Sabotaging your own relationship? Here’s why, and what to do

Wishing you hadn’t flipped out? Unpack why

You’re with someone new and they’re great. You’re both happy. And then they do something that provokes pain, anger, or fear in you and you over-react, say something unkind, or even end it all together. When you’ve cooled off, you realise you’ve damaged your relationship. The question is, why?

Communication and reflection is everything in building trust

First of all: there’s three ways we maladaptively respond to protect ourselves from experiencing threats and negative emotions.

A) Flight (leaving the situation, conversation, or relationship)

B) Fight (escalating the concern, shouting, confrontational)

C) Freeze (disengaging emotionally, shutting off, shutting down)

You might find you are a mix, but most of us use one more than the other. I’m very much flight: I hate feeling abandoned or used, so I will just get out of there. This isn’t as bad as staying to fight, but it does mean I’m prone to drastically abandoning relationships after catastrophising the situation. Once you’ve worked out what your main response…