How to deal with your lover's bad mood

When you prepare dinner for your family, after an hour or two of busy work, everything is ready, but your lover opens the door with a frustrated look on his face; when you happily and anxiously rush to the mall where you and your lover have an appointment after get off work, but when you see him at the door, he asks impatiently, "Why are you here so late?"

When faced with these emotional shocks, how do you resolve your emotions, help others, and help each other get out of negative emotional interactions?

There is a saying in depth psychology: Subconsciously, partners need things to deal with negative emotional experiences. This sentence can be understood in two ways:

On the one hand, one is potentially looking for an "ideal partner" who can carry one's desire and understanding of family. He/she may even be like one's parents or a member of the original family in some aspects. However, in a new intimate relationship, there are definitely some special aspects that you are very dissatisfied with and that you desire the other person to change. By rejecting certain personality traits and living habits of the other person, they try to stop feeling the unbearable feelings they once had in their original family.

On the other hand, becoming each other's partner and lover means, to a certain extent, playing the role of a reservoir of each other's emotions. When the other person's emotions are too turbulent, you need to temporarily "store water" for him/her. When the other person's emotions are numb and there is no freshness, you need to inject "living water" into him/her so that you can interact with each other. This role becomes a mission, a manifestation of importance.

From this perspective, both states are not so easy. So when the other person or the interaction between them is in a bad mood, what should the bearer of the emotion pay attention to in order to achieve emotional regulation and metabolize the negative emotional experience?

British psychologist Winnicott proposed a theory: building a "holding environment" in interpersonal interactions can help the healing and growth of the mind. The general idea is that when a person who is emotionally frustrated and in need of help can encounter emotional support and understanding, and if this temporarily "childish" person's attempts to vent his emotions and adjust his interpersonal relationships are given tolerance and care, then this person will go through a period of adjustment and will be able to come out of anxiety, depression and anger, and his mind will grow because of the care of this environment. This environment is called a holding environment.

Winnicott's view has been widely used in psychological counseling, child education, medical care, and even business negotiations. Because from practice we have found that the implementation of a supportive environment does not require high construction costs or a particularly complex training background. So if applied to the family, what needs to be done in an intimate relationship to have the characteristics of "holding" and become a holding environment?

First, do not deny or reject the other person’s current emotions.

Taking the example at the beginning, although you have worked hard to prepare dinner at home, your lover is indeed in a low mood. In that case, don’t deny that his/her emotions are “nothing” or “will be fine after a while”, and don’t blame the other person for “having” the current emotions. Try to understand that the other person is actually in an uncomfortable mood, pay attention to his/her current emotional experience, and accept the existence of this emotion. Try asking: "It seems that you are a little upset. Would you like to talk to me?"

Second, don’t make subjective inferences or fantasies, but try to ask about the real situation.

"He must have been scolded by his boss at work and is taking it out on me; or he's complaining that I didn't charge his phone properly last night and is making a fuss about it; or he's punishing me for being slow to pack my things before leaving the house this morning and making him rush to work in a hurry..." When we are in this state of subjective imagination and psychological closure, it is difficult to see the other person's true feelings and state. The best way is to ask gently: "Were you anxious while waiting just now? Why do you seem to be emotional?" Maybe this is indeed a little difficult - facing the emotional pressure from the other party, you have to put yourself aside and focus on the other party first - but the reservoir is needed to temporarily bear the other party's surging emotions. Once his emotions calm down, the other party will be grateful, the relationship between them will be improved, and the tolerance of the relationship will also be improved.

Third, patient listening and emotional attention

Once you can put aside your imagination and focus on the other person's reality, the other person will often have a story to tell. At this time, just listen patiently. Then give him feedback on the emotions you heard. Perhaps that is exactly what he lacks understanding and attention because he is "blind to the situation". For example, he would say: "This month's performance is not good, and it's not my fault, it's the team's fault, so I am implicated. This annoying performance evaluation method makes everyone happy when the team can achieve it; but when I do well enough personally and am dragged down by the situation of others, it's really awkward..." Try not to interrupt him. It doesn't matter if what he says is extreme, biased, or even irrational. The most important thing is that he wants to talk about his feelings of frustration, and your company is a great comfort and care. After he finishes speaking, you can try to briefly respond to his emotions, "It sounds like you were able to achieve your goal, which was worth being happy about, but because of the problems of other members of your group, you were affected, so you were disappointed and blamed them. Because it was not obvious when things were going well, you were an innocent victim when problems arose. This made you very uncomfortable. Tell me now, do you feel better?"

Fourth, add positive interpretation to the other party’s experience

When the other person's emotions are taken care of and he gradually calms down, if you can discover his "stubborn" thoughts and ideas, and you can provide a more constructive understanding, you can try to tell him, after all, you can see more clearly as a bystander. For example, "I think that since you can meet the standards, you should try to share your experience and let everyone excel with you. This will be a better way to solve the problem than blaming them. After all, you have been a good team player before. Maybe they need some help in their recent work? Maybe everyone is embarrassed at this time and has implicated you. If you can stand up and be more generous, maybe it will not happen again in the future and it can be considered as making up for the loss. Maybe everyone will appreciate your organizational and professional abilities more because of this." Behind every emotion, there is personal or even team meaning. Sometimes, the emotional experience is too painful for the person involved to bear, so they cannot see or see it clearly for the time being.

Fifth, when someone is experiencing the same complex over and over again, it is recommended that he seek professional counseling and help.

"Complex" is a concept summarized by psychologist Jung, which means that everyone has some fixed or easily developed tendencies, which are difficult to adjust or difficult to get out of self-reflection even if they conflict with reality. However, the inconsistency between this complex and reality often causes lasting pain and contradictory experiences. If your lover keeps experiencing a certain emotion repeatedly and finds it difficult to regulate effectively, you can recommend him to receive professional psychological counseling. Of course, psychoanalytic consultation that focuses on inner experience is the first choice.