Why is it that we lash out at the ones we love? As a communication and intimacy coach I often see first-hand how conflict arises most with the person we ostensibly love and care for more than anyone else.
Understanding the Link Between Intimacy and Vulnerability
Intimacy means closeness, and one of the most explanatory factors lies therein. When you let someone in and open yourself up as you do to your intimate partner, you allow for vulnerability: for your truest self to see and be seen. In most of us, this will automatically engender doubts, insecurities, and fears more than almost any other interpersonal relationship. When in this heightened state, just as a wounded animal is more likely to attack, we may very well lash out and bite the hand that reaches out, even when it reaches out with love. Our fear, perhaps from past experiences of being hurt or lessons learned from watching others, puts us on defense. Though I might disagree, some say that the best defense is a good offense. In this light, our offenses start to make much more sense.
How Defensiveness Can Damage Your Relationship
So, what does this dynamic look like in a relationship? It can take myriad forms, but here is one example:
My partner reaches out and asks me to do something mundane, like pick up the living room because we have friends coming over later. This immediately elicits defensiveness. Is she calling me a slob? Does she not see all the work I put into keeping the kitchen clean? Or how it is mainly her things cluttering the living room? Immediately, I am on the defensive, and naturally, then unleash what some would call the best defensive tactic (a good offense) and launch back with a tirade on how she hasn't been keeping the bedroom clean and all of her junk is making it impossible for me to be as tidy and orderly as my perfect self naturally would be.
This may seem like a silly example, or perhaps an all too familiar pattern to you. Again, when we feel vulnerable, we become afraid and may decide that a pre-emptive attack is a better tactic than waiting around to be hurt. We have all been hurt before, and a universal behavior of living organisms is to avoid negative stimuli and seek positive stimuli. One of the extraordinary gifts of a human incarnation is the ability to exercise agency over this automaticity.
The Role of the Ego in Relationship Conflict
Interestingly, my girlfriend’s comment about the living room is far from a bite to the jugular! However, to the ego this attack is just as deadly. The ego is my sense of self, and this image I have crafted from all my experiences on this earth is one that I try to protect at all costs. This socially relevant image of myself works on different parameters than my physical body. It sees attacks on character as potentially mortal wounds, since comments can lead to ostracism, isolation, and death. Now, while my current situation is far from the smaller communities of our evolutionary origin where ostracism often would be a death sentence, the ego is still living in the past. However, it goes even deeper than this.
How to Overcome Ego and Build a Healthier Relationship
The ego itself is not a stable representation but is, in fact, illusory and ever-changing. At that one instance of defensiveness in the example above, perhaps an egoic avatar of myself as perfect, tidy, and holier-than-though came under attack when my girlfriend asked about the living room. If I were to accept any reality of me not being perfect for long enough to hear her request objectively, this avatar would have vanished or died. Faced with this existential threat to its survival, what is this version of myself supposed to do? Become defensive and then offensive, lashing out at a perceived threat.
This all may sound a little crazy, and that is the fascinating part of human psychology; we are often all acting a little crazy, in the sense that we are using a limited number of data points and perspectives to generate our view of reality and then acting as if that is certainly the reality we are in. It’s a simple exercise in parsimony that we must practice to function in this infinitely complex world.
The lesson here is not to doubt ourselves even more, but perhaps it is a call to certain meditative and spiritual practices meant to expand our awareness beyond the myopic view of ego alone. We may choose to work on unlearning habituated patterns and rewiring our brains to adopt healthier behaviors. It can also be a call to develop and stabilize a confident and secure sense of self that is less likely to see the world as threatening.
In the above scenario, when my girlfriend asks me to pick up the room, if I could have seen that request as a neutral one instead of taking it personally as an attack, I may have responded completely differently: “Sure honey, I'm happy to pick up, thanks for thinking ahead to prepare for us hosting later.”
Final Thoughts: Creating the Relationship You Deserve
Of course, this framework is just one component of complex relationship dynamics, but it is a valuable one to understand and work with. The more we can learn to not take things personally, to notice and counteract the innate defensiveness we often meet the world with, the more we can work toward the ideal relationship we want to have with our partner, ourselves, and the world.
If you found this article helpful, consider working with one of our coaches or browsing our offerings to help you meet the world with an open heart.