Thought Leadership in Action

When you have a conflict with your spouse or significant other, do you withdraw like a turtle into its shell? Or do you assume your partner has amazing mental powers so he or she can read your mind and know immediately what is worrying you or making you angry?

Those may sound like silly questions but researcher Keith Sanford, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, has found that relationships are harmed by these attitudes, which he calls forms of “disengagement”. Instead of actually talking about problems and goals, couples too often disengage by ignoring what’s bothering them or assuming the other person can and should be a mind reader.

How Disengagement Harms

A study conducted by Dr. Sanford and other Baylor researchers, published in the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Assessment journal, concludes that ignoring a problem or waiting for the other person to bring it up can damage a relationship.

Of course, almost everyone has withdrawn at times when someone criticizes or complains. It’s a way of avoiding what feels like a perceived threat, Dr. Sanford explained. But when withdrawal occurs regularly in a relationship, it is characteristic of unhappiness and often indicates that a couple is in a state of distress. The researchers found that people were more likely to report withdrawal if they were bored or apathetic about the relationship and if they wanted to keep some control and distance from their partner.

“Withdrawal is the most problematic for relationships,” Dr. Sanford said. “It’s a defensive tactic that people use when they feel they are being attacked, and there’s a direct association between withdrawal and lower satisfaction overall with the relationship.”

Expecting your partner to read your mind, a behavior the researchers dub “passive immobility,” is typically used when someone feels anxious, neglected and even unloved in a relationship, rather than threatened. While it isn’t usually as harmful as withdrawing from a conflict, it makes it difficult or impossible to make progress in resolving problems. The researchers found a kind of Catch-22 is created when one partner expects the other to mind-read. The result can be more anger and more problems. “The more the one demands and complains, the more the other withdraws, and so on,” Dr. Sanford said.

If you recognize that you are caught in a cycle of withdrawing or waiting for your significant other to somehow know what’s bothering you, the first step in improving your relationship is recognizing your behavior. “It’s an issue both of being aware of when these behaviors are occurring and of finding an alternative -- a more constructive, polite approach to resolve conflict,” Dr. Sanford said.

The Role of Depression

Relationships with troubling communication problems may be helped by recognizing and getting help for depression, too, according to the results of a study headed by Leanne K. Knobloch, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois.

The new research, “The Role of Relational Uncertainty in Topic Avoidance among Couples with Depression,” published in the National Communication Association’s journal, Communication Monographs, found that people who are depressed tend to withdraw from negativity and challenges. By avoiding sensitive topics and conflicts, problems are rarely resolved and couples can suffer from a lack of closeness. The study, which looked at 126 couples’ relationships, also revealed that when people were uncertain about the future of a relationship, there was often more avoidance and depression.

“Our results suggest that relational uncertainty may be a site of intervention for helping people with depression become more comfortable discussing challenging issues,” Dr. Knobloch said. “Our findings are a step toward unraveling the complexities of avoidance among depressed couples.”

The researchers suggest that if one or both partners are suffering from depression, getting help for the condition may be a way to help strengthen relationship ties by halting the damaging cycle of depression, relational uncertainty, and avoidance of problems.