The Alarm That Hijacks Your Love
“I’LL BE HOME LATE. Go ahead and have dinner without me.”
After hearing these words from her husband, Donna sat down and began to cry. “Eric’s such a workaholic,” she thought. “So busy all the time. And so tired. He never wants to talk or be intimate. What am I doing in this marriage?”
Donna was having another one of her inner conversations. She knew she should be having this conversation with Eric, but she feared Eric would just tune her out or be too distracted to listen. She thought, “I have to totally blow up if I want his attention. And that doesn’t really get me what I want. I don’t know what to do.”
Two hours later, Eric walked into the house carrying an armful of papers and books. Before he could get to his desk to put his papers down, Donna called out from the kitchen, “Well, it’s about time! What took so long?”
“Oh no,” Eric thought to himself, “I hardly get through the front door, and she starts in on me. I should have stayed at the office. She never appreciates how hard I work to support this life-style she enjoys. She has no idea what I’m up against.”
Eric and Donna were at it again. Only a few years into their marriage, they were already feeling disappointed and disconnected.
What causes such disconnection? We search for reasons — most of which involve blaming the other person: “If only he would pay more attention to me. . .” “If only she would be happy with what I do for her and stop finding fault. . .” Typically, we never get to the root of our distress.
We cannot see the real causes of emotional upsets and communication breakdowns because they are driven by a part of the brain that operates outside of conscious awareness. It acts like an alarm going off in the nervous system whenever it detects a potential threat to our survival, including a disturbance in our connection to “the one we depend on.” In this book, we refer to this as the survival alarm.
Like radar, your survival alarm is always scanning for danger. As with other animals, this alarm system was built into the human species to quickly accelerate our bodies into action if a predatory animal was even suspected to be nearby. It prompts a fight-or-flight response, which in prehistoric times would have prevented us from being eaten by saber-toothed tigers!
Modern civilization has made our physical survival more secure, but the human brain still retains this primitive warning system. Nowadays, it mainly seems to be hooked up to how safe and secure we feel with an intimate partner. Things like a sharp voice tone or a disapproving facial expression can trigger an automatic impulse to attack or run for our lives, as if a tiger has suddenly appeared.
When Eric and Donna tried to make sense of why the romantic feelings they used to share seemed to have become so infrequent, it did not occur to them to look into the inner workings of their nervous systems. Like most people, they had learned to seek answers through the logic of their own limited understanding: Eric would wonder, “Can’t she learn to speak to me without that critical edge in her voice? She knows this irritates me.” Donna would ask herself, “Doesn’t he know by now that all I need is a little more quality time with him? I’m not trying to control his life.”
Perhaps you have been in Eric’s or Donna’s shoes in a significant love relationship — perhaps more than once. Maybe you can remember that awful sinking feeling of loss — when you find yourself thinking, “This is not the person I fell in love with. What is happening to us?”
Eric and Donna started out very much in love. They knew that not all couples make it and that about half of all marriages end in divorce. But they felt confident that their love was true and deep and strong. They weren’t exactly youngsters when they met, either — which they considered another factor in favor of success. They had both been around and seen a lot of life. They knew themselves, or so they thought. But over time, as Eric tried to keep the peace and Donna tried to get more of his attention, they began to feel as if they were pulling in opposite directions.
Let’s take a closer look at how these two lovers — who are composite characters we will revisit throughout the book — came to feel less and less safe in their relationship. Donna and Eric are based on hundreds of couples we’ve worked with. Their reactive incidents, and increasing inability to repair them on their own, are typical.
Eric and Donna’s Fall from Grace
Donna was initially attracted to Eric’s self-assured competence. He was the kind of guy who always knew how to make things work and how to fix them if they didn’t. He mastered any technology that came along. As a successful architect, he could do any home-improvement job and even build a house from the ground up.
He had a confident gait and an inviting smile. But what really attracted Donna was his humility. Accustomed to guys who endlessly bragged about achievements and possessions, Donna almost had to drag out of Eric that he was a partner in a prestigious architectural firm. She also loved the deeply peaceful feeling she got around Eric, which was a natural counterbalance to her sometimes frenzied pace. She was calmed by his quiet demeanor and amazed at how intently he listened to her.
What attracted Eric to Donna was her colorful, expressive style. He loved the artistic way she dressed and her animated style of speaking and moving. Her expansive gestures, the way her eyes sparkled, the happy tone of her voice, and how she touched him, all turned him on in a big way. Donna’s ready enthusiasm about even the smallest things was contagious and could lift Eric’s spirits.
It didn’t take long before they each felt they had found “the one.” With Donna at his side, even a trip to the neighborhood coffeehouse seemed to Eric like a visit to some magnificent and unfamiliar place. When Donna had Eric by her side, she felt deeply safe and secure for the first time in her life. Together, life seemed full of magic and wonder. They were alive with excitement, curiosity, and hope. They wanted to share every possible moment with each other.
The pair experienced their first noteworthy upset about three months into their relationship. Eric arrived at Donna’s house to take her out for a romantic evening. He arrived with dreams of sharing a pleasurable meal at their favorite café, followed by even more pleasurable lovemaking later on.
Shortly after arriving at Donna’s home, Eric noticed that she seemed a bit tense. When he asked her what was wrong, she started recounting how her boss had unfairly overloaded her with work that afternoon.
As he tried to give her helpful advice on the situation, Donna seemed to get more distressed, rather than calming down. Desperate to keep his dream of a pleasurable evening intact, Eric responded by getting more logical about how she could solve her work problem, while his voice shifted to a lower, flatter, slightly impatient tone.
Suddenly, Donna shot back, “You think I’m stupid? I know all that! Why can’t you see things my way once in a while?”
Eric was stunned. He didn’t know what to say. All he could think of was, “I have to get out of here!” Without pausing, he stood up, walked down the stairs of her porch, and got back in his car, leaving Donna by herself in tears. Their date was cut short, and the honeymoon phase of their relationship came to an abrupt end.
Neither could make sense of what had happened. All they knew was that they each felt misunderstood and frustrated.
Identifying Triggers
Eric’s behavior was received very differently from the way he intended. He had offered what he considered helpful input, but Donna got upset. For her, this happened quite automatically. She wasn’t aware of why his words upset her so much.
Dissecting this interaction, we see that what initially provoked Donna was a shift in Eric’s voice tone. It was like this pushed a button inside her unconscious mind, and she reacted. In other words, Donna was triggered. A certain stimulus — in this case, Eric’s vocal tone and perhaps his facial expression — triggered her survival alarm. Of course, his words were not an actual threat to her survival, but the effect on her nervous system was pretty much the same as it would’ve been if a hungry tiger had appeared in the room.
Looking back over your own relationships, you can probably recall times when your emotions seemed to take over, causing you to do and say things you would not have done had you not been triggered. This is because anything that threatens your felt sense of connection to the one you depend on — your significant other — can seem like a threat to your survival. When your survival alarm starts ringing, it pretty much takes over your nervous system.
Later, after calming down, Donna realized that Eric’s tone of voice reminded her of how her father sounded when she was a child. She disclosed to Eric: “My father had a certain lecturing tone when I did things he disapproved of. When he spoke to me that way, I felt ridiculed and belittled. I would end up feeling like I wasn’t good enough in his eyes. I never felt safe enough to tell him how much this hurt me.”
Like most of us, Donna had an unhealed emotional wound from childhood. Early experiences with her father instilled in her an unconscious sensitivity to certain voice tones. Her alarm was set off by the way Eric sounded as he gave advice. We commonly call this “getting triggered” or “having one’s buttons pushed.” When this happens, we feel and react in ways that are often out of proportion to the actual situation.
Eric had no way of seeing into Donna’s unconscious mind. It was certainly not his intention to belittle her. He thought he was being helpful. But he, too, had fear thoughts arise that remained unconscious and probably fueled his need to give advice using that flat voice tone. He was afraid that Donna’s agitation over her boss might spoil their night together. He was unaware that his body, including his vocal cords, tightened up when he heard the person he loved in distress. He had a pattern of trying to fix things before they got out of control.
Both Donna and Eric had a lot going on inside of them that they had not learned to pay attention to. Without realizing it, their bodies and minds were overtaken by the survival states of fight, flight, or freeze.
Whenever Eric was triggered, his whole body would tense up, and his mind would either race with too many thoughts or he would want to do something — like running away. This is the flight response. When Donna was triggered, her stomach would get tight, and her breathing would become shallow. She would stop listening to the hurtful input and start using loud words to fend off the danger. This is the fight response.
A third common reaction is the freeze response, where someone starts to shut down, go blank, or numb out emotionally. Later, we will see how Eric gradually fell into this response as the couple’s reactivity escalated over the years.
As Donna’s alarm reacted to Eric’s voice tone, it affected her own voice. The moment she heard his flat tone, her own voice shifted, becoming louder, higher pitched, and strident. Hearing Donna’s voice increase in volume and tension, Eric’s alarm got triggered. In childhood, Eric saw that bad things happened when people yelled. He had learned to be afraid of harsh voice tones and angry facial expressions. When he saw people getting angry, he would run and hide in his bedroom closet to protect himself. Now, when Donna’s voice got louder and her face angry, he suddenly felt the need to escape.
As observers, we can see how Donna and Eric’s survival alarms took over, quickly sending them into states of upset that completely overpowered their ability to communicate in a conscious or loving way.
All of us have suffered such upsets. Unhealed experiences from our past programmed our survival alarms to scan for similar cues in the present, and when our alarms go off, we are catapulted into offensive, defensive, or numbed-out reactions. When we get triggered like this, things can spiral rapidly out of control, even when circumstances otherwise seem normal and familiar. We fall under the influence of adrenaline or other strong body chemicals. When this happens, we don’t realize how inebriated we are. Just like getting drunk, it can take time to discharge such biochemical states before our higher brain functions come back online.
Which Part of Your Brain Is Communicating?
In any given moment, your communication will be governed either by your higher brain or by your survival alarm. It’s important to understand that you and your partner will feel and behave differently depending on which part of your brain is in charge.
The Higher Brain
Brain scientists have found that certain areas in the cortex — especially parts in the front and center — play a vital role in our highest human capacities for loving thoughts, feelings, and actions. The neocortex is that outer layer you see in photos of the whole brain. It is home to regions associated with conscious awareness. Central areas of the frontal lobes are involved in our abilities to be empathetic, to put ourselves in another person’s shoes, and to understand what is going on inside someone.
This is the part of the brain that helps you see the complexity of an interpersonal situation, stay calm, comprehend and care about each other’s needs, negotiate and collaborate, get creative, and ultimately arrive at a win-win solution. This brain functionality is essential for effective two-way communication. It provides a braking function, allowing you to patiently listen to your partner, pause as needed for comprehension, and move through a topic at an appropriate speed.
Neuroscientists are developing detailed maps of these brain areas, but for simplicity’s sake we will call this the higher brain. Essentially, a well-functioning higher brain is what you need if you want to behave in ways that maximize feelings of love and trust.
Operating from your higher brain, you are more likely to be viewed as a “friend” to your partner’s brain. Your face will look friendly, your voice tone will sound friendly, and you will have friendlier things to say — even while ironing out differences. So if your goal is to work things out and make sure everyone feels heard, you want your higher brain to be in charge of the conversation.
The Survival Alarm
The survival alarm’s prime directive is to keep you alive. A key component of this alarm system in the brain is the amygdala. The amygdala is buried deep in the middle of your brain — well below the cortical regions associated with conscious cognition. You cannot see this part in photos of the whole brain because it is hidden beneath the neocortex. How it operates and controls your state of mind is similarly hidden from your normal awareness. It continually scans for signs of safety or danger.
Since survival is its higher priority, if the alarm detects even the slightest sign of danger, it quickly takes control and changes your body chemistry to support immediate self-preservation. It’s strictly a “shoot first, ask questions later” deal. The alarm reacts automatically, instinctively, and without your permission. Most of the time you don’t even realize when your conversations have been taken over by this primitive part of your brain.
At high levels of activation, the survival alarm can dramatically hijack your higher brain, taking vital interpersonal functions offline. When triggered, the alarm has no concern with negotiating a mutually satisfying solution. It lacks the empathetic circuitry of the higher brain. It has no ability to understand another’s needs. Remember, those higher brain functions operate too slowly to save you from a saber-toothed tiger! When survival is at stake, everything has to happen fast.
People are not at their best interpersonally when their survival alarm is triggered. The quick, knee-jerk reactions like fight, flight, or freeze cause people to yell, blow up, blame, try to be right, create distance, shut down, avoid, build walls, or get defensive. While your alarm is ringing, your braking capacity is absent, so things can easily accelerate out of control.
Operating from this part of the brain, you will be viewed as a “foe” to your partner’s primitive brain. Your face will not look friendly, your voice tone may sound threatening, and the things you say will be met with suspicion or resistance.
If you recognize that you or your partner is in a triggered state, then you can take steps to get your higher brains back online. Realize how automatic this whole triggering process is — and stop blaming yourself or your partner for causing such upsets. Remember, your alarms take over without anyone’s conscious awareness or permission. Nobody chooses to behave this way. In the next chapter, you will learn how to quickly stop an escalating situation so you do not continue to throw fuel on the fire. But first, let’s look more deeply at what happens to couples who do not have these skills.
Spiraling into the Hole
Over time, if we do not repair upsets, we will find ourselves caught in a downward spiral. More and more often, we won’t be able to stop ourselves from being pulled down into that unwanted, upsetting place we metaphorically call the Hole. Each time we have an unresolved upset, it will get progressively harder to dig ourselves out. Any single reactive incident will be compounded by all past unrepaired upsets. The Hole gets deeper each time we fall into it.
As we stumble into the Hole, some people react with aggressive pursuit, others with detached withdrawal. Others try to be reasonable and explain or defend themselves. In any of these states, we are incapable of feeling and expressing our tender needs and feelings. The fight-or-flight states alter body chemistry — arming us with what early humans needed to kill or escape a saber-toothed tiger. The state of freeze is how the nervous system numbs the body so we won’t feel pain if the tiger has trapped us.
When the survival alarm takes over, our words may get dramatic in an attempt to feel powerful or get attention. We generalize, instead of focusing on what actually happened. For instance, Donna might accuse, “You never help around here! You only think about yourself.” And Eric might shoot back, “You’re always complaining! Nothing I do is ever good enough for you!”
Lost in fight-flight-freeze, we lose our ability to really hear and understand one another — although we are convinced we are still having a useful dialogue. When we’re in the Hole, the other person appears like a caricature — with features exaggerated in the worst ways. We don’t see the real person because we’re looking through the lens of our fears. We have lost the higher brain’s refined capacities to see complexity, so we see one another through the lens of our stories and stereotypes.
In the Hole, our ability to reassure each other and resolve issues is disabled. Yet, despite our reduced mental capacities, we keep working the situation. We keep digging ourselves deeper into the Hole, as if there were gold down there. Each person tries to get in that last word. Emotions escalate. Sometimes someone will pull out their big guns and threaten to end the relationship — triggering even higher states of alarm.
It is sad that partners tend to blame each other for these upsets. Neither can see how he or she is contributing to the escalation and mutual distress. We forget that there is no real choice involved for either party. Both people’s higher brains have been hijacked by their survival alarms, and both are reacting as if they are fighting for their lives.
Donna and Eric Dig Their Hole More Deeply
After Donna and Eric got married, the reactive pattern they first experienced when they were dating grew more frequent and intense. Neither understood how to resolve these upsetting events when they occurred. It was almost as if each was increasingly looking for reasons to get upset. This came to a head one night when they were sitting on the couch watching a movie. About halfway through, Eric began to feel restless. Without saying anything, he got up and left to find a snack in the kitchen.
As Eric got up and walked away, Donna felt her gut tighten. A story came up in her mind that went like this: “We planned to spend the evening together. And now he’s just going off by himself — as if I don’t exist. He never considers my feelings. He always just does whatever he wants.” Hearing Eric rummaging around in the refrigerator, seemingly oblivious to her, she felt heat rise in her face and head. Finally, she could not contain her upset. Without getting off the couch, she called out to him, “Don’t mind me. I just occupy space around here. Obviously, you’re in your own world — as usual!”
Hearing Donna’s strident tone, Eric froze. He felt shocked — caught completely off guard. He stopped looking for something to eat and for a minute just stared into space, trying to get himself ready to go back into the living room and face Donna. This gave Donna time to shoot out a few more zingers: “We never want to do the same things. We can’t even agree on a movie. I knew you didn’t really want to watch this with me, but you just say ‘yes’ even when you don’t mean it. How can I ever trust you to tell me the truth?”
Finally, Eric entered the living room and, trying to sound reasonable, said, “I don’t think there is anything wrong with getting up for a minute to get myself something to eat. That’s all I did.”
Donna detected a superior tone in Eric’s response — something she was hearing more frequently — and this upset her even more. She shot back, “So you’re the big authority on matters of the heart, eh? Your heart is shut down, Eric. You’re just a walking, talking machine. Big and smart, but without a heart. Why can’t you ever see things from my side? Why can’t you ever think of anyone but yourself?”
Still frozen inside, Eric continued to reason with Donna: “I didn’t do anything against you. Honestly, I was hungry. I could see where the movie was going, and I thought that might be a good time to take a little food break.”
Donna became frustrated by Eric’s coolness and defensiveness — that flat, superior, dismissive tone — and so she turned up the volume in a desperate attempt to pull some emotion from him: “A little food break? I can’t believe you. We decided together to watch this movie. I actually thought we were going to have a nice evening together for a change. You’ve been ignoring me and ignoring my needs for months. You are like ice. You can’t just walk away when we’re doing things together. It’s not what couples do — if they care. You obviously do not care about anyone but yourself.”
Eric felt a familiar tightness in his throat that made it difficult for him to speak. Feeling helpless, he walked out of the living room and went down the hall into his study. There, he shut the door and turned on his computer as his mind flooded with thoughts: “This is hopeless. I’ll never find a way to get through to her. I’m not a fighter. I just want peace. I’m not going to engage in this kind of argument. This is beneath me. Donna calls me superior. Well, I am superior to her in how I deal with things like this. She just goes nuts on me.” As an escape from their argument, Eric immersed himself in a work project, telling himself he didn’t really care what Donna did or said. He would simply refuse to respond. That’s how he had been dealing with his growing sense of powerlessness and frustration.
Now feeling panicked, Donna got up and marched down the hall, yelling, “You think you can just shut me up by walking out! You are totally and completely insensitive. You suck as a husband. I am so patient with you and your busy schedule. But it never changes. And it will never change, Eric. You need to get your head out of your ass, and keep it out!” With these words, Donna started sobbing loudly right outside Eric’s office door.
“Now she’s going to manipulate me with her tears,” Eric thought. “Thank God, she’s not breaking down the door. I can’t stand all this drama. I never wanted this type of relationship. We used to get along so great. What happened?”
Still sobbing, Donna finally collapsed onto the floor, but after crying for another minute, a wave of determination came over her. She thought: “I’ve gotten way too dependent on Eric. I need to start thinking more about myself and my needs. He, for sure, will never meet my needs. So I’ll just go shopping and get myself something nice. I can be too busy, too — just like he always is.” When Donna realized it was too late to go to the mall, she went back into the living room and tried to get reinterested in the movie.
As Donna sat alone, her mind raced. She considered knocking on Eric’s door one more time or perhaps texting him, and she rehearsed in her mind all the things she wanted to say. She felt right and justified: “When people love each other, they don’t just get up and leave the room like that. That is insensitive. That shows a lack of feeling. Can’t he see this?”
In his study, Eric, too, was building his case: “Donna always goes to the worst-case scenario. And she won’t listen to reason. That whole thing was completely unnecessary. Can’t she see how she ruined a perfectly nice evening with her paranoia? Why can’t she see the big picture?”
This incident shows some of the typical ways couples try to be heard and understood during a communication breakdown. Both partners hate arguing. They hate the feeling of distance. But they just keep doing what they have always done — criticizing, pursuing, provoking, distancing, hiding out, labeling, judging, and trying to be right. Their survival alarms have pulled them into the Hole.
We can probably all relate to Donna and Eric’s pain. We can see they are both trying to be heard. But they cannot hear each other’s real needs because they are caught in a downward spiral. Perhaps we can see what might work better, or perhaps we even recognize ourselves in parts of their story.
Resolution Is Impossible in the Hole
No matter how hard you work at being understood, if you’re trying to communicate while in the Hole, you will only make matters worse. Your only tool is a shovel, and anything you do will just dig you in deeper. What’s Rule No. 1 when you find yourself in the Hole? Stop digging!
There are many types of shovels couples use to dig themselves further into the Hole. Engaging in any of the following behaviors will sabotage your attempts to be heard:
blaming
criticizing
judging
attacking
prodding
pursuing
provoking
getting defensive
withdrawing
shutting down
proving you’re right
trying to win
These reactive behaviors are signs that your higher brain has gotten hijacked. Directed by the instinctive attack-defend part of the brain, they are really attempts to protect oneself. Read this list again, and think about which ones you tend to use when you’re upset. Are you aware of what happens in your body when you are in such states? Have you ever tried to stop yourself in the middle of one of these trips to the Hole? If you have tried to stop, you know how hard this can be. You want to resolve the upset and get back to feeling safe and happy together. But something beyond your control seems to take over.
To get a sense of the power of our automatic patterns, imagine that you and your partner are discussing a sensitive topic (such as sex, money, or your kids). Suddenly, all the smoke alarms in your house start blaring so loud you can’t even follow your own thinking, much less hear your partner accurately. Your system is flooded. Do you think you’ll be able to successfully resolve an interpersonal issue while all your alarms are blaring?
Only after all of the alarms stop ringing can we discuss a sensitive topic with any hope of finding a good solution. That’s impossible to do while being overtaken by the urgent impulses to flee for one’s life, to desperately fight for it, or to numb out if both of those options seem hopeless. So, if you have ever felt hopeless in trying to stop your downward spiral, give yourself some compassion. This happens to everyone. States of fight, flight, and freeze are human biological imperatives that get executed automatically by a part of the brain we cannot control.
What if we had stopped Donna in the middle of her angry outburst and asked, “Do you think you’re in physical danger right now?” She wouldn’t have thought so. Nor would she have realized her body was in a state of fight-or-flight, rushing energy into her limbs while shutting down her higher brain capacities. Like most of us, Donna had no idea that her survival alarm was ringing.
What if we had asked her, “Do you think the upset you are feeling is entirely about Eric? Do you have any awareness right now about how your father used to speak to you in a superior tone?” Since she was wrapped up in blaming Eric, it’s unlikely that she was thinking about her father at all. However, she had made this connection at least once before, so our reminder might have given her pause.
Or we could have asked her, “What sensations do you notice in your body right now?” If directed to observe this, she might have reported feeling a knot in her stomach or a shaky feeling in her chest. By paying close attention to sensations in the body — especially in the chest and belly — we can detect when our survival alarm has gone off.
When we fall into a state of fight, flight, or freeze, we usually think our upset feelings are the result of the other person’s behavior. Sometimes we even think a partner is choosing to trigger us. We have no idea what old programming lies at the root of our triggers.
Why the Alarm Mistakes One’s Partner for a Tiger
Vocal tone, facial expression, and physical gestures are continually being read by our survival alarms as we interact with others. Some signals are inherently triggering. A female’s high, shrill voice is how our earliest human ancestors signaled distress to get others to run for safety. A male projecting a low, booming tone is how men scared away a predator. Someone showing teeth or sneering in anger can activate a partner’s alarm. Sudden physical gestures imply threat. Behaviors like these will reflexively trigger our alarms.
Of course, a great number of our triggers are programmed by past experiences that were scary, painful, or upsetting. This was true for Donna when Eric’s advice-giving voice resembled a tonal quality her father used in her childhood. Eric unwittingly pushed an old button wired into her alarm. Simultaneously, as Donna reacted, her angry tone triggered in Eric the threat he felt in childhood when his parents started yelling. This is how Donna and Eric unintentionally cotriggered false alarms in each other’s survival systems. Their alarms did not distinguish that these sounds were now coming from different people in an entirely different time and place.
Our alarm systems are built to make mistakes. A good alarm, by its very nature, will overgeneralize and sound a lot of false alarms. It’s about survival, after all. Hence, our alarms go off automatically if an intimate partner does something even remotely similar to earlier painful or scary experiences.
Core Needs for Emotional Safety in an Intimate Partnership
In an intimate partnership we need to feel emotionally safe and secure. Otherwise we will be triggered to some degree. We want to feel like we have each other’s backs, operate like a team, and can rely on each other. We want to trust that we are accepted, valued, and loved and that we can be our authentic selves in the relationship.
What got Donna’s alarm ringing wasn’t a threat to physical survival but rather a threat to her feeling safely connected emotionally with Eric. In her mind, her need to feel valued and respected had been threatened. When she heard his voice, she was flooded with old, unprocessed painful memories about her dad. When her dad used that tone, she thought he was saying she wasn’t smart. Feeling small and inadequate, she’d sometimes run to her room and cry. As an adult, Donna’s alarm mistakenly thought Eric was putting her down. This explains why she suddenly yelled, “You think I’m stupid?” Her old fear button of not being good enough got triggered.
Within an intimate partnership we all need to feel valued and respected. These are core emotional needs. Couples therapist Sue Johnson says our core needs are like air, food, and water in our love lives. To feel safe and secure with a partner, we need to feel these needs are met. If we feel any are not met, our survival alarms will instinctively react.
If we were to state our core needs to a partner, we might say something like this:
I need to feel . . . connected to you, accepted by you, valued by you, appreciated by you, respected by you, needed by you, that you care about me, that I matter to you, that we are a team, that I can count on you, that I can reach out for you, that you’ll comfort me if I’m in distress, that you’ll be there if I need you.
Take a moment to reflect on your own life. Think about an incident that occurred in an intimate relationship that upset you. Maybe you got angry, felt hurt, or shut down. Now, look at the list of core needs above. Which ones seemed to be threatened at that moment?
If one of these needs feels like it is not being met, you won’t feel safe, your alarm will ring as if it’s a matter of survival, and you may get triggered into a state of fight, flight, or freeze. A core fear is being triggered, and you will react protectively.
Core Fears Trigger Reactive Behaviors
Core needs and fears are like two sides of a coin. If a core need feels frustrated or unmet, a core fear will be triggered. For example, if you don’t feel accepted or valued, this will likely trigger a core fear of being inadequate or a failure to your mate.
We are especially vulnerable to such triggers in our intimate partnerships. Even though Eric feels quite confident in his career and with his buddies, when Donna complains, his fear of being inadequate can get triggered. Similarly, nobody triggers Donna’s insecurities the way Eric does with his lecturing tone.
Like Donna and Eric, we all react when core fears get triggered. We attempt to avoid reexperiencing as adults what we found too painful, scary, or overwhelming as children. We instinctively protect ourselves with reactions like arguing or walking away. Reactive behaviors help us feel more in control. Instead of letting ourselves feel the emotional pain resulting from a distressing incident, a reactive feeling momentarily helps us feel big and righteous rather than small and powerless.
Here are examples of core fears that get triggered in adult relationships. Which of these have you felt in a significant love relationship?
Fear of being abandoned: You fear your partner might leave. You feel that your partner doesn’t need you as much as you need him or her.
Fear of being unimportant or invisible: You fear you are not as important to your partner as other things or people, or that you don’t really matter.
Fear of being rejected: You have trouble feeling accepted or valued just the way you are. You fear that you, or your needs, will be rejected.
Fear of being inadequate or a failure: Complaints or criticisms trigger fears that you are not good enough, that you are inadequate or unlovable.
Fear of being blamed: You fear being seen as wrong or as the cause of relationship upsets, so you either defend yourself or shut down in the face of negative feedback.
Fear of being controlled: You fear feeling weak or vulnerable. You instinctively try to be in charge or control of any situation.
Fear of being trapped or suffocated: You fear intrusion, losing yourself, or being consumed by others. You become uncomfortable with others’ expectations or too much closeness.
A core fear promotes an unconscious state of vigilance. You become hypersensitive to cues that the feared event may be about to happen. Your perception gets distorted; it becomes biased toward noticing even the tiniest similarity to past events, thus increasing the likelihood that your survival alarm will soon be ringing.
Trading in IQ Points for Limb Strength
When you are triggered into fight or flight, your heart races. Your lungs attempt to pull in more oxygen. Adrenaline starts pumping. Other systems shut down, like digestion and saliva production, so that the energy they consume can all be put into immediate survival activities.
The states of fight or flight have one basic biological purpose — to provide maximum strength and energy to your limbs, giving you the power to run faster and get away or to fight harder and win. Basically, you are cashing in IQ points for limb strength. A mother can lift a car off her baby with such strength! But an intimate couple will find no benefit from brute strength when trying to resolve interpersonal issues. That type of strength only serves to dig you deeper into the Hole.
The freeze state is a kind of self-anesthesia administered by the nervous system to numb you from feeling a painful, overwhelming, and likely fatal physical attack. It’s like going into shock. You space out or shut down. This is useful if your alarm concludes that a tiger is about to kill you. It enables you to avoid feeling intense physical pain. But again, it is not helpful to a couple trying to resolve an issue.
We’ve all seen how drinking too much alcohol can distort thinking and impair abilities. The same goes for adrenaline or anesthesia. When we get triggered, we are essentially operating under the influence of powerful chemicals. But there are no empty shot glasses lined up on a bar in front of us. Instead, a whole lot of juice is being served up by internal bartenders, and, blindsided, we are suddenly inebriated without realizing it. With diminished brain capacities, we suffer black-and-white thinking, tunnel vision, or simply going blank. Stuck in attack-defend mode, we may numb out or say things we later regret. And later, we are unable to accurately recall what happened.
When Donna was activated, her voice would get louder, faster, and shriller. She would frequently interrupt or dominate the conversation, as if being driven by an urgent need to accelerate. You could sense the adrenaline in the volume and rapid speed of her words.
Eric’s tendency was to freeze. His vocal tone would get flatter, and it would eventually trail off. His words would become more sparse, with long pauses. His mind might go blank and words escape him. You could sense the anesthesia of shock reducing his ability to speak.
With their diminished capacities, it never occurred to Donna or Eric to stop reacting and, instead, to reassure each other they were actually safe. They didn’t even realize that they were triggered.
It would be great if we could realize when we are getting triggered. But body chemistry is a powerful intoxicant. As people do in twelve-step meetings like AA, we might want to admit that we are powerless over adrenaline (or anesthesia), and that our communication has become unmanageable.
Warning Signs of a Survival Alarm Takeover
What can you do when your alarm starts ringing? Step one is to accept that this sort of thing happens — even to the nicest, most intelligent, and most conscious people. Step two is learning how to recognize the early warning signs of being triggered.
Paying attention to your body sensations will help you recognize when your survival alarm has been activated. While we don’t have any direct control over getting triggered, we can learn to do something different once we realize our alarms are activated. The first signs are in the physical body.
What do you feel in your body when you become upset? You might feel a knot in your stomach, pressure in your chest, or a lump in your throat. You might feel your heart pounding, a shaky or fluttering feeling, or a churning in your gut. Some people feel a tightness in their muscles, shoulders, or chest, while others feel heat rise as their body temperature changes. These are typical signs of fight or flight. Signs of freeze might include feeling fuzzy, lethargic, shut down, drained, a loss of energy, a slumping over, a sense of numbness, or going blank.
Which “F” Overtakes Your Higher Brain?
Some peoples’ nervous systems automatically react by going into fight. When triggered, they tend to get frustrated or angry. This often manifests as some form of complaining, prodding, blowing up, or in some other way going on the attack. Others tend to flee. Driven by anxiety or fear, they may withdraw, distance themselves, or leave. Still others fall into a freeze state — feeling confused, shutting down, numbing out, getting paralyzed, or not knowing what to say or do.
Our nervous system will favor one of these Fs, but they are all available. Another F will be used if the first one doesn’t work. Someone may initially get triggered into a state of fight, but if that doesn’t work, they will flee, and then as a last resort, freeze. Another person’s nervous system may initially provoke a flight reaction, but if that’s not possible, they will fight.
Some partners react in similar ways. Both blow up or both shut down. Many partners differ. One goes into the state of fight, pursuing the other like a cheetah chasing a gazelle — while the other flees or freezes.
A very common relationship dynamic is between a pursuer and a withdrawer. We see this in Donna and Eric’s relationship. Donna acts like a pursuer — complaining, criticizing, prodding, pushing, blowing up. The F that takes her over is fight. Her reactive feelings are frustration and anger. Eric is a withdrawer. The F taking him over can be flight or freeze. He often begins by ignoring, distancing himself, staying in his head, pushing feelings away, or shutting down. Then, he may feel nervous and anxious or confused and numb. Finally, he might walk away.
Over a long time period, the F that we go to first might change. Someone who initially shuts down around angry yelling may eventually start blowing up, too. Or someone who pursues and prods may burn out and start building walls and creating distance. What is your dominant F in a relationship? Have you tended to be a frustrated pursuer or a shut-down withdrawer? Does this depend on your partner’s style?
Look at the following list, which groups reactive feelings into three categories of fight, flight, and freeze. The six words in each category can be thought of as different intensities of each state. Put a check next to any reactive feelings you experience in your relationship (present or past).
We recommend you do this exercise in the free online workbook, which is in the “Reactive Feelings” section (available at www.fiveminuterelationshiprepair.com). You will refer back to this list later.
Fight
annoyed
irritated
frustrated
angry
resentful
infuriated
Flight
nervous
worried
insecure
anxious
panicked
Freeze
hopeless
confused
ashamed
stuck
numb
paralyzed
In the next chapter, you will learn what to do when you notice one of these Fs wreaking havoc in your relationship.