When our partners have moods it’s difficult in relationships because it can trigger us. They can remind us of silences or sulks from our histories so our reactions can be fear-based due to these associations.

When we experienced the moods of the adults and older siblings in our childhood family home they perhaps had a negative impact on us and our well-being. Now as adults when we live with our partners, the environment is very similar and when someone has a mood, it triggers us in to fear and powerlessness.

Intense negative atmospheres are difficult to handle when we’re young and it imprints into us certain scripts. For eg: ‘it’s not good when other people are upset’, ‘I can’t cope with weird feelings’ or ‘I need to do something to fix this’.

We need emotional boundaries around other people’s moods because they can potentially have the power to really impact and control us. We can start walking on eggshells or we can be reactive and allow ourselves to be invited into destructive dynamics.

Lovingly separating from someone in a mood is healthy. That said, we can try to stay connected and offer a demonstration of love to our partners. Extending compassion and care, reassurance or validation. That in itself may dissolve the mood.

Detach With Love means emotionally detaching from our loved ones but staying lovingly in relationship, thinking positively of them, while taking an emotional step away from someone’s else’s emotional experience.

We all have moods, and we can trust moods will pass. So how can we not demonise our partners and look after ourselves while they’re happening? We can work on having compassion and understanding so we don’t become punishing or annoyed with our partner for being in a mood. In our codependency we mistake it for something happening to us. But it’s not happening to us, it’s something our partners are experiencing – leave it to them.

We can be too velcro and get stuck into things that aren’t for us to process or deal with. If you know you can get drawn in or take responsibility for other people or get upset when others are upset, this is the moment for boundaries and self-care.

We don’t need to absorb bad moods and take them on as our own. Instead we detach and carry on with our own lives, while remaining loving and warm with our partners, ready to love and move on as normal when they come out of the mood.

The danger is we get triggered by our partner’s mood, get drawn in, a fight ensues and then that’s another thing to have to deal with as well as the original mood.

There are a lot of bumps along the way in relationships: moods, mistakes, daily irritations and upsets, we don’t need to get emotionally embroiled with each and every one.

It helps us not become enmeshed with our partners so we can stay healthily separate and appropriately involved rather than codependently entangled and over-involved.