#278: How to Navigate Being Triggered by a Partner's Moodiness
In today's Ask Steph episode, I'm answering the listener question of "How do I navigate being triggered by my partner's moodiness and irritability?" This is such a common pain point for folks with anxious attachment patterns. I share some context as to why moodiness is so activating for the anxious nervous system, as well as my advice on how to best respond in the moment when your partner is being moody.
If your partner being grumpy, cranky, tired, short, or irritable immediately puts you on edge, you’re definitely not alone.
For those of us with anxious attachment patterns, a partner’s bad mood can feel surprisingly threatening. Even when we know logically that they’ve simply had a rough day or are feeling tired, something in us starts sounding the alarm.
What’s wrong?
Are they angry with me?
Did I do something?
Why are they acting like this?
And before we know it, their bad mood has become our bad mood — and we’re desperately trying to figure out how to make everything okay again.
So why does this happen? And perhaps more importantly, how can we learn to stay grounded when someone we love is in a bad mood without taking responsibility for fixing it?
A quick note before we dive in: there’s an important distinction between everyday moodiness and behaviour that is intentionally hurtful. What we’re talking about here is the normal day-to-day stuff — someone being tired, cranky, stressed, quiet, or a little short. This isn’t about situations where a partner is being overtly nasty, deliberately shutting you out, stonewalling, or engaging in more severe behaviour.
Why Your Partner’s Mood Can Feel So Threatening
Our reactions don’t come from nowhere.
If you’re particularly sensitive to other people’s moods, there’s a good chance there was something in your family of origin that taught you to pay very close attention to the emotional temperature of the room.
Maybe there was unpredictability in your home. Maybe you learned to move carefully around someone else’s moods. Maybe you felt responsible for keeping everyone happy and calm.
And perhaps when someone wasn’t happy, you assumed you must have done something wrong.
Over time, your nervous system can learn:
Someone being angry, frustrated, quiet, or unhappy means something bad might happen.
That blueprint can follow us into our adult relationships.
When we add anxious attachment into the mix — particularly fears of rejection, abandonment, and not being worthy of love — our partner’s mood can suddenly feel incredibly high stakes.
We might subconsciously believe:
If I can be the perfect partner, I’ll be safe.
If I can make them happy, they won’t leave me.
If they’re annoyed, I must have failed.
If they’re upset with me, maybe they don’t love me anymore.
When those beliefs are operating beneath the surface, it makes perfect sense that a partner being moody or withdrawn would activate a lot of anxiety.
When Their Mood Becomes Your Responsibility
When we feel threatened by someone else’s mood, our instinct is often to rush in and fix it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Are you okay?”
“Are you angry at me?”
“Why are you talking to me like that?”
And when they insist that they’re fine, we might ask again — because clearly they don’t seem fine.
This usually comes from a genuine desire to restore connection and make sure everything is okay. But unfortunately, it often has the opposite effect.
This can be particularly challenging if your partner has more avoidant patterns.
Where an anxiously attached person might respond to stress by seeking closeness, reassurance, and conversation, someone with more avoidant patterns will often retreat into themselves. They might need some space and prefer not to talk about what’s bothering them right away.
So when their withdrawal becomes a magnet for our anxiety — prompting us to hover, question, investigate, or try to fix — they can feel crowded or controlled and pull away even further.
Which, of course, makes us even more anxious.
And suddenly, something as simple as your partner having a bad day has turned into a much bigger source of tension between you.
What Should You Do When Your Partner Is in a Bad Mood?
My biggest piece of advice is deceptively simple:
Do nothing.
In the moment, you don’t need to fix it. You don’t need to respond to it. You don’t even necessarily need to acknowledge it.
If you want to check in once — “You seem a bit tired, is something up?” — you can.
But if they say they’re fine or indicate that they don’t want to talk about it, practise taking that at face value.
Instead of thinking:
They’re clearly not fine. What are they hiding from me? What have I done?
Try:
Okay. I’ve asked. They don’t want to talk about it. It’s not my responsibility to fix this.
And then go about your day.
Protect Your Own Peace
One thing I often suggest is having a few things up your sleeve that you can turn to when you notice yourself becoming activated by your partner’s mood.
Run yourself a bath.
Read a book.
Go for a walk.
Put on a podcast.
Do something you enjoy on your own.
Rather than sitting next to your partner monitoring every sigh, facial expression, or change in tone, consciously redirect your attention towards yourself.
You can almost imagine creating a little bubble around yourself where their mood is allowed to exist without pulling you into it.
Because you don't have to jump into the storm with them.
You’re allowed to protect your own peace.
Trust That the Storm Can Pass
For many people, a bad mood really is just a bad mood.
They’ve had a frustrating day. They’re tired. They’re hungry. They’re stressed.
And then… it passes.
The problem is that when we treat every shift in mood as a potential relationship crisis, we can inadvertently turn something small into something much bigger.
Instead, experiment with trusting that your partner is an adult who is capable of experiencing an emotion and coming out the other side of it.
They can be in a mood without you fixing it.
They can be irritated without it meaning your relationship is in trouble.
They can have an emotion without that emotion becoming yours.
And importantly, their mood doesn’t automatically have to be about you.
You Can Address Their Behaviour Later
None of this means you have to tolerate someone treating you poorly.
If your partner was particularly rude or short with you, there may absolutely be something to address.
But the middle of their bad mood probably isn’t the most productive time to do it.
Once things have settled, you might say something like:
“I understand that you were really tired and stressed earlier, but the way you spoke to me didn’t feel good. In future, I’d really appreciate it if you could communicate that you need some space rather than snapping at me.”
That conversation is likely to be much more constructive once both of you are regulated than if you try to force it while emotions are running high.
Learning to Be Around Someone Else’s Emotions
Ultimately, there’s a much deeper piece of healing available here.
We can learn to exist in proximity to someone we love who is having an emotion without taking responsibility for that emotion.
Their feelings don’t have to become our feelings.
Their discomfort doesn’t automatically mean we need to spring into action.
Their mood doesn’t have to be something we fix, solve, smooth over, or make disappear.
And every time we allow someone to have a mood without treating it like a crisis, we give ourselves a new experience.
We learn:
They were cranky, and nothing terrible happened.
They needed some space, and they came back.
They were frustrated, and it wasn’t about me.
I didn’t fix it, and we were still okay.
Those experiences are powerful because they slowly rewrite the old story that tells us we need everyone around us to be happy in order for us to be safe.
Building More Security in Your Relationships
Healthy relationships aren't perfectly harmonious all the time.
There will be friction. There will be bad days. There will be moments where one person is tired, distracted, stressed, frustrated, or just not particularly pleasant to be around.
Part of becoming more secure is building our tolerance for those normal ebbs and flows without interpreting them as signs that something is terribly wrong.
The next time your partner is in a bad mood and you feel that familiar anxiety bubbling up, see what happens if you resist the urge to rush in.
Don't interrogate.
Don't hover.
Don't immediately assume it's about you.
Instead, return your attention to yourself.
Let them have their mood.
Let yourself have your peace.
And trust that not every storm cloud is a crisis you need to solve.
You might also like…
[00:01:25]:
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's Ask Steph episode, I'm answering the listener question of, how do I deal with being triggered by my partner's bad moods and irritability? So this is one that I know from experience is a huge sticking point for a lot of people, particularly with anxious attachment patterns. It's one that still to this day I struggle with myself and certainly have struggled with historically. So rest assured you're not alone if you Find your partner's moodiness triggering. And I do wanna acknowledge at the outset that there is a spectrum that we could be talking about here, as is always the case, that what I'm talking about as moodiness or irritability might mean something very different to you if you're listening in the context of your own relationship. And the advice that I'm going to share is very much speaking to a scenario where someone's just being a bit grumpy or cranky or short or tired or irritable, and not where someone is being overtly nasty or full-on blocking you out or stonewalling or anything that feels a bit more severe and intentional. So the scenario that I'm going to speak to in today's episode and the advice I'm going to give is really around that like day-to-day thing, which even still can be really triggering for those of us, particularly with anxious attachment patterns. And I'm going to share some thoughts as to why that can be and how you might go about grounding yourself through that.
[00:02:55]:
Because as we'll talk about, what we do by default tends to make things worse. rather than better, even though it's coming from a place of earnestly wanting to fix things. It can often backfire. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before we get into that, if you're someone who struggles with anxious attachment, and certainly if you relate to what I'm going to talk about in today's episode, I would love for you to register for my free training on how to heal anxious attachment and finally feel secure in life and love. I share in a lot more detail about the framework that I teach for healing anxious attachment, as well as some of the reasons why you might be stuck despite all the work that you're doing and how you can discern whether the problems that you're experiencing, the challenges are stemming from your anxious attachment or stemming from something that's off in your relationship. So I cover all of that in the free training, and you can register for that at the link in the show notes or by heading directly to my website. Okay.
[00:03:48]:
So let's get into this conversation around struggling with a partner's moodiness and feeling really triggered by it, feeling like it really activates something in you and feels quite unsafe. So let's just first acknowledge that nothing comes from nowhere and that Most of us who have this sensitivity likely had something in our family of origin that mirrored that dynamic. A feeling like there was some unpredictability, a feeling like we had to manage or move around other people's moods, feeling like it was our responsibility to make sure everyone was happy and calm, and feeling like we'd then done something wrong if they weren't. So if someone's in a bad mood, if they're angry, if they're frustrated, if they're short, that spells trouble for us either because it's going to mean conflict, it's going to mean stress. It means I've done something wrong. That can be really deeply coded into our system. And that can obviously travel with us throughout life and into our adult relationships. I think when we layer onto that some other pieces around the fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, this unworthiness piece of feeling like it's our job to be the perfect partner and to never do anything wrong and to make our partner happy, those sort of codependent subconscious thoughts that we might have that your feelings are my responsibility and I have to smooth all of that over for you.
[00:05:07]:
that if you're annoyed, it's because I've failed or done something wrong, and that that means you're going to leave me or you don't love me anymore because you couldn't possibly be annoyed at me and also still love me. All of that can create a lot of anxiety because it feels really high stakes. And so many of us with anxious attachment patterns do just have this blueprint around, if I can just be the perfect partner and make our relationship perfectly happy and make you happy, then I'll be safe and nothing bad will happen and you'll love me and we'll live happily ever after. And then I won't have to feel all the bad feelings that come with, you know, that fear of rejection and abandonment and the intense vulnerability of feeling unworthy of love. So when we look at that backdrop, suddenly it starts to make more sense why we might feel very activated by a partner being moody, being cranky, being irritable, being a bit short or snappy. Even if it has nothing to do with us, it still registers as, this can't be good, and this might spell trouble. This might mean that I've done something wrong, which really feels threatening to my whole identity as a partner in this relationship because I pride myself on being perfect and not doing anything wrong and making you happy. So we can take it all very personally.
[00:06:18]:
And of course, when we're receiving it in that way and we're sort of instantly activated by it, then we react from this fearful place, from this anxious place. And when someone has just had a rough day at work, or they're a bit tired, or they're a bit hangry or something, and our response is to rush in and go, what's wrong? And ask them that 5 times and then say, are you angry at me? Why are you speaking to me like that? And put a lot of anxiety around it. A lot of people, and particularly people with avoidant patterns who we are often in relationship with, will just push that away so hard. Like they don't want to absorb that anxiety because from their perspective, remember, when they're experiencing stress, They tend to disconnect, they tend to retreat into themselves, they tend to not wanna talk about it. And so feeling like them being a bit quiet or withdrawn is suddenly a magnet for your anxiety to come and circle around them and rush in and wanna fix it and wanna inquire about it and wanna talk about it, that will often be received pretty poorly and they might really push back against that or shut down even further, which of course triggers the anxiety further. So if that is sounding familiar to you, it is certainly familiar to me.
[00:07:31]:
Okay, big piece of advice. What do you do with that situation when your partner's in a bad mood and you're feeling triggered by it? My advice, and this is advice that I certainly try to live by as much as I can, is to do nothing. In the moment, just do nothing. You don't have to respond. You don't even have to acknowledge it. If you wanna ask them, oh, you seem a bit tired, or is something up? And they say, no, I'm fine, which of course registers in your system as like, well, they're clearly not fine. So what's wrong? What's being kept from me?
[00:08:00]:
Just go, okay, not my problem. I've asked, they said they're fine, they clearly don't wanna talk about it, and now I'm going to go and live my life as if that was not happening because it's actually not my responsibility. It's not my responsibility to fix their cranky mood. It's not my responsibility to make them suddenly be happy again. And so it is this really conscious letting go, almost like a cutting of the cord that I feel connects my mood to their mood. And Just actually going on with your day, going on with your evening, whatever you would've been doing if they weren't being like that. And I've often given the advice to students of actually having a few things up your sleeve. If you get triggered by something like this, it's like, okay, I will go and run myself a bath.
[00:08:43]:
I will read a book. I will go on a walk and listen to a podcast. Any number of things that I can do, enjoying my own company, protecting my own peace, that don't require me to be in and around them if I know that that's probably going to be triggering for me. But it's like, I'm gonna create this bubble of blissful ignorance around myself where I don't need to be pulled into that storm, and I certainly don't need to jump into that storm willingly because nothing good comes of it. And I think that's the key piece to realise, because I'm sure some of you will be hearing this and having resistance to it. But we all know from experience that nothing good comes from it. They don't appreciate the hovering and the interrogating. You don't get what you want from it because it tends to just make it worse.
[00:09:26]:
And so then you feel more anxious and shut out and worried and— all of that. So I think the majority of the time, and certainly again in my personal experience, when I just choose not to engage and certainly decline to participate or be pulled into it, it's a storm cloud that passes and then they come out of it, they're fine. If we felt that they were being particularly rude or impolite, or if there was something that needed to be addressed, you can address it afterwards and say like, hey, I get that you were tired before, but in future, I'd really appreciate if you could, whatever. But just going in and sort of pecking at them in the moment is not going to work. It's not going to make anything better. It's going to make you feel worse. It's going to make them feel controlled, which they're going to push back hard against. And so I really, really encourage you to just give it a try.
[00:10:12]:
The next time you get triggered by it, by your partner being a bit moody or irritable, cranky or tired or withdrawn, just do nothing. Do your own thing. Don't engage. You don't even have to acknowledge it. You don't even have to call it out. You don't have to name it. You can actually just— Carry on with your life and allow them to experience a mood and trust that they can be in a mood and then come out of a mood and they're an adult and that's fine. That doesn't have to pose a threat to you.
[00:10:37]:
It doesn't have to be about you. It doesn't have to be some personal attack on you. It's actually okay. And as I said, if there is something to talk about, talk about it afterwards because it's not going to be very productive in the moment. So I hope that that helps. It really is such a tricky thing. And as I said, it makes so much sense that it's activating for you if any of those pieces that I spoke to have been part of your storey. But I think it is so, so powerful in actually rewriting that storey for ourselves going forward to realise that we can exist in proximity to someone we love who is having an emotion without taking responsibility for that emotion and taking that on as our own thing to fix or as being about us.
[00:11:19]:
And the more experiences that we have of that actually not spiralling into some full-blown crisis and not treating it as such, that's how we start to shift away from that experience and we can actually just build up our tolerance for more friction in relationship, for more of the ebbs and flows that are part of being 2 people with all of their own stuff building a relationship together. So I hope that that's been helpful. Sending you lots of love, and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
[00:13:16]:
Thanks, guys.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
partner’s bad moods, irritability, anxious attachment, attachment patterns, emotional triggers, relationship advice, partner moodiness, feeling activated, emotional safety, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, codependency, managing moods, self-soothing, grounding techniques, dealing with crankiness, not taking responsibility for partner’s mood, avoidance patterns, building emotional tolerance, relationship dynamics, conflict avoidance, emotional boundaries
#277: What to Look For in a Long-Term Partner
Choosing who you're going to commit to is a life-altering decision — so it's little wonder so many of us feel the weight of that pressure, and experience doubt around whether we're making the "right" decision.
And while no one but you can ultimately make that call, in today's episode I'm sharing some guidance on the qualities and attributes that I find essential to making long-term relationships work.
Choosing who you want to build a life with is one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make.
And if you experience relationship anxiety, anxious attachment, or fearful-avoidant attachment, that decision can feel especially high stakes. You might feel deeply attached to someone while simultaneously experiencing doubt, fear, and endless questions about whether they’re really the right person for you.
Rather than trying to find a perfect formula for choosing a life partner, it can be more helpful to have a set of guiding principles to come back to.
Whether you’re currently in a relationship and wondering if this is someone you want to commit to long-term, or you’re single and thinking about what you want in a future partner, here are six important things to consider.
1. Do You Respect and Admire Each Other?
Respect and admiration should be foundational in a long-term relationship.
Ask yourself: Do I genuinely respect this person? Do I admire who they are and how they move through the world? And do I feel that same respect and admiration coming back toward me?
It might sound obvious, but plenty of people stay in relationships where they fundamentally disapprove of their partner. They may spend enormous amounts of energy criticising them, trying to change them, or wishing they were different.
It’s very difficult to build a healthy life with someone you don’t respect.
That doesn’t mean you need to think your partner is perfect. But you should be able to look at them and see someone of character and integrity — someone you feel proud to be with.
When respect and admiration are missing, that tends to trickle into every other part of the relationship.
2. Can You Trust Each Other?
We can’t have emotional safety without trust.
And trust is about much more than whether someone tells the truth.
Trust is built gradually through experiences of trustworthiness. Someone says they’re going to do something, and they do it. They keep their word. They show up when you need them. They can hear something vulnerable without shutting down, blowing up, or becoming defensive. When they make a mistake, they’re able to acknowledge it and apologise.
Over time, those moments build a deeper knowing:
This is someone I can depend on.
If your relationship has experienced breaches of trust, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s beyond repair. But repairing those ruptures needs to be prioritised.
Building a life with someone you fundamentally don’t trust — or someone with whom you don’t feel emotionally safe — makes everything else much harder.
3. Do You Actually Enjoy Being Together?
This one is simple but incredibly important:
Do you like being around each other?
Do you laugh together? Have fun? Enjoy sharing the little details of your day? Is there a genuine friendship underneath the romantic relationship?
Warmth, friendship, lightness and play are incredibly nourishing for a relationship.
Of course, life won’t always feel light. There will be stressful seasons, difficult conversations, responsibilities and challenges. But if your relationship is only logistical, pragmatic, serious or intense, that can be difficult to sustain over the long term.
Those small moments of connection matter.
Laughing together. Sharing something you’re excited about. Enjoying an ordinary evening at home. Feeling like your partner is also your friend.
That goodwill helps create a strong foundation for navigating the harder parts of life together.
4. Are Your Visions for the Future Compatible?
You don’t need to agree on absolutely everything, but you should have broadly compatible ideas about the life you want to create.
This becomes particularly important when it comes to the bigger, more binary decisions:
Do you want to get married?
Do you want children?
Where do you want to live?
What kind of lifestyle do you want?
What does a good life look like to each of you?
Compromise is inevitable in relationships. But when two people have fundamentally competing visions for their futures, it can create resentment — particularly if one person feels they’ve had to sacrifice something deeply important to them in order for the relationship to continue.
You also need to be able to talk about the future.
Trying to build a life with someone who refuses to discuss where the relationship is going can create enormous uncertainty and anxiety.
A healthy partnership allows you to plan, dream, make decisions and feel that you’re actively building something together.
5. Can You Live With Their Difficult Qualities?
Everyone comes with baggage.
We all have flaws, imperfections, struggles, emotional blocks and histories that affect how we show up in relationships.
So choosing a life partner isn’t about finding someone who has none of those things.
A more useful question is:
Are this person’s difficult qualities things I can realistically live with?
Some partners will simply be a better fit for us than others.
Sometimes the combination of one person’s wounds, patterns and triggers with another person’s can create a perfect storm — one where both people continually exacerbate each other’s pain.
It’s worth asking whether the challenges in your relationship are inviting you both into growth, or whether they’re keeping you locked in a painful pattern that never really changes.
Knowing yourself matters here.
What can you live with? What can you tolerate? What genuinely isn't good for you?
Someone can be a good person and still have challenges that are too challenging for you. Being able to recognise that is an important part of discernment.
6. Can You Be a Team When Life Gets Hard?
Life will throw curveballs.
There will be job losses, family problems, illness, grief, financial stress, exhaustion, uncertainty and seasons where one or both of you simply aren’t at your best.
So one of the most important questions you can ask is:
When things get hard, do we come together or turn against each other?
This doesn’t mean you’ll never argue under stress. No couple navigates every difficult moment perfectly.
But underneath the frustration and fear, is there still a sense that you’re on the same team?
Can you recognise when things are hard and ask, How can we be kind to each other through this? What do you need? What do I need? How can we support each other?
Or does stress consistently make the relationship oppositional — me versus you, my needs versus yours?
These patterns can absolutely change. Teamwork is something couples can consciously develop.
But if every difficult season seems to divide you, it’s worth paying attention to that before committing to building a life together.
One of the great gifts of a long-term partnership is knowing that someone is in your corner when life gets hard. And there can be immense grief in being in a relationship where the person who is supposed to be in your corner feels absent when you need them most.
Choosing a Partner — And Being One
Ultimately, choosing a life partner isn’t about finding a miraculous person who ticks every box and never challenges you.
It’s about finding someone with whom you can build trust, respect, friendship and a shared life — someone whose imperfections you can navigate and who can navigate yours.
And importantly, these questions aren't only about assessing another person.
They’re also an invitation to ask:
Am I embodying these qualities too?
Am I trustworthy? Am I respectful? Can I be playful and warm? Can I talk openly about the future? Can I support my partner when things are hard? Am I willing to take responsibility for my own patterns and grow?
The goal isn’t perfection.
It’s two people who share enough of the same values and principles — and who are willing to keep showing up for themselves, each other, and the life they’re choosing to build together.
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[00:01:40]:
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking about how to choose a life partner, which feels like a massive topic. And in almost 300 episodes, I don't think I've addressed it in such plain terms. And in truth, today's episode is going to be less about how to choose that person or how to find that person and more me giving you some guiding questions to assess if you're in a relationship, whether that is someone that you maybe want to commit to and build a life with. And I know so many people, particularly who experience various flavours of relationship anxiety, anxious attachment, maybe fearful avoidant attachment, can experience a lot of doubt and reservations even at the same time as you feel very attached to someone. Sometimes our fear and worry about the future can make us it all seem very high stakes. And of course it is high stakes.
[00:02:37]:
Choosing who you're gonna build a life with is one of the biggest decisions you'll ever make, and it's not one that you should make lightly or without intention. And I'm hoping that the guiding principles that I give you in today's episode might provide a bit of a scaffold or a framework to reflect on your own relationship. Or if you're not in a relationship at the moment, that you can start to build out your own list or the things that feel really important to you around the kind of relationship you wanna be in, how you wanna feel in your relationship and what really are your non-negotiables for committing to someone and building a life together. Okay, so the first one is choose someone who you respect and admire and who you know respects and admires you. This we would hope would be obvious, but I think there are lots and lots of people, I know there are lots of people in relationships where these things are lacking, where there is a basic lack of respect, admiration, where you don't see your partner as being a person of character and integrity, and maybe you look down upon them or you disapprove of them, and yet you're still in the relationship and channelling all your energy into criticising them into changing. And of course, that's not a very positive or healthy or conducive relational environment. And I think sometimes, and I say this absolutely from experience in a previous relationship, that I was very much guilty of not really feeling respect or admiration for my partner and yet persisting in the relationship. I think sometimes we do just have to zoom out and realise that these things should be an absolute bare minimum, that we really see our partner as being a person of integrity, as being a person of high character, of being a person that we really admire and look up to and feel proud to be with.
[00:04:22]:
And if those things are missing, if we don't see them in that light, then of course that's going to trickle into every aspect of our relationship. They're gonna feel it. We're gonna feel it. It's really hard to build a life with someone who you don't have that respect and admiration for and who you fundamentally disapprove of, the person that they are and the way that they live their life. So I think that respect and admiration should be really foundational to anyone that you're thinking about committing to and building a life with. Okay. The second piece is around trust. And I think that trust is absolutely paramount.
[00:04:59]:
We can't have emotional safety without trust. So choose someone who you trust, who has demonstrated themselves to be worthy of your trust. I've spoken before about the fact that trust and trustworthiness go hand in hand. And it's sort of like, you know, laying bricks one at a time. We might open ourselves up and someone demonstrates themselves to be trustworthy, and so we extend that trust to them. And over time, we start to build this really strong sense of, this is a person who I can depend on. This is a person who keeps their word. This is a person who can apologise when they get something wrong or make a mistake.
[00:05:35]:
This is a person who I know I can call and they will be there. This is a person who I can share vulnerable Trust is a lot bigger than just telling the truth. It's actually about the overall emotional environment of the relationship. And when that's lacking on any of those counts, whether it's that you feel like this person's unreliable or flaky, or you feel like you can't bring vulnerable things to them because they shut down or they blow up or they get defensive, all of that can really erode the trust base of the relationship over time. And that's not It's not to say that if you're listening and you notice those factors being present in your relationship, that the relationship's too far gone or that it's irreparable. But it is really important that trust be prioritised in a relationship, and it needs to, of course, go in both directions. But having this really deep commitment to one another, to trust and trustworthiness, to embodying that, and part of that is absolutely repairing if there have been any breaches of trust, if there have been any betrayals, if there have been any ruptures that you feel have damaged that trust base. So you definitely don't want to be committing to building a life with someone who you fundamentally do not trust and do not feel emotionally safe with, because it's so hard to build anything healthy if that's not there.
[00:06:59]:
Okay, the next one is a little bit lighter, and it is simply, do we love being around each other? Do we have fun together? Do we laugh together? Do we have a strong friendship alongside being romantic partners? Now, again, of course we'd hope that this would be an obvious one, but I think it does bear mentioning that Friendship, warmth, fun, lightness, play— these things are so cup-filling for a relationship. And if it's only ever pragmatic or logistical or serious or intense, that's really hard to sustain over the long term. And I think that having that baseline of enjoying each other's company, of having a relational environment, a home life that feels warm and loving and playful, I think that That builds so much connection in little moments that really contributes to the goodwill in the relationship over time and really helps to balance out the hard stuff. Because there will, of course, be hard stuff. It's not all gonna be play and laughter every day for the rest of your life. But I think the more that you have that foundation of a really strong friendship and just loving each other's company, loving being around each other, loving sharing what happened in your day with each other, loving sharing the things that you're passionate about with each other, all of that contributes to a really solid base that supports the overall relational environment and certainly provides you with the strength to go through the hard stuff together. Okay, the next one is, do you have a vision for what you want for your lives? And is that vision that you each have compatible with the other's? So this is more of a compatibility point, but if you have fundamentally different ideas of what you want for your lives, and certainly things that are quite binary around marriage or kids or what kind of lifestyle you want to live, if one of you wants to be in Yeah. The city and the other wants to be on a homestead.
[00:08:51]:
Clearly something's got to give there. And of course there's always going to be compromise in relationships and you're not always going to see eye to eye. But I think having a broadly shared vision of what it means to live a good life, the things that you want for yourselves, I think that helps so much because I think it's just one less obstacle that you need to overcome if you do have different visions that feel like they're in competition with each other. And I think What can happen when you have competing visions and it feels like only one person can get their way, so to speak, that can be a really reliable way to build resentment. If one person feels like they're having to sacrifice what they want for their lives, and particularly if that's a big thing and it's a permanent thing, that can be really damaging to the relationship and can lead to a lot of regret and resentment. So having a shared vision, and it goes without saying, being able to talk about that vision, being able to talk about the future, committing to someone who refuses to talk about the future is not a a good idea because that is a recipe for anxiety. You can't really build a future with someone where there's this big cloud of uncertainty hanging over it. So being able to plan together, have those conversations, and feel like you are building together, I think that's really important as well.
[00:10:03]:
Okay, the next one is choose someone whose difficult qualities are things that you can live with. So the things about them that challenge you, their flaws, their imperfections, their struggles, their emotional blocks, whatever, their history. We've got things that can be challenging to live with and to deal with and that come up and we do have to confront and turn towards and all of that. So it's not about finding some person that is a clean slate and has no baggage, but we do wanna find someone whose baggage doesn't cause us immense pain and suffering. Because of course there will be certain partners who are a better fit for us and others who the unique combination of their stuff with our stuff might just be a perfect storm that makes it all too hard and painful. And where we're at, where they're at, our current capacity and skill level and all of those things, it might just be forcing something that is mainly causing pain and suffering. So I think there is a lot of discernment required in being able to look honestly at, are the ways in which we challenge each other an invitation into growth and an opportunity for growth? Or is it just locking me in a really painful pattern that exacerbates all of my stuff and my stuff then exacerbates their stuff and we just stay stuck? and maybe get worse. So I think being able to be honest with yourself about that and knowing yourself enough to know what's good for you, to know what you can live with, to know what you can handle, to know what you can tolerate, I think that's very wise to be able to make that call and to realise when someone else's challenges might just be too challenging for you, or whether it's actually something where you can go through it together.
[00:11:49]:
Okay, and the last one that I want to share is that You should choose someone who you're able to band together with even in the hard moments and on your worst days. Now, that's not to say that you won't have conflict or that you perfectly execute teamwork and there's never a terse moment or anything like that. Of course, that's not realistic at all. But fundamentally, when life throws curveballs, when things get hard, when you're feeling vulnerable, when something happens, you get fired from your job or you've got a sick parent or some other big thing happens that feels overwhelming and scary, are you Are you able to come together as a team and support each other and be stronger for it on those hard days and through those hard seasons? Or do challenging things tend to divide you and turn you against each other? Because for a lot of people, particularly when we've got a lot of insecurity and fear and protective patterns at play, when we're under stress, we can really turn on each other. And that can really be fuel on the fire of all of our underlying stuff. If we don't have the skills and the maturity and the capacity to actually see that happening and go, okay, this is hard. How can we be kind to each other through this? How can we support each other? How can we recognise that this is going to be a tough season and see what we each need and how we can come out of this stronger, or at least come out of this still standing? I think if under stress, you and/or they default straight to self-absorption and me and my needs and you're not supporting me and getting very oppositional, again, as is very common, it's not something that you need to ashamed of, but stress can make us very selfish, then that can be tricky. And again, it's not something that you either have or you don't.
[00:13:36]:
It's certainly something you can develop over time. But if you know that the track record in your relationship is that whenever hard things happen, you turn on each other, or it divides you, or it foretells a big storm for the relationship, that's certainly something that you want to work on and look at and really consciously try and shift away from if you want to commit to building a life with this person. Because life Yeah. Life can be hard, and there will be hard times. And really, the whole point of being in a long-term relationship is knowing that you have someone in your corner on those days. And I actually think there's immense grief in being in a relationship where you don't have someone in your corner who's meant to be in your corner. And that can be so heartbreaking to feel like something big happens and the person who you really want to be there and to make feel a little bit lighter on those really hard and heavy days is unable or unwilling to do that for you. So that's really something to look for, to cultivate, to strive for in your relationships as well.
[00:14:39]:
Okay, so I hope that was helpful. I hope it's given you something to reflect on if you're in a relationship at the moment, or if you're just thinking about a future relationship and some of the things that you might really look for and seek in a partner and seek to embody in a partner. Because of course, it's not just about finding some miracle perfect person And it's also about striving to embody and be the best partner that you can be so that you attract someone who is like-minded and has similar values and principles that guide their own relationships. Okay. Thanks as always for joining me, guys. So grateful for those of you who leave reviews and feedback. If you're on Spotify, you can leave a comment under the episode. Follow the show, subscribe on YouTube.
[00:15:18]:
All of those little things that don't mean much to you actually are a huge help to me and help me to continue to grow the audience and for the show to find new people. So grateful as always.
[00:15:28]:
Thanks for your support, and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks, guys.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
choosing a life partner, relationship guidance, relationship anxiety, anxious attachment, fearful avoidant attachment, respect in relationships, admiration in relationships, trust in relationships, emotional safety, trustworthiness, relationship framework, building a life together, non-negotiables in relationships, relationship compatibility, shared vision, compromise in relationships, resentment in relationships, relational environment, friendship in relationships, fun in relationships, laughter in relationships, planning a future together, personal growth in relationships, managing conflict, relationship challenges, teamwork in relationships, supporting each other, stress in relationships, long-term relationships, relationship advice, building emotional connection