Does a Partner's Sadness Cast a Shadow on Your Joy Over Time?

So this past weekend, I flew back east and I spoke at a funeral for an uncle of mine in Tennessee. And rest in peace, Uncle Donnie, because you will absolutely be missed. But it was also a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with my Tennessee kinfolk. And even though I was only there for a couple of days, I did start saying things like fixin' to and y'all. And I felt like I was able to channel my old accent and refer to my very own wife, who wasn't there but was there through FaceTime, as weendy.

And I reckoned things and stink bugs were sighted and a stuffed possum was viewed. And when talking about my waking up to narcissism, it was recommended that I use the phrase that the rooster thinks that the sun comes up just to hear him crow. And I didn't give that one enough justice. But on one simple exchange with my Aunt Pam, whose husband, my Uncle Leon, my father's twin brother, who happened to be a professional storyteller, I might add, was showing me a picture of her and my Uncle Leon.

And she said that she felt like over time, they pert near started to look like brother and sister to which admittedly i tried to get the eye of my almost 20 year old son jake so that i could have some validation that i was going to pass on that wide open shot but only to say that you often hear that romantic partners over time tend to become similar in several ways and according to an article from no more than a day or two ago called can an

unhappy partner erode your happiness over time with a subtitle of New Research Explores Well-Being Contagion Between Partners by Dr. Gwendolyn Seidemann, romantic partners tend to have similar attitudes, personality traits, and even similar levels of physical attractiveness. Yes, that was a little bit of a stretch of an opening, but it's what came to mind. But she also said that they were also similar in how happy they are.

Which brings up the question, is this just a case of June bugs of a feather flocking together? Meaning that if If happy people are attracted to other happy people and that misery is something that perhaps truly does love company and therefore can be the tie that binds the relationship. So we're going to talk about overall what kind of an influence do you have with

your partner and especially what's that influence over your partner's happiness. We're going to talk about that and so much more coming up on today's episode of The Virtual Couch. Music.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 405 of The Virtual Couch. I'm your host.

That's what I am. I'm your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified mindful habit coach, and host of the Waking Up to Narcissism podcast, premium edition, Love ADHD, Murder on the Couch, The Mind, the Mirror, and Me, and just loving all things podcast. Can't lie. And I hope that you are having an amazing, wonderful holiday season. And we're going to talk today about the influence that we have on other people, especially our partner.

And this This is a little bit ironic because there's a couple's book about acceptance and commitment therapy, which is my favorite. And it's called Act With Love by Russ Harris, one of my favorite acceptance and commitment therapy authors. And there is a part in the book where he talks about the concept of influence. Because I will go big with we can't have love and control in an adult relationship, one or the other.

But I like when he talks about this concept of influence. Because often when we're just over here being and doing and finding ourselves and not needing validation and becoming differentiated and all those wonderful things, then we still want to have these shared experiences with our partner. And so in the Act With Love book, it does talk about influence. I have a little bit of an episode on that that's recorded for another day and

where we're going to talk about the acceptance and commitment therapy couples model. We're going to talk about the four pillars based off of Sue Johnson's emotionally focused therapy. And we're going to talk about David Schnarch's The Crucible approach. There are so many things that I want to get to that I've been writing about there. So just a little sneak preview. That'll be all things marriage. But today, speaking of marriage, sign up for the newsletter because the updated

Magnetic Marriage course is pretty phenomenal. And it's that old story. It's so close. It's so close. But I promise if you sign up for the newsletter, you will find out. You'll be one of the first people to know when it actually hits the ground and the people that are going to get there first are going to have a little bit of an incentive to do so. We'll put it that way. So back to this article by Dr. Gwendolyn Seidemann.

The article is called, Can an Unhappy Partner Erode Your Happiness Over Time?

Because I think that's the bigger question, that if you have one person who it seems like is more optimistic and just more doing, maybe even doing their own work, their own mental health work, they're going to therapy, they're reading the self-help books, and then you've got another partner that is finding themselves more and more frustrated or down or sad or feels like they lack control as their kids get older or they are losing their sense of purpose,

then does that overly kind and optimistic person bring the other person up from the depths and then they ride off into the sunset together? Or does the person that is feeling overwhelmed and negative, maybe more critical, do they pull that person that is optimistic down into their level of happiness? Which brings up the question, as if birds of a feather flock together, are happy people attracted to other happy people?

And does misery truly love company? And then that becomes the tie that binds the relationship. But Dr. Gwendolyn shares that research has shown that this similarity tends to increase over time, whatever that similarity is, meaning that people have the potential to grow even happier together or sadder or angrier. And this could be because both people in the relationship experience similar life events and that affects their happiness.

But what researchers started to look at was another very intriguing possibility that partners could have more of an influence on each other and their levels of happiness. Meaning, pretty simply put, that happiness or unhappiness could be contagious. And more importantly, if that is the case, which partner in the relationship is more likely to influence the other? And is that influence going to be for good or not? Not as good. New research by Olga Strovra.

That's take five. I don't know how many of these have been edited out. We'll try another one. New research by Olga Strovra and William Chopik, published in the journal Social, Psychological, and Personality Science, explores well-being contagion within couples. And I think it's pretty important to note the word contagion here refers to the phenomenon where emotional states, in this case, well-being, are transferred or spread from one person to another.

Kind of similar to how a biological contagion, like a virus, can be passed between individuals. An emotional contagion suggests that feelings or moods can also be caught or influenced by those that we interact with, especially in close relationships like romantic partnerships. So in this context, well-being contagion means the transmission or spread of

well-being or happiness, and as we're going to keep talking about, potentially unhappiness between partners in a couple's relationship.

Relationship so how how do partners influence each other's happiness have you ever heard of somebody being a bucket dipper as opposed to a bucket filler or how about the concept of an emotional vampire which is one of my favorites not even looking for a laugh with that because i know it's a metaphorical term that sometimes people use to describe a person who tends to be a drain on the emotional energy of others you know they in essence suck the fun or suck the

life out out of another person or an entire situation. So an emotional vampire in this context might be somebody who either consciously or unconsciously dominates interactions with negative emotions, complaints, pessimism, or any kind of drama. And that kind of behavior can have a significant impact on the emotional state of their partner or those around them.

So just as happiness or well-being can be contagious in a relationship, then you can start to see where negativity and unhappiness can be as well because if you have this we'll do a quick tangent here but if if you're in a relationship where one partner is more of this bucket dipper or an emotional vampire you might find that there is the negative emotional influence you know that emotional vampire often imposes their negative feelings

and moods on their partner which leads to a decrease in the partner's overall happiness and satisfaction and there is a a tangible energy drain because interactions with this person playing the role as an emotional vampire can can leave the other person feeling exhausted, less enthusiastic about activities than they usually enjoy because they already start to create this relationship or relational frame that when they bring up

something, it's going to be met with a, here are all the negative things about that activity or that person or whatever the event is. And it really does lead to this imbalance in emotional exchange because when you have one person that is more emotionally draining, they require a lot of emotional support.

They rarely, if ever, reciprocate. So that starts to feel really one-sided so that the one person in the relationship starts to lose their sense of self and they start to then feel like their job is to manage the emotions of the emotional vampire. And it can absolutely have an impact on things like fun and enjoyment because the bucket dipper, the emotional vampire.

Most likely is going to consistently bring down the mood in situations that are meant to be be enjoyable or relaxing, literally kind of sucking that fun out of these moments. Probably not literal, but figuratively sucking the fun out of those moments. And normally, it would be the goal then to explore the behaviors that have led to somebody expressing those life-sucking behaviors. You know, well, let's go back and let's understand the reasons behind such behavior.

Is it personality traits? Is their past experiences, their current stressors? Is it their childhood?

And can we use those to address the issues and maybe improve the relationship's health? Most likely, yes. The couples therapist in me wants to say that, yeah, you can absolutely do that. But then the challenge can be that it does take two to tango while we're on the cliched path today. It actually reminds me, I'll tell you very quickly, I'm a story about, we'll call her Emily, somebody I worked with a while ago.

She was very smart. She was very good at her job, but she had a hard time keeping friends. Making them was not so bad, keeping them definitely a challenge. And she came to me very confused, upset, wanting to know why did she always feel so alone? And the more that we started talking about it, digging into what was going on with her, we found out that she had a habit of always just talking about the bad stuff, where she would talk about nice things and it was very complimentary.

But then we started to notice that when somebody came into her orbit, then it was all about the negative things.

She would complain about something or tell people how hard her life was compared to theirs and I'm relating this story in the context of the therapy setting I was very grateful that I was able to see these patterns over weeks and months play out because that was how we were able to get to the point where she recognized those as well as I said tell me more talk about that where's that come from. And at first, I thought she was more or less just bending, just kind of getting things off her chest.

But the more we talked, the clearer it became that she started to rely on her problems to get noticed. Because we all want to be seen. We all want to be heard. And she started to feel like if she wasn't talking about her struggles, then nobody would pay attention to her. And we were able to trace that back to that was the way that people felt seen and heard in her family dynamic growing up. And that was where there was the real eye-opener for her.

Because she started to see that she would she would bring somebody into her world positively and then just negative and act like nobody else could really understand her or what her experience was and that almost felt like this subconscious mission and it actually was pushing people away and it was making it really tough for others to be around her because it was very draining so we worked on that and it took time and we focused on her being very curious

and noticing her discomfort and not trying to get rid of that discomfort and this is one of those that it was was difficult, but she really put in the effort. And I get to say one of those happily ever after things started to change and people respond a little bit differently, but more, she started finding herself around more people that were in essence, the people that probably weren't going to try to manage her emotions or anxiety, or they would see through her in the past.

And people started to actually like to hang out with her and not just because they felt sorry, because they genuinely liked being around her. And she over time liked being around herself. She was somebody that now could find connection, but it took a lot of work. There's something about her story that it's more of a reminder of how the way that we talk and interact and the things that we talk about, they really do shape our relationships.

And I think that's gonna go into play more in the study that we're talking about, that by being more aware and making these changes, she was able to turn things around for herself. It was a her thing, it really was. It was awesome to see, and that really helped her show up different. Okay, I couldn't help myself. I did take a break. I came back to the sun a different time. And I did take the script, the transcript up to this point.

I had a thought during a session, and I just plugged it into ChatGPT because I'm talking about going back to Tennessee. And I said, can you now tell Emily stories if I were speaking to a group of non-educated backwoods hillbilly folk who use as many southern phrases as possible whenever they speak, and they use poor grammar as well? ChatGPT, here's where it does not let you down. So here we go. All right, y'all, gather around and let me spin a yarn about a gal named Emily.

Now, Emily, bless her heart, she was sharper than a tack, but couldn't seem to make no friends stick around. She come to me one day, madder than a wet hen, wondering why she was always lonesome as a pine tree on a mountaintop. When we got to John, and it dawned on us quicker than a hiccup, Emily had a habit of yammering about all her troubles. If she weren't complaining, she was as quiet as a church mouse. She thought her woes were her ticket to folks paying her any mind.

At first, I reckoned she was just spilling her beans, but it turned out complaining was her way of fishing for attention. She felt if she wasn't bellyaching, uh, shit. If she wasn't bellyaching, she'd be about as noticeable as a needle in a haystack. When she cottoned on to this, her eyes got as big as saucers. She realized her constant griping and saying nobody could walk a mile in her shoes was shooing folks away faster than cats at a dogfight. It was plum tuckering out anybody around her.

So we rolled up our sleeves and got down to brass tacks. We worked on getting her to talk about something other than her hard knocks. It was tougher than trying to nail jelly to a wall. But Emily, she's tough as nails, I'll tell you. And lo and behold, things started to change. Folks began to warm up to her, not because they pitied her, because they genuinely took a shine to her. She wasn't just the gal who always cried the blues anymore.

She became someone they liked having around, like sweet tea on a hot day.

So telling you all about Emily's, like reminding ourselves how our chit-chat and what we chin-wag about can paint the barn of our friendships. By switching gears and mixing it up, Emily turned her boat around in the creek. freak. She's living proof that a little change can make a big old difference. Now, ain't that something? Okay, so back to the research by Dr. Gwendolyn Seideman.

And she said that moods do tend to be contagious and that there have been numerous studies on depression that show that depressive states can then be contagious between people. And this is especially likely to occur in couples whose day-to-day experiences become very intertwined, which I think that we saw a lot of that during the pandemic when everybody was shut in together, husband, wife, or spouse, spouse, spouse, and then kids as well.

And then one study found that on days when one partner reported a poor mood, so did the other. And I don't know if I would call this the power of persuasion or self-fulfilling prophecy, but one of the things that I often hear from couples that I personally work with is something that I believe I learned from Dr. Kevin Skinner long ago when I went through his betrayal trauma certification.

But I feel like the memory I have is him saying that, hey, only one person in the relationship can have a bad day at a time. And again, I could have completely confabulated that entire memory, but the concept has worked out in my own relationship and then people that I've worked with where if one person is particularly down, then I've got this. Then I will shine through and then vice versa, where there's one person to pick things up, pick up the slack for the other person.

But from this research, back to that concept that this one study found that on days when one partner reported poor mood, so did the other.

And I realize even as I'm saying this out loud, as a marriage therapist, as somebody that does, you know, every way, I think we all have our ups and our downs, that it can, when you're really feeling down, and then this is where I go to my concept of your emotional baseline, that when everything is clicking and your your baseline of emotions are high, then it's not as difficult to deal with everything that's coming at you day to day.

But when you do start to feel down for a lot of different reasons, and your baseline of emotions lowers, it can be really difficult to access the tools you need to just simply respond and show up in the day. And at times, that's when I think that people can really appreciate their partner who is stepping up for them in that moment.

But I almost feel like Like if we continue on this emotional baseline concept that if the person gets too low, then they start to feel like, oh, I bet the person, my partner doesn't even really want to be here with me anyway. So it can be tricky. I know it's not a one size fits all. But then it goes to the which partner has more influence. Is it the happier partner or the less happy partner? This, this is the question.

Because a lot of the research in psychology supports the notion that bad in general is stronger than good that we have this default to the negative the buddha brain talks about the brain is teflon for the positive and velcro for the negative that we hang on to these negative memories because that's a bit of a evolutionary survival skill because we think that if we just are thinking that everything is rainbows and unicorns that then we are not going

to be paying attention when the woolly mammoth turns and rounds the corner and then stomps us or whatever woolly mammoths do, Some of the psychology, the research in psychology shows that, for example, people are much more upset about losing $20 than they are happy about gaining $20. And so then in studies of marital conflict, negative behaviors have a far bigger influence on satisfaction than positive behaviors do.

And negative social interactions have a much larger influence on health and well-being than positive do. So this does start to suggest that the unhappy partner is more likely to influence the happy partner than vice versa. And let's dig into a little bit more of just the actual research itself. Stavovra and Chopik used data from two large long-term studies of couples. And the first study included a sample of over 18,000 couples who completed an annual survey for 37 years.

And each year, both partners rated their level of life satisfaction on a 10-point scale. The results showed that the happier partner experienced a decrease in satisfaction over time, whereas the less happy partner held steady. And then by the end of the 37 years, the initially happier partner experienced on average a 2.2 point drop in satisfaction. And this change was so profound that by the end of the 37 years on average, the happier partner had become actually then the less happy partner.

So they'd gone from the happier partner, took this drop, and then now actually went below the happy partner.

And this is just my thoughts here, but I feel like at times I do see that because the person who is more enthusiastic or the person that is the eternal optimist, that if they cannot, if they almost feel like if they can't get their spouse to join them in trying to make the most of situations or being overly optimistic or positive or putting a positive spin on everything, that they start to feel like, man, I must be doing something really wrong. If I can't get this person I care about.

Come along with me on this journey of, hey, things aren't so bad. And so it's that concept where we really, we're all looking through our own lens. And so it's hard to not think that it must be something that I am doing when there could be a version where you are doing all that you can be doing.

And it really is the issue of your partner and not saying that with judgment. So then to test a broader set of variables relating to well-being, the researchers also also analyzed data from a Dutch sample of about 3,000 couples who were surveyed annually for 14 years. Respondents completed questionnaires assessing their life satisfaction, their positive emotions, their negative emotions, and their self-esteem.

And for all four of these outcomes, the happier partner scores declined over time and the less happy partners improved somewhat. But they didn't exactly meet in the middle. The declines experienced by the happier partner were greater than the improvements experienced by the less happy partner. So a savvy reader, Dr. Gwendolyn says, may suspect that this occurred because the happiest people just tend to show the biggest declines. When you start really high, then there's a long way to fall.

However, additional analysis revealed that this wasn't the case either in these in either of these studies. That this was not the case in either of these studies. It was the participants participants who were the least happy to start with who showed the largest declines in well-being. What does that say? That these studies both found that well-being is contagious.

That a romantic partner's happiness level tends to become more and more similar over time, but the two partners meeting in somewhere in the middle. However, rather than the two partners meeting somewhere in the middle, the less happy partner had an outsized influence. And so with so many other their psychological phenomena, the good outweighs the bad. And the less happy partner tends to bring the happier partner down.

What have we learned today? And I will end with a little bit of what I would call a special treat. I have a summary that just delivered a little bit off the cuff. And then I went back through and I took the transcript and then asked the folks at ChatGPT, the robots, the behind the scenes, to then countrify it up. And so then I'll end there. but the non-counterfeit version that I really like this concept or just the awareness of an emotional contagion in relationships.

Because we talked today about how the negative person, that the positive person declines more and meets that negative person a little bit more of where they're at. But I think that if we are aware of that contagion in relationships, the emotional contagion and we can start to differentiate. So the positive person continuing to be them because that is a them issue.

If they find themselves starting to play small so that others around them will not feel less secure, it's part of that Marianne Williamson poem that I'm tempted to read again right now, but you are learning that everything is an opportunity for you to self-confront and grow.

And it can be scary to differentiate from a partner who is starting to feel down but that might be where they operate from and not anything that is because of you but because of their own childhood abandonment attachment nature nurture dna all those things that that make that their base to operate from so that doesn't mean that anything is wrong with you for continuing to operate from this place where you feel like you're being more you authentic being more authentic being

more positive and that isn't so that you will bring your partner up with you, but so that you will be living your very best life. And then if there were any, if there was a chance to then help raise your couple's emotional baseline, then it would be coming from a place where your own baseline is high. And I talked about Emily's story, the person who struggled to maintain close relationships because there were constant negativity and complaints.

And I shared that story because it's very real, but it does show that you need to be intentional about the work that you're doing. That wasn't something where she just listened to a podcast or read a book and it happened overnight, there was a lot of her returning back to that home base of her feeling like a pretty negative person. And it took quite a while to get that awareness or recognition that that was something that was her default.

And it took a lot for her to start to create new neural pathways in her brain, but it really did work. And she turned that situation around. So some takeaways, a couple of things you can do. It's basically just being aware of your emotional influence and whether it's on someone else, but primarily on yourself, because it's that power of your emotional state, because it's okay to acknowledge that your mood has a significant impact on people that are around you.

And constant negativity will dampen the spirits of your partner and your friends. And I'm not trying to say this with judgment, but with opportunity for awareness, self-confrontation, growth, all those wonderful things. If you are aware, then now you're on your path. You didn't know what you didn't know, now you know. But it's maybe a little bit difficult to put that into action of starting to try to be more intentional about being positive.

And over time, you'll do it more than you don't. And then eventually, I promise you, you will become, if you are on this journey, Become a person who is in that moment, being present and taking it all in. Back to this experience over the weekend, speaking at this funeral, when I arrived at the service, apparently that was something that I was in charge of. And I thought that there were a lot more things that had been put together or put in place.

And I did find that that was one of these experiences where I think all of the work over the years of being present and mindful and being intentional about just this is happening. Happening and it's not going to help me to get down or beat myself up or play that victim mode. So then when the person said to the person from the funeral home said, all right, so what do you need? And tell me when you're ready to start.

And I was saying, I think I need a lot of things, but because I really don't know what's going on, but I thought, well, but here we are, let's do this. So then just being so present in that moment. And it was such a, such an incredible experience. And I was grateful for that, that ability to be in that moment and be present. And then second Second is, I'd say the final takeaway is to reflect and then adapt.

And we'll go back to Emily's journey. If you find yourself in a similar situation where you start approaching your communication. Where your approach to communication is affecting your relationships, then just first start to be aware. And you will be aware in the moment that you're even doing it.

And it might be hard to get out of it in that moment. But just be able to step back from that situation, reflect, and sometimes make a conscious effort to change how you express yourself by incorporating more positive and affirming language. And be curious. One of the best things you can do if you're not sure what to to do when you are interacting with other people is be curious.

Pretend that you're an interviewer, that you don't know anything about them, and then watch as you still want to then cue up your response. And then just notice that and be in that moment. Be curious. People like to be heard. They like to be understood. They really do. And by doing that, it can really improve your interactions, which then will start to improve your relationships.

I think it's important to keep in mind that, yes, our emotions are the way we express ourselves, and they play a really crucial role in our relationships. And it is within our power of choice in that moment of what we share and how we share it.

Now, at first, it might not seem that way, but with some work and building in a pause and maybe a nice mindfulness technique or practice on a daily basis will help you build in that pause, then you will feel more powerful and be able to be more intentional the way that you are expressing yourself in your relationships and just as a human being. So, I appreciate everybody joining me today. If you have thoughts or comments, feel free to share them.

And now, now I will end with a good old chat GPT taking the transcript of the wrapping things up like I just did. And then it put it right back into that same voice. Here we go. Hey, y'all. I can't even pull the accent without laughing, but out in the wild, I can sure do it. But hey, y'all, as we're fixing to wrap up today's episode, let's do a quick recap and leave y'all with some food for thought.

We dive deep into how happiness and unhappiness can spread in relationships, kind of like catching a cold from your partner, but with emotions. And we talked about a study showing how folks in a couple tend to start matching each other's moods over time, and more often than not, it's the unhappiness

that spreads easier than a butter on a hot cornbread. Ed. And we also spun a tale about Emily, who was as lonesome as a left sock in a dryer because she couldn't keep friends due to her constant griping and groaning, but bless her heart. She turned her story around when she realized she was spreading more gloom than a cloudy day in November. First takeaway, mind your moods. Remember y'all, your mood's like a wildflower, it can spread fast.

And if you're always down in the dumps, it's like throwing a wet blanket over a campfire. So try to mix in some good news and smiles with your gripes, and it'll be like adding sugar to lemonade, makes makes everything sweeter. Takeaway two, listen and change. Secondly, if you find yourself in Emily's boots feeling as useful as a screen door on a submarine when it comes to making friends, might be time to look in the mirror. Sometimes we got to change our tune to play a better melody.

And if all you do is complaining, try throwing in some good stuff about your day. You might just find folks sticking to you like molasses. So there you have it, folks. As we close the barn door on this episode, remember, happiness and sadness can spread quicker than gossip in a small town. It's up to us to decide what we're sharing. Now, y'all take care now. Don't forget to tune in next time for another heaping helping of down home wisdom and stories.

Taking us out per usual, the wonderful, the talented, Aurora Florence with her song, It's Wonderful. Have a great week. We'll. Music.