How to maintain yourself in a relationship and deepen the connection – the complete guide to differentiation in relationships

What is differentiation in a relationship?

Differentiation is the ability to hold a clear sense of self within a significant emotional relationship. To know what I think, feel, want, and choose, while being able to see the person in front of me as a separate person, who also has their own inner world, desires, and positions. Differentiation does not cancel out the mutual dependence that exists in a relationship. Partners influence each other, need each other, hurt each other, and make decisions that affect both their lives.

The concept of Differentiation of Self is associated with the work of psychiatrist Murray Bowen, developer of family systems theory. The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family describes differentiation as the ability to hold clear thinking and position even in the face of emotional pressure, conflict, criticism, or rejection, without automatically giving in to the other’s pressure and without trying to force them to change. Within a relationship, the interesting question is what happens to my self within all this mutual influence. When I am more differentiated, I am able to listen to you, examine myself, and even change my mind, and still experience the decision as my own decision.

Differentiation is revealed under pressure

It’s relatively easy to hold a position when the person in front of me agrees with me. The test becomes more significant when my position evokes a reaction in them. You want more time together and he wants more time to himself; you want to spend money and she wants to save; one wants more sexual closeness and the other wants less; you want to set a boundary with the extended family and he thinks differently. Precisely in the places where our desires meet and don’t align with each other, we can see what happens to our differentiation.

The gap between us creates pressure. I can start convincing you until you see things like me, give in so you won’t be angry, distance myself, or become rigid. I can also give your desire greater meaning than what was actually said: if you want something different from me, maybe you don’t care about me enough. Differentiation allows me to recognize what’s happening to me under this pressure, to stay connected to myself enough to choose my position and behavior, and at the same time stay in contact with the person in front of me.

What does low differentiation look like in a relationship?

Differentiation is not a trait we either have or don’t have. We all have situations where it’s easier for us to hold ourselves and situations where we become very reactive. When it’s hard for me to hold myself, my partner’s reaction starts to manage me. If you’re angry at me, I immediately feel I need to fix something; if you don’t agree with me, I have to make you understand; if you distance yourself, I chase after you to restore closeness; and if you criticize me, I’m immediately busy defending myself and proving you’re wrong.

The reaction can also move in the opposite direction: to shut down, distance myself, stop listening, or hold a position rigidly in order to reduce the influence of the person in front of me. In both directions I become more reactive and less free to choose. Instead of asking myself what I think, what matters to me, and how I want to act, I’m busy with what needs to happen with you so I can calm down. The focus gradually shifts from my position to trying to manage your reaction.

Differentiation is not standing my ground

It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that a differentiated person is someone who knows what they want and doesn’t budge from their position. Sentences like “That’s how I am,” “That’s my boundary,” or “That’s my choice” can express a clear position, and they can also be a way to avoid an encounter. A person who refuses to be influenced by their partner is not necessarily more differentiated. Sometimes the rigidity itself is a reaction to the pressure created in the relationship.

The ability to be influenced is part of differentiation. I can listen to you and discover that I didn’t see something, be convinced, be flexible, or give in because the relationship with you matters to me. The question is from what place did I change: Did I examine what you said and choose differently, or did I have to change my position in order to reduce the pressure between us? Staying in a position also does not in itself indicate differentiation, if the only way I can stand my ground is to stop listening to you, diminish you, or disconnect from you.

Differentiation and responsibility

One of the places I find most important in understanding differentiation is responsibility. If I said “yes” when I actually wanted to say “no,” I may have paid a real price for my concession. Alongside the pain, it’s important that I can see that I too was a partner in creating the situation. My partner cannot be responsible for the “no” I didn’t say.

The same position is required of me when I hurt someone. The fact that I had the right to choose does not exempt me from seeing how I acted and what the impact of my action was on the person with me. I can ask myself if I was honest, if I conducted myself with respect, and if there is something in my behavior that I want to correct. Differentiation allows me to take responsibility without turning every mistake into proof that something in me is flawed, and to recognize my partner’s pain without taking responsibility for everything they feel.

Instead of getting stuck in the question of who is to blame, I can ask: What of what’s happening between us belongs to me? This distinction returns to me the part over which I have influence, without taking from my partner the responsibility for their part. I elaborated on the distinction between what belongs to me, what belongs to my partner, and what happens within the couple system in the article “The Orders of Love: You love each other. So why is it so hard for you together?”

Differentiation and worthiness

It’s hard to hold myself when my value depends on the way my partner sees me. If in order to know I’m a good partner I need you to be satisfied with me, your disappointment doesn’t remain just disappointment. It can become a threat to the way I perceive myself. So I explain, defend, attack back, or give in quickly, and part of the struggle between us is no longer about the topic we’re talking about.

The more my value is held within me, the more room I have to examine myself. I can discover I was wrong without becoming the mistake, hear your claim seriously and also reach a conclusion that I don’t agree with it. Worthiness does not exempt me from responsibility; it allows me to take responsibility without my value depending on the outcome of the conversation. On the connection between inner worth and the ability to stay present within a relationship, I also elaborated on the page “Worthiness.”

Bearing your partner’s disappointment

Let’s say you want to go away for a weekend with friends and your partner is disappointed. If it’s hard for you to bear his disappointment, you may give in immediately. You can also move to the other extreme and decide that his feelings are his business alone. Differentiation allows you to stay with him, listen to what matters to him, let his words affect you, and examine yourself.

Maybe you’ll decide to go and maybe you’ll decide to stay. You can’t determine the level of your differentiation by the decision you made. The question is how you made it. Did you act from your position after you also met his position, or did you need him to feel differently so you could choose? The possibility that your partner will remain disappointed is part of the separateness in a relationship, because when two separate people live together, each of them will also encounter choices by the other that they wouldn’t have chosen themselves.

On the expectation that our partner will provide what we’re missing and on the meaning we give to disappointment in them, I wrote here.

Bearing disagreement

Difficulty with differentiation also appears in the need to receive agreement. I explain again, add another example, phrase it differently. Maybe if you really understand me, you’ll see that I’m right. Beneath this effort can be a wish that the gap between us will disappear.

A differentiated person can very much want their partner to agree with them, and at the same time meet the possibility that it won’t happen. “I understand how you see it. I see it differently.” This sentence requires me to give up the attempt to control what you think, without giving up what I think. I elaborated on this distinction in the article on couple communication: even when partners understand each other very well, understanding does not guarantee agreement.