Couple conflict resolution tools and tricks?

August 30, 2021 12:29 PM

Me and my wife have an incredible relationship, except that we get into fights. Weirdly, these are not fights about difficult-to-resolve disputes, in terms of live options. We're generally aligned on what we're actually doing with our lives. These are little tiffs over small details that flare up into hurt feelings that could be stopped early on if one or both of us just remembered to snap out of it and listen to the other person compassionately, but, instead, we get caught up. How do we not get caught up in escalating tempers? Do you have a good book of tricks to recommend?
posted by insteadofapricots to Human Relations (20 answers total)

Step 1: Both people agree that one/the other person/both people are getting emotional about this topic.
Step 2: Verbally acknowledge your emotions. "I'm feeling too upset on this to continue for now, can we problem solve in one hour?"
Step 3: you walk away asap.
Step 4: One hour later, both people apologize for letting their emotions get the better of them/provoking the other person.
Step 5: Resolve the problem without emotions.
posted by bbqturtle at 12:33 PM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]

There's nothing to it but to do it. Each of you has to make an effort to stop when you hear voices rising and say "Let's stop"; as well each of you has to make an effort to stop when the other person says so. You just have to decide to say "We are not fighting about this." It sounds like it's not easy to do but it's actually surprisingly easy once you realize you don't like fighting and you don't want to do it. If you hear someone raising your voice at you instead of raising your voice back you just say let's stop, I don't want this.
posted by bleep at 12:38 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]

We have a codeword for this. Anyone calls it and we have to stop and walk away and revisit. It's reserved for times where we feel like someone needs to snap out.

Also, I think that the little things flare up when someone is feeling disrespected. My husband used to touch my feet mindlessly all the time and it took years and years of me asking him to stop until I finally said "every time you do that, not only am annoyed because I don't like it, my feelings are hurt because it shows you haven't listened to me and aren't respecting my wishes". So touching feet seems like a small thing but the hurt feelings are wrapped up differently. Not sure if those are the kind of little things you might be finding an issue with but might think about it!
posted by dpx.mfx at 12:42 PM on August 30, 2021 [14 favorites]

It's so easy to slip into a Me vs. You mentality, which probably feels especially hurtful/escalating to both of you because clearly you have a strong bond and work well as a team.

Try to reframe it as as Us vs. The Problem. It'll help you remember that you're both trying to address the issue in good faith and therefore listen to each other more compassionately. You love each other, you support each other, and you are solving this together.
posted by mochapickle at 12:42 PM on August 30, 2021

I think it would be worthwhile to check out the conflict resolution tools in 8 Dates.
posted by Medieval Maven at 1:01 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

I love Bruce Tift's approach. His book is Already Free. The gist is: we are responsible for ourselves, for managing our difficult emotions. If my spouse says something and I get upset, my spouse might be acting like a jerk (or not) but it's still my responsibility to take care of myself, manage my emotions, and choose how to respond. We all have vulnerabilities that make us more likely to flare up at one provocation (e.g., feeling abandoned) than another (e.g., feeling judged), and histories of how we coped as children and younger people that influence our present-day behaviors, not always for the better (e.g., seeking the other person's approval, lashing out at the other person, etc.). So, being aware of these vulnerabilities and patterns can help us be better partners because, when we start to feel activated we can recognize something like, "You said something I experienced as an insult to my intelligence, being judged as incompetent or stupid is a serious vulnerability for me, I'm tempting to lash out right now, so instead I'm going to remove myself from the situation." The next step is to sit with the physical sensation of the frustration/hurt/whatever, recognize that it won't physically damage us, recognize that we've experienced it as long as we've been alive and will likely continue experiencing it off and on for the rest of our life, and we identify how we're going to self-soothe until we're calm enough to engage with the other person.
posted by theotherdurassister at 1:05 PM on August 30, 2021 [13 favorites]

I know couples who couldn't manage to solve this on their own and went to counseling specifically to learn to fight fair and deescalate in a way that matched their specific trigger points and the dynamics of their specific fights. It can help to get a coach to teach you both if you're not able to successfully translate tips you read into a system that works.

I'm a fan of code words as well. I've also found it very effective to warn my partner when I'm feeling "grumpy" so that they give me an extra wide berth and an extra dose of loving compassion. Our biggest fights have been when we're both feeling "grumpy" and neither had any extra understanding to offer. This warning system requires that each partner have an accurate sense of self-understanding so that bad/fighty moods are recognized before they flare.
posted by quince at 1:37 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Take a look at John Gottman's _What Makes Love Last?_. There are some excellent frameworks in there for communicating specifically in the 'escalating tempers' situation you guys are struggling with.
posted by hanov3r at 1:53 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Me and my partner do "gratefuls" every night before bed. We take turns listing things that we're grateful for. This is also an opportunity for us to practice being fully present and listening to each other. Our therapist suggested that we practice mirroring, so we incorporated it in, and left it there.

Basically, part of listening to each other is repeating back to the other person what they just said. Literally is fine: "I'm grateful for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and flat tires and rain storms." "You're grateful for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and flat tires and rain storms."

If one of the exacerbating factors during your tiffs is not feeling heard (an indicator of not feeling heard would be saying the same thing several times), mirroring is a good skill to practice in a low-consequence environment on a regular basis so that you have easy access to it when you need it.
posted by aniola at 1:54 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Sometimes we blame things on the "nobody's fault monster." The nobody's fault monster is really a very sweet monster who is always happy to take the blame for things that aren't really anybody's fault.
posted by aniola at 1:55 PM on August 30, 2021 [12 favorites]

Sometimes we literally quack at each other to indicate that we just said something that could possibly be interpreted as offensive, but we didn't mean it that way.
posted by aniola at 1:57 PM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]

We do 'who cares more?' as an early argument opt out.

I'm not psyched about the incoming 52" television, but I care less.

He's not psyched about me sinking flagstones into the lawn, but I care more, and he'll live.

I had a recent ask about what stopper to use for the sink in which we both have cared equally. At first, I thought we would buy a new one, kindly recommended. But then I thought, 'I've put up with that craptastic thing for five years. How about we shelve it and bring it out in another five years?' And that will do.

It's not clear what your arguments are about but if it's petty stuff - alternating years of someone getting what they want or using the Who Cares More metric are helpful to us.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 2:38 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

If you want to dive a little more deeply into what is happening underneath when you get emotional, try going through the conversations in Sue Johnson's book 7 Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. The idea is that when you get escalated, something emotional is happening inside and you are reacting to that. If you can figure out what that is, it is easier for you to recognize what is happening and then easier to some of the other "stop, this is escalated" tools. And, as a bonus, if you can help your partner understand, it will help them be less triggered and more supportive and vice versa.

Also, some people find time out to calm down very easy - it is in line with their own style to want to withdraw and calm down when things get escalated. But it is important to recognize for some people when things are escalated it is SO important to be heard, to work it out, to not break the connection that asking them to take a break and calm down is really, really hard. Even hard if partner has a habit of not wanting to reopen the issues out of fear of re-starting the fight.
Learning if that is true for you or for your partner can help find strategies that let you both calm down without triggering things worse.
posted by metahawk at 3:15 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

"When you x, I feel y, because z. I need you to a." This helps with blame vs owning our stuff. If we are not being Blamey then others can often hear us better.

Alternatively, I am a huge fan of the Imago dialogue process. Forces you to slow down and get introspective vs blaming each other and acting on assumptions. You can find the process online for free by googling. There is a speaker role and a listener role.

And also, if one of you is a "we have to fix this right now" person and the other is a "I have to get away right now, and be forced to discuss this later if you really insist" person, then you need to negotiate outside of an argument how you're going to balance the needs of both people. For example, there is a difference between asking for a time out with a clear end point and withdrawing/avoiding. The avoiding person has to be willing to return in a reasonable timeframe, and the confront it now person has to leave the other one alone til they come back. If this is a dynamic in the relationship it is critical that both people realize neither way is "right" and not judge the other for happening to have a different way of coping.
posted by crunchy potato at 4:22 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

We (ok, I particularly) have been getting a lot of relationship milage out of the observation that my spouse and I are different people. Which is of course incredibly obvious, but sometimes it's what I actually mean when I make an exasperated comment about how spouse isn't doing something the way I would do it. I started saying it for comedic effect to diffuse tension during the pandemic ("Ugh, why are we different people?!") but it's actually... helpful? We say it to each other all the time now, often with over the top dramatic emphasis, because it's nice to differentiate between "this matters to me and I really want you to change this" and "I find this annoying enough to comment on but honestly whatever, you do you you weirdo."
posted by deludingmyself at 4:58 PM on August 30, 2021 [7 favorites]

Seconding Gottman - specifically, the book Why Marriages Succeed or Fail was super helpful for me. It pointed out some of the things I do during arguments that seemed "innocent" to me but were really fueling the fire. It was a very actionable book. If I review my notes when I think a conflict will arise, I'm actually able to avoid those escalating tempers!
posted by beyond_pink at 7:00 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

Okay, what about a hard line? What if you decide to do whatever it takes to never hurt your partner, no matter how upset or triggered or whatever it is you might feel? In other words, what if you challenge the idea that your hurt feelings entitle you to hurt another human being -- doesn't that seem really wrong to you? There should never, ever be a time in which you hurt your wife. You should never, ever escalate your temper at your wife. If you have a good reason for doing this I'm all ears. If these fights "flare up" over seemingly small things then they are not about the small things at all, rather they are about a fundamental struggle, e.g. for dominance or to be heard.

First of all, stop looking at this as a "we" issue. There is no person named "we". There is you, and there is your wife. She has her behavioral patterns, you have yours. Hers are her responsibility, yours are yours. If she is treating you unfairly, she should stop, and you can tell her to stop. If you are treating her unfairly, you should stop.

It's hard for me to tell what's actually going on because you've used obfuscating language, i.e. "we" and passive voice e.g. "get caught up". With that said, it sounds to me like you are telling us that you are treating her unfairly by escalating your temper at her and hurting her when a small thing irritates you. So, stop doing that. I'm not saying it's easy, it's probably the hardest thing you'll ever do and you'll have to face some very uncomfortable things. Don't give yourself excuses that you need to use techniques or tools or take time-outs to cool off or go to therapy to unpack your childhood or anything like that. There is no "trick" that can undo the fundamental disregard for another human being that you're describing here. Recognize this with the seriousness it deserves and stop it, at all costs.
posted by PercussivePaul at 7:44 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Maria Bamford has a song about more or less what you’re describing, called “Saturation Point.”
posted by en forme de poire at 8:33 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Bleep’s comment I think will help a lot. Elaborating on it just a bit.

You each have to self-regulate. The way to do that is to recognize when you’re getting upset (this can sometimes be trickier than it seems like it should when you’re calm, emotions can take your brain over quickly). But yes - notice your voice getting loud, your heart rate quickening, all the signals in your body that tell you you’re about to be flooded. If you feel like you’re getting locked in, like you want to win, like you want to defend yourself more than you want to hear your partner’s POV, it is time to do something to calm down. Because nothing is going to be resolved until you each feel heard, and neither of you can be heard until you’re in a receptive state.

And like Bleep said, remember that what you care about is having a respectful, loving relationship with a great person. That’s your value, and you want your actions to align with it.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:05 AM on August 31, 2021

After reading a few of these comments I also just want to add here that there is a difference between conflict and abuse. People have varying levels of conflict tolerance (mine is on the low side, but for others it’s pretty high); abuse is by definition not something anyone should tolerate. If by “losing your temper” you mean getting kind of short with one another, expressing frustration or annoyance, getting a pointed tone, or saying things that land harsher than you intended, this may be kind of rude but it is not by itself abusive, especially if you take steps to constructively repair the relationship afterwards. People are allowed to express annoyance, frustration, and even anger and hurt in relationships, and there are some examples upthread of how people do that while maintaining the relationship.

In fact, in my experience, one sign of abuse would be if someone felt there was no safe way for them to express these emotions to their partner. You are not obliged to keep a perfectly neutral tone at all times or be perfect about phrasing things in a certain way. If you feel that you are, then it is worth asking whether this is your own rule for yourself, or because you fear your partner’s reaction. That second one would not sit well with me. (I have personally had to unlearn this a little, as I grew up in a situation where if you didn’t totally control your tone, certain people would use that to justify responding in ways that were really not ok.)

On the other hand, “losing your temper” that ends in not just somewhat raised voices but intimidation and yelling/screaming, or twisting the knife on things your partner told you in confidence just to hurt or control them, or giving your partner the silent treatment or badgering them when they have expressed they need to be left alone for a while, for example, are a different story. The point of this post is not to make an exhaustive list of things that are or aren’t abuse, and there are some things where context and the broader pattern matter a lot, so I won’t go on, but there’s plenty of resources out there — I just wanted to make the point that even a conflict where emotions run high is not the same thing as abusing someone.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:37 AM on August 31, 2021 [3 favorites]