What do you do when you accidentally push your spouse’s buttons—or they yours? 

 

All your psychological defenses exist to protect you from perceived ego threats. So any person menacing your feelings of safety or security—or core sense of being “good enough”—compels you to react negatively. In doing so, you immediately alleviate painful feelings of vulnerability—a vulnerability experienced all too often, and acutely, as a young, defenseless child. Since children don’t yet know how to self-validate, anyone to whom they give authority can make them feel fearful or ashamed of themselves. Plus, for most of us these adverse, self-doubting feeling states are never completely eradicated, even after we’ve reached adulthood.
In fact, this is precisely what’s meant about “getting your buttons pushed.” And, collectively, these buttons represent your ego when it experiences itself under siege. For your ego depicts everything you associate with your identity: whom, in essence, you think you are, and (indirectly) how you need to view yourself to believe you’re basically okay. So if another criticizes you, and the criticism brings to the surface subterranean levels of doubt, anxiety, and shame, you can’t help but be propelled into self-protective mode. And because of an emotional survival mechanism innate in our species, you do so through automatically mobilizing one or more modes of defense.
I’ve written many posts on the surprisingly complex phenomenon of anger (e.g., see “What Your Anger May Be Hiding”). And what in the present context makes anger such a vital topic to explore is that, although Freud never considered the emotion as itself a defense, it’s commonly (universally?) employed to ward off threats to one’s self-image. For what’s happening here is that you’re redirecting what you took as criticism right back onto the criticizer. It’s not you who are mean, selfish, stupid, unattractive, incompetent, etc. It’s them. And ironically, while displaying reactive anger may look as though you’re attacking the other, in reality, it’s how you’re defending yourself (or rather, your now beset ego).
And of course, there are many other defenses that can come into play when you feel criticized (i.e., attacked). For any negative evaluation, or even suggestion that you do something differently, can reanimate worrisome self-doubts. However unconsciously, unless past insecurities have been fully rectified, outward criticism incites such potent defenses as denial, acting out, rationalization, projection (intimately related to angry outbursts), dissociation, and regression.
But the main point to be stressed in all this is that whenever you react to another’s adverse opinions or judgments defensively, you’re almost always overreacting. Not that (in the moment at least) it will feel this way. Because it certainly doesn’t. That is, whatever the other person said or did pushed your buttons just as hard as was the vigor (or vehemence) of your reaction. And though this description probably sounds illogical, keep in mind that the manner in which you got provoked inevitably brought to the surface still-charged emotional issues from your past. So the long held-in—and as yet unreleased—energy of these never completely resolved disturbances inevitably broke out.
There must be some axiom in psychology positing that whatever you can’t resolve must repeat itself. And since the mind works by way of (mostly unconscious) association, any here-and-now provocation is likely to awaken from the depths the there-and-then sources of your present-day reaction. If old, unwelcome negative self-assessments start to pester your consciousness, you’ll reflexively attempt to counter them through employing some psychological defense. For if you can’t do this, you’ll experience rising levels of anxiety and shame—and likely depression as well. Paradoxically, even depression can be viewed as an attempt (though hardly effective) to quiet nagging feelings. Consider that a key feature of depression is apathy (literally meaning, “not feeling”).

Still, when you react forcefully to some felt provocation, your assumed adversary—whose words or deeds were probably much less malignant than the actual effect they had on you—will doubtless experience your inflamed reaction as exaggerated. After all, how could they not view it this way when they’re only privy to their immediate behavior as it prompted your (to them) disproportionately charged comeback. They’re hardly in a position to grasp the energetic power of emotionally-fraught issues from your past influencing your present-day reaction—especially since in the moment you yourself may not recognize just what’s boiling inside you.


So if your father was, say, a hair-raising rageaholic—and frequently, without a second’s warning, became unglued and threw a temper tantrum—then, if your partner suddenly raises their voice to emphasize a point, you might react (or rather, overreact) as though they’d just turned into your father. Consequently, with “counter-anger” toward your father’s verbal brutality—that as a child you could never afford to express but still may harbor deep inside you—you might “go off” on them as though they’d acted horribly abusive toward you. And since their raised voice alone pushed your childhood buttons (which, by the way, is where all your buttons originate), this anger will feel totally warranted to you, though not at all justified to your partner. Or, in such situations, you could become archly (and gratuitously) defensive. Or, whether in tears or fury, you might abruptly leave the room. And in these instances, you wouldn’t merely be responding to present-day stimuli but to earlier provocations still carrying substantial emotional residue.

At this point it should be pointed out that the overblown reactions I’ve been describing are far more likely to occur in a family context than a more professional one. And that’s because in a work environment it’s easier to stay within a delimited adult role. Your buttons aren’t as likely to be pushed by an office mate, for in this more formal relationship, their words aren’t as likely to operate as reminders of distressful things that happened in your family of origin. But once you have a family of your own, seemingly inert—though really dormant—memories can easily be roused by your spouse or children. And when you project your old, unresolved frustrations onto them, they’ll doubtless experience you as irrational or unfair. Or, if how you behave hooks into their unresolved issues, they’ll be made to feel inadequate, inferior, worthless, etc., because they can’t but take to heart what, in your current regressive state, you’re taking out on them.
In any case, if you’re on the receiving end of another's reacting unreasonably toward you, what’s the best way to respond? Obviously, you need to realize that coming back at them in kind won’t be useful in resolving your frustrations—nor will it serve to placate them, or the relationship. Rather, in the face of this seeming unfairness, you’ll first need to calm yourself down (deep breathing, anyone?). Only then can you safely inquire as to what, regardless of your intentions, your partner heard you say, or—given their past—how they couldn’t help but negatively interpret your behavior.
In other words, you need to seek additional information rather than, reflexively, counter their attack, defend yourself, or leave the scene (and so, leave them feeling abandoned). If—as the adult you are— you’re able to be self-validating, their aggressive or tear-filled words don’t have to upset your emotional equilibrium. For what they’re needing from you (though it hardly seems apparent), is to be listened to, reassured, and empathized with. (And in this regard readers might wish to take a look at an earlier article of mine called: “Can You Give Your Spouse as Much Love as They Don’t Deserve?”).