At a glance
Walking on eggshells means you have taken on your partner’s mood as a daily job. You choose words carefully, you time conversations, and you read the room before you speak. Living watchfully is not sustainable, and the person doing it is usually the last one to call it a problem.
Clinical insights from 20+ years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 20+ years in practice.
- Years before it is said. By the time somebody says it out loud in my room, they have usually been living this way for years.
- Unaware of the scale. The partner whose mood is being managed is often unaware of the scale of it.
- Fear or frustration. The 2 are not always easy to tell apart from the outside, so I ask rather than assume.
Clinical notes: These observations are anonymous and compounded from session notes since 2004.
What does walking on eggshells actually look like?
It is small and constant, with nothing dramatic about it.
- Rehearsing. You rehearse a sentence before you say it.
- Checking. You check the mood at the door before you take your coat off.
- Withholding. You hold back ordinary news because today is not the day.
- Apologising. You apologise before anything has happened.
- Relief. The house gets easier to breathe in when they go out, and that is worth knowing and not explaining away.
The phrase almost always arrives from a friend first, because someone outside the relationship notices. Read more about when the pattern has a name attached to it.
How does a couple end up walking on eggshells?
In my experience one common route is flooding. The Gottman Institute describes flooding as the point when your thinking brain, the part that takes in grey areas and stays aware of the real state of affairs, shuts down.
- The body goes first. Muscles clench, temperature rises, the stomach turns.
- One person floods easily. A disagreement tips them over before the conversation has begun.
- The other learns to prevent it. Over months they prevent the flood and skip the conversation.
- Prevention works. That is exactly the problem, because a strategy that works gets used more.
- One explanation among several. A partner who is unpredictable is not therefore a partner who is flooding.
Watchfulness keeps the evening calm, and it quietly takes over the rest of your life. Read more about what unrepaired conflict turns into.
What does walking on eggshells cost you?
Your own opinions go first. People describe becoming careful, with no sense of becoming unhappy, and that is why it runs for years.
- The details. Next go the details you would have mentioned.
- The friends. Then the friends who ask how things are.
- Your own mind. Then the sense of what you actually think about anything.
- Your partner’s loss. They stop hearing the truth from the one person in a position to tell them.
- What they are left with. A partner who agrees and a house that is quiet.
If the carefulness goes with you everywhere and is not about one person, read more about people pleasing.
Where is the line between a pattern and control?
The line is whether 2 people are stuck in a pattern or one person is controlling the other. Women’s Aid defines coercive control as an intentional pattern of behaviour which takes place over time, in order for one individual to exert power, control or coercion over another.
- Isolation. Isolating you from friends and family.
- Monitoring. Monitoring your time.
- Everyday life. Taking control over where you go and who you see.
- Money. Controlling your finances.
- Threats. Making threats or intimidating you.
- The effect. Women’s Aid describes invisible chains and a sense of fear that pervades all elements of a survivor’s life.
The phrase describes your experience and says nothing of the other person’s intent: a short fuse and deliberate control produce the same feeling. Control is a different problem, and couples therapy is not the first step there. Read more about telling hard from harmful.
How do I stop walking on eggshells?
Where it is a pattern, say it once, calmly, away from the moment, then hand the flooding back to the person who floods.
- Count it for one week. Note every time you changed what you were about to say, to see the size of it and with no case to build against anyone.
- Say one sentence. One sentence about your own experience, with no accusation in it, is enough to start with, and it is usually the hardest sentence of the year.
- Choose the time. Say it neither during the moment nor straight after it.
- Their flood, their job. The flooding becomes the flooded person’s own job and stops being yours.
- A break with a return. They say they need a break, go, and come back; the Institute is clear that a break without a return becomes another way of ending the conversation.
- Reduce the managing in small steps. Find out what actually happens; where this is 2 people stuck in a pattern, it is often less than was feared.
Where one person is controlling the other, reducing the managing makes things worse and these steps do not apply. Naming the pattern is not disloyal, and it commits you to nothing.
These steps fail when your partner floods before the sentence is finished, or does not hear it at all. That is what the session is for.
Questions people ask
Is walking on eggshells a form of abuse?
No, the phrase alone does not settle that. It describes your experience, and the examples of coercive control above are the better test.
Does couples therapy help if my partner has a temper?
Often yes, provided they are willing to own the temper as theirs. Where somebody is frightened of their partner, couples work is the wrong first step.
What if I am the one everyone tiptoes around?
Saying so is a good start, and it is no small admission. The work is learning to notice the flood before it arrives and to take a break that you come back from.
How do I know if I am overreacting?
That question is usually a symptom of the thing and no answer to it. Describe a normal week to someone outside the relationship and listen to what they say.
Why do I feel relief when my partner goes out?
Because the job of managing their mood stops for a few hours. That relief is information worth taking seriously.
You may also find these helpful
Sources
- Women’s Aid, What is coercive control?
- The Gottman Institute, Making Sure Emotional Flooding Does Not Capsize Your Relationship
How this article was written. I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. Nothing is published until I have read it, corrected it and stood behind every clinical statement in it. The professional and clinical judgement is mine and mine alone.
