Adversarial Love Relationships

"Partners need to convince each other, which they cannot do while trying to prove they're right and their partners are wrong. Adversarial partners cannot repair their damaged relationships while locked in negative judgments and cynical characterizations of each other. The behavioral motivation of negative judgments and characterizations is avoid or attack. (Avoid and attack motivations are evident in body tension, facial expressions, and tone of voice, even when not articulated.) We cannot repair adversarial relationships in avoid or attack modes."

"Untreated adversarial love relationships are bound to fail. Love is never enough to repair them. Love without compassion is replete with projection and obsessive, controlling, or dangerous behavior. Attempting to love without compassion leads us, at best, to love our partners but not like them. The worldwide polarization surrounding us cannot help but seep into our intimate relationships. I've seen more adversarial relationships in the past decade than in the three preceding decades of my clinical practice."

Worldwide political polarization increasingly seeps into intimate relationships, producing more adversarial dynamics. Partners become locked in negative judgments and cynical characterizations that motivate avoidance or attack and manifest in body tension, facial expressions, and tone of voice. Those avoid or attack modes prevent repair and make contempt a strong predictor of divorce. Intimate partners still care and must strive to understand and reconcile rather than refute or undermine. Expressions of feelings matter only when not generated by negative judgments. Partners must examine intentions to distinguish genuine feeling from attempts to shame or frighten.

Read at Psychology Today