"The poison came out, and everyone saw": the dark side of IKEA

Screams and tears in the lighting department, anxiety attacks and quarrels in a whisper near the cash register, a quarrel over a coffee table that makes you wonder if you even want the same things in life - sounds familiar?

The psychological explanation for the fact that all couples are many at IKEA

Strider Schleider Putschnik

20/05/2022

Friday, 20 May 2022, 00:03

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"When we were young and bought our first apartment with the rest of our money, we had no choice but to renovate ourselves, to really do everything ourselves. And we were poor and miserable. Says Yael, 39. "The highlight was when we got to the lighting department and we just couldn't agree on anything, we really fought with shouts. At one point I sat there on the floor and cried all that damn month, and everyone saw. It could not be missed, because it was very bright there. "The end of the story was that we bought the ugly and exaggerated lighting he wanted. I hated it, and 10 years after that we divorced. Today I have lighting that I love, and I only go to IKEA alone."

IKEA is a place where couples come to quarrel in public and come out defeated with the Lack Shelf, a bag of clips for re-closing food bags and a long and stinging silence the whole trip home.

A joint visit to IKEA has become a modern fire test for a relationship, a place of being or ceasing to be.

Huge blue-yellow cubes that enter as a united, cohesive and in love couple, but may come out of them in pieces.

American comedian Amy Fuller once joked that the word "IKEA" in Swedish means "argument."

So yes, it's so universal.

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To the full article

We came to quarrel.

Spouses at IKEA (Photo: ShutterStock)

"My husband plays the guitar, and he embarked on a journey to find the perfect armchair to play on. We bought one, and after a while he complained that it was uncomfortable because it had handles. We bought another one, without handles, when the excuse was that 'it would really fit the bedroom.'

"Armchairs inside, he decided he needed a chair at

-34 (full name saved in system).

The showrooms that feature ideal, licked and perfect-looking living spaces are "a map for the biggest nightmare of any relationship"

So while it does not always end in divorce or an anxiety attack, quite a few couple visits to IKEA do come with shouts or tears (or both).

Why has the experience of visiting a furniture store and assembling items coming out in pieces from flat cardboard packaging become such a tense event for relationships?

And how is it that a discussion on a couch slows down so quickly on a slippery slope into a dark abyss of reckoning, resentment and disappointment?

Couples are already exhausted from the arguments in the store itself to the frustrating process of assembling the selected furniture.

The showrooms that feature ideal, licked and perfect-looking living spaces are "literally a map to the biggest nightmare of any relationship," says clinical psychologist Ramani Dorvassola, in a conversation with the Wall Street Journal.

Durvasola's patients, who are a couple therapist, have mentioned quarrels at IKEA so many times in her clinic that she has begun observational visits to research the branches of the Swedish furniture giant.

She came to the conclusion that the views of the different rooms provoke different quarrels, respectively: the bedroom area ignites arguments about sex, the view of the kitchens rekindles arguments about the division of burden and chores at home, and in the children's area ... Wow, wow, where to start at all?

If we do not agree on a living room table, do we want the same things in life at all?

Sad couple (Photo: ShutterStock)

In an environment where choosing a coffee table is marketed to consumers as an expression of their personality or identity, it is easy to fall into the trap of attributing excessive importance to your spouse's choices.

The display in the store is also the place where taste differences and disagreements are revealed.

In an environment where choosing a living room table is marketed to consumers as an expression of their personality or identity, it is easy to fall into the trap of attributing excessive importance to your spouse's choices.

Want to say: If I like the Lack series and my partner actually prefers Klingsbo - do we even want the same things in life?

Do we want the same house?

How many children?

And who is this person I came to this store with - do I even know him?

"Couples have a tendency to draw far-reaching conclusions from the small conflicts that arise when shopping at IKEA or during self-assembly of furniture from there, such as they may not fit together at all," says London-based couple and clinical psychologist Maisie Cho Chapin.

No one likes to hear constructive criticism

When trying to assemble the furniture things become really explosive, and this is fertile ground for the development of power struggles - who takes control of the process?

"Even for couples who have a clear division of roles and who knows who leads the lineup, there are moments when the 'assistant' or 'deputy' sees what the leader is doing wrong," says Scott Stanley, a lecturer at the University of Denver School of Psychology. "The fact that constructive criticism improves everyone's performance - no one still likes to hear it," he says.

Fertile ground for power struggles.

Spouses assemble IKEA furniture (Photo: ShutterStock)

And it's not that Swedes come out of responsibility: the company's instruction leaflets are designed for universal use and translated into a variety of languages ​​and thus create the false impression that this is a task that can be completed without too much time or effort.

If the genderless and faceless figure depicted in the assembly instructions manages to build a mobile island for the kitchen, it only makes sense to assume that I can too.

No?

well no.

And when those expectations crash on the side of reality, our egos also snatch to pieces.

If you want to know if you and your partner are really fit, go canoeing - recommends Professor Dan Arieli, a lecturer in psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University in the US. "Useful insights into how people respond to stress," he said.

Arieli is also a member of the research team at Harvard Business School, which in 2011 coined the term "IKEA effect" - the diagnosis that people like things more if they participate, even in the smallest way - in their creative process. Which comes in a flat cardboard and becomes under your hands a dresser).

If the faceless and genderless figure in the instruction booklets manages to put together, why not me?

Assembly instructions for IKEA furniture (Photo: ShutterStock)

"Like in a canoe, in the process of assembling furniture from IKEA things happen unexpectedly: missing or missing parts, people put something wrong ... the important question is to what extent we blame ourselves and to what extent we shift the blame from us and turn it to the other person ? ", Says Arieli.

And there is also the issue of attributing the mistake - people have a natural tendency to attribute their own mistakes to external factors ("I assembled it incorrectly because the instructions were unclear"), and other people's mistakes to internal factors ("You assembled it incorrectly, because you Did not pay enough attention to instructions ").

This is not a good day if you started it at IKEA

Your quarrel has long been not about EKTORP.

An argument with your partner triggers the fight / run response in the brain and all non-essential functions are turned off

On a good day, maybe you are more skilled at maintaining restraint, bridal and avoiding pointing accusing fingers.

But we have already made it clear that this is not a good day, you started it at IKEA: the showrooms made your life feel not good enough, you are in an ongoing power struggle with your spouse who for some reason think the EKTORP armchair is right for your living room and you do not understand how talented two people are Together 3 and a half academic degrees have already burned half a Saturday on an attempt to assemble a 3-drawer dresser and have yet to succeed.

But you know, your quarrel has long been not about EKTORP.

Argument with the partner activates the fight or flight response in the brain.

In this state all the non-essential functions of the mind are extinguished: maturity, patience and logic were as if they were not, and as far as your mind is concerned at least, you put me to battle.

This is not a good day if you started it here.

Couple at IKEA (Photo: ShutterStock)

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"The upper brain shuts down and the primitive brain takes command, and he has no such thing as logic or organization," psychologist Dan Ferguson explains in an interview with The Atlantic magazine.

"That's why the quarrel starts off the shelves, but reaches very quickly into unpleasant districts like his / her parents and the joint children."

So where does that leave us?

Apparently with the understanding that a quarrel at IKEA is inevitable for 99.9% of couples.

Will this knowledge help us not to fall into this marital trap the next time we get there?

probably not.

IKEA is just too big a trigger, it pushes all the sensitive buttons with too much skill and orders us more mines than we can skip.

But maybe if we know in advance that we are entering such a fire area, we will save some energy for the end as well, so that we can put our relationship back together, after we are done with the shelves, of course.

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