Everyone wants to feel comfort, safety, and trust in a romantic relationship. However, it also happens that the harmony in a couple is abruptly replaced by quarrels, aggression, and accusations. Then the partners make peace, and everything continues as if nothing had happened. This phenomenon in relationships is called mood swings. A problem is quite common these days, and it can be difficult to cope with it on your own. Let’s take a closer look at what it is, the reasons why it occurs, and the signs of its presence in your couple.
🔎 What is an emotional swing in a relationship? Let me decipher the mood swings meaning for you. This is the name given to the psychological state of a person who experiences sudden emotional changes. Both external phenomena and internal problems can cause them.
An example is a situation where a partner communicates with you warmly every day, supports you, sends messages and gifts. But after a period of cloudless romance, they suddenly interrupt close connection with you – stop answering your calls, block messaging via social networks, messengers, etc.
❗️ Important: Regular emotional swinging negatively affects the psychological health of a person and their partner. The feeling of devastation, loss of energy, and depression – are just some of the negative consequences.
🤔 What Causes Mood Swings: Top Reasons to Know
Why do I have mood swings? The reasons that may cause this behavior when dating are not entirely clear. Most likely, the development of such a disorder is influenced by a complex of factors: childhood trauma, genetic predisposition, and neurobiological characteristics. People use emotional swings for several reasons.
Various diseases and mental disorders
The cause of emotional swings in relationships can be mental illness, due to which partners cannot control their emotions. One of them is a dysfunction of the thyroid gland. Disruption of the adrenal glands, which are responsible for the production of adaptation hormones (for example, cortisol or adrenaline), can also be a trigger for emotional changes in the mood of partners and as a result of misunderstandings in their relationship. Treatment of these disorders is the best medication for mood swings.
Hitting up feelings
People do not always set up emotional swings consciously to harm or offend their partners. Some simply don’t know how else to fire a love spark in a relationship. In this way, they are not ready for mutual respect for personal boundaries. They do this to attract the attention of the other partner for feeling needed and loved.
Narcissism
Narcissism often becomes one of the reasons for the occurrence of bad mood swings for no reason in relationships. When one of the partners uses such a technique, they do it solely to prove their importance, to make themselves desirable in the eyes of their partner. Perhaps they do this because of low self-esteem and the presence of internal complexes.
Desire to manipulate
Sometimes mood swings in relationships are used as manipulation, the result of which is addiction. It is pleasant for the manipulator to first distance themselves, and then observe how much joy their partner experiences during the next period of intimacy. The suffering of a partner during periods of withdrawal does not concern the manipulator so much – they may not understand what harm they are causing.
💌 If you doubt who is to blame for the emotional swings that have arisen in your relationship, there are many tests on the Internet like: “Are my mood swings normal quiz” You can go through this to determine it yourself.
💁🏻♂️ Learn Mood Swings Symptoms
Manipulators have different techniques to control other people’s actions. Here are some of the signs of an emotional swing in relationships.
- “Love bombing”. A technique that helps form attachments. It was described by Israeli psychologist Sam Vaknin. It is behavior in which the manipulator tries with all their might to evoke strong positive emotions in the partner and to make them fall in love.
- Behavior change. The first bell that may arise in a victim is the question: “What did I do wrong?” For example, your partner calls you every morning at a certain time to say hello. Suddenly, one morning they “forget” to do this, then again and again, without explanation.
- Pressure. Everyone has their fears in relationships and in life in general. The manipulator will try to induce these sensations in you to make you feel safe. For example, if you are afraid of heights, your partner will take you to a restaurant on the top floor, assuring that you have nothing to be afraid of when you are next to them.
- Decreasing of partner’s self-esteem. If a person has a low level of self-love, they are easier to manipulate. It is enough for such a person to hear the manipulator’s phrase “You can’t cope in life without me” to think that they really cannot do anything.
If you notice some of these symptoms in your couple, you should immediately think about how to cope with this problem in your relationship.
🙌🏻 How to Overcome Mood Swings?
Did you know that every nation has a different temperament? Everyone deals with mood swings differently. For example, Slavic girls are very emotional, they often have such swings but can cope with them with ease. Do you want to learn too? The main ways to deal with mood swings are as follows:
- Developing the skill to recognize your emotions, accept them, and find balance in your inner state. Understanding that you are in control of the situation yourself helps you find a “foothold” and return to a full, healthy life.
- A deeper look at the situation, and a clear understanding of what kind of person you are dealing with. In other words, you should get rid of illusions.
- Building personal boundaries is the basis of any union. Relationships between people are built on mutual respect. Everyone has the right to independently manage their life. Let your partner live how they want.
- Getting rid of the victim complex and attempting to blame yourself for what is happening is an important aspect. Don’t let the conflict pass through you. When you voice your own opinion, don’t regret doing so. Do not accumulate grievances and claims to destroy yourself.
- Fighting fears that your partner is the one and only person who may be with you in this life; understanding that in case of their departure, your life will not end and will not lose sense.
- Forming healthy self-esteem and self-love is an opportunity to forever get rid of the oppression of manipulation and always choose your needs and desires. Such things will not allow other people to control you, either now or in the future.
📌 Final Thoughts
Mood swings in relationships are a fairly common problem, which can sometimes lead a couple to make the decision to break up. It is important to learn to overcome this if you want to save yourself and your union. If all of the above methods to stop the manipulation do not work, the only way out is to seek assistance from a psychologist. Experts will help you work through the trauma that led you or your partner to such behavior and explain how to build relationships in other ways.