My client said this about their partner recently…
“I don’t know what I did… but I’ve clearly triggered something…” I get a lot of people come into coaching with a version of this question about what’s happened with their other half. What usually follows is an attempt to figure out the perfect response… How to say the right thing… How to avoid making it worse… How to manage the other person’s reaction… But in this session, we took a different approach. Because while triggers feel like they’re about the moment in front of you, they’re very rarely just about that moment. More often than not, a trigger is the surface expression of something deeper (usually built-up resentment that hasn’t been addressed). So instead of focusing purely on communication strategies or trying to carefully navigate around the trigger, the real question should be, “What’s sitting underneath this?” Here’s the thing, you can’t sustainably “manage” a trigger if the root cause is still there. In this conversation, we explored the idea that the most effective way to shift recurring conflict isn’t by avoiding sensitive areas or overthinking how to respond, it’s by going deeper and taking ownership of what’s been building over time. That can be uncomfortable, and it does require honesty. It requires reflection too. And it often requires acknowledging things we may have been avoiding, but that’s where real change happens. We also touched on something very practical… Timing. Not everyone processes things at the same speed. Some people respond immediately, others need space to think. Neither is inherently right or wrong, but when those differences aren’t understood, they can easily become another source of tension. Again, it’s not about who’s “correct”, it’s about awareness. Because when you understand both your own patterns and the dynamic between you, you stop reacting purely in the moment and start responding from a place of clarity and that’s when communication becomes far more effective. So if you find yourself thinking, “I don’t know why this keeps happening,” it might be worth looking beyond the trigger itself…