author – Colby Mills, Ph.D.
Dr. Mills is a clinical and public safety psychologist specializing in treatment of first responders and military veterans. Dr. Mills spent a decade as a police psychologist with the Fairfax County Police Department. Prior to that, he spent six years assessing and managing crisis situations as part of a mobile emergency response team. He is part of the team behind the National Wellness Survey, which examines psychological wellness in first responders.
Let’s talk about conflict. Not conflict on the street, conflict at home. When you get past the standard things cops say to each other about home life, it is pretty common to find that even the most alpha personalities struggle to handle conflict at home. While we’re going out of your comfort zone, let’s tack on a related topic: strong emotions (namely yours). You have a clear plan for handling conflict and managing your own emotions at work, but those waters can get awfully muddy in your off time.
I think there are a few reasons for that:
No training. When you started your career, Academy instructors trained you how to handle conflict on the street: what was allowed and what wasn’t, when to retreat and call backup, how to de-escalate, and so on. Then your field training and career experience taught you how to make the right judgments: which skills to use in which situations. As for strong emotions, there’s rarely an academy class on that—but in the field, you learn how to set them aside to get things done. At home, though, there’s none of that. Our only “training” consists of whatever lessons we soaked up in childhood and in adulthood. What happens when those lessons don’t match up with your current family relationships? What if your “training” left you unprepared for the raw, strong emotions that come from getting hurt by someone you’re totally open to? It might feel like starting your career in downtown Detroit and then getting transferred to a small town in the country (or the other way around).
The devil you know. When things get hot, we usually fall back on what has worked in the past. (And if you’re thinking, “It’s just a fight about money, it’s not a big deal”, I ask you to think back to the last heated argument you had with a spouse or child, the one where all your buttons got pushed.) We default to what works. And in moments of strong emotion, our definition of “what works” often turns into “make the pain stop”. That’s when tactics like avoidance, tuning out, or barking alpha commands start looking awfully attractive…and sometimes just happen on autopilot. But when those tactics become habitual or long-term, they corrode the relationship.
Danger close. You’re vulnerable to the people at home. You’re supposed to be—that’s the core of what love is. (For a great crash course on the value and the challenges of being vulnerable, see any of Brene Brown’s TED Talks.) Imagine opening up your rib cage and leaving your heart open to your spouse and children—no protection. That’s what lets them get close enough to love you. But if they’re close enough to love, they’re close enough to injure, and that goes both ways. One important challenge at home is how to recover when the people you love wind up hurting you, or when you wind up hurting them. (I’m talking not about intentional injuries, but the more common injuries that are accidental or unintended.)
The myth of sameness. Bear with me, this one gets shrinky. In a serious relationship and especially in a marriage, the two people usually have a lot in common. Whether it’s as simple as favorite movies or as deep as shared values, all the similarities help create a deep bond. The side effect is that it feels like we know everything about them. That lulls us into a problematic assumption: on the important stuff we’re always going to be the same. But then we get into uncharted territory–starting to share money or living space, raising kids together for the first time (and that’s a lifetime of firsts!) –and all of a sudden, that spouse feels like a stranger. We don’t realize that the actual problem was that faulty assumption that crept in over the years.
So, what’s the solution? How can you navigate closeness and conflict at home? Well, if there were easy one-size-fits-all answers, you’d probably have already found them (and this column would be a lot shorter). But here are some building blocks to help you get there:
Self-inventory. One way to start is to make a list of all the ways you handle conflict and strong emotions in the field, and a separate list of how you handle them at home. Ask yourself specific questions like, “What do I do when I’m hurt?” and “How vulnerable do I let myself get at home?”
Examine assumptions. One is that “we’re always the same” assumption about your spouse. A common assumption among cops is that being hurt means weakness—but love takes great strength, and you can’t have love without being hurt once in a while. A tip about how to find your assumptions: make a list of your beliefs about your spouse and your relationship, then try to explain them in words. Any belief that you can’t logically explain—put it under the microscope.
Talk. You may avoid talking about work to your spouse because you don’t want to upset them with graphic or disturbing information. But when you clam up about such a big part of your life, you start to become a black box to the person you chose to share your life with. Even if your spouse truly can’t hear the raw stuff, consider opening up about how you felt or reacted. That’s what they wanted to know anyway, and for you it might clean out that mental compartment you’ve been jamming things into. Talk about the stress from inside your agency too, because that can add up to have a far greater impact. And of course, talk about the good stuff.
Get out of work mode. If habits from work are bleeding over into home life, it can help to think of work mode as a persona: like the uniform, it’s something you take off at end of shift. Use cues or reminders to help you: changing out before you leave the station, picking a point along your commute as the reminder to start shifting into home mode, setting a smartphone reminder timed at the end of your shift. Bringing work mode home is a set of habits—but you can just as easily swap those habits out for more family-friendly ones.
Get another perspective. Even the best self-inventory is going to miss some things. It’s hard to look at ourselves objectively—by definition, we can’t see what’s in our blind spots. Let someone you trust take a look and report out on what they see. It’s not necessarily the gospel truth, but it should give you food for thought. The approach is the same as in operational settings: if it’s important, get more eyes on it. Also, if someone you know seems to have a great marriage and/or family, pick his or her brain to pick up helpful tips.
Count on your courage. One of your greatest strengths is courage. You might take it for granted, but those of us who walk next to you are still awed by your bravery. Every day in your career, you draw on courage and experience to approach situations everyone else would run from. Dealing with conflict and vulnerability at home is very different, but courage serves you just as well there too. Once you add some new skills and experiences to your courage, you’ll build the kind of relationships that you and your loved ones deserve. And a final note: if things feel out of control at home, or like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, it’s time to tap in backup from a specialist. For the same reason you’d call in Tac or crisis negotiators at work—the situation requires specific resources in order to get the save. I recommend a good therapist. Marital therapists (AKA couples’ counselors) are a combination of referee, translator, and coach: they can help you and your spouse change habits, talk and listen to each other better, and heal old wounds. Family therapists bring in the kids, too—they view a problem at home as everyone’s problem and engage the whole family in finding the right solutions. Finally, if there are things you need to change about what you bring to the situation, find someone to sit down with for a handful of one-on-one sessions—preferably a provider who has some awareness of law enforcement culture. You keep the peace in the community, and your family helps you do that. All of you deserve peace at home too.