Relationship Conflict is the Opportunity to Build Trust

​The precious moments of conflict, when empathetically approached, build the bridges of trust and safety—the foundations of intimacy. Empathy is a process of the heart, but also, a cognitive process—we observe and absorb emotions. We feel what the other person feels. Empathy appreciates the other person’s experience.

When we navigate these difficult moments with dignity, maintaining an environment of safety by respecting our partner’s vulnerability, we build trust. Only during conflict can we show that disagreements are not devastating to closeness. Our response shows that we honor, respect and protect our partner’s autonomy.

Absorbing Emotions through Empathy

​Partners do not always welcome sharing emotion. Our empathy impacts our emotional valence as we absorb the discomforting emotions from a partner. If our emotions easily overwhelm then sharing a partner’s emotional upsets will also easily overwhelm. Their upset can be very upsetting.

Our mind absorbs and then reflects emotion; others’ emotions reverberate through our own system. Emotional communication is the movement of energy from one person to another. We first experience feeling, then interpret the sensations as a distinct emotion. The emotionally immature are often confronted with a relational paradox of wanting to support but the gross inability to comfort when flooded by the accompanying emotions.

Processing emotions is a skill laced with biological sensitivities. If we are sensitive to emotions, the negative feeling affects are distasteful. We don’t like them. We defensively rush to resolve or escape. When resolutions fail, the sensitive, unskilled in regulating emotion, become frustrated with the sadness, anger, and guilt. When their being is charged with someone else’s emotion, they easily assign blame, their responses attack rather than support.

See Shared Emotions for more on this topic

Energy Budgeting and Empathy

We predict life. We predict the demands. And, we predict possible difficulties. Our extensive work in prediction is essential for budgeting life energy. Our predictions are never perfect. Life routinely surprises. Healthy relationships increases available resources but also complicates predictions. Adding another dynamic, living being to the mixture always creates more variability to our lives.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, a distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University, focusing on affective science, explains in her recent book that a surprising “disadvantage of shared body budgeting is that it has an impact on empathy.” When you have empathy for other people, your brain predicts what they’ll think and feel and do. Predictions of others isn’t an exact science. We struggle to predict our own needs and emotions. We predict and budget for partner’s emotions. Barrett continues, “The more familiar the other people are to you, the more efficiently your brain predicts their inner struggles” (Barrett, 2020).

See Psychology of Empathy for more on this topic

Emotional Attunement and Intimacy

We build intimacy through emotional attunement, accepting and holding partners during their emotional experiences. Inability to stay with an emotion creates deep fractures when we fail to support during these critical moments. Instead of comforting, the incapable partner becomes irritable, failing to embrace during critical bids for support.

When we can’t hold emotion, our bodies loudly scream, “Don’t be upset!” Emotions provide an opportunity for connection. Emotional expressions give insight into the other—their past and their present; exposing fears and insecurities. Having expressing empathy within the relationship opens the doors for closeness and continued sharing.

​With intimacy, a partner feels these expressions and connects, providing understanding and comfort—not necessarily resolving the pain. Dismissing a partner’s discomforting emotions limits the richness of the relationship, driving a wedge between partners, making the emotional experience isolated and not understood.

See Emotionally Connected for more on this topic

Emotional Regulation Skills

Empathy within a romantic partnership involves the crucial ability to attune to and validate a partner’s emotions, allowing for deep connection and mutual support. However, without strong personal emotional regulation skills, the act of empathizing can become overwhelming for the individual attempting to understand and validate their partner’s feelings. When a partner expresses intense emotions like sadness, anger, or fear, the person attuning may inadvertently absorb these feelings, leading to their own emotional distress. This can hinder their ability to provide effective support and validation, as they become preoccupied with managing their own emotional state rather than being fully present for their partner.

Personal emotional regulation skills serve as a vital buffer in these moments, enabling an individual to empathize without becoming overwhelmed. These skills allow someone to acknowledge and understand the intensity of their partner’s emotions without fully internalizing them to the point of personal distress. By being aware of their own emotional boundaries and having the capacity to manage their own emotional responses, the empathizer can remain grounded and present. This involves maintaining a sense of self and recognizing that while they are connecting with their partner’s feelings, they are not responsible for carrying the full weight of those emotions as their own.

Ultimately, effective emotional regulation allows for a balanced and sustainable approach to empathy. The individual can offer genuine validation and support, making their partner feel heard and understood, without sacrificing their own emotional well-being. This creates a healthier dynamic within the relationship, where partners can rely on each other for emotional support without the fear of overwhelming or being overwhelmed. The ability to regulate one’s own emotions while empathizing fosters a secure and supportive environment where both individuals can navigate emotional challenges together more effectively.

Dyadic Regulation

From a balanced and well-regulated emotional position, the empathizing person can actively assist their partner in regulating their own heightened emotions, a process known as dyadic regulation (Murphy, 2022). When one partner is experiencing emotional overwhelm, a calm and regulated partner can provide a soothing presence, offer a different perspective, validate their feelings without judgment, and even suggest coping strategies.

Daniel Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, explains the importance of dyadic regulation.

He wrote:

“Balanced interpersonal communication allows the activity of one mind to sense and respond to the activity of another. The ways we connect with each other directly shape how we ‘regulate’ our emotions and alter our states of mind. In other words, dyadic regulation directly shapes ‘self-regulation’” (Siegel, 2020).

This external support can help the overwhelmed individual gradually regain emotional equilibrium. This dynamic mirrors the way an attentive and emotionally regulated caregiver helps a young child manage their intense emotions. Just as a caregiver might offer comfort, reassurance, and model calm behavior to soothe a distressed child, a well-regulated partner can provide a similar sense of safety and support, guiding their partner back to a more manageable emotional state.

Lack of Empathy

​Childhood learning stubbornly continues, haunting adult freedoms. Escapes we used in childhood infiltrate adulthood processing. The sensitive child becomes the sensitive adult. When limited in emotional maturity, the adult still seeks escape.

When a sensitive adult absorbs a partner’s emotions and lacks skill to hold the emotion, the feeling is painful, creating insecurities. Instead of comforting their partner, they retreat. The abandoned partner—alone in their pain—quickly learns emotions are unwelcomed, creating disconnection. Facing aloneness during adversity is not what most desire from a relationship. The emotionally abandoned partner must internalize their experience, feeling shackled to a lonely existence, hiding emotions to not upset the child living inside of their partner.

If this is your partner, have patience. If this is you, seek help to improve your skill to compassionately hold emotions.

Life is full of positive and negative affect. We feel life. Inability to process the emotional flow of living is extremely limiting. Learning to productively process feeling enhances our existence. The developed skills open our hearts to the experience of others, creating stronger bonds. When a partner is upset, we also feel upset, but with emotional maturity, we smoothly hold that upset, providing healing comfort.

Showing Compassion for Partners Lacking Emotional Maturity 

Our partners may not have this skill yet. The empathy in the relationship is still in infancy. Perhaps, a partner unable to patiently hold emotions will seek escape—physical or emotional, like a frightened animal, they may aggressively strike back, our expressions of emotions exposes their vulnerability. Our emotions are threatening to them. Being upset, upsets them. We must understand and properly predict our partner’s ability and deficits in capacity to experience empathy. If they struggle with emotion, we can’t unload the entire heap of our emotional lives on their sensitive souls.

By being patient and understanding (even when upset), we can help partners productively experience emotions through careful and measured expressions. A screaming match only destroys the progress. When they are upset, we can create a safe base for honest expression of emotion or offer respect by honoring their need for solitude.

Strenuous and repeated efforts to solve a partner’s underlying problem often backfires. A more productive approach is a compassionate presence, supporting the emotion and providing continued acceptance. Of course, there are limitations. When a partner’s emotions are destructive, hurtful, and dangerous, we must seek safety. Empathy should not include enduring physical or emotional abuse.

Associated Concepts

• Emotional Attunement: This refers to the ability to understand, be aware of, and be responsive to another person’s emotions. It involves being in tune with someone else’s feelings, and being able to empathize and connect with them on an emotional level.
• Empathy Deficit Disorder: This disorder is characterized by lacking ability to feel, understand and resonate with another’s feelings.
• Emotional Contagion: This refers to an individual’s tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements of another person’s, and consequently, to experience similar emotions.
• Hyper-Empathy Syndrome: this syndrome is where individuals feel excessive empathy, leading to personal distress and potential anxiety disorders.
• Emotional Validation: This is the act of recognizing, accepting, and affirming the emotions and feelings of another person. It involves actively listening to their experiences, acknowledging their emotions as valid, and expressing understanding and empathy towards their emotional state.
• Emotional Reactivity: This refers to an individual’s level of reactivity to stimuli in the environment. This includes the emotional reaction experienced through observing the suffering of others.

A Few Words by Psychology Fanatic

A loving partner willingly ventures into the internal landscape of a partner’s world. Trudging through the discomforts and fears may be awkward, encountering our own discomforting responses; but to intimately connect, we must travel down this path. During emotional moments, when we compassionately feel and hold a partner’s experience without judgment or correction, we exhibit love, showing them, they are not alone. These are the precious moments of vulnerability where we can provide safety. These moments of empathy and compassion in the relationship tear down walls built in the early years of living, and open windows to the delicate and beautiful souls of others.