Hi there, I’m Aarti, Founder and Lead Counsellor at Incontact.

There have been relationships in my life where I used to feel a strong need to explain myself, put my point across, or make sure I was properly understood.

At the time, it felt like the issue was the disagreement itself.

With some distance, I came to see that something deeper was happening. I was not only trying to communicate my view. I was also looking for a form of acceptance.

And over time, that need changed.

The most interesting part was that the other person did not necessarily change very much. I did.

1 Story — The need underneath the trigger

When someone repeatedly triggers us, our attention naturally goes towards them.

Why does she always say that? Why can't he understand? Why do they have to behave this way?

The behaviour may genuinely be irritating, inconsiderate or difficult. But in close relationships, the intensity of our reaction often contains information about us too.

When I thought about some of my own reactions from years ago, I realised that beneath my determination to make my point was a deeper desire: I wanted to feel accepted.

It wasn't enough for me to know what I thought. I wanted the person in front of me to understand it, validate it and, at some level, accept me through accepting my perspective.

That need made disagreement feel bigger than disagreement. A different opinion could begin to feel personal. I would work harder to be understood, which sometimes meant becoming more forceful, and that would affect the relationship itself.

Over time, that need softened.

I no longer required the same degree of acceptance from another person in order to feel secure in myself. Their view of me could remain their view. I could disagree without needing to convince. I could hear something I would once have challenged and decide that it did not require my intervention.

The interesting thing is that this didn't happen because I learned a clever communication technique. The relationship became easier because the need underneath my reaction changed.

I see versions of this in therapy all the time.

Someone says to their partner, “You never make time for me.”

The obvious subject appears to be time. But underneath it may be: I need to know that I matter to you.

That person may have spent years feeling insignificant in earlier relationships or childhood. The partner's busy schedule therefore carries much more emotional meaning than a calendar problem should.

But now consider what happens on the other side. The partner hears, “You never give me enough.”

Underneath their reaction might be another vulnerable belief: Whatever I do, I am not enough.

So one person's need for significance activates another person's fear of inadequacy. The first person protests harder because they don't feel important. The second becomes defensive or withdraws because they feel defective. That withdrawal makes the first feel even less important.

And now two people are fighting about Saturday afternoon while something much older is running the conversation.

We often call these communication problems. Sometimes they are really need collisions.

This is one reason certain relationships can become powerful places for growth. The people who get closest to us are also unusually capable of touching the places in us that still seek reassurance, significance, approval, safety, belonging or control.

One of the quieter signs of change is when the same person can do much the same thing, yet it no longer reaches quite so deeply inside us. We don't need to win the argument, receive the reassurance immediately, correct their version of us, or make their response settle something about ourselves.

And when that happens, the relationship itself can begin to change. If I stop fighting to make you understand me, perhaps you stop bracing yourself for another argument. If I can ask for closeness without turning it into evidence that you have failed me, perhaps you can hear the request without immediately defending yourself.

We spend a lot of time asking what our triggers are telling us.

Perhaps it is equally worth noticing what has happened when something that once triggered us simply doesn't have the same hold anymore.

1 Insight — When the trigger is not really about the trigger

Triggers can point not only to what another person is doing, but to what we are hoping to receive from them: acceptance, significance, reassurance, approval, safety or a sense that we matter.

When that deeper need becomes less dependent on one person's response, the trigger can lose some of its intensity and the relationship may shift with it.

2 Tools to uncover what sits beneath the trigger

Tool 1 — Finish the sentence underneath the complaint

Take one recurring frustration:

You never make time for me.

You don't listen.

You always disagree with me.

Then finish:

“And when that happens, it makes me feel that I am…”

Unimportant. Invisible. Unlovable. Unsafe. Not good enough. Not respected.

The answer may bring you closer to the real conversation.

Tool 2 — Notice what no longer hooks you

Think of someone who used to trigger you more than they do today.

Ask yourself:

What did I once need from this person that I no longer need as strongly?

Their approval? Agreement? Reassurance? Attention? Validation?

Don't only study the places where you still struggle.

Sometimes the places where you have become peaceful show you exactly how much you have grown.

We often think personal growth should look dramatic.

Sometimes it looks remarkably ordinary.

Someone says the thing they have always said.

And this time, something inside you does not have to fight back.

With warmth and care,
Aarti ❤️