Couples working together can accomplish a lot. One function of a couple is to support, nurture, care for, and protect each other. There are many ways that one can help the other when needed. One important way is to help your spouse get control of his or her strong emotions. Helping him or her to regulate their feelings can be critical in a situation involving threat, risk or a situation that requires a clear head. A spouse can also create feelings and emotions that make life wonderful. The focus here is on helping the partner deal with their emotions so that they can cope with the situations that have triggered unpleasant feelings.

What are emotions? Psychologists will tell you that an emotion is not a simple experience. Emotions are one component of the tools that we have to help us cope with life. They are rather complex experiences involving physical and behavioral components. The body is aroused in ways that may be described as anger, joy, frustration, sadness, fear, etc. The thoughts at those times both trigger and maintain the emotional experience.

It is important to regulate and somehow modify emotions so that we can appropriately and effectively handle the situation that has triggered a strong, unpleasant emotion. Having support and help to get and maintain control is most desirable. Who better to help than the one you love, and the one who loves you? While experiencing an emotion is a solitary experience, it is not experienced in isolation. It mostly occurs in some type of social or relationship situation or context. Another person may be part of how the regulation of an emotion may be achieved. Who better than a spouse or partner?

Another person can be a valuable resource when we experience an overwhelming, consuming emotion. Another person can be actively involved in another person’s effort to regulate what and how much they feel. Psychologists call using another person as a tool to help cope with their own emotions intrinsic emotion regulation. The person wants or may ask for the help. A more general term is interpersonal emotion regulation.

If a person tries to help someone to get a handle on that other person’s feelings without them having asked for help, that is called extrinsic emotion regulation. The extrinsic approach assumes that you have accurately read what the other person is going through. Then you have to clearly decide that the goal is to help him or her change that emotion and to establish control, and then plan how to do that. Deciding on a realistic, appropriate strategy to help him or her regulate the emotional experience is key. If you believe that what you are going to do will help, even if you have not been asked, then do it.

We are in a very special position to help the person whom we love, married or not. Recognizing that your spouse is distracted, is having trouble sleeping, is atypically forgetful, is unusually irritable, or is more silent and withdrawn should catch your attention. Trying to solve a problem without asking for some help from your partner may not be the best strategy. A couple is a team. Your spouse loves you and is a resource that no other person can match. We benefit from sharing how we feel with each other. That is when you can see how much you are loved by your partner because it is clearly on display.

When your husband or wife responds in a way that shows that they are paying attention to you, and their help fits with your situation and helps calm you, that is a big benefit of having that relationship. Giving and asking for help from the person closest to you, the one who loves and cares for you, is a situation and relationship surpassed by none other. Who else is in a better position to help you cope with whatever life sends your way?