When two people are in a committed relationship for a long time, a certain sense of intimacy develops. If the partners in this relationship have lost the feeling of closeness, romance or sexual attraction, this sense of intimacy can become negative. What is a marriage without romance, sexual energy or intimacy? Sibling or roommate relationship.
Bypassing negative emotion
In this type of “sibling” relationship, partners regularly experience interactions that feel competitive, challenging, and unproductive. Both partners may feel reactive, judgmental, and frustrated with their communication, and each partner prepares for battle in every conversation. In Gottman research, repeated experiences of negative encounters contribute to an environment characterized by negative affect overshoot, or NSO.
Think of NSO as the weather of a relationship. When positive emotion prevails, relationship weather is warm and inviting, inviting connection and security. We have more grace for our partner’s mistakes and we feel compassion for him that helps us forgive his mistakes. When the relationship is in NSO, the environment looks like stormy weather, with darkness and impending doom. Couples are more likely to perceive agendas and judgment in their communication and are hypervigilant about rants and twists. They are more likely to blame and assume faults in their partner and not have as much compassion or forgiveness resulting in them responding harshly to each other.
Repeated experiences
A common way for couples to enter NSO is from daily or small repetitive experiences of feeling rejected or responding harshly when one person tries to seek the other person’s attention. An offer is any gesture, verbal or non-verbal, that asks for your partner’s support, affection or attention. Gottman research showed that in satisfying relationships, partners turned to each other 86% of the time. In relationships headed for breakup, partners turned to each other 33% of the time. This dramatic difference speaks to the impact that offers have on the atmosphere within a relationship. It’s the little things we do with and for our partners every day that carry the most weight in the quality of a relationship and how we perceive our partner.
How we respond to offers
How we respond to our partner’s offers doesn’t just have an impact right now. can have long-term consequences. In relationships characterized by frequent offers and turning to, partners feel cared for, important to each other, and seen and heard by their partner. Attachment research suggests that feeling seen and heard are two important variables in secure relationships. When partners regularly turn away or turn against their partner’s input, they experience a lack of security, closeness, romance, and sex. Repeated experiences of detachment breed feelings of loneliness, disconnection and isolation. Partners in these relationships stop making offers for connection, move away from each other even in positive moments, start living parallel lives and may eventually break up.
The damage from this cycle
Repeated experiences of our partner turning against our offerings have even more damaging effects. In the short term, the partner whose bid was turned may go silent and stop bidding as often. Externally, partners may be in a tense impasse where they avoid creating any conflict. But inside something important begins to change. We tend to experience a turn against as rejection. Over time, this leads to inner feelings of fear or hostility, as well as resentment and judgment. Partners begin to silently “wipe out” their partners in their heads instead of appreciating them, or perceive their partners as selfish, rude, disrespectful, or a host of other labels. Partners may diagnose or label their partner’s personalities, which is rarely helpful or productive in a relationship.
Why turning against your partner’s offerings is so harmful
The internal dialogue of devaluing our partners may not be evident in our behavior and the relationship may appear stable while underneath is a flickering volcano. When conflict erupts, and it does, even a small trigger can release pent-up resentment, hostility, and judgment that becomes the fuel for an outburst of anger and contempt. Partners may be shocked and overwhelmed by the intensity of the vitriol directed at them and fail to recognize that the frequent moments of being turned against them have built up into anger and resentment. Couples in this pattern also find that their fights become more frequent, last longer, and are more difficult to repair or recover from.
How we respond to our partners on a daily basis in everyday interactions matters a lot. We may not be aware of how we take out our frustrations or stress on our partners by going against their offerings. However, by developing a conscious awareness and making the choice to be kind, respectful and receptive to our partner’s offerings, the relationship can improve. This change is absolutely critical not only to the health of our relationships but also to our individual health and well-being.
