How Not Being Able To Regulate Your Emotions Impacts Your Relationships

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When you get very caught up in your emotions you may struggle to express your needs appropriately. You might feel very angry or highly anxious for example your reasoning may go out of the window.

When agitated, we often react automatically without any reflections. When we cannot regulate our emotions, we get overwhelmed - we are controlled by the emotion rather than the other way round. In the situation where we get triggered emotionally, we often lose the capacity to utilise that part of our brain that helps us to cognitively process, instead our emotional "monkey brain" takes over.

If you experienced adverse experiences in your life and trauma, you are more likely to unconsciously scan for danger and feel more readily threatened. Trauma studies have shown that people with high levels of trauma struggle to read another person's face: another person's sad face may be experienced as angry. Arguments with the partner may get more readily out of control if there is perceived danger.

Other people can help us to 'co-regulate': if you have a very calm partner, this can help you to feel calmer and reassured. Conversely, if both of you are highly emotionally agitated, you are more likely to further increase each other's distress.

You can learn to increase your window of tolerance for difficult emotions and thereby get less easily triggered and distressed by other people's interactions with you.

If you struggle to identify your emotions the Feelings Wheel may provide some help.

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What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz. You can find a link on our website: https://therelationshipmaze.com.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course:  https://therelationshipmaze.com/relationshipconflictvsl2.

In this podcast I mentioned a device I use for breathing practice which can be found at https://www.airofit.com/

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common caus

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Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.