How To Stop Managing Other People's Emotions

When you grow up in chaos, you develop a skillset to help you maintain the illusion of control. Some of you may have become hyper-aware of your surroundings and the people around you. You learned to study faces, energy, and behavior. You know what mom sounds like when she’s had too much to drink or what dad’s face looks like right before he snaps. You think, “If I can anticipate and plan for their moods, everything will be okay, and I will be safe.”

You attempt to manage their emotional experience so that there are no surprises. But, it doesn’t always work, harming potential healthy relationships.

Attempting To Manage Someone Else’s Emotional Experience May Look Like This:

• walking on eggshells or trying to augment your behavior or speech to not “set them off”
• asking “Are you ok?” repeatedly and/or not accepting their answers
• trying to read their emotions through facial expressions, body language, and/or behavior
• believing that you can control or manage someone’s emotions if you do the “right” thing
• trying to make your emotions smaller so they have more room to express theirs
• trying to anticipate or predict someone’s emotions or their potential reaction
• taking responsibility or blame for someone else’s emotions

Full disclosure: I used to do all of these things constantly. I still slip back into this pattern from time to time.

I thought if I did everything just right, I could manage their reactions, mood, and my day. Sometimes it seemed to work, and other times it didn’t. This isn’t because I wasn’t managing their emotions well that day. You can do everything right, and people will still react unexpectedly.

Disclaimer: We impact people’s moods through our words and actions. You can’t be mean to everyone and expect nothing to happen. And attempting to manage someone else’s emotions still doesn’t work.

Sometimes It’s About Safety

This type of emotional management often happens in abusive and toxic relationships. Typically, the victim is trying to avoid the usual negative consequences in the relationship. It’s an attempt to assert power and control, stabilize the dynamic, and make it less risky.

In some situations, managing someone’s emotional state is about survival or safety. If you are currently in a situation where there is the threat of physical harm, abuse, or serious injustice, it’s crucial to prioritize safety, gather resources and support, and plan your actions in a way that allows you to exit or manage the relationship safely. Leaving a violent relationship can be dangerous and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

If you needed to do this to survive or just get by in a past relationship, you’ll likely carry out the same behavior in other relationships where it’s totally unnecessary.

This is the primary pattern that we need to interrupt. When you grow up in a chaotic home, you internalize this skill, and it becomes second nature. You will continue to do it in relationships where it doesn’t fit. This can negatively impact a healthy, functioning relationship.

You can have an impact on others through your behavior and words. You cannot manage someone’s entire emotional experience, and you are not to blame for their bad moods, outbursts, or violence. Ultimately, trying to manage someone’s emotions becomes exhausting and futile. You will never win. You’ll completely lose touch with your own emotional experience. We have to learn to let people feel what they feel and not take responsibility for that expression of emotion.

How To Stop Managing Their Emotions

If you find yourself trying to manage other people’s emotions, here are some questions to help you explore that:

• Who modeled this type of behavior in your family? Did any of your family members attempt to manage the emotions of others?
• Where did you learn that you could manage other people’s emotions?
• Who in your life has blamed you for their emotions or behavior?
• Did anyone ever say things like, “Well, if you didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have reacted that way,” or something similar?
• Do you ever blame yourself for someone else’s emotional state?
• Why do you feel you must walk on eggshells and monitor their mood?
• Have you ever mispredicted their reaction?
• How did the adults around you manage their emotions? Did they blame you whenever they would react explosively or negatively?
• Were you responsible for supporting or helping the adults around you emotionally?
• Are any behaviors that kept you safe as a child getting in your way as an adult?

Some Reminders

• You cannot be totally to blame for someone’s emotional state or reactions.
• Remember that we cannot successfully predict how someone will react in every situation.
• We learn many things in childhood that kept us safe then and no longer work as adults.
• You can respond the “right way” and understand all the emotions, but some people will still react negatively or blame you.

They Have To Learn To Manage Their Own Emotions

People have to learn to regulate their own emotions, and this means we have to give them the opportunity to do so. Sometimes, this means watching them struggle.

Practice allowing people to feel what they’re feeling while keeping yourself safe. You are allowed to set boundaries around how they express their feelings, and it is not your job to manage the experience.

• It is not my job to fix them.
• I am allowed to keep myself and those who depend on me safe.
• I cannot predict how someone will behave when they’re upset.
• I should not feel like I’m walking on eggshells in my home.
• This is a coping skill I learned in childhood. I have power and options as an adult.
• I can't feel my feelings if I am always focused on how they feel.