Often, couples come to marriage counseling practice because they fight too much.
This is usually because they can’t talk to each other without one or both partners becoming angry or defensive.
Most likely, this has been going on for a while.
A couple of reasons for this are a lack of proper self-esteem and functional boundaries for listening and speaking.
Lack of healthy self-esteem
Pia Mellody and Terry Real have shared and taught an excellent way to look at self-esteem.
In their model, we can be 1-down in “toxic shame,” 1-up in “grandiosity,” or healthy, meaning the “same-as,” neither better nor worse.
If our partner is quick to anger, chances are they are spending a lot of time in the unhealthy sides of the self-esteem scale, in shame or grandiosity (see illustration below).
Grandiosity is quick to blame others; it’s outward contempt, and it’s as if it’s protecting against the deeper disavowed feelings of shame and inadequacy.
Usually, if someone spends a lot of time in shame (being hard on themselves), there’s a higher likelihood they will shift into blame when receiving feedback.
So, what needs to be done is for your partner (if this applies to them) to look at the shame and inadequacy with compassion and, if possible, share those feelings, not the anger.
In our clinic, if partners are quick to anger, we teach them to share the vulnerability beneath the anger because our partner can hear it.
The practice of healthy self-esteem is “same-as.” If I find myself in 1-down, can I share those feelings with someone I trust and be understood, which can bring me up to same-as.
Perhaps I remind myself that I’m human, make mistakes, and am not perfect.
Coming down from 1-up is more difficult because it feels better than shame. In 1-up, it’s everyone else’s fault, not mine.
Practicing same-as is breathing ourselves down or reminding ourselves that we need limits.
Take a deep breath, and before I speak, ask myself, how is what I am about to say going to land for my partner?
Once we have started practicing same-as, we can practice listening and speaking boundaries.
We often think of boundaries as the limits we set for others; for our purposes, I’m referring to boundaries as psychological boundaries – listening and speaking.
Listening boundary
Our listening boundary is what we take in, and in a functional or ideal listening boundary, we take in only what others say if it’s true to us. As mentioned above, practicing healthy self-esteem makes this easier.
For example, if someone writes in the comments below that this blog is flawed and explains why, I’ll consider it and reflect on it.
I may also need to remind myself that a flawed blog doesn’t mean I am flawed – healthy self-esteem.
If I’m practicing healthy self-esteem, it’s easier to put it in context by considering why it was said. For example, that person might be having a bad day…
If they say it sucks, however, with no explanation, I won’t take it to heart, as it’s more about them and less about me.
That’s a functional listening boundary; we only consider what is true for us.
We often can’t talk to our partners without them getting angry because there's no functional listening boundary, which is usually due to a lack of healthy self-esteem.
Any feedback pierces their psyche, triggering their shame and then grandiosity for protection.
Practicing a healthy listening boundary
We don’t want to be a wall that doesn’t take in anything; if someone says something untrue to us, we become curious about it.
For example, “I’m curious why you think _____…”
Instead of letting it pierce our psych and trigger our shame, we get curious. That is a functional listening boundary.
Speaking Boundary
We also need a functional containing or speaking boundary to communicate without getting angry.
We can’t just say whatever comes to our mind if it’s overly critical or negative.
We also need to be aware of how we say it.
For example, if we share our concern with anger, our partner will not respond to our problem but will react to the anger with more anger or defense.
How we give feedback affects whether our partner gets angry or not.
We also don’t want to be behind a wall and not share anything with our partner, because that is not functional either.
A functional speaking boundary is to speak clearly and from a centered place (same-as) when giving feedback or sharing a concern. We also release our emotions with moderation.
That is practicing a functional speaking boundary.
Conclusion
Learning to talk to your partner without anger erupting is possible, but it requires intentional practice from both of you.
It starts with each partner doing the inner work — examining where you land on the self-esteem scale, noticing when shame or grandiosity is driving the conversation, and working toward that "same-as" place before engaging.
From there, functional listening and speaking boundaries are achievable. They are a daily practice.
Taking in feedback without letting it pierce your sense of self, and sharing concerns from a grounded, centered place rather than a reactive one — these are the building blocks of feedback conversations that go somewhere.
If you and your partner find yourselves stuck in this cycle, know that it's one of the most common reasons couples come to us at Colorado Relationship Recovery.