Le Chatelier's Principle...

I am in a sciency mood lately...please hang with me, it is pretty interesting stuff!

When a chemical system in equilibrium is disturbed, it reorganizes to resist the change, always.

Applying Le Chatelier’s Principle to human relationships reveals how couples automatically shift behaviors to restore emotional balance when external or internal pressures disrupt the status quo.

Here is how the chemistry of a relationship shifts when conditions change:

1. Emotional Concentration (Availability)

When the level of attention, time, or emotional energy changes, the other partner shifts to compensate:

• One partner withdraws: The other partner often shifts "towards" them, pursuing them with more text messages, questions, or bids for connection to fill the void.

• One partner becomes overly smothering: The other partner shifts "away" to create distance, seeking solo hobbies or space to re-establish personal equilibrium.

2. Temperature Changes (Conflict and Passion)

In relationships, "heat" represents emotional intensity, conflict, or high-stakes stress:

• The system gets too hot (High Conflict): To lower the temperature and protect the bond, one partner must act as an endothermic dampener by absorbing the heat—using calm tones, de-escalation tactics, or requesting a time-out.

• The system gets too cold (Apathy): When a relationship loses its warmth, the system drops below its healthy equilibrium. This drop often forces a shift toward "generating heat" through deliberate date nights, vulnerable conversations, or even manufactured arguments just to spark a reaction.

3. Pressure Changes (External Stress)

External pressure includes work deadlines, financial strain, family drama, or major life transitions:

High external pressure: The relationship space "shrinks," causing the couple to shift toward the path of least resistance. They cut out non-essential activities, simplify their daily routines, and focus strictly on survival and core needs.

Low external pressure: When stress lifts, the relationship expands. The couple has the bandwidth to take on new projects, travel, and reintroduce complexity into their lives.

4. Social Catalysts (Friends and Therapy)

Just like in chemistry, a relationship catalyst speeds up a process without being permanently altered by it:

Therapists or trusted mentors: They act as positive catalysts. They do not change the fundamental "equilibrium" (who you are as a couple), but they dramatically speed up how fast you reach a healthy resolution or understanding.

In summary?  The resistance you feel when you are making changes isn’t a sign to stop, it is a sign that the process is working.

So the equilibrium we all seek is always going to resist change and seek to re-establish the previous equilibrium.  This is why the divorce rate is so high.  Couples under the pressures of every day living, working, parenting and the like, are not able to change the pattern, because just as the pattern is beginning to change, the old pattern reappears and they believe that they cannot change the pattern.  But working on the pattern is changing the pattern! People just tend to give up too soon.  Or, more often, the person they have chosen to partner with has no real interest in changing the established status quo and so they are doomed to work against a system that is operational because it fits the needs of the other.

If you want to make changes in your relationship, then both people have to be willing to do the work and be uncomfortable while the change is happening.  Also, both people have to be willing to see that the old patterns are not going to just magically disappear and be forever altered...it is going to take time, this dynamic relationship you are in is going to attempt to reorganize itself so that it doesn’t have to change. 

So, it is important to realize that not only is change hard, sustaining change over time is always going to feel impossible at the outset, and then once progress is made, the relationship will attempt to find homeostasis once more in an old pattern you thought was gone.  This isn’t motivation to necessarily throw in the towel, but to review what is happening and reorganize the system of the relationship together, accounting for and making allowances for the old equilibrium to reappear...

Again, change is only going to happen if both people are committed to the desire for change and the responsibility of the change.  And agree about the change that is desired...

Most of the time, what I hear from people in unhappy relationships is that one partner is unhappier than the other.  Since that person is unhappy the other partner tends to think that it is the other person’s responsibility to find happiness and they are not really a part of it.  And they are right and wrong.  If they are not willing to work on the issue together, then they are right, the other person will go on to define their relationship without the other person.  See where they are right and wrong?  You were right it was the other person, but since you defined yourself out of the solution, so did your partner!

Relationships are hard but good ones are a stable oasis for living your best life.  Since the laws of physics and relating are being applied equally to both parties in the relationship, it is important to engage equally in the work the relationship is going to require.  And all relationships require work.  

I think we have to rid ourselves of this magical thinking that once you find the “right” person all will be well.  No, even the right person is going to piss you off, let you down, hurt your feelings, zig when you needed zag...it is about what you both do when you get to the place of equilibrium disruption, if both parties to the relationship do not take it seriously, this need for change, then the status quo shall be re-established and the relationship will die a slow and tortuous death which will seem sudden once the process is done, but actually the relationship has been dying for years.

Most people I see, who are contemplating divorce or breaking up, have been unhappy on average for five or more years.  That is five years of not getting your needs met and being angry, hurt and frustrated. Most of these people have seen, on average, at least three different therapists to assist in the reclamation of the relationship.  But most of the time it doesn’t work because everyone is talking about the wrong things.  We get mired in the surface stuff and fail to see how much of a commitment to change is going to ask of us, so when that equilibrium is disturbed, we reorganize so that the change never comes, and so eventually the relationship dies and the divorce is upon us.

Le Chatelier’s Principle is helpful to see how much effort is going to need to be expended to make significant and long lasting relational changes.   And also how much both parties are going to need to be engaged in the process if they want the relationship to survive. Because we aren’t only fighting attachment theory, apparently physics is also in play.  And since it tends to be the laws that are governing everything we are NOT paying attention to, perhaps, just maybe we might want to see what science has to offer us and apply it to our relationships...

Relationships need rules and laws for governance.  And it is important that everyone in the relationship understands the things governing it and what they are up against to make changes...and that they are both equally responsible for and to the changes required for the relationship to survive another day and change...

Again, still...