Space: The Final Frontier

it's a little easier to recognise anger as a problem in the classic abusive relationship, for example in Mike Birbiglia's standup routinr where he describes his family tiptoeing around his father in a rage trying not to set him off, while still craving his love and affection of course (and how that evolved many years later after his father had a stroke and was now reliant on care himself).

if someone yells or throws things at you when they're upset then you're naturally going to try to avoid upsetting them, and that can lead to an unbalanced relationship in which you go out of your way to cater to their wants while neglecting your own, which usually ends up going badly for both of you.

but people get sad as well as mad, and crying can be even better than shouting when it comes to getting what you want; this is a problem for the people around you who feel compelled to help until they're overstretched, because while it's easy to explain fleeing an angry assault (although people often still struggle to do that), what kind of monster would abandon someone in misery?

once you see the way sadness can feel coercive it can be tempting to start accusing every expression of wistfulness or regret as being an abusive pattern of deliberate emotional manipulation, but that gets silly: if your friend didn't feel like hanging out with you or your partner didn't feel like making out with you then you might rightfully be sad and that would only make you human, but it would not oblige them to do whatever you wanted to make you happy again! that's a choice they make for themselves, hopefully because it brings them happiness too and you have a mutually supportive relationship which helps you both flourish together.

there is a question of agency here that complicates matters, where if someone needs help is that a genuine need or are they "weaponising their incompetence"? if someone feels sad is that because they have been wounded by legitimately unfortunate events or are they mentally ill or are they committing emotional terrorism?

it's always going to be a judgement call but to some extent it doesn't really matter: just as you might not have the resources or capacity to care for a partner who is very sick or paralysed, so too there are levels of emotional demand that are beyond what you can satisfy while still managing to live your life.