AMMAN – The world today is living in an "era of anxiety and psychological stress" due to the complexity and nature of social lifestyles; goals are many and aspirations are high in the face of successive obstacles and frustrations.
As a result, there are people who are known for their negative view of others and life in general. It becomes dangerous when this melancholy view affects marital relationships, and one partner throws all its bad deeds on the other party, threatening to fracture the marriage.
Family counselor Dr. Ahmed Abdullah says that the psychological pressures and tension that diaries and difficult conditions, whether economic, political or social, leave on the couple's lives ultimately pour into the couple's home.
People who experience stress are more likely to notice negative behavior in their partner (Pixels)
Stress and monitoring
He adds, "We cannot say that professional tension and life difficulties will inevitably lead to problems and tensions within the marital home, as domestic tension and negative adaptive behavior, such as screaming, avoiding and abandoning responsibilities, may be a response to external pressures, or because of a lack of knowledge in managing life affairs," pointing out that negative behavior - resulting from tensions - is often criticized, monitored and compared.
Abdullah believes that the couple's level of awareness of pressures, crisis management methods and the level of understanding all play a key role in the stability or disruption of married life.
He points to several examples of compatibility between spouses while going through professional problems, which resulted in positive behaviors such as cohesion, inclusion and understanding between them. Therefore, according to Counselor Abdullah, the couple must possess the vocabulary of compatibility regardless of whether there are external tensions or not.
Ahmed Abdullah: Spouses must possess the vocabulary of compatibility regardless of whether there are external tensions or not (Al Jazeera)
Negative expectations towards the partner
For his part, psychiatry specialist Dr. Amer Al-Rawajfa says, "When a person goes through a bad psychological situation due to different life circumstances, this may affect his mood and make him more anxious and nervous, so he tends to nervousness and violent or exaggerated responses, and sometimes the most affected people are the closest people to this person, such as family and friends."
Emotional relationships are negatively affected by the passage of one of their parties to a temporary psychological situation resulting from the pressures of life, or if he suffers from anxiety or depression, which are widely prevalent psychological disorders, so the person with depression tends to lose interest in the other party, which leads to coolness in the relationship, and thus the low level of mutual interest between the two partners. This would make the relationship stagnant and boredom, according to Al-Rawajfa.
Amer Al-Rawajfa: Emotional relationships are negatively affected by the passage of one of their parties to a temporary psychological situation resulting from the pressures of life (Al-Jazeera)
For people with anxiety, their constant preoccupation with negative thoughts and expectations towards their partner or fear and exaggerated anxiety may lead to a deterioration in the course of the relationship and increase disagreements and problems.
Accordingly, Al-Rawajfa advises the need to understand the psychological situation that the partner is going through and try to contain it, and to understand the reason for his reactions resulting from psychological stress, is it the result of events he is going through, or because of a psychological disorder he suffers from? In both cases, consulting a doctor or psychologist may be the best way to find solutions to marital problems caused by the psychological state.
It is very important to understand the psychological situation that the partner is going through and try to contain it (Pixels)
The impact of stressful life
Under the heading "Can stressful life circumstances affect how partners see each other?" SPSP published the results of a study published in the Journal of Social Psychology and Personal Sciences, which reported that a person suffering from stress often focuses more on their partner's negative behavior than on their positive behavior.
According to the study, stress can affect actions that partners observe in the first place, including negative actions being monitored, showing anger, impatience or criticizing a partner.
The researchers noted that one stressful day wasn't enough to get someone focused on their partner's negative behavior, but a longer buildup of stressful life circumstances would cause this shift in focus.