With ever increasing intensity, people who have been coming to me with relationship problems, have been apathetic to doing the very things that would improve the relationship. And a pattern is emerging. The pattern of effort itself being a trigger. And so, let’s take a look at this specific trigger as well as what to do about it. 

In a world that is so complicated and in a world that seems to be getting harder and harder and harder, wanting a relationship that is easy rather than hard makes total sense. That being said, relationships involve varying degrees of difficulty because they are not only where our relational needs are met, they are also the primary impetus for personal development. And, they take work to build and maintain. The right attitude to have is that a language wont speak itself and keep itself fluent, a campfire wont light itself or keep itself lit. A home doesn’t build itself and stay maintained, a garden doesn’t plant and sow itself, a tapestry wont weave itself. A relationship takes work to build, to make good and to maintain. In a relationship, you are taking two unique and very complex individual beings with their own thoughts, feelings, wants, needs, preferences, traumas, weaknesses, strengths, perspectives, past experiences, motives etc. and you are attempting to merge or unite them in a harmonious way. A relationship is never a static state of happiness. It is always a dynamic, active never-ending process, like a dance. A process that just so happens to require constant maintenance and adaptation. 

Healthy relationship work can be hard as hell, but what sets it apart is that it builds safety, builds trust, builds connection, deepens the bond and develops the self. Unhealthy relationship work doesn’t build these things, despite the effort put in. And the motives behind the effort will also be out of alignment. Things like obligation, terror of abandonment, adhering to strict doctrines, pure avoidance of consequences, intermittent reinforcement, the need to fix the other person to feel worthy, believing you won’t find better and guilt etc.  Unhealthy relationship work breeds resentment. All this being said, some people are triggered by the notion of having to put effort into a relationship period the end. When they reach that moment where the relationship becomes challenging and they see that in order to make the relationship good, they have to change something about themselves, such as their behavior, or do something that needs to be done, or put in mental effort, such as really put energy into understanding the other person or actively communicate, they feel immediate resistance and sink into apathy instead. In order to understand what is occurring when this happens, we need to take a journey into the past. 

If you are one of these people who is triggered by the idea or experience of relationship work, you have learned to associate effort in relationships with negative things rather than positive things, therefore as a path to relational pain, rather than relationship improvement and connection. The thing to become clear about is what specifically you associate effort in a relationship with. 

I’ll give you an example: Ben shuts down the minute that it becomes clear that in order to make his marriage good, he needs to hold himself accountable to the things he promises. He is apathetic about keeping his word. The idea of having to put effort into holding himself to a standard and having to make sure he is always keeping his word, feels intolerable to him. He goes to men’s groups. He knows how unacceptable it is for any man to say: I don’t want to hold myself accountable or keep my word with my wife. The other men would hand that man his ass and never let him around their daughters or sisters or mothers or anything. Ben becomes introspective about what is so intolerable about putting this effort into his marriage. What he quickly puts together is that it feels the same way as it used to feel when he was living at home with his hyper-critical mother who expected him to be and do exactly what she wanted and to the exact standard she wanted, in order for her to not be at odds with him. He molded and contorted himself into what she wanted him to be, but never was able to meet her standards. So, when he is faced with having to put effort into his marriage to make it work, he immediately associates doing this with a loss of autonomy, the horror of subjugation, the feeling of always failing, being a dancing monkey in order to be emotionally safe and get love, and the unsafety and pain of never being able to just be the way he is… The good, the bad and the ugly without the risk of rejection and abandonment. So, the first step is to look at your life to really define the association you have with putting effort into a relationship. Name the thing you are afraid of and are wanting to avoid.  

Moving through this trigger is not about trying harder. It is about un-coupling effort from threat!       

The first thing that can be done about this, is trauma healing work. This is work with the trigger and what in the past the trigger is linked to directly. My method for this, is The Completion Process. You can learn how to do this process by doing my Completion Process e-course, by reading the book, both of which are on my website. And/or by being led through the process by a Completion Process facilitator.  

The next thing to do is to really look at what work you need to do to make the relationship better and compare it consciously to those things you negatively associate with effort in a relationship to see if doing that work really does or really does not equal those things. For example: Ben knows that holding himself accountable to the things he promises and making sure he keeps his word equals a loss of autonomy, the horror of subjugation, the feeling of always failing, being a dancing monkey in order to be emotionally safe and get love, and the unsafety and pain of never being able to just be the way he is… The good, bad and ugly without the risk of rejection and abandonment. But the question is, does keeping himself accountable to the things he promises actually equal a loss of autonomy or any one of the other things on that list? Does making sure he keeps his word equal being a dancing monkey in the relationship, or any one of the other things on that list? The answer might be yes. And if this is the case, then that is what needs to be creatively trouble shot, so that the answer isn’t yes. But usually, the answer will in fact be no. If the answer was yes, you have the real problem targeted, so you can then do something about that. If the answer is no, this realization will de-escalate your nervous system and go a long way towards de-coupling the relationship effort you need to put in from threat.              

The next thing that needs to be done is: Very consciously and deliberately look directly at the thing(s) you are actually wanting to avoid IN the relationship. The things that are a “no” for you. Evaluating if and where you feel those things IN the relationship currently and problem solving those areas so that you no longer feel that way. The things that are a “no” for you, will be those things you associated with effort. Using our example, for Ben it will be: Loss of autonomy, the horror of subjugation, the feeling of always failing, being a dancing monkey in order to be emotionally safe and get love, and the unsafety and pain of never being able to just be the way he is… The good, the bad and the ugly without the risk of rejection and abandonment. He may look at these things and realize that he has a very dysfunctional relationship with expectations. He may consciously evaluate expectations within the context of relationships and land on the truth that it isn’t ok to require his partner to have no expectations of him. He may then sit down and decide upon what expectations he thinks are fair and that a woman should have of the man in her life. He would communicate with her directly and even debate, so as to get on the same page about the fair vs. unfair expectations in their relationship. And he may decide to go to therapy to work on his issue with things being expected of him by other people.   

This is a process that must be done very consciously. Because it is not ok in a relationship to play a zero-sum game, what that means in this context is to put the other person in pain just so that you don’t have to be in pain and can avoid these things. An example of what that might be like is: Ben realizes that he does not want to have this feeling that he is never able to just be the way he is… The good, the bad and the ugly without the risk of rejection and abandonment. He realizes that he wants his partner to stay committed to him unconditionally. So, he drops holding himself to any standard in the relationship with her and starts doing things like not working on his toxic behaviors because “it’s just the way he is” and purposefully acting out by doing things he knows she doesn’t like to “test” whether she will stay loving and creating an environment where his partner cannot share how she feels about him and the relationship because if she does, she is rejecting him and does not love him for who he really is. Ben’s desire for radical acceptance and commitment no matter what has now become a license to act with no self-regulation and to behave narcissistically. He is treating his desire for "no risk of rejection" as a hall pass to stop doing the work to make a relationship good. And because of it, in the name of wanting to be unconditionally loved, he has created an abusive relationship. He has created unilateral terms for the relationship. He has made the relationship entirely about his need for safety, leaving no room for his partner's need for him to caretake her wellbeing, for boundaries or for respect.        

Aside from those most important things, here are some other things you can do: 

1. Re-define the “work” as something you see as positive. For example, creation, transformation, nurturing, maintaining, cultivating, mastering, synthesizing, calibrating, alchemizing, exalting, experimenting, adventuring, evolving etc. Whatever feels the best to you. For many people, work has a negative connotation. For example, stress, exhaustion, drudgery, dread, sooo much effort, unfairness, exploitation, something being too hard. Re-define it so it doesn’t feel like lifting something heavy that you don’t want to lift or like a chore.
2. See how the effort advances you and makes you gain more. Shift the goal of the effort to something self-serving rather than detrimental to yourself and also rather than something for the other person. For example, say that in order to make the relationship better, you know that you have to go to see a counselor. Rather than the goal being to “fix the relationship” or “make her happy”, make the effort of therapy for the goal of: “Me learning tools that I currently don’t know, which will make this relationship and/or relationships in general less painful and more peaceful.” It is tempting for people to relate to relationship work like a limitation, burden or tax they have to pay, just to keep the relationship. As if they are working just to stay in the same place. This is a way to burn out in a relationship and resent putting effort into a relationship. To give you an example. Let’s say that the other person is nagging you to do something. You know you need to put in the effort of doing that thing to make the relationship good. Putting in the effort to understand the why behind the nagging will reveal to you that the person has an unmet need. Something like “I feel like I am alone carrying all of the pressure, what I need therefore is a teammate, so I feel like we are in this together.” If you put effort into doing things that make them feel like you are really in it with them and carrying weight, the nagging will stop and you will gain peace, harmony and closeness. The other person might respond to this with more warmth, affection and even playfulness. So, you gain these things too. Rather than seeing it like you are complying to a demand at a loss to yourself, see that you are gaining all of these things, as well as a better version of yourself. A version of you that is a stellar teammate.   
3. Wake yourself up to where you are. The reality of the here and now vs. the past. This bridges the gap between your emotional age (which feels small and trapped) and your chronological age (which is actually not small and not trapped and is instead capable and free). Being triggered by putting effort into a relationship so often has to do with your experiences as a child. It is as if you are stuck there, regardless of having turned into an adult and regardless of current circumstances being different. When you are triggered, your brain has essentially "time traveled" back to a moment where you had no agency and you are re-experiencing that, despite being in a different situation in the here and now. You can think of it like a form of post traumatic stress reaction. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because it is a fact that you are an adult, you shouldn’t be feeling like you do. Your childhood “primed you” for your life. But it can actually really help a lot to snap yourself out of it by remembering that you are an adult now and you have different people around you and you cannot be controlled like you were as a child, you can leave. Your effort is your choice. The people around you are not your parents. You are not a prisoner. You are voluntarily in the relationship. A request from a partner is not the same as a demand from a parent. It is information about their needs, which is like having a map to how to build a harmonious relationship with them, not a rulebook for how you must behave “or else”. Conflict is not an exit sign; it is an invitation to engage. Really remind yourself of what is going on. For example: “I am 30 years old, I am living in Milwaukee. I am working at a company with a boss that has an intense personality. I can quit this job. Even if I would face things like not having a paycheck, I am actually able to quit this job. I am staying because this job will add to my resume in a big way. My boss is not my dad. Wanting approval from my boss does not make me feel very masculine, and I really want to feel strong and like a man, because I am one. I am not a little boy anymore. I am actually safe in life in general still if my boss doesn’t approve of me.”
4. Commit to small doses of effort in relationships and work your way up. If you are triggered by putting effort into a relationship, you need to rehabilitate yourself relative to putting effort in. One way to do this is to prove to yourself that putting in relational effort doesn't result in re-injury. Things like pain, control, or exhaustion. This is best done by starting with small, intentional doses and then expanding your effort from there. Shrinking the effort in this way, decreases the perceived size of the threat, so you can engage with effort in a relationship in a way that doesn’t put you in fight or flight mode. For example: Hou could set a timer to go off at specific intervals and when it goes off, you could ask yourself: What is one thing I could do to right now to make the other person feel good or to make our relationship even better? And then carry that one thing out to completion. The thing you choose to do could be as small as giving a compliment or as big as following through on a huge project you know they have been desperate for you to do or anything in between. Some people need to rehabilitate themselves with doing only very little things at first, so as to prove to themselves that it is positive rather than a threat. And then when they are ready, to take on things that used to feel big and that they used to feel resistance towards. 
   Or you could create a one-week challenge for yourself where every day, you pick only one thing to put effort into that would improve the relationship. When you micro dose effort in this way, you need to really notice and resource the positive things this leads to. The improvement in emotional tone, the changes in the other person, the reciprocity that may show up, the softening in others, the increased sensation of harmony, the reduction in resistance and tension you feel, the pride you feel at being the way you are being in the relationship, the way the other person starts to bid for connection with you, etc. Take note that a positive reaction may not immediately happen because you may have taught the other person that you will not put in effort, that doing so is a problem for you. So, they have had to swallow that painful reality and now have a protective wall built between you. They may be so burnt out they can’t react, they may be waiting for the other shoe to drop (as if the dose of effort is going to come with a side dish of pain) or there may be lag time before their nervous system can believe this is the new you. When your effort is having an impact in a positive way in a relationship, perhaps the best way to tell is that bids will increase from the other person in the relationship. Ie: They will start to display little ways to try to make a connection, try to your attention, affection, or affirmation. Remember that you are not doing this small dose of effort routine so that you have an excuse to put bread crumbs of effort into a relationship and expect it not to starve. You are not doing this so these small bits of effort are performances to keep the other person quiet. You are not doing this so you have checked the box and now are “off the hook” for the rest of the day. You are not doing this to set a boundary against the other person regarding what they need from you. What you are doing is training your nervous system that it is good to put in effort and that doing so leads to good things, not a recipe for disaster. And no matter what the result, you are in integrity within the relationship. This is something to notice and really feel as well.            

It is important to mention that all of these suggestions are about being triggered by effort in a relationship and so, you are not actually putting in the work necessary to have a good relationship. It is actually possible to be triggered by effort because the trigger is a warning that you are the only one putting effort and work into a relationship, and probably have been the only one for a long time. When this is the case, what you are calling a trigger is likely to be in the realm of resentment and to be a protective protest, an attempt to preserve your energy, self respect and dignity. This means you are over-working and over-functioning in the relationship; trying to dance a tango with a partner who will not take responsibility for dancing. You are trying to do the work FOR the other person, which is not actually possible in a relationship, which is why your efforts are leading to burn out. 

 If you don’t want to put effort into a relationship, you are not invested in relationship. A relationship requires two active participants to function. There is no way to opt out of this and be in a relationship any more than it is possible to dance a tango and not really put effort into mastering dance yourself. You may have to consider whether it is actually an act of self-awareness and integrity to choose to not be in a relationship because you truly don’t want to put in the work of a relationship. But if you truly do want a relationship, and you are triggered by effort, you aren’t doomed. It is all about de-coupling effort from threat. And proving to yourself that instead, effort in a relationship leads to positive things.