Am I emotionally regulating myself or am I relying on my partner for emotional regulation? An LA therapist weighs in on identifying states of regulation

Especially in long-term relationships, or ones that began at younger stages of our lives, often we turn to our partner for emotional regulation versus working on that skill within ourselves. Being in a state of perpetual emotional dysregulation, or relying on your partner for regulation, can very quickly spin your partnership out of balance, leading to disconnection, withdrawal from one another, resentment in your dynamic, or a lack of accountability for one’s emotional state. Working with a couples counselor to understand how one self-regulates, and how you both regulate as a couple, is imperative for a continued sense of harmony, growth, and trust.

Let’s take a look at some commonly asked questions about emotional regulation:

What is emotional dysregulation?  At its core, emotional dysregulation occurs in tandem with nervous system regulation. Think of the last time you had a heated argument, a frustrating discussion, or felt cut off or entirely misunderstood by your partner. You probably were experiencing physical symptoms – rapid breathing, gritting your teeth, loss of eye contact, clenched hands, pursed lips, crossed arms.  Your body physically was going into protective mode, shutting down in an attempt to keep you from further pain and hurt. Emotionally, you might have teared up, raised your voice, or felt unable to find the correct words to communicate. You may have felt frustrated or angry toward your partner, or you may have felt a need to argue in return or defend your point. You may also have shut down, feeling defeated and hopeless that you might never be heard. If you were in a venting stage emotionally, you may have been speaking quickly versus choosing words carefully, in an attempt to off-gas frustration or to be understood. The combination of physical and emotional symptoms both contribute to escalating behavior, and like a train gaining speed down the tracks, it can be a challenge to identify your state of mind and slow the train down. However, the good news is that it can be done, and this is where working with a couples therapist comes in. 

What causes emotional dysregulation? While there are a number of factors at play, physical considerations are often the baseline. As obvious as it may seem, checking in with yourself physically is a necessity. Are you overtired and irritable because you have not had enough sleep? Are you hydrated? Have you been avoiding exercise or numbing out by spending too much time being sedentary? Have you been working too many days in a row or for too many hours? Are you experiencing decision fatigue?  Are you in chronic pain or feeling ill? Have you eaten recently and properly, and in a healthful way?  Have you been spending time in tense, stressful, or argumentative environments – whether at work, with family, or friends? What about your caffeine intake? Have you neglected supplements or medications you are supposed to be taking?  All of these factors can affect our ability to emotionally regulate.

However, outside forces and physical considerations are only one part of the emotional regulation equation. How is the interaction playing out with your partner?  Are they making eye contact? Speaking in a calm tone? Have they offered affirmation or created a safe container for you to express your emotions? Have they judged your observations, cut you off, labeled you, or dismissed your emotional experience? Have they offered to hug you, bring you a glass of water, or just listen in emotional presence?  Are they escalating – raising their voice as you raise yours?  Are they doing other tasks during an intense conversation such as loading the dishwasher, sorting papers, or another action that communicates disinterest or lack of engagement? Noting how all of these factors may play in – sometimes extremely rapidly and at the same time – is also important to understanding the states of emotional regulation with you and your partner. Looking very closely at these scenarios with a couples therapist is a great way to understand how you both approach, manage, and navigate conflict and difficult discussions.

Why is emotional dysregulation hard to detect in the moment? Often emotional dysregulation happens when too many factors are in play, or when too much is coming at us and we are unable to ground ourselves, take a deep breath, and be present with how we are feeling in exactly that moment. Let’s look at a scenario:

Say you and your partner are driving. Already, this is a potentially fraught environment for a challenging conversation because you are not looking at each other. This prevents you both from seeing one another’s facial expressions, and also only allows for a certain type of touch reassurance.  Additionally, your partner is focused on the road, the GPS, the strange noise the car is making, traffic, etc., so both of you are in a bit of a comprised state. Your partner brings up a “hot button” issue to discuss, not asking first if you are open to the conversation. Perhaps it has been a topic you both have been avoiding for weeks and you feel a bit like a captive audience, so it is difficult to set a boundary and say you prefer to have the talk another time. As your partner mentions the topic, you cut them off, immediately begin to defend yourself, feeling attacked and blamed. Is this partly your reaction to your partner’s word choice and tone? To your own sense of guilt about how long you both have avoided the conversation? Are you frustrated because you were looking forward to an upbeat drive and now you are resenting being put in this situation? Are you feeling a need to silence your partner to justify past actions? In the moment, it is very hard to tease apart exactly what is coming up for each of you, but even by identifying your state of mind in that moment  – heart racing, looking at your partner angrily – you can get present and ask yourself what you are feeling, and rather than have a knee-jerk response, carefully choose your response instead.

This is also the point where you can begin to identify if you are looking to your partner to regulate you or if you are capable of regulating yourself. So what does this mean?  Let’s take a closer look:

Are you hoping – even subconsciously – that if you lash out your partner may back down and end the conversation? Are you hoping they apologize for bringing up the conversation or for something else? Are you hoping that by venting your own emotions they may see how frustrated you are and come to a sense of calm for both of you? Are you hoping that by cutting them off you will keep them from saying things they might regret or escalating the situation further?  It helps to field these questions with a couples therapist, and to take a very close look at how your patterns in conflict conversation impact how you both talk through issues and come to a state of repair or resolution. Consider another specific scenario: 

Let’s imagine that your partner has been traveling a lot more than usual for work, and as a result, you have been picking up the slack with the house and the kids. Your partner, exhausted and jetlagged, comes to you to complain about their boss, and the fact that they are behind on projects around the house. You are not in a state to be able to listen because you have been racing around all morning, without breakfast, and the thought of travel – anywhere! -  seems like a break to you from the routine. If your partner comes to you, already dysregulated themselves, and looking for affirmation of their frustration, you will not be able to offer this if you too are emotionally dysregulated. When your partner begins to vent, you feel your chest tighten and your heart race. You cut them off and begin to vent about your week: how tired you are, how resentful you are to have been left to do so much solo. If you are aware of your emotional state, setting a boundary to regulate yourself might look like this: “I just realized I have not eaten today, I am tired from doing all of the house stuff. I am struggling to listen because I have felt really overwhelmed. I can see how tired you are and that you just want to vent, but I need a moment to take a breath so I am able to listen and not lash out at you.”  

By contrast, what does it look like when we look to our partner for our own emotional self-regulation?  “Sure, I get it. You are the one who’s had a bad week. What about me?  I never get to travel while you at least were on the coast and by the water. I need your help around here and I don’t want to have to listen to this. I just wanted a hug from you to start the day, not a list of complaints.”   While a statement like this may communicate your emotional state, it does not honor your partner’s emotional experience, all while asking them to bring you to regulation. Additionally, the language here is judgmental, dismissive, and does not take into account that the first partner came in vulnerability looking for a safe space to be heard. Most likely, a response like this is only going to escalate the argument, rather than open the doors for emotional regulation. 

Learning to practice emotional self-regulation, and learning to understand when we may be unhealthily dependent on our partner for regulation, is important to having more productive, connected, and calm conversations. Being able to be present in the body, to honor and identify one’s emotional state – and compassionately communicate it – can be an intricate process of trial and error. However, working with a couples counselor is an ideal way to see how emotional regulation – or lack of it – is impacting your ability as a couple to feel loving, connected, open, and safe in one another’s presence.