Human beings need a lot of things to feel alive. They need family, love, sex, but we only need one thing to actually be alive. We need a beating heart. When our heart is threatened, we respond in one of two ways. We either run or we attack. There is a scientific term for this: fight or flight. It’s instinct. We can’t control it. Can we? – Grey’s Anatomy
When we’re married, our instinct for fight or flight can really get in the way of solving problems and relating to our spouses. When we are fighting or disagreeing with our spouses and fight or flight kicks in we can either avoid the disagreement by agreeing with whatever they are saying or we can battle with them, fighting fervently for our side, our belief, our pride or whatever it is that we are fighting for.
Instincts
Instincts are powerful things. Our instinct is what puts us between bodily harm and our children; instinct is what drives us to care for our young and our lovers. Instinct is what sends us seeking relationships in the first place. Instinct is what attracts us to others and it is part of who we are as a natural creature.
Sometimes our own humanity gets in the way of remembering that we have instincts and that our instincts are there for a reason. When we’re married, our instincts are to protect our marriage and our family. When someone else treads on our spouse, our instinct is to fight and protect him or her. When our spouse rejects us for whatever reason, we may flee from fighting with them or we may try to seek escape with someone else.
This is the danger of instincts. When we are feeling abandoned, whether it’s real or imagined, we may seek emotional comfort elsewhere. When this happens, our instincts may very well create more danger for our marriage than already existed. We need a lot of things, we need love, we need sex, we need our families and we need to feel safe. We need this living, beating thing we call a heartbeat both within our marriage and within ourselves.
Overcoming Instincts
When fight or flight kicks in, you have to take a deep breath and try to control the immediate reaction you have to the upset, the anger and the perception of threat. Marriage problems, while scary and sad, are not a saber tooth tiger coming to rip your insides out. You need to control you reactions to avoid creating more problems for your marriage and creating more threat than already was there.
So, while your instincts are there to protect you – we are humans, we are capable of rational thought and we need to think things through before just reacting on instinct and emotion – especially if we have time. If the danger is not immediate to life and limb – take the time and take the deep breaths. You just may save your marriage and prevent problems that way.
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