What is Emotional Dumping?

Anger and Relationships Series Part 2

In addition to being a confusing emotion, which was discussed in a prior piece, I believe that anger is an emotion that has the most potential of weakening our relationships, if we are not careful. This is due to the fact that feeling right, or justified when angry, often leads us to emotionally dump these feelings onto our loved ones. For this piece, I will explain how our tendency to emotionally dump when we feel angry with our loved ones, needs to change, if we want our relationships with them to remain secure and strong.

Emotional dumping is not a psychological term per se, but is a phrase I use because I feel that it accurately expresses what we are doing in the moment, when we unload all of our emotions onto our loved ones. In an earlier piece, I explained the importance of changing our tendency to blame when problems arise within our relationships, because it prevents us from thinking of creative solutions. An additional factor why it is important to sidestep blame, is because blaming is one of the reasons why we dump all of our negative emotions onto our loved ones, in the heat of these angry moments. When we blame, we tend to think in terms of right and wrong. If it is my loved one’s fault, then that means it is not mine and therefore I can feel righteous in my anger. When we think in the short term, unloading these emotions can help us feel better, because we are getting rid of the feelings that are making us feel bad. But in the long run, when we are calmer and realize the recipients of these emotions were our loved ones, these feelings will often change to regret, guilt, and shame. If this habit becomes a pattern, this cycle will eventually cause the relationship to weaken, since the intensity of these emotions will cause each person to treat each other more and more like enemies. 

There are various ways we emotionally dump in the moment which range from explicit cursing, to implicit statements that make our loved ones feel that they are the cause of all of our problems. It is important to consider if this is something that occurs when you are upset with your loved one, whether being “right” is a good enough reason to put your relationship with your loved one at risk. I put quotation marks around right because when it comes to our relationships, this question of right or wrong usually becomes relative. I could feel like I am “right”, but that does not mean my partner or child may not also be “right” about how they perceive the situation. For example, when it comes to learning how to budget, I may feel that I am “right” in wanting my partner to save more, and will feel frustrated every time he does not save the amount that I feel is the “right” amount to save. However, from my partner’s perspective, he may believe that he is “right” to not save more, because he wants to live in the moment and not worry so much about having enough in the future. In this situation, the issue is not about what is the right way to budget or save, but about understanding that there is a difference in perspective on what we consider to be meaningful living. When we focus on being “right”, we lose sight of the underlying issue that is actually causing the repetitive arguments. Even though it is out of love that I may want my partner to save more, that love gets lost in translation, if I dump my frustrations on him, every time we fight about this issue. The emotional dumping will cause him to only remember the anger I expressed, which will make him emotionally believe that I am his enemy, rather than someone that deeply cares about him and his well-being.

Another example that often leads to emotional dumping occurs, when I am trying to teach my child how to have healthy organizational habits, when managing various aspects of their lives, such as physical hygiene, time management and fulfilling responsibilities. Here again, as a parent, I am not wrong to want my child to learn to manage her responsibilities in a way that I know would cause less stress for her. However, it is also inaccurate to assume that my child is giving me a hard time on purpose when she does not follow my advice. We have to remember that we already lived through our mistakes, and it was through having experienced the stress around procrastination that we learned the importance of being organized. Or, we may never have procrastinated ourselves and just do not understand why she does. Regardless of how "right" we may feel to want our children to have different habits, that does not mean that they are wrong for not listening to us. Our children have the “right” to make the mistakes they need to make, in order to figure out for themselves the need to change their work ethic and habits. We do not have the “right” as parents, to emotionally dump on our kids in these moments, just because we believe that we know better. In addition to being harmful for the relationship, our children will only remember feeling like we, as their parents do not believe in them, because of the criticism and anger that we express during these fights. These memories will ultimately lower their self-esteem, which is the complete opposite of what we want.  

It is important to understand that it is because we are close to our loved ones, that we must have boundaries in how we express our anger towards them. Because we love each other, it is that much easier to emotionally harm our loved ones, if we forget that there is a line that should not be crossed when we are angry or frustrated with each other. As long as we do not emotionally unload on our loved ones when we are frustrated with them, most arguments can be resolved in a way that feels good, for all of us. The key here is all of us. Even when I may be “right” and may win the argument with my loved one, I will not be able to feel only good about winning because I made my loved one feel like they lost out in this process. This is especially true when we are unloading our negative feelings onto our children, because the natural power difference between us, will cause our children to feel exponentially more criticized in this process. Habitual emotional dumping will not lead to any of the positive outcomes that we think it could lead to, and will only serve to isolate ourselves from those closest to us. It is natural to have arguments with our loved ones, and I believe we can have arguments with the clear intent of strengthening our understanding of each other, without losing control. Being mindful of emotional dumping will bring us a step closer to achieving this goal.