Why the person who triggers you most might be doing you a favor

Picture a couple, mid-argument, in their kitchen after a long day. One partner snaps about money again; the other goes cold and walks off. Neither one feels like they started it. Both feel like they're only defending themselves.

Richard Schwartz has a name for what's actually happening in moments like this, and it comes from an old saying he likes: when the water buffalo battle in the marsh, it's the frogs who suffer. In his account, each partner's protector, the snapping, the cold withdrawal, is a water buffalo, and underneath each one is a frog, a smaller, more vulnerable part getting hurt by the fight but never getting to speak. One partner's protector attacks, which wounds the other partner's exile, which triggers that partner's protector to strike back, which wounds the first partner's exile in turn. The cycle escalates because neither person is speaking for their frog. They're only letting the buffalo fight.

Schwartz argues that the way out isn't to referee the buffalo more skillfully. It's for each person to momentarily call their own buffalo off, tend to their own frog, and then have the courage to say what actually got hurt, not I really don't like what you just said, but something closer to a part of me got triggered by that, and underneath it there's a part that felt hurt. He says this single shift in language changes outcomes predictably, because it invites the other person's calmer, more curious self forward instead of their own protector.

This connects to something Schwartz calls tor-mentors, the difficult people and events in your life that, by triggering you, also show you exactly what still needs attention inside you. He includes his own wife, Jeanne, in this category, describing her as someone who challenged parts of him that needed challenging, in ways that were painful but, over time, healing. He doesn't recommend staying in relationships that are simply abusive for the sake of the lesson. But he does argue that the people who reliably get under your skin are pointing, often quite precisely, at exactly the old wound worth finally addressing.

Schwartz extends this same logic outward, to families, companies, and even countries, arguing that calm, grounded presence in one person tends to draw out the same quality in others nearby, the way one tuning fork can set another vibrating at a distance, while triggered, defensive states spread the same way in the other direction.

In your next disagreement with someone close to you, pause the instant you feel the urge to snap or go cold, and ask what smaller, more vulnerable feeling is sitting underneath that urge. Try saying what actually got hurt in you, instead of listing what the other person did wrong, and notice how differently the conversation moves. Pick one person or situation in your life that reliably triggers you, and ask what old wound it keeps pointing toward, rather than only what's frustrating about them. Pay attention, too, to whether staying calm and curious in a tense room changes the tone of the room itself, even before you've said a word.