Beans and Cornbread D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
October 2009
Negative Relationship Spirals
Is your relationship going down the drain? Understanding that negative spiral is the first step in stopping it.
By Joanie Connors
The long, painful declines of many relationships have often been described as a descending spiral, like "going down the drain." For most failing couples, negative interactions come more and more frequently, civility and kindness gradually wane, and, as time passes, their negative cycling accelerates and intensifies towards an inevitable, bitter parting.
Most of us have witnessed the awful struggles of a dying relationship among our friends or family if we haven't participated personally. It is especially heartbreaking if you knew this same couple when they were sweet and tender to each other. How can partners who used to love each other become so intensely obsessed with what is wrong with each other?
Negative interpretation is the first driver. Partners in declining relationships often complain excessively about what is wrong with each other and with their relationship.
They tend to see minor problems as severe threats, temporary difficulties as lifelong trials and mistakes as intentional insults. They expect the worst from their partner and often work themselves up into a frenzy before something bad actually happens. Unpleasant moods, thoughtless mistakes and bad luck are unavoidable when people live together, but negative interpretation magnifies small things into major ordeals.
Negative interpretation has many different causes. It may become part of a couple's life when one or both of the partners is a pessimist or drama addict. Partners may have started with unrealistic expectations about the relationship or each other and become dissatisfied when reality sets in. Frequently, negative interpretations are projections of self-judgments, as with most jealousy, or shame about the partner ("What would others think?"). Other times partners become negative as a defense when things keep going badly or when their spouse keeps harshly interpreting what they've said or done.
Someone stuck in a negative interpretation might see a partner frown and think, "He/she is obviously angry at me," or think when he or she is late, "He/she doesn't really love me." These kinds of negative expectations and exaggerations feed into the next problem that failing couples have — reciprocating negative feelings.
Negative reciprocity is the other driver. The other behavior that frequently drives couples into downward spirals is when both partners choose to respond negatively to each other's bad behavior. Negative reciprocity means trading bad feeling for bad, responding to every criticism with criticism, or to every hurt by causing hurt back. Negative reciprocity almost guarantees that every slip, every mistake becomes a fight.
These negative reactions become the fuel for the payback war that frequently follows. It could be a quiet war or a noisy war, or one that is a mix of tactics.
Quiet payback wars often involve using distance and silence as payback for hurt. These partners make excuses, avoid each other and use passive-aggressive tactics (e.g., being late, not listening, turning up the TV). These couples eventually may lead separate lives physically and/or psychologically — think of couples you've seen eating at restaurants with the paper in front of their faces.
Noisy payback wars are especially verbal as well as behavioral in their negative reciprocity. Whatever goes wrong, one blames the other, or both argue about it, sometimes exploding into bouts of screaming. Those in noisy payback wars frequently analyze each other's flaws in detail, remind each other of worse mistakes they have been guilty of in the past, and/or project the responsibility for their unhappiness onto their partner.
Mixed payback wars include quiet and noisy tactics, either randomly or in a cyclical pattern. They frequently take the form of one partner trying to change the other and the other denying there are problems and refusing to change. Here, both escalate their demand or withdrawal tactics to try to overpower each other's resistance. This can go on for years, with friends and family pulled into gossiping camps (since soon neither is listening to the other). If one partner is psychologically, financially or physically dependent, that person may become a victim of the stronger one at this stage and bear the brunt of the hurt.
While trading bad for bad may be motivated by hurt and defensive feelings, the result is deepening destruction. In order to gather more power in the battles that ensue, the retribution usually becomes more and more personal and hostile.
Unresolved conflicts are often the trigger. Relationships often are triggered into negative cycles when conflicts are not dealt with or when there are no compromises. Whether spoken or unspoken, unresolved conflicts become like a festering wound, gnawing at one or both partners until it finds an opportunity to leak out again and fire up another fight.
Sometimes conflicts are impossible to resolve fairly due to unequal power. The most common form of this is when traditional gender roles are held and the female partner is denied a say in what happens, or has to work many extra hours to care for the house and children. Relationship expert John Gottman has asserted that relationship success often depends on whether "men accept influence from, (and) share power with women."
Sometimes conflicts become challenging to resolve because partners do not understand the need to allow differences to exist and/or rigidly hold to their opinions of what is "right." Two healthy people are not always going to have the same needs or desires when together, so conflict is inevitable as differences are expressed. If both partners get to voice their feelings and are listened to, they learn that their feelings matter. If these feelings are denied by either or both, unhappiness creeps in.
When fights keep happening over and over again, it is a sign that interest in supporting the relationship has been replaced by egocentric defensiveness. There may be a lack of commitment to listening and sharing. Communication skills may be lacking, or there may be core value differences that challenge each one's tolerances.
When negative reactions and interpretations are added to the conflict cycle, relations soon deteriorate. Each partner's part in a conflict is interpreted in the most harmful ways by the other, and then that harm is reciprocated. The use of negative interpretation and payback guarantees that the level of interaction will drop lower and lower, creating a descending spiral.
Loss of trust. As the relationship slides down the spiral, trust gradually disappears. How can trust endure when needs are denied, flaws are emphasized and hurts becomes purposeful? Loss of trust often leads to the death of real communication and may result in psychological avoidance or withdrawal.
Once trust is lost, then there is little motivation to be kind or to consider your partner's feelings. Once trust is lost, the relationship has little chance of survival.
Becoming enemies. Once trust is gone, concern for self-preservation usually follows. When there is no relief from the cycles of attack and retaliation, survival instincts take over, making partners feel like the other is an enemy to be defended against.