Oh, I love this question. And I want you to know, before I say anything else, that freezing is not weakness. It is not a character flaw. It is not you being broken. It is you being a perfectly designed human animal who learned something very important a long time ago.
Here is what is actually happening.
At some point in your life, probably when you were young and you had no other options, you were around someone whose anger was dangerous, or overwhelming, or just really, really scary. And you could not say no to it. You could not leave. You could not fight back. Maybe if you had, things would have gotten worse. Maybe you still had to sleep there for the next fourteen years of your life. So your whole system learned, when anger shows up, I survive by going still. By placating. By making myself small. By disappearing a little bit.
That is not a flaw. That was genius. That kept you safe.
The tragedy is that your nervous system does not know the difference between then and now. When your partner gets angry, even if it is your partner stubbing their toe and going “for God’s sake,” something in you goes, oh no. Here we go. I know this feeling. I have to survive this. And you freeze.
And here is the painful part that I really want you to sit with. When you freeze, your partner often reads that as something else entirely. They might feel like you are dismissing them, or shutting them out, or not caring. So their hurt gets bigger. And that tells your nervous system, see, I was right, this IS dangerous. And the whole thing spirals.
Neither of you is the villain in this story. You are both just two people carrying old wounds, bumping into each other in the dark.
What I want for you eventually, and this is real, this is possible, is to be able to stay in the room even when it is scary. To be able to say to your partner, “when you raise your voice, even a little, I go right back to being that kid who had no options.” And for them to hear that. And hold it. And say, “I see you. I’m not that person. You’re safe.”
That is the work. That is where it goes. But first, you have to stop being ashamed of the freeze. It has been protecting you your whole life. It just doesn’t need to do that job anymore.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: Emotional Safety in Relationships: What It Means and How to Build It
