Marriage Tip: Avoid Triggering Your Partner’s Anger

You know what a trigger is - it’s the part of the gun that, when you squeeze it, the gun goes off. BOOM. Relationship triggers work the same way. You or your partner does something (the trigger) that predictably gets the other person angry, and s/he explodes.

The trigger could be a subject (e.g., her criticism of his mother) or a manner of speaking (e.g., his accusatory finger while he criticizes her). It could be a matter of timing (e.g., her waking him up in the middle of the night – to talk). Or it could be all sorts of other behavior that one partner has clearly said, “Please don’t do that any more,” and the other partner has gone ahead and done it – way more than once.

The partner being “shot at” understandably concludes – you either can’t or won’t learn, you are deliberately looking for a fight, or you just like to torment me. Whichever it is, s/he feels very much disrespected, and the relationship suffers.

The partner given to pulling the trigger needs to find out why s/he behaves this way. Assuming that there is a grievance behind this uncaring behavior s/he needs to bring the grievance up straight on, rather than continue with actions that cause trouble and solve nothing.

Success in stopping the provocative, “trigger-happy” behavior will have much to do with whether or not the other partner allows an alternative way of expressing displeasure. We all need to be heard, and when partners listen respectfully to each other, trigger behavior usually doesn’t occur.

Comments

[Geneva]

Dr. Sanford,

I promised myself that I would not respond to another post this morning. After reading this one however, I find myself concerned about the example used here to clarify relationship triggers, particularly as explosive behavior indicates that there may be violence in the relationship that is simular in context, but very different in content (how anger or rage rather gets expressed between two or more people).

The difference is the level of action involved, and implications for those actions: 1. taking pot shots at one another can cause negative changes in the psychic energy of one or both partners, leading to 2. making the choice to take physical action, which can result in both psychological and physical damage to one or both parties, which can also lead to "Boom".

Quite scarey eh?

I hope if anyone here is caught up in an abusive relationshiop such as described above that they will seek the immediate help of a 'trusted' counselor and/or friend.

Geneva

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