How to Deal with Your Partner's Crazy

You know how in some couples there’s that one person who’s just a little “explosive”? That person is me.

I’m not an angry person. However, if I am feeling angry, you WILL know. I have a very hard time not expressing my feelings, especially in a relationship. Perhaps that’s why I’m generally a happy person. I don’t let things fester inside. If there’s an issue in my relationship, I’ll be the one to bring it out in the open. There’s no hiding anything under a rug. I’m pretty sure I destroyed all emotional rugs in my marriage and we now only have hardwood floors. Whatever I am feeling, my husband Tom will know, whether because I told him or because I spewed it all over him in an emotional explosion. And, that’s the problem.

People like me tend to end up with calm, emotionally reserved partners. This type of union can be very positive. The two people are ying and yang. They help each other grow. In my case, I helped Tom to not just express his feelings but, on a much deeper level, to own many of his feelings. Meanwhile, Tom taught me the magical art of calming the F down and understanding that some feelings are fleeting. Therefore, sleeping on feelings before deciding to share them oftentimes prevents you from unnecessarily hurting someone, or just looking like an ass.

However, without enough self awareness from both partners, ying and yang will turn into fire and oil. What started to happen was that when I was acting explosive (let’s use “explosive” instead of “crazy” from now on. lol), Tom would back away. In his mind, I needed to calm down before we could talk. However, in my mind, he didn’t care. I would therefore become more and more volatile, rather than less. I would literally say/do things to set him off. I wanted to get any type of reaction out of him because without any reaction I felt like he wasn’t even present. He wasn’t there for me. It was like poking a bear with a stick, except unlike the bear, Tom refused to growl. The more I attacked, the more he retreated, and the more he retreated, the more I attacked, until our style of communication was just a toxic dance.

As an example, early on in our relationship I told Tom that I hated jealous guys. I had had an ex in school who had some issues, to say the least. He would actually, secretly follow me for entire days, hiding behind trees, spying on me in classes etc… It was a nightmare and I never wanted to deal with someone like that again. Tom took the story of my ex a little too much to heart and ended up severely overcompensating by never showing any jealousy at all, or even showing signs of noticing anything. A guy would flirt inappropriately with me right in front of him, and he would act as though he didn’t even see. No reaction. As my partner, I expected to at least feel safe with him; if a guy was acting inappropriately, I expected him to care if maybe that guy was making me feel uncomfortable. I tried to ask him about it, but he would retreat. End the topic.

His behavior made me feel awful. Unseen. Undesired. I got pissed off. I freaked out that he didn’t care. He blew me off and retreated some more. So, I started to do things on purpose, to try and get any sort of reaction out of him. All I wanted was for him to show that he saw me. All he did was keep retreating.

If you are in a similar toxic dance, in which your partner keeps lashing out and you keep retreating, you need to break the cycle. The way to do that is to realize that when your partner is being the most explosive, that’s when they need you the most.

Yes, we Explosives know that we can be terrifying in “the moment”, but when we are screaming it’s not an attack, no matter how much it may seem like it. It’s us screaming for you to come over. To tell us you are here. That you hear us, and that you care. Have you seen the movie The Secret Life of Pets? There’s a part right at the end where the angry bunny is picked up by a little girl who won’t stop hugging him even though he’s freaking out, kicking and jabbing at her. And then, suddenly, he just smiles and snuggles back, because that’s what he always needed. That’s us. The Explosives.

Perhaps, from what you just read, it sounds like the majority of the issues are the Explosives’ fault, who expect the Calm partner to break the cycle rather than taking accountability for their behavior and attempting to communicate better. However, that’s generally not the full story. The communication issue is often just as big for you, the Calm one, as it is the Explosives.

When I said earlier that Tom learned to own his feelings…well…that’s because he didn’t know how to own them before. He realized that much of his calm was due to the fact that he simply denied negative emotions and therefore didn’t deal with them…or at least didn’t deal with them in a very healthy way. The problem is, oftentimes the Calm one is actually the passive-aggressive one, and that’s just as toxic as an explosion of feelings. By being passive-aggressive you give your partner zero indication of what the problem is, and therefore zero guidance on how to work on it. And in the end, you end up coming off very mean and uncaring.

So, the question then becomes, when your partner is being explosive, are you retreating because you truly feel they need time to calm themselves or potentially you don’t know how to react? Or, are you at times passively-aggresively punishing your partner? Do you know that they need you, but you are purposely denying them your care and attention to ‘get back’ at them?

What my husband also realized was that sometimes, what he perceived as aggression, other people didn’t . This was because he was so unfamiliar with open and honest communication that he perceived any open discussion of an issue as an attack. To even admit to an issue was an attack. Just as I had to learn to sometimes shut up, he had to learn to sometimes talk. So, our toxic communication dance was both of our fault.

That’s why this article is for you, the Calm one.

Your explosive partner knows what they need; most of the time, they just need you. But, they have no clue what you want, and the only one who can tell them is you…if you have the courage to open up and own your feelings and your needs. It might be terrifying but hey, Tom did it, and he’s still my husband, and best friend, years later.

Original published in Medium.