Emotional baggage is a common side-effect of emotional pain, which almost all the people experience in one way or another; and it mainly consists of life’s negative experiences from past relationships that we carry with us through life. And we more or less bring some emotional baggage into a new relationship. Many times, we may fail to realize that our past emotional baggage is defining us, and it is indeed not so easy to stop the emotional baggage from dragging us down. No doubt, if emotional baggage in marriage is left unchecked, it will become a highly unstable factor of marriage. And the case below may make this point clear:
Emily just asked Johnson to pitch in to get household chores done, and she just casually mentioned that he was always sitting on the sofa watching sports games while she was cleaning rooms, and she just made a light-hearted joke without thinking too much about it, but Johnson blew up suddenly and unexpectedly, then he stormed off and slammed the door. His strange behavior made Emily feel sad and frustrated because she was sure that she was not meant to hurt him. She was mad at him for your overreaction and started to worry whether he would go on to do something that harms the relationship.
In the case above, Emily pulled Johnson’s emotional trigger unconsciously; Johnson carried around certain emotional baggage and yet Emily didn’t even realize it.
Then let’s talk about emotional triggers in our marriages:
Emotional triggers are those strong reactions associated with memories and experiences. And we may be emotionally triggered when certain reactions are excessive, when certain patterns are repeating, or when we have a knee-jerk response. And even those people who are closest to us may not know our emotional triggers well.
We all have sore spots, emotional wounds where we may be shamed, teased, or punished by someone. These are highly sensitive areas in which we can hardly tolerate even a well-intentioned joke. And more often than not, emotional baggage in marriage is rather invisible; hence, chances are that a spouse may trigger emotional pain in the other one without realizing it. For example, if people used to tease you about your weight during your childhood, you may easily get defensive once your spouse makes a comment about your weight, even though your spouse is just showing appreciation of your healthy body; if your parents used to shame you for watching TV for a long time, you may defend your right to relax in this way, even though your spouse just reminds you not to watch too much television without meaning to say that you are lazy; at that moment, your brain fails to distinguish between verbal attacks that were impressive to you and the harmless comment that you are hearing now.
Emotional triggers sabotage a relationship from time to time. To avoid being emotionally triggered as much as possible, you should often remind yourself not to take your spouse’s behavior personally.
And likewise, your spouse also has emotional triggers that can affect the marriage:
When your spouse is emotionally triggered, you feel like he/she dramatically changes into someone else – he/she reacts in a terrible way that you haven’t recognized, and it seems as if he/she is not even seeing you, and he is just seeing you as someone from the past who hurt him/her deeply. When your spouse responds extremely emotionally rather than logically, your instinct is to defend yourself, you think you do nothing wrong and that things simply go on as usual, you are confused, and you don’t understand what happened to him/her. However, the more you defend yourself or shame him for his/her overreacting, the more deeply he/she falls into the shame spiral. Why? He/she is feeling attacked in an area where he/she feels highly sensitive. At this point, if you are trying to make him/her feel guilty, he/she will only feel that you are dismissing his/her feelings and emotions on top of it. Eventually, the two of you are hurt and get angry at each other. So, is there a better way to deal with such a situation?
The following are 7 tips on how to deal with your spouse’s emotional baggage in the marriage:
Once you realize that your spouse is being emotionally triggered, you might follow the 7 tips:
(1) Take your spouse’s overreaction less personally:
First of all, you need to be aware of one thing – emotional baggage in marriage is hard to avoid; and in reality, your spouse was not reacting to what you said and did to him/her when emotionally triggered, he/she was reacting to those times he/she was shamed for something. For example, when you urged your spouse to do chores instantly instead of sitting on the sofa, your spouse may react to the critical voice inside his/her head that made him/her feel shame or embarrassment for relaxing. When you try to see your spouse’s reaction in this way, you take his/her overly emotional behavior less personally.
(2) Stay calm:
When your spouse lashes out at you unexpectedly, probably you are tempted to lash right back at him/her. But that will only lead to an intense fight between the two of you, which will make each other feel more emotionally insecure in the relationship.
In particular, if you sense that your spouse is not in the present – it seems like he/she is responding to another situation instead of the present situation, you had better not react. In fact, at some point, we naturally associate something that we are doing to some unhappy or miserable things in the past.
(3) Look past the overreaction:
If your spouse has a lot of emotional baggage, sometimes he/she may overreact when he/she feels that he/she can’t take it anymore. To help him/her alter his/her perception of reality, you might give him/her a pass when he/she flips out. Understandably, you may feel aggrieved and resentful at doing so; but as a loyal spouse who is always there through thick and thin, you should learn to look past those crazy things that he/she did to you;
On the other hand, as long as you want to keep the relationship going, you need to understand him/her better. And his/her overreaction gives you a chance to see the real person you love underneath. Actually, for a lot of people, after they are emotionally triggered to lash out at their spouses, they can realize that they hurt their spouses’ feelings without intention; so if you choose to give your spouse’s crazy actions a pass rather than punish him/her at the moment, afterward he/she may apologize you for his/her outrageous overreaction and thank you for your tolerance and understanding, and he/she may feel a need to deal with his/her emotional baggage more productively.
(4) Reassure him/her:
When your husband is emotionally triggered, he wants you to further understand his bad feelings (e.g. anger, and sadness) on your own, although you are puzzled about his/her mood swings initially. Hence, let your spouse feel that he/she can be emotionally safe around you anytime. And there are many things you can do to make him feel reassured; for example, you might encourage him to express his distress, validate his feelings, lower your voice, and speak in a calm manner.
(5) Disrupt his/her pattern:
A good way to overcome emotional baggage in marriage is to break out the old pattern that creates intense, negative emotions; for example, when your spouse was ever shamed by someone, probably that person never said sorry to him/her; so when he/she feels shamed by you, you might apologize to him, tell him/her you are sorry for what you said/did upset him.
Understandably, you may think that you did not do anything that requires an apology, and even you may still cling to your rightness. But anyway, to let your spouse feel that you are trying to empathize with his/her emotional pain, it is advisable to do so; probably, a simple phrase like “I’m sorry to upset you” can relieve his/her bad feelings quickly.
(6) Return to love:
Explain to your spouse what the intention behind your behavior was – you were just attempting to tease/amuse him/her, and you thought that he/she would smile. Tell him/her that you failed to consider that your spouse would feel that way about what you said or did, and there is a need to reiterate that you care about his/her feelings. Over time, a consistent flow of loving response to your spouse’s emotional triggers can help heal his/her emotional pain, even though you don’t know the whole story behind his/her emotional triggers.
(7) Encourage your spouse to vent:
A reason why your spouse carries emotional baggage around is that he/she can’t confront whatever he/she harbors inside of him/her. The more he/she harbors negative feelings towards some past events, the heavier his/her emotional baggage is. So you should encourage your spouse to talk about his/her bad feelings; only after he/she vents those negative feelings, he/she will be willing to open up to you about the whole story. And while your spouse is pouring his/her heart out to you, make sure to adhere to one principle – listen without judgment; this is important for helping your spouse release his/her emotional baggage in the marriage.
The final word:
Emotional baggage hinders us from living our life to the fullest. When we are in emotional pain, we can hardly deal with things in constructive or helpful ways. And as we all know, emotional stability is an important trait for marriage. However, we all more or less have personal emotional baggage; and when we allow our emotional baggage to dictate our thoughts and actions, our relationships are affected. Whether for you or your spouse, it is a required course to release the emotional baggage and attachments from the past and move forward in married life.
If emotional baggage is ruining your marriage and you have no idea how to fix the failing marriage, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
How to keep your marriage alive – Maintain a happy long term marriage.
How to survive a stressful marriage – Deal with marital stress.
4 basic tips on how to get through a rough patch in a marriage.
What a healthy marriage looks like – How to maintain a marriage.