133. Is your partner using you as a Punching Bag/Security Blanket?

This week on the Evolved Marriage Podcast, Eric and Kate explore emotional labor in marriage.

Topics:
➡️ Managing Emotional Workload: Strategies for a balanced emotional ecosystem.
➡️ Healthy Dynamics: Avoiding the roles of emotional crutch or outlet.
➡️ Breaking Patterns: Changing generational cycles and fostering mutual support.
➡️ Communication and Validation: Key techniques for understanding and supporting each other.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Eric MacDougall
So today we're really talking about this idea of kind of holding up the emotional baggage, if you will, in the relationship. Specifically, we want to talk about this topic, because we see a lot of couples who struggle with this, right, who don't have awareness about how their words their actions are impacting their partner. And so I don't want to go too deep into the conversation about codependency and kind of being emotionally fused your partner and all that stuff, what I really want to focus on today is just creating awareness about, you know, when you're in a relational ecosystem with another person, so many of your behaviors, your actions will have an impact on them. And so if you can bring healthy behaviors and actions, and you can be the healthiest version of you, right, and you can honor the space that they're holding for you, you can create, you know, an emotional ecosystem that has a little more healthy reciprocity, as opposed to one partner kind of being the the security blanket or the punching bag, in some cases, for the other. Right. And what I really want to talk about here is that, especially with the pressure we put on ourselves, to show up in the world, as parents with our health, right, you're talking a lot about that already in the beginning. What often happens is we show up in all these ways, and we try to put on a front, you know, a really great face and all these aspects. And then what inevitably happens is when we get home behind closed doors in our quote unquote safe spaces, our partner often gets the brunt of all that emotional energy we've been holding back.

Kate MacDougall
Right and a lot of partners are really good at it. I know you're really good at holding space for me, and you know, listening and having, you know, just really like giving me the space to talk about it and let it out and just dump on you whatever. It is I'm feeling so I use you a lot as a security blanket where I'm like, I'm just going to use Eric as this safe space as this big, you know, cushy hug to make myself feel better. But before it happened too often, where I was coming home nightly, you know, saying, Oh, this happened at work, and all that happened with my friend, oh, this happened with this person. And that happened with that person, when, where, when, and that can become heavy for your partner, it can become almost unattractive, it can become like, okay, like, every single night, I'm having to hold space for you, every single night, I'm having to take time for you. And I'm having to, you know, hold this space for you. And I don't really feel like I have space to express myself. Because after I dump everything on you. And I'm like, why and why and why I had such a horrible day. Well, the last thing you want to be is like a Whammy, too. So you're just like, oh, okay, I'll hold my feelings inside, not talking about what's going on for me give you the space to talk about you. And they'll just bite my tongue and say nothing and keep everything I'm feeling inside. Yeah, and

Eric MacDougall
really important. Understand, you know, in that moment, when you're talking about, you know, you coming to me, it wasn't always like this where I used to hold space No, and do it in a really healthy way. What used to happen is I used to build a lot of resentment, right, because I had these kinds of covert contracts in my head of, oh, eventually, Kate's gonna let all this out. And then she's gonna say, Eric, you're my champion, you know, and then we're gonna go to the bedroom, and I take my pants off, and all kinds of fun stuff, I'm gonna be rewarded, right? That's kind of the reality of how I thought about it in my head, right,

Kate MacDougall
I'm being a good husband, and I'm Toby knight in shining armor,

Eric MacDougall
I will be rewarded for being a good husband, I'll get the gold star, the cookie, whatever you want to call them. And that's unhealthy. But it's also unhealthy. You know, in our dynamic, I'm an over server. So I'm typically serving, serving, serving, serving, that's from my own family baggage from family of origin, all that stuff. And so if we're not careful, what can often happen is we fall into the cycle, where I'm, you know, you're coming home, you're opening up, right, and then I'm serving, serving, serving, and I don't feel like, you know, it's, it's not my turn for you to serve me. And so I'm just gonna keep serving. And eventually what happens is, I feel alone, right? Like not taking care of, and I create the story in my head, through all the interactions that we have, that Kate is burdened by a lot of stuff, Kate is struggling, Kate has all these problems in her life. And so the last thing I'm going to do is ask her to take care of my needs, when she's having trouble taking care of her own. And, you know, that's not true. That's just my story. Like you excel at so many things in your life, you're excellent, right? Most of the times when I ask for something, it's provided for me in our relationship, right. And so you're an amazing partner. But based on the interactions that we have, in our emotional ecosystem, if I'm not aware of keeping those at bay, have not letting that kind of be part of your identity, and just allowing you to kind of vent and say, Okay, it's frustrated, she's venting that's healthy, you know what I mean? I can often start to create this idea in my head, that I have to take care of you and you can't take care of me, right. And over time, that's how in some couples, you know, it can be flipped, where the wife is like, I'm tired of dealing with another kid, right? We get into borrowed functioning, where it's like, your partner now has to live to take care of your emotional needs, where you literally cannot stand on your own two feet. And I really want everyone who's listening to this, understand that it takes two partners to create that. Right? In that moment, by me not asking clearly for what I want, by me believing that you can't take care of my needs, by me believing that you're unavailable to me, and you're burdened by lying on this flat, fragile person. Right? Exactly, then that creates an ecosystem where you can't provide for me. And over time that leads to you know, you thinking I'm up here on a pedestal, and you're down here, because Eric never talks about his problems. Clearly, Eric's bullet proof clearly Eric's but that's not true, right? I have my own struggles, right? I struggle with things. But I have created this system in my mind in our relationship where it's like, oh, I can't share that with Kate. Because I have to hold space for her. And she's too fragile. And so just really creating awareness here that you both create this ecosystem. And what we want to do is really give you three ideas that you can implement in order to be able to create a space where you can both support each other without one partner necessarily needing to take on the entire emotional burden.

Kate MacDougall
Right. And before jumping into I do want to talk about what it looks like to use your partner as a punching bag. Because I think that for a long time, especially at the beginning of our relationship when we were talking and we were going through therapy, and we were going through things. I didn't really understand the concept of security blanket punching bag. I was like, I don't do that. I don't use Eric to make myself feel better. And it was very hard for me to see it. And it was hard for me to see that you were using me as a punching bag that you know, you were frustrated with your own things in your own life that had nothing to do with me. But then you would come to me and use me as a punching bag, not literally a punching bag and punch me. But it was just like you would come and you would be frustrated about the fact that the dishes weren't put away properly, and that this wasn't done right. And that that wasn't one, right, a lot of criticism. Yeah. And it was just like, punch after punch after punch. And I would go through my days and feel like there's nothing I can do here that's going to make this man happy. Nothing I can do here is going to be right. And I spent my days walking on eggshells and being like, okay, is this gonna be okay? What's Eric gonna look like today, when he comes home from work? What's they're gonna act like today, like, it was very like oozed unsafe and very, like, uncomfortable to live in a home where you I was constantly being used as the punching bag. And with time and practice, I was able to see past the punches, I was able to see past like, Kate, I know, he's saying, it's your fault. You're the bad person that this isn't really about you Something must have happened before today, or before this moment that caused him to blame you. And so I was then able to see like, go deeper, like, what is it about this moment and get curious with you, you know, what happened today? Did you have a good day? And then I could start seeing like, Well, no, you know, this person said this, and this person did that. And then I tried to communicate with that person. And then this is how the outcome of that was. And I was like, Ah, so this isn't about me. Like, I would think this in my head. This isn't about me. This is about other people. So when we're saying your spouse is your punching bag, we're not necessarily talking about violence, physical violence, that's a whole nother ballgame. And that's, you know, that is very serious. And please go get help. If that is happening. We're talking more about emotional punching bag, emotional abuse, where it's constantly being corrected, directed, criticized, and that is exhausting. In a relationship, it is absolutely exhausting for the person who is receiving it. But also for the person punching, you're not ever talking about the real issue. You're never talking about what's really going on, therefore, that's never healing. And it just gets heavier and heavier and heavier on your heart. You're not talking about the fact and back then it was you weren't talking about the fact that you were unhappy at work and unhappy in your life and unhappy with the situation's going on around you. You weren't doing anything about it? Because

Eric MacDougall
yeah, and I want to jump in because even deeper than that, you know, what we're talking about here is unresolved shame, lack of connection to my own emotional states, right? When you're saying and stuff like this, like I'm unhappy in my work, I'm unhappy. And all this. The reality is like, deep deep down, is there something more well, yeah, like I hated myself, right. And every single time I was emotionally abusing you, or treat you that way, it really continued to emphasize the hate and assess I had for myself. And this is where you know, we kind of get stuck is because we think in the moment it kind of feels better, because you're kind of letting loose and rage, right? Whatever anger often can feel powerful in the moment. It allows you to feel in control. But understanding that, you know, there's a back end to that, which is just more deep pain, guilt, shame in some cases. And so what you're talking about, you know, we need to often get help to, you know, go kind of go down into the

Kate MacDougall
bowels of that dark figure out what what is it that's really bothering me.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And I think it's important to say like, you know, again, we don't condone any sort of abuse, the reality is, is that abuse is happening in a lot of relationships. Most marriages, especially long term marriages have some form of emotional abuse.

Kate MacDougall
And because it was something that was probably happening in your childhood, it's very difficult to see that this is not healthy. This is creating a very unhealthy dynamic for you, for your kids watching you. Because what you're continuing, you're just going to continue the generational cycle, they're going to feel like being emotionally abused as normal. It's okay. They're going to emotionally abuse in their own way, because they're watching this. So it's very important to stop and think like, Hmm, is this happening to me? Or am I doing this to my spouse? How am I showing up and my showing up as a parent? Is my spouse? Am I using my spouse as a punching bag? Or am I using my spouse as a security blanket? Or am I my spouse has emerged as a security blanket or am I myself spouse's punching bag and realizing that we both have a role to play here, like, like you said, you know, just because I'm using you as a security blanket doesn't mean you're stuck in the security blanket and there's nothing you can do. You're also playing into the dynamic. You're also allowing this to happen, just as I was. allowing myself to become the punching bag, I could have walked away, I could have said, I understand you had a hard day, go for a walk, go do something. But I'm not going to take this.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, which does not condone any of my actions, you know, just what we don't want to say we don't want to say, it's your fault that it happened. The reality is, is that I need to take responsibility for the way that I treated you. And I don't want to send this too long. But the reality here is that creating awareness about how one partner is the one holding up all that emotional baggage for both of you is very dysfunctional in a long term relationship. Right. And so what we want to drive to is, you know, really thinking about these three simple steps or action steps that you can take, the first one is really thinking about how you can schedule these emotional check ins, right. And you can see even Ken and I we do at the beginning, every podcast, right? We feel it out, it's on your mind and heart, that's a very simple way to talk about it takes a few seconds, what's going through your mind, what are some of the emotions you're feeling lately, really, really important to create a container of space for that. The idea here too, is to create a limited container of space so that your partner can play within it in a healthy way, right? If take him home from work, and I was like, Okay, let's, you know, feel it out, you have three hours to go through it? Well, I'm sure that you would total it up for a very, if you say, you know, let's say five minutes, well, now you're getting directly to it, right, you're gonna be very careful about your words, you're gonna make sure to get to the point, etc. And so creating a space to have these emotional check ins. So you can both check in emotionally.

Kate MacDougall
Yes. And I love that you said to limit the time for it, because what happened was what I ended up doing, because it's not wrong for me to vent about things, it's not wrong for me to dump my emotions on people. I guess that doesn't sound right. You know, it's maybe to open up and talk about it right in a healthy, secure way. It's okay for me to do that. But if I'm using my partner to do that all the time, and it's only Eric, and I'm only talking to him about things that's not healthy. So now I have other people in my life I can open up to, I can talk to my sister about specific things, I can talk to my mom about other things, I can talk to my friends about other things, I've got teacher friends, I can vent about school. And so when I'm coming home, you know, and I'll do this on voice messages, I'll call them on my way home, I'll do something. So when I'm home, and we're having that check in session, I'm not repeating what I just talked about with that person who is probably better suited to hear about me complaining about teaching stuff, because they're in it. They're also a teacher and they get it or you know, if I'm talking about mom's stuff, well, I've got friends who are also moms who I can vent about that Eric's not going to understand my mom's stuff, nor can I expect him to ever understand it, because he'll never be a mom. And so talking to an another mom, I get that out. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is so hard at it. And my friend will say right back, oh my gosh, I totally get what you're saying. And we will go back and forth and back and forth. And then I'm like, Ah, I feel good. So when I get home and Eric's like, let's feel it out, I'm not going through my day of school plus the things I'm feeling about the kids plus this plus that I can really like check into like, what is going on right now? In this moment? Yeah. And so that really reduces the time to have other people to open up to.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, and I think the second step we want to step into is really asking for permission to vent. Yes, right. We do it a lot. Like are you able to hold space for me? Or can I share something with you is now a good time?

Kate MacDougall
Yeah. I've also seen people just say like permission to vent, and then they just start as after they get the Yes,

Eric MacDougall
yeah. And this is really important. Right? What you're asking your partner is, Are you available to hold space for me emotionally? But also mentally? Right? Yeah.

Kate MacDougall
And do you agree to say nothing?

Eric MacDougall
Maybe not? Right? Depends on?

Kate MacDougall
Yeah.

Eric MacDougall
But essentially, what you're saying here is, can I just kind of unload on you and create the space where I can kind of work through some of my stress, nervousness, etc? And can you hold space for that? If you're like, you know, having a bedtime story with the kids, and you're taking the kids and I just jump in there and start going at it. You're like, whoa, wait a minute, like there's other people here. And we have to be respectful of that if you're respectful of our partner's energy, right? Too many of us just come home and our partners like, yeah, and our partners like, oh, like, how was your day and you're just like, boom, right? And you kind of vomit it all out. But it would probably better be like, I had a really tough day, you have some time to hear about it. Or maybe you can take some time later. And then your partner might be like, okay, yeah, sorry, I'm just rushing out or I'm just taking care of this. Really want to take time for you though. Can we do it around? 7pm?

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, because another thing that doesn't help is when you're venting or taking something out, or you're talking about a frustration or whatever, and your partner is busy doing something else that just frustrates you more and then it adds to your resentment and then you're like, I feel on her and at work, I feel unheard hear that at it. And it's just like, Well, how do you ask for that permission? Had you given your partner the chance to say like, right, now's not the good time for it, but I would love to hear you out later. What about at this time instead? Yeah. And so that would make you feel much safer, because then you're not just talking to a wall while your partner's walking around the kitchen with like a chicken with their head cut off, like figuring out what to do and also, yeah, trying to listen and give you space but they're not really and then you're like, you're not hearing me and they're not actually hearing you so they can't get to know you in a very vulnerable way. Like yeah,

Eric MacDougall
and the other side is true. You know, I remember when I first started working from home and I went from a very busy social environment in the restaurant industry to kind of working from home on my own business. What often happened as well as you would come home. And that was like the bouncing puppy, right? Who is essentially using us my security blanket like, well, I have no connection all day. So now I'm expecting you to connect with me the entire day.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, right.

Eric MacDougall
I miss humans. Yeah. And it's like, me, me, me, me, me, me. I wasn't taking a consideration. I wasn't being empathetic to how you had worked all day, coming home, and you still had to be a mother and you still wanted to be a wife, I

Kate MacDougall
was already talked out touched out because being a teacher, right.

Eric MacDougall
And so you know, what ended up happening was, you know, you would come home, and I would be clear, I would text you before Hey, like, I'd love to connect with you tonight. Can you let me know when a good time is for you? Right? And then you would tell me it's this time, and then we would create containers of that connection, right. And so really, really important here that to ask permission for your partner, or ask if it's a good time for you to share. And then the last one is to really empathize with your partner and validate that, right. And this is on both fronts, right? If you're the person holding space to empathize and validate them, but also if you're the person who's constantly venting empathize with your partner who's holding that space for you constantly validate what they're doing the power that they have to just hold space, and, you know, be that security blanket for a lot of us, we don't do that, right? We just take for granted that our partner is going to be there all the time for us. We're like, well, we're supposed to do that through my husband. No, it takes a lot of energy to support a person that day in day out comes in and criticizes and complains and do all that stuff. Yeah,

Kate MacDougall
put yourself in their shoes, how must it be to have a husband or a wife come home every day and complain or be angry about a situation at work and or, you know, complain about a situation at work? Like, yes, sometimes you're going through hard seasons, and that's totally understandable. But then that's where the validating is most important. You know, I understand I've been talking about this for weeks on end. And I understand that, you know, we've come up with solutions and haven't really use them yet. I just, I'm exhausted. And I don't know what to do. And I really, really appreciate you sitting here and holding space for me, I know this can be easy on you. And I know it must be hard to see me in this situation. But I just really want you to know how important you are to me and how you know, loved I feel when you do take the space to sit and listen to me vent about my days. And that can make a world of a difference. At least your partner feels like I'm not just an invisible security blanket. I'm not an invisible punching bag, adding value, I'm adding value to your life, what I'm doing, you're noticing you're noticing that I'm sitting here you're noticing that I'm also struggling, listening to you. Because it's hard to see your partner suffer. It's hard to see your partner hurt. When you open up to me about struggles you're going through or about, you know, emotions, you're feeling really deep, heavy emotions, it breaks my heart to see you that way. It really does. So I have to regulate because I want to be there for you. I have to be able to sit there and be like, you're right. Oh, wow, that must be so hard. But at the same time, hold back my tears because I'm seeing you like, hurt so hard, so bad. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, I want to help them so bad. But I can't I can't take this hurt away from you. Yeah. So validating is so important to just thank you for being there. And I know this is hard. But understanding also that, like you have things to do if you're coming home every single day from work with complaints, and you know, negative talk about work, well, maybe it's time to look at your situation and assess it and say, What can I do about this? How can I change my current situation? Because you do have control over your life. And you can change situations, you just need to empower yourself to do it.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, absolutely love that. And I think, you know, the message that we want to give you is, as you're thinking about your emotional experience, your partner's emotional experience, we want to try to remove judgment from it. Right? You're not a bad person, because you're having these emotional experiences. And maybe you've been dumping on your partner. Just create awareness around it, and honor your partner for, you know, being there for you. And either being your punching bag or emotional blanket, don't judge yourself. But understand that you have the opportunity to do something different to improve your relational ecosystem. And don't judge them, right, if they're the partner who's maybe being critical, and stuff like that they are having an emotional experience, they are struggling. And think about ways that you can create a healthier ecosystem for the both of you that could be putting up boundaries that could be being open and honest about you know how this take up your bandwidth and how something needs to change etc. So always think about the relational ecosystem and both of you for both of you and try to improve it without judgment on the other person because we're all struggling. We're all having an emotional experience. And it can be really challenging to live life with all the expectations we have on ourselves today.