196. The 5 Nervous System Response Mechanisms in Love: The Fight Response

The 5 Nervous System Response Mechanisms in Love:
The Fight Response

The 5 nervous system response mechanisms in love: the fight response This episode is part of a series of 5 episodes on the 5 nervous system response mechanisms and how they impact your relationship, starting at episode 195 and ending at episode 199. If you are new to the podcast and unfamiliar with the influence of the nervous system on your relationships, I invite you to listen to episodes 152 The impact of the nervous system on your relationships, 153 The 4 categories of love patterns and 154 The 3 states of your nervous system and the polyvagal scale. You can also read my book S’ouvrir a l’amour, and if the solution lay on the side of the vagus nerve? if you want to identify your own mechanisms and patterns. This episode is for you if you have the feeling of having to fight in relationships (not necessarily by choice, but you must), that you cannot count on others, that anger/frustration are often present in your relationships, or that you need to control a lot (and others reproach you for it). Having accompanied more than 600 people, the fight response is one of the most exhausting mechanisms in the long term.

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The mechanisms of the fight response

  • Mistrust and anticipating the worst, hypervigilance, need to control
  • Power struggles instead of teamwork
  • Hyper-independence instead of vulnerability
  • Feeling that you cannot count on others
  • Exploding easily, lots of anger and resentment in your relationships
  • Self-sabotage, creating unnecessary conflicts in the relationship, addicted to drama and chaos
  • Demanding nature, perfectionism, high expectations, feeling of being at war with yourself (“I must be…, I must not… to be loved”), harsh inner dialogue

If your partner is in this state, you may feel

  • That they jump at you, seek to “win” the discussion rather than co-constructing
  • That they want to keep control over you or the relationship, or that they decide everything
  • That they are too demanding, always in blame mode
  • That they never apologise or have difficulty acknowledging their wrongs (bad faith)
  • That they are defensive and don’t want to listen to or understand you
  • That they are intense, moody — sometimes passionate and sometimes detached
  • That they don’t open up
  • That they seek conflict, create problems
  • Like you are being attacked, criticised, or that everything becomes a duel
  • Like you are on the defensive
  • Like you have to walk on eggshells so they don’t explode

For you

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Thoughts in this state

Generally, mistrust and anticipating the worst — the other person is the enemy
  • “If I don’t take control, I’ll suffer”
  • “I have to be strong, I can’t be weak”
  • “They’ll use me/get me, I might as well attack first”
  • “I can’t trust anyone, I have to manage on my own”
  • “Why am I destroying or self-sabotaging my relationship?”
  • “I’m right, the other person isn’t…”

Emotions in this state

  • Emotional over-reactions (more intensity and more reactivity)
  • Anger, irritation, in pressure-cooker mode, wanting to fight or say no to everything by default
  • Frustration, feeling of not being listened to or respected, injustice
  • Nervous excitement, tension
  • Alternating anxiety and aggressiveness
  • Sense of urgency, responding to external triggers

Physiologically, activation of the sympathetic state

  • You are agitated, you have a surge of energy (“stress burst”).
  • Your heart rate and blood pressure increase and blood flows primarily to your legs and arms.
  • Muscles are tense, ready to act (clenched fists, tense jaw, thighs).
  • Your breathing is faster or more shallow.
  • Your facial expression is rigid, not very flexible. Your cheeks flush.
  • You can no longer filter out background noise, which becomes intrusive, because your nervous system, in a state of hypervigilance, tunes into lower and higher frequencies than the human voice, in order to detect the presence of danger.
  • Your voice is shrill, too loud.
If this becomes chronic, you may suffer from bruxism, constant tension in the shoulders and back, you may have a more sensitive digestive system (you may lose your appetite or feel nauseous), higher blood pressure, rigidity in the muscles, lots of muscle cramps, headaches.

Some possible origins from your past

  • A period of chronic stress, just on the edge before burnout
  • A shock event where you were unable to defend yourself and whose sympathetic energy is still circulating in your body (aggression, the birth of your child, an accident, surgery…)
  • Disorganised attachment, childhood in a conflictual environment: “to exist, I had to attack or not show my vulnerability”
  • Lack of emotional security and attentiveness in your childhood where you developed the mechanism “I fight to be seen/valued”
  • A dominant or authoritarian parent: you are reproducing the mechanism of the violence you experienced

How to change this mechanism?

If this is your dominant mechanism
  • Learning to communicate your needs and limits early enough, without fighting (generally in this state you can still feel them).
  • Learning vulnerability: that connection is not created through combat.
  • Laying down your arms: working on cooperation rather than competition as a couple — co-creating a safe space where no one has to “win” the conflict.
  • Breaking out of the cycle of reactive violence/anger.
Physiologically, this means you need to process all your repressed anger (stored sympathetic energy) through different somatic approaches (breathwork, discharges, emotional release massage) to have more room to manoeuvre, work on chronic inflammation and learn to identify the signals of healthy anger (a warmth in the chest and belly, a slight tension in the jaw and arms ready to act, tension in the back and legs) to respond differently and no longer need to enter the cycle of violence. This mechanism will stop expressing itself in dominance when your nervous system has had enough evidence that you can have your needs respected without attacking. The Day of the Past option that I offer in my programmes helps you to deprogram the love pattern — through my Somatic Deprogramming method — that makes you use this dominant mechanism in an inappropriate way, and to reprogram a new, more adapted mechanism, for example communicating your needs and limits earlier. You will still need to accumulate evidence. When this is your response mechanism for a given situation
  • Identify the bodily signals that tell you you are in fight mode: tense muscles, raised voice, tension around the mouth.
  • Stop the escalation: step away from your source of anger or use a code word to stop the escalation and use somatic practices to process the anger all the way through.
  • Let your partner know your mechanism has been activated so they don’t take it as an attack.
  • Ask yourself how/when to communicate your need/limit earlier.

Pour aller plus loin

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Going further

💕 OPENING UP TO LOVE — if you are single A 5-month programme to do deep work on your love life, identify and transform your love patterns, and meet someone with whom to build the relationship of your dreams.
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Sandy Kaufmann

is a somatic therapist and coach, based in Switzerland. She is the author of two books published by Editions Eyrolles and has accompanied more than 600 people. She is the creator of the Somatic Deprogramming method and hosts the podcast “S’ouvrir a l’amour“, ranked in the French top 50 in the relationships category.

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