Why you are so affected by your partner’s bad moods (and what you can do about it)

Why do you get so affected by your partner’s bad moods, no matter how hard you try not to?

Because you and your partner are in a relationship. A relationship is more than two independent people; it’s a two-person system. When one part of the system goes awry, the other one is necessarily going to be affected. That’s how systems work.

Being affected by your partner’s moods does not mean you are codependent. Codependency, as the brilliant Anne Wilson Schaef puts it, is “a disease of niceness.” Codependent behavior is taking responsibility for your partner’s bad mood, believing it’s your job to fix it, and blaming yourself when you can’t.

You and your partner’s nervous systems are constantly sensing each other. Even if you are sitting separately with your phones, each absorbed by whatever’s on your screen, your nervous system is scanning your partner’s to make sure there’s no threat to your relationship, nothing you need to worry about. It’s a biological thing— you can’t not do it.

So when your partner is tense, irritable, anxious, shut down, depressed or dissociated, your nervous system immediately senses it. You might react in one or more of the following ways (usually it’s a combination of several):

• Fight: You get irritated and blame or criticize your partner. “Can you just stop? Why do you have to be like this?”

• Flight: You leave the room, put your earbuds into your ears or just tune your partner out.

• Freeze: You become paralyzed and hyper-alert to your partner but unable to do or say anything.

• Fawn: You become overly accommodating and unnaturally cheerful in order to placate your partner.

• Flop: You become suddenly exhausted and feel defeated and powerless.

All these responses are coping strategies, and they happen in a fraction of a blink of an eye.

When you react this way you are not doing it on purpose, nor is your partner. You are responding to a perceived threat to your relationship and trying to re-establish a connection with your partner (Fight, Fawn) and protect yourself from harm (Flight, Freeze, Collapse).

You might find that in your relationship, you tend to have some of these reactions more often than others. For example, perhaps you Fawn and when that fails, you take Flight. And your partner will have their own set. You’ll notice that you and your partner fall into the same pattern of reaction, over and over again.

So we’ve established that you can’t *not* be affected by your partner’s bad mood.

But what you can do is work together so that the bad mood doesn’t stress your relationship and end in conflict. The key word here is together.

Let’s explore how you would do that by using a concrete example.

Jess is feeling very stressed because they have a work deadline looming. They are anxious and grumpy. Taylor finds it unpleasant to be around them when they are like that. Taylor has their own projects they need to work on, but they find it hard to focus because of Jess’s mood. They feel increasingly resentful that Jess doesn’t manage their stress better. They wish they weren’t so affected by Jess’s grumpiness, but they are. This has become a pattern in their relationship; it happens every time Jess has a deadline.

Because they are a two-person system, both Jess and Taylor must agree that they want to work on this issue together. It is a collaborative project, not something that Jess or Taylor alone can fix.

Now, of course if Jess could just not get stressed by deadlines, the problem would most likely disappear. But the fact is, deadlines are stressful. And there are probably other things that create stress for Jess. It’s not realistic to ask them to never be stressed by anything ever again.

Having decided to confront this issue as teammates rather than rivals, Jess and Taylor agree to notice when stress starts to affect Jess’s mood. They put Jess’s deadlines on their shared calendar so they can be prepared. Jess commits to tracking their own internal stress level so that they can alert Taylor when they feel their bad mood coming on. Taylor commits to paying attention to Jess’s demeanor and stress signals so that they can alert Jess that their behavior is changing.

You might find it odd that I am making it partly Taylor’s job to track Jess’s mood. Isn’t that Jess’s responsibility? Well, yes, it is Jess’s responsibility. And because they are partners and in a two-person system, it’s in Taylor’s best interest to be alert for any changes to Jess’s behavior.

Both partners are responsible for how well the relationship is functioning. As the insightful couples therapist Stan Tatkin says, “They are in each other’s care.” It’s in their best interest to look out for each other.

The people you live with will often notice that something is stressing you out before you do. That’s why we live in community— so we can help each other out. Two heads are more aware than one. We humans are not meant to go at it alone.

When the partners notice that stress is starting to affect Jess’s mood, they tell each other. Remember, they agreed beforehand that they would collaborate on this. So Taylor might say to Jess “I know you have a deadline in 3 weeks, and I’m noticing you’re being quieter than usual, is that the bad mood coming on from the stress?”

Jess can then check in with themselves to see what is happening. “Oh yes, I am thinking about that deadline already because it’s such a huge project and I don’t even know how I will get it all done.”

The beautiful thing is, in this exchange there is no blaming or shaming. There’s just two partners working together to stay aware and connected.

The next step is for the partners to brainstorm together what they can do so that Jess feels less stressed. For example, they could do more hugging and cuddling. They could block out time on the weekends to play their favorite board games together. They could commit to doing short hikes in the evenings to relieve stress from the work day.

And then, of course, they need to do these things.

I want to point out something important here: Jess and Taylor addressed the problem early; they did not wait until Jess was grumpy and Taylor was resentful.

By addressing the problem when it was still minor, they were able to stay connected. This allowed them to have full use of their nervous systems for creative problem-solving.

Because once your nervous systems are activated and starting to fight-flight-freeze-fawn-flop, it takes a lot more work to reconnect and get back to a place where you can be curious and creative.

To sum up

If you ever wish that you and your partner didn’t negatively affect each other so much, I invite you to try to work through the problem this way instead:

1. Agree to address the problem together, rather than making it one person’s problem.

2. Pay attention to yourselves and each other so you can catch the stress response early.

3. Brainstorm things you can do differently together.

4. Follow through by doing those things.

5. Feel happy and proud that you found a way through a challenging problem together.