If your partner is upset at you and you react, you might be right. You’ve got every right to be upset.
However, imagine you’ve got a child.
They fall off their bicycle and they scream bloody murder, and you run up to them and they say, “Kill all the bicycles. Bikes are evil. Kill the bike makers, in fact. I hate them.”
Now, no kid is that advanced, but let’s say they do that.
The moment you go, “You know what? That’s a credible threat. I’m going to actually have to tell somebody about what you just said,” you’ve lost the point as a parent.
What they need, because they’re expressing pain, is to be held.
Them: “Kill the bikes, kill the bikes.”
You: “Yep.” [hug]
Them: “And the bike makers.”
You: “Yeah. Yep. I get that, too. Come here.” [deeper hug]
Because it’s a protest behavior.
But we have very little tolerance for this when it’s our partner, and that’s a problem, because on the one hand, you don’t want to put up with that sort of behavior forever, but you also don’t want to make a snap judgment call just because your partner did not express themselves well in the moment.
Give them a bridge. Give them an opportunity to respond to your ability to reach out and say, “Hey, are you okay?” “Of course I’m not okay.”
“Hey, hold on. I’m the one that loves you.”
Maybe.
But you don’t get a good grade for doing the right thing.
You do the right thing because it’s the right thing.
