Does my logical partner understand my emotions
Does my logical partner understand my emotions?
You’ve heard this before - opposites attract. They love the mountains, we love the city. They love spicy food, we love ice cream. They want structure, we want flexibility. Depending on how we make sense of these differences, it can actually create some healthy conflict that might produce growth for both partners. If the opposites feel too extreme, however, we might not feel seen or understood by our partner.
Many couples find themselves in a relationship where there is a logical-leaning partner and an emotional-leaning partner. One may take the stance of “if you just understood the facts, you’d see that this makes the most sense.” The other may take the stance of “if you could just acknowledge my emotions, so I know you understand me.” When this happens we tend to miss each other because each partner is looking for a different type of validation. Our logic-leaning partner may believe that their partner just needs to hear their case; the chronology, the interpretation, or evidence to the contrary of what is being disputed. The logic here being, that if their partner understood these things, the argument would cease to exist. What this can do is make their emotional-leaning partner feel dismissed. For them, it is not so much facts around what happened, as it is how they felt about what happened.
The couple could find themselves in standstill during conflict because they are fighting for their partner to understand two entirely different things. Of course, logic and emotion both have a place in a healthy relationship, so what can help us identify how and when to use each?
Typically when emotions are at play it can be difficult for logic to enter the stage. When a partner expresses that they are hurt by the other partner’s behavior or something that happened between them, for example, they might be looking for responses like, “I hear you, I can see how upset this has made you,” or “I can see you’re really hurt right now. Thank you for telling me.” Simple acknowledgement can go a surprisingly long way.
When our nervous system is activated we first need to be in a place to regulate or co-regulate in order to inevitably be able to talk about solutions or facts around what has occurred. Having our feelings acknowledged and validated helps regulate our nervous system. When we are activated with our partner the goal is to feel safe inside ourselves and with each other again. The way we do this is by connecting to the feeling that each person has behind the conflict; i.e. I felt hurt, angry, or dismissed. It can be hard to not take our partner's feeling as an accusation, particularly if they come at as strong. Yet, if your partner is able to communicate the feeling, they could be giving you a blueprint for how to diffuse the conflict. We are looking for that emotion to see, understand and validate.
Now, where does logical reasoning come in? After both parties are feeling emotionally safe again. Then we can explore where the misunderstanding occurred, solutions for the future that feel clear, realistic and mutually agreed upon. For example, let’s say one partner left in the middle of an argument and didn’t say where they were going or when they would come back. The person having feelings about this might say something like “When you left and slammed the door on your way out during our argument, it really hurt me. What I told myself about that is that you don't care about resolution and thus, don’t care about me. I felt abandoned.” The partner on the receiving end of this might feel compelled to explain to the injured partner that in previous arguments they have left too, or that they yelled and that hurt them too, leading to them needing to leave. None of those things would make the injured partner feel like their partner understands how it made them feel. The injured partner felt hurt and abandoned. We need to address these emotions first, otherwise the injured partner will not be able to hear things from the other partner’s perspective because they will feel like their emotions about what happened have been bypassed. Additionally, when we bring up our own hurt it has a way of canceling out the other person’s hurt, in which neither party feels validated.
The injured partner can even come up with their own solutions, since they know best what they need. “In the future, it would really help me if you let me know you are coming back when you leave.” The other partner can chime in too, “In the future it would really help me if you worked on pausing the conversation if it feels like you are going to yell.” Now, we are working our logical brains. We’ve connected and now we can feel free to fully hear each other and problem solve.
To conclude, any and all of these emotions can be difficult at times. If you find yourself wanting support in any of these areas, reach out to our care specialist and set up an appointment today.
About The Author
Jenean Cervantes has a master's in clinical psychology from Antioch University and is an associate marriage and family therapist (AMFT138534) supervised by Jeremy Mast, MS, MDiv, LMFT, CSAT, CPTT (CA90961). She helps heterosexual, queer and polyamorous couples on restoring intimacy, trust and guiding long-lasting changes to the relationship. Jenean also works with men with issues of intimacy, partner communication, emotional regulation, infidelity and childhood trauma. Jenean is currently receiving training in Terry Real's Relational Life Therapy. Jenean also has received training in mindfulness techniques, attachment-based and psychodynamic modalities. She interacts with her clients from a trauma-informed, client-centered perspective.
