability has a very bad reputation. As a society we have learned to react negatively to expressions of emotional need; We pay tribute to independence and we see badly and even criticize those couples who see themselves "very close" and ask each other for emotional help. Nowadays many people think _justifiably_ that telling their partner "I need you" is heresy, it goes against the rules (I don't know which ones) and amounts to risking being rejected, judged and even scolded. As a consequence, many people feel ashamed of their own natural need for love and reassurance. And it is unfortunate, because we really need it, especially when we are in difficulties ... especially when we fight.

The benefits of a good emotional connection are many: Neurosciences have already shown that we need it to survive and that we have better health, we are more creative and happier when we experience closeness and have a secure base. Having someone from whom we can receive consistent emotional support strengthens our immune system, reduces our chance of dying from cancer or having a heart attack, and in terms of mental health it has a more significant effect than winning the lottery. Building a safe haven with another where we can shelter ourselves from life's adversities is the natural antidote to fear and pain.

But we face a contradiction and we have gotten into tremendous trouble: what we need so much and that represents so many benefits for us does not have a language to be expressed or requested. And then the only thing left for us to do when we feel that we lose what unites us is to protest (claim you for the pain I feel) or withdraw emotionally (I walk away so that your rejection does not hurt me anymore). And none of that works, on the contrary, it makes us feel even more remote, isolated and feeling hurt by the most important person in our life.

Why is it that having the emotional connection so many benefits and especially if we experience so much pain when we feel that we lose it, it is still impossible for us to have a way of expressing that we are in, possibly, one of the worst emotional situations for which a human being can happen and that we need more than ever from our partner?

For two reasons:

1. We have trouble expressing that we are in pain. We don't have the words. How do I tell you that when you forget to call I plunge into an abyss of fear because I stop feeling that I am important to you? How do I express to you that when you get upset with me and stop talking to me, a part of me feels that I should start to harden myself in case you leave and there is no longer a we?
2. Even if language existed, if our partner expresses the above to us, in order to understand and decode it properly we would have to place ourselves in a position of vulnerability that is forbidden. We associate it with something sinister, with weakness. Unfortunately for us, vulnerability is the starting point for empathy. Entering what you tell me requires that I violate myself. There can be no empathy without vulnerability because in order to empathize I need to activate that part in me that knows how it feels to be bad, to be down. I need to be willing to feel your pain.

For the connection to occur we need to let ourselves be seen, really allow ourselves to be seen in depth and as we are in those moments even if we have no guarantees that the other will look back with compassion. But it is a risk that someone has to take, because the alternative of "first dead before giving him the pleasure of seeing me cry" starts a psychological game that ends up eating away at the foundations of the relationship in the long term.

Given our limited and ineffective alternatives:

Should we start practicing ways of reaching out to our partner and asking for help instead of starting those vicious cycles? Could we perhaps arriesgarnos a ser vistos sin la armadura? ¿Crear nuestro propio lenguaje para utilizarlo precisamente en esos momentos tan difíciles en los que sentimos el dolor de la desconexión emocional?

Could it be that we are capable, as adults, of accepting our vulnerability and letting our partner see how much we need them? Can we look him in the eye while we hold his hand and ask him "tell me coquito"?