They may have come home with some fantastic news or simply, in a positive frame of mind, while we, on the other hand, have been feeling gloomy, preoccupied with something or even generally worn down.
The partner rushes in the front door grinning, all smiles, full of excitement, and -as it happens- some uncontrollable force takes control of our rational senses and brings us to shatter the mood with some morose, critical remark or with gaze soaked with indifference.
The partner’s elated feelings immediately come to a halt; they sense the negativity that is oozing from us and respond to it by means of conflict or, by simply shrinking away.
What’s going on?
The way we emotionally respond in these kinds of situations, that is, in which someone has something to share with us with great enthusiasm, but that we react with hostility speaks volumes about our attachment styles.
As the School of Life put it,
“On the surface, it looks like we are simply, monsters. But, if we look a little deeper, a more understandable though, no less regrettable picture, may emerge.
We are acting in this way because our partners’ buoyant and breezy mood can come as a forbidding barrier to communication.
We fear, that their current happiness could prevent them from knowing the shame or melancholy, the worry or loneliness that presently possesses us. We are trying to shatter their spirits, because we are afraid of being lonely”.
In this instance, the happiness of the other is experienced as a subtle form of betrayal, a renouncement to the empathy that they had once conceded to us, which transforms them into a type of human being, who we feel, may have never been acquainted with sadness at all.
This momentary distorted stance is of course, not true.
As the School of Life reminds us,
“every cheerful person has been sad, and that the buoyant among us, have by far the best chances of keeping afloat those who remain, emotionally at sea”.
If the happiness of the other makes us feel ill-at-ease, it is because it involves that we may have to positively acknowledge the fact that something external, which is not triggered by us, is eliciting a conspicuous exhilarated response.
The reason why toying with such a realization provokes such a hostility comes from the fear that we may no longer be at the center of their excitement, nor of their love.
Because we may be anxiously attached, the thought that they perhaps have discovered that we were not after all good enough for them, obsesses us.
And thus, at the height of their joy, we are stricken with horror: now may be the chosen moment for them to abandon us and leave us alone after having seen the most vulnerable parts of ourselves, which we may not have had the strength to disclose to anyone else.
In other words,
“The spoiling argument is a wholly paradoxical plea for love that leaves one party ever further from the tenderness and shared insight they crave […]. They are, childishly, but sincerely, worried that our happiness may come at their expense and are, through their remorseless negativity, in a garbled and maddening way, begging us for reassurance” (The School of Life, 2019).
This is not an apology for forms of communications and responding which seemingly defy logic.
Rather, it intends to be a conversation-opener about a recurring instance in social life which may appear insignificant and yet, as we will see plays a critical role in the sustainability of any relationship.
This is because different types of responses are directly linked with attachment styles.
Indeed, as a study has shown (Shallcross, Howland, Bemis, Simpson, & Frazier, 2011), adults with insecure attachments tend to ‘passively’ or ‘destructively’ respond to their partners when these share the details of a positive life event.
Such responses have the only effect of reinforcing insecure attachments as they fail to provide to the other partner a deep sense of emotional security that would be otherwise desirable.
Attachment Styles in Adult Relationships
The way in which we respond to the events that occur in the lives of our loved ones greatly depends on our attachment styles.
These are formed of the sum of relational expectations, needs, emotions, and behaviors that emerge from the internalization of a particular history of attachment experiences (Shaver et al., 2016).
While they are developed in childhood and are mediated by the relationship we have with our caregiver (the caregiver is a symbolic figure; in Western society children are usually raised in nuclear families, in other socio-cultural contexts, these are raised by the community at large), and they also span out throughout our adult lives.
Bowlby, who first developed a theory of attachment styles in relation to the nature of the infant-caregiver relationship, at a later stage of his life argued that these shaped human experience “from the cradle to the grave” (Doyle & Cicchetti, 2017).
Indeed, in the 1980s, Hazan and Shaver (1987) came to extend this relevance as demonstrated that the bonds that develop between adult romantic partners relate to the same motivational system that gives rise to the emotional bond between infants and their caregivers.
In other words, the behavior and degree of emotional availability of the care-giving adult will have inhibiting or disinhibiting effects on the child, who will develop a number of coping responses in order to navigate and make sense of the relationship with the caregiver.
As Debra Campbell writes (n.d.),
“how loved or unloved we feel as children deeply affects the formation of our self-esteem and self-acceptance. It shapes how we seek love and whether we feel part of life or more like an outsider”.
The graph below may clarify how attachment patterns are formed:
What our readers think
This a very well curated article! As someone who had no idea about the concepts explained in the article, the information is organized and explained really well. I came looking for understanding about Constructive Communication and after reading this article my mind as been expanded in ways I did not imagine 😀 Thank you so much for spending your time to spread this knowledge, I really appreciated this!
Hi Nicole,
I understand active constructive responding has been proven to be the only positive way to respond to good news.
What are the best strategies to build relationships when someone delivers bad news?
Hi Hagit,
There’s an art to having difficult conversations with someone you care about. You can find some useful advice here, and there are also lots of books on the topic. Depending on the nature of the relationship, you can do a search for books about effective communication in marriages, friendships, employment settings, etc.
Hope this helps!
– Nicole | Community Manager
Thank you! This is really helpful!
How can you practice positive active responding with a partner who getting excited about acquiring things and tends towards hoarding? When an excited response encourages the behavior?
Hi Erika,
Thanks for your question. There will sometimes be times when it is not appropriate to practice active positive responding. If you’re concerned about your partner’s acquiring/shopping habits, it’d be better to set aside a time to have an honest conversation about it. You can find some more information about how to do that here. My suggestion would be to pick a time for the conversation when you are both available to give your full attention. Avoid initiating the conversation when your partner has just come home with a new possession, but rather at a different time to make clear that this is an ongoing concern, not a concern you are raising on a whim. Avoid accusations and speak using language that emphasizes how the behavior is negatively affecting you emotionally/practically/financially, and that you’d like to discuss and arrive at a new normal around spending/acquiring things that you can both agree is fair.
I hope this helps!
– Nicole | Community Manager