When you begin a relationship, you may view your partner and your love as perfect. However, with time you might notice that one or both of you are emotionally unstable. This goes beyond a bad day or a shift in mood. Below are some tips on navigating emotional instability.
Symptoms of being emotionally unstable
- Angry reactions: Anger is a normal emotion for everyone. What matters are the way you process anger. If someone flips out for no clear or a very minor reason be weary.
- Unnecessary drama: Change happens in our lives and not all of it will be good. Unstable people will overly inflate their turmoil when they should just find ways to move forward.
- Gaslighting: This mental manipulation forces others to question their psyche. Consider if a person told you they would do something, but they would public deny any interaction. You may imagine if they actually said it or if you imagined it.
- Mood swings: Moods change naturally. One will never be happy every minute of the day. In health people this change is fairly minute. Unstable people swing wildly and very suddenly.
- Irrational anger: People typically get angriest at the people with whom they have close bond. This makes sense because of the amount of time with spend with them. Yet it is unhealthy if your partner makes it a practice to scream at service workers or random people on the street.
- Nonexistent empathy: Empathy goes beyond compassion to take on the perspective of another person to understand their mindset. Emotional unstable people are only able to see things from their own lens.
- One upmanship: Things always seem like a competition for emotionally unstable people. If you are having an argument, they will always say how its worse for them in order to gain a greater sense of power, at your expense.
- Unwilling to admit fault: There is no sense of being wrong with emotionally unstable people. They see admitting fault as a sign of weakness and shakes their sense of self-identity to their very core.
- Feeling entitled: They feel like they deserve the world without any hard work being put in. They place demands on people because they think they have earned that right.
- Being irrational: In healthy relationships both partners act as teammates and form a mutual solution. This is not possible for unstable people since they can only view things emotionally rather than logically.
- High intensity: Moderation doesn’t exist in their interactions. This makes people feel like they are walking on eggshells to avoid any confrontations.
- Passing blame: Unstable people are incapable of owning their actions. Instead, it’s easier for them to deflect blame to anyone else around them.
Ways to deal with emotionally unstable partners
- Observe objectively: Ask yourself if you played any part in the dustup. Unstable people will often gaslight others, forcing victims to questions their actions and sanity. When you take a step back you probably will see you did nothing wrong.
- Solicit feedback: Share what you are going through with people you trust. See what feedback they provide as to if you partner may or may not be overacting or what faults you had in the interaction. They will help you gain a fresh perspective.
- Don’t feed the dragon: Both parties feed in the conflict. If your partner is acting out, then you need to rise above the drama, refuse to continue the tension and walk away.
- Walk away from attacks: It doesn’t matter if it was a verbal, mental, or emotional attack, find a way to exit the interaction. You must demand respect and never let anyone try to rob you of freewill. If they can’t be kind to you, then they aren’t worth your time.
- Respect is essential: Treat others they way you wish to be treated. Most often people will respond favorable if you give them a chance and set healthy boundaries. However, if you can’t maintain basic respect with someone begin to reduce contact with them until they are able to treat you the way you deserve.
- Keep calm: Work to remove yourself from any turmoil. It’s natural that you have the urge to defend yourself, but it will only feed the drama. Maintaining peace will help keep you grounded and maybe even help your partner out in a small way.
- Don’t allow gaslighting: Observe and record all the ways they are trying to manipulate you. By writing experiences down on paper if they try to deny their actions and deflect blame onto you, pull out your journal and show help them face reality.
- Seek help: Emotionally unstable people often need psychological assist to process their emotions. Seeing a couples’ therapist can be beneficial for you both and the relationship.
- If all else fails, break-up: If you have tried all other options and your partner refuses help then it might be time to end the relationship. You both deserve to be happy and healthy.
Summary
It’s quite difficult to sustain a relationship with an emotionally instable person. They are cooking your favorite meal on night, and the night they are blaming you for their weight issues. Everyone deserves to be respected and enjoy a loving relationship. Yet, your most important relationship is with yourself and if your partner refuses to treat you respectfully then you need to do what you can to maintain your health and happiness, even if that means breaking-up.
