What others see is not what is in our brain but our reactions, and our reactions only. In response, the other people in our relationship will filter our reactions, compare them to their history and meaning of your reaction, your status or role compared to them, and the identity they see in you.
They will compare it to their personality and your personality. This set of inference of what you say, then triggers them too.
This is our cycle of conversation. It can start anywhere and goes in a circle. The other person says something, they trigger a reaction from us.
What we say then triggers the other person and it goes in circles.
The key here is to be aware of the words we say have impact. The tone, style, and context can be a trigger for a good conversation or a poor one. Also, we can have conversational ‘games’ where there are patterns we follow, often without realising it. Lastly. we will display our habits in our reactions too.
To improve our relationships, we need to understand how we react to triggers and then choose the reactions that improve the relationship.