Why You Manage Their Mood Instead of Your Own

Last week we talked about anxiety as a response to a real or imagined threat. How we make our partner the threat. How reactivity is the anxiety.

This week is the question underneath that: why does their disagreement knock the floor out from under you?

A lot of us don’t actually know who we are unless someone is reflecting it back. Praise. A title. Being busy. A spouse who validates us. A room that doesn’t push back. Those things feel like a self. They’re boosters. They work for a minute. Then they wear off, and we need the next one.

That’s borrowing a self. And a borrowed self experiences “I don’t see it that way” as a threat. So of course we manage their mood. Of course we please, campaign, or reach for distance. We’re trying to get the floor back.

In this episode we talk about:

Why you can look so capable at work and come undone at homeHow boosters and borrowed selves make difference feel dangerousWhat differentiation actually means in a marriageWhy cutting people out soothes anxiety, until you run out of peopleSmall ways to start using your own mind again

You can see a hard thing differently than your partner sees it and still stay in the room. Not because you agree. Because you each have enough self to let the other person have a self too.

This week’s practice

Notice:

When do I use my achievements to prop up my sense of self, or even just my mood?When have I focused more on getting love or praise than on developing my own beliefs, principles, or interests?How might I take a little more responsibility for my sense of self this week?

And in the moment: stop. Breathe. Ask how the best version of you would want to respond. Try your own thinking before you ask someone to tell you, fix it, or approve it.

Mentioned