Rte. 180 a rough road indeed.

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.
• Position: PARTING THOUGHTS

TWENTY YEARS of working in mental health has yielded useful heuristics to uproot the source of dilemmas. The tendency for smart, competent people to resort reflexively to something nearly 180 degrees off from an optimal choice will be of no surprise to students of philosophy or fans of "I Love Lucy." This error--combined with a societal allergy to anything middle-ish because it smacks of mediocrity--leads to all sorts of trouble.

All too often, people's reactions to a difficult situation is the opposite of what would be helpful, but it can seem to be just the right thing to do. Alternately, people choose extremes because a moderate choice feels like compromise, and compromise (except when Republicans do it) is considered a failure. Perhaps you will recognize someone you know in these examples:

The approach we often take to a relationship problem is wrong. Typically, the error is not just a little off-center--it is in the wrong direction entirely. Case in point: the particular types of experiences that create overwhelming stress will vary tremendously between people, including between couples. One person thrives on the bright lights and noise of Times Square, and another on the quiet of dusk in a pine forest. Just so, in an argument, one becomes overwhelmed easily while the other keeps a cool head longer. The excitable partner is flooded biologically by adrenaline--heart racing and unable to think clearly as the argument escalates; he (it usually is a male, because this sort of flooding occurs at a lower heart rate setting for men) either shuts down or attempts to withdraw physically. Meanwhile, the other partner, already keyed up, panics at being abandoned or is further enraged at being unheard, and turns up the distress signal another notch, which causes the overwhelmed person go into full-blown, red-alert escape mode.

Each one is doing too much in one direction or another: one needs to dial it back, the other to find a way to calm down enough to stay present and offer some sort of useful feedback. Instead, the reflexive responses exacerbate the problems at hand and create new ones. This happens in romantic relationships, of course, but also in other family and friend interactions.

Another way the 180-degree rule manifests in relationships is via the abuse of the truth. Every married couple knows this script: Partner A: stony silence. Partner B: "Is something wrong?" Partner A: "No." Well, everyone knows something is wrong, but now two...