How Stress Impacts Our Relationships
It is sometimes hard to see the impact that environmental factors have on our relationships. There are things that are beyond our control that interfere with our ability to feel joy and connection with others. Stress can exacerbate our attachment style behaviors and cause our nervous system to react in unhelpful ways. If you understand how you and your relationships are affected by stress, you can create a plan to handle issues when they happen.
Stress is a part of life that we cannot avoid. We cannot completely remove stress and that is not the goal. The goal is to understand the patterns of our behaviors when we are stressed and learn to tolerate stress in ways that help us act in healthy ways toward ourselves and others. If stress is impairing your life or negatively affecting your relationships, there are ways you can improve these situations.
First, we have to acknowledge that amount of stress that is impacting us in our everyday lives. The world that we live in today is full of stressors that can cause challenges to our systems. Constant stress can start to interfere with how we think, feel, and behave. This can have an impact on our relationships, too. For those who have more anxious attachment, you may try to move closer to a friend or partner to gain security from this other person. You have learned that you are safer with someone else. For those who have a more avoidant attachment, you may feel overwhelmed and want to isolate yourself away friends and partners. You have learned that you are safer alone. Different people respond to stress in different ways, but the one common factor is that everyone is trying to feel a sense of safety from a perceived danger. Stress can often increase or amplify our attachment behaviors and responses to situations. Under stress we can be less patient, more short-tempered, or become overstimulated. Our natural behaviors, such as seeking or avoiding, can be intensified when we are feeling stress. In some cases, an anxious partner may reach out for closeness and support, only to have an avoidant partner pull away. This can create feelings of abandonment and/or isolation that makes the seeking behavior intensify to handle the new feeling of danger (abandonment) and find safety.
Stress can reduce our ability to consider others, as we are focused on our own safety. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Human beings act in ways that support survival. This is similar to the concept of putting on your own oxygen mask first, before helping others, in an airplane. People are hard wired to do what is necessary to gain safety and survive. Because of this, many of us focus on our own experiences when we are under stress. We want to “fix” or “solve” whatever we think needs to be change for us to feel safe. In this state, we can feel like a victim that everything is happening “to us.” This makes us increase our safety seeking behaviors. We want people to empathize with us and help us feel safe, but the actions we use to gain this may not be ones that actually work to get us what we need and reach our goal. Stress can reduce our ability to have empathy for others and push people to meet our need in ways that hurt them. Stress can lead to blame and projection, which blocks us getting our needs met and causes a stronger need for safety.
Our nervous system is in charge of neuroception, or the notice of stress and lack of safety. We are constantly scanning our environment for danger so we can be ready to take action. Our brain and nervous system are working to determine if we are safe or not, every moment of the day. Historically, this skill has kept us alive. Being aware of the environment and being able to react quickly ensured our ancestors stayed alive. Now, however, our environment is not filled with lions and poisonous plants but alarms, traffic, work deadlines, and any number of other “dangers” that we perceive. Our stress response was meant to work in short bursts, for a specific danger, and then return to a baseline state. Now, under chronic stress, for long periods of time or even days on end, our system does not have down time to calm down and rest, like it was meant to. Many people today are functioning under constant stress and adrenaline without awareness of how it is impacting their bodies, minds, and relationships.
Being under stress makes your nervous system feel like you are in danger. If your partner is part of the environment, you might perceive them as part of the danger. One more thing that you need to be able to protect yourself from. You may project this sense of danger onto them and become defensive with them in response. This can lead to speaking disrespectfully, lacking empathy, or not giving them the benefit of the doubt. Being under stress is not conducive to connection with other people.
It is important to be aware of when we are feeling stressed or lacking a sense of safety. We need to take responsibility for our actions in this state. If we do take our stress out on our partner, we can take accountability and apologize for our actions. Ideally, we can take accountability for ourselves before we lash out to take care of ourselves and not hurt those around us. Many couples tend to act in a default state and are not intentional about how they engage when they are under stress. They do not have the proper tools to engage in healthy ways during stressful times. People need to develop awareness of their patterns of behavior and interaction, what is helpful and what is not, when one or both people in an interaction are experiencing stress. Default actions can be harmful and erode the trust and safety of a relationship. Many couples, without intention, find themselves in patterns that cause emotional pain and result in isolation from each other, rather than seeking safety together.
Relationships that are solid and secure learn how to relate to each other in healthy ways. They know how to come together as a team in times of stress and engage in healthy communication. They understand each other’s needs and how to meet them. It is them against a problem, not against each other. Human beings are meant to tolerate and deal with stress with support, not in isolation. People can support each other in relationships by understanding what stress looks like and sounds like from each other and making a plan to address it when it occurs.
Here are some tips to help with this:
1. Ask what would be helpful to the other person. Engage in actions that show a willingness to help and support.
2. Acknowledge the role that stress plays in your relationships. Notice patterns of behavior and interactions. How do both people in the interaction contribute to the pattern? Discuss the cycle and tools to make it helpful and productive.
3. Work together to create a plan of action. Knowing that stress is always going to happen and both people will experience it allows you to prepare. Talk about healthy patterns of communication that you both want to use. Are there strengths that each person can bring to the process? How do you both help avoid abandonment or isolation? Also, if you know ahead of time about a stressful situation, plan ahead to handle it together.
4. Understand yourself. What helps you regulate and relieve stress? Make sure that you are engaging in activities (when stressed and in general) that fill your energy up and help keep you from becoming overwhelmed. Also, understand what things help create a loving connection and make both people feel supported.
5. Don’t hesitate to ask for support. Many people can isolate when they feel stressed, not wanting to burden anyone else. They may feel embarrassed, uncomfortable, or overwhelmed. Feeling alone with a problem only increases stress and further harms the emotional well-being of that person. It is necessary to be willing to seek help and accept it from those we feel safe with.
Stress shows up in every aspect of our lives and can impact our relationships in many different ways. It is helpful to understand what stress looks like for you and how you show up in relationships when under stress. Awareness of your patterns helps create a road map to manage stressful situations and can help develop resiliency. It can help us avoid turning against our partners and friends and avoid harming connections with people in your life. Working as a team develops more safety and security in relationships, which builds resiliency for future stressful situations.
