Secure-functioning couples operate as a two-person psychological system; that is, they orient themselves as being in each other’s care and view each other as mutual shareholders in their ongoing felt sense of safety and security. Therefore, how partners interact with each other, particularly when either is under stress, determines that felt sense of safety and security. Problems couples encounter that involve threat perception are centered on their interactions—facial expressions, physical movements, posturing, vocal volume and tone, word choices, and lack of immediate or quick relief.
Here’s the thing: human beings can only be influenced while under conditions of safety. By that I mean, interpersonal safety. Scared, angry, or sad individuals can be influenced by others with whom they currently feel safe. If the person (or persons) attempting to persuade, convince, or influence is perceived as threatening, they don’t have an audience. When partners are feeling unsafe or insecure, and nothing is done about that right away, no one shares or receives anything other than defensiveness.
Regardless of what makes us who we are—our culture, our history, our intelligence, our reasonableness—absolutely none of us will be understanding, generous, empathic, compassionate, or be able to give the benefit of doubt if we feel unsafe or insecure in the relationship in the present moment. When stressed or threatened, we produce glucocorticoids along with adrenalin as we move toward fight or flight.
Glucocorticoids affect several brain areas, including the prefrontal cortex and various limbic areas, altering our perception and our ability to think relativistically and remain friendly and loving (Belanoff, Gross, Yager, and Schatzberg 2001; Sapolsky 2017).
Insecure functioning involves individuals who orient as one person only, which is expressed by conveying personal interests only in the language of me, my, I. This will present as unfriendly and threatening to the other. For instance, I will talk and act like I care only about my concerns, fears, feelings, thoughts, wishes, and needs. As soon as I do, you get the message that you’d better do the same as I clearly do not have you in mind at all. Quickly we both square off, forced to defend ourselves, our honor, our reputation, our own needs and wants, and now we are adversaries. In essence, it’s game over. We both walk away with nothing except more threat, frustration, and memory with which to kindle the next episode.
Remember the last blowout you and your partner had? While under the spell of a threatened state of mind, we remember all the other moments when we have felt similarly, and our perceptions are in lock-step with our feelings. Our strong tendency is to protect our interests at all costs. That is why partner skill is so very important. A partner, upon recognizing the other’s state shift into unsafety or insecurity, must return their threatened partner to safety and security before doing anything else. We call that leading with relief, which is another way of saying, return your partner to a felt sense of safety and security or suffer the consequences of an altered mind that is prepared to fight or flee.
The best protection partners have against this typical human phenomenon is to orient as a two-person psychological system of taking care of self and other at (relatively) the same time. This means, I have to consider your interests, your fears and concerns, your experience of me, and your wants and needs before or close to considering my own. I have to express that I know you, I know myself and my behavioral effect on you, I know both what you fear and want, and I let you know that I do as I make my complaint, my request, or my point.
This idea of taking care of oneself and the other at the same time is nothing new. It’s an essential tactic in all successful negotiations. If partners are to influence each other, persuade each other, understand each other, and then bargain or negotiate to get something accomplished, win-win orientation is the only path to success. Win-lose will never work in the long run. It’s too unfair and therefore will result in the winner ultimately losing. A typical couple’s road is littered with memories and resentment over unfairness. One-person orientations lead to unfairness, injustice, and insensitivity too much of the time. The couple eventually becomes burdened with attempts to square an unleveled field, a result that leads to frequent litigation and relitigation and a worsening safety and security system.
Remember, in order to win, you have to think of your partner and your partner has to think of you—always—when communicating, when reacting, and when interacting, or you both will end up losing.
Excerpted from In Each Other’s Care, by Stan Tatkin. Sounds True, April 2023. Reprinted with permission.
In Each Other’s Care is available from Amazon and Bookshop.