When Lovers Become Enemies: An Exercise to Uncover a Way Out of Warfare

In conflict, our perceptions of each other keep us from fairly hearing both sides. The more stuck we become, the more we tend to represent only portions of ourselves—augmenting what helps us to feel right and minimizing what indicates that we may be wrong. We polarize, leaning away from each other rather than seeking common ground. Though it feels crucial to solidify our respective positions, it is often a futile use of our energy.

Imagine a tug-of-war. The more one person pulls on one side, the opposite side must be balanced with equal force in order to keep the tension constant. This is a good way to conceptualize what is happening beneath the surface of a conflict, from minor skirmishes all the way to full-on catastrophes. Beneath the tension lies an opportunity for both parties to connect and draw each other closer, but only when the conflicting details of any argument are taken less seriously than is the desire for contact. Even when we are fuming, we want to be fully accepted in that terribly uncomfortable place.

Connection can be achieved by willingly meeting each other in the shared feelings of sadness, fear, anger, longing, disappointment, etc. To do this, we have to be able to see the details of our conflict—both our position and our partners’—as mutable and largely shaped by the resistance felt on both sides. In short, we have to disbelieve the profiles that we’ve built up—sometimes for years—about ourselves and each other and intend towards liberating our perception.

Here is a helpful way to uncover the mutability of key features about our personalities as well as those of our partners. Having an understanding of this concept can help defuse conflicts, because we become less invested in the details and more interested in the dynamics that we co-create.

For example, you may find yourself describing aspects of your relationship similarly:

• He is the sturdy one, and I am the emotional one.
• He is the one who always talks, and I am the quiet one.

• He is more responsible, and I am more spontaneous.

Truthfully, these statements represent only part of our personalities. More accurately, they reflect the ways in which we unconsciously behave in certain contexts—we naturally seek to balance out the spectrum of complementary traits that are shared across both (or more) parties of any relationship. Using the same three statements, the following list is a more inclusive glance at a relationship system.

• He leans towards greater rigidity because of my emotional fluctuations, and I feel more emotional because he downplays his own.

• He always talks for me, because I tend to share less of how I’m feeling. Without my contributions, he gets anxious and talks for both of us.

• He gets so rigid to help balance out how unstructured I can be. I tend to feel less interested in structure, because I know that, in the end, he will take care of things for both of us.

These revised statements illustrate the ways in which traits get blown up or downplayed depending heavily upon what happens on the other side of the relationship system. In fact, we play a significant role in the shaping of our partners—even the aspects about them that drive us crazy.

One critical step further to understand: often, a characteristic that we cannot tolerate in one context is actually, in another context, a quality that we might actually require of him. Simply, it is not the trait that bothers us as much as does the context in which the trait arises and our expectations of that specific context. When we experience ourselves and our partners more as shifting qualities that can be turned up or down, we can start to free up our conflicts as well.

Here are some questions to answer both solo and together that can help you to loosen up a stuck version of your relationship.

1)  In what ways do my partner’s most annoying traits benefit me in other areas of the relationship?

2)  How do his traits that I most cherish become a problem in other contexts?

3)  How do the best attributes of myself sometimes get in the way of shared connection?

4)  How do my shortcomings benefit my partner?

5)  What makes it extremely difficult to get along with me?

6)  What chief vulnerabilities do I bring into the relationship? How do I defend those vulnerabilities?

7)  What chief vulnerabilities does my partner bring into the relationship? How does he defend them?

8)  How can the “problem traits” be reimagined in a neutral way of thinking about them?

Now, make a list of the traits that you share between you and describe how those combined traits make a complementary system from which you can both benefit.

For more work like this, please connect with me about how I can help you and/or your relationship!