Tired of constant arguments and emotional tension? Wondering how to stop couples from fighting? Below are 10 ways to validate your partner and bring peace back into your relationship!
Exercises and expressions to make relationships easier.
Here are 10 exercises, practices, tools and expressions that I use to help stanch the bleeding when couples cease to enjoy the usual heated discussions that occur in all relationships save the Clooney’s.
How To Stop Couples From Fighting?
1. Reflective Listening
Making someone feel heard is very different from listening. It is essential that you and your partner are able to validate each other’s emotional experiences so they do not feel obligated to turn up the volume. Here’s how to validate your partner’s emotional experience even if you disagree with them: reflective listening. Reflect back to your partner what they said as accurately as possible. “So if I hear you correctly… you’re saying that you feel as if I’m not doing my share of chores around the house. Did I get that right?”
Secondly, seeing as non-verbal communications are extremely important, this verbal reflection must be accompanied by physical mirroring and matching: mirroring of facial affect and matching of body posture. “Facial affect” includes your brow, cheeks, smile, eye contact, etc. Matching includes imitating your partner’s posture — are they leaning forward or backward, are their arms or legs crossed, how are they wearing their shoulders?
Read More Here: Lonely Together: The Mental Health Toll Of Disconnection In Relationships
I recommend five-minute Sunday night check-ins to close the week and start another one fresh. Try playing “Rose Thorn Bud” to mention one thing that you liked about the last week (rose), one thing that could use improvement (thorn), and one thing that you are looking forward to next week (bud), and have your partner reflect back each one separately; then trade places.
You need to be able to validate your partner’s emotional experience even when you don’t understand or blatantly disagree with them. Making your partner feel heard will a from escalating.
2. Tap-out
When any non-adult behavior occurs such as name-calling, catastrophizing (always, never), or any of the Gottman’s 4 horsemen — stonewalling, contempt, criticism, defensiveness — I advise the receiving party to “tap-out.”
In professional wrestling, a tap-out (think of a “safe-word”) is used to stop the fight. Here it is used to inform the other person, “Hey, you’re dysregulated, you’re not showing up as your highest self, you’re not fighting fairly like we agreed upon. Let’s take some time apart and reconvene when we’re both behaving like adults who can regulate their words and actions, disagree respectfully, and look for solutions together.” When you reconvene the first person to speak should ask, “How do we make this a win-win situation?”
3. “How do we make this a win-win situation?”
Nobody appreciates having their agency usurped. Everyone enjoys being part of the solution. Herbert Spencer’s dictum “Survival of the fittest” meant that life was a zero-sum game with winners and losers. Harville Hendrix says, “You can either be right or you can be in relationship.” Instead of having a situation with a winner and loser, each partner should ask the other, “How do we make this a win-win situation?”
4. Non-violent Communications
Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-violent communications are an excellent tool to reduce blame, “own” (be responsible for) emotional experiences, inspire your partner to be vulnerable, and avoid becoming defensive.
Here’s how I teach NVC:
I feel ______( a feeling state)________
when _(something you observe happens — avoid the word “you” )
because I need__________(an emotional need)__.
In the future, would you please________(a request)_.
We cannot tell someone to be vulnerable but we can INSPIRE them by MODELING it for them. NVC is a wonderful tool to help us inspire loved ones to show up in a non-blamey manner. Bonus points if one partner uses NVC and the other reflects back what they heard.
5. Framing
Everyone tenses up when they hear the words, “We need to talk.” Personally, if I hear the words, “Ira, we need to talk” my mind hears “What have I done wrong now???” We must avoid prefacing tough conversations with cues that make our partners defensive. We need to find more loving language in order to frame important conversations. If you open with any negative statement — or anything that is perceived as negative — your partner is less likely to hear the next things you say. Instead of “I need to speak to you” or “We need to speak” try “When is a good time for us to check-in?”
6. Date night
All couples should have at least two date nights per month for as long as they are together. In a heterosexual couple, I recommend that on the first Saturday of the month at 5pm the man sends a text message to the woman instructing her what to wear.
For example, “Yoga, horseback riding, opera, restaurant, massage, walk on the beach, hot springs, or hiking clothes.” She does not bring money and preferably shuts her phone off. From 6pm to 9pm (or later) the husband is 100% responsible for sharing something he has discovered with his wife and/or entertaining her. Then on the third Saturday of the month at 5pm the woman sends a text message to the husband instructing him what to wear. He does not bring money and preferably he shuts his phone off. Rinse, repeat.
7. Preferences: Chocolate and Vanilla
Most fights originate over inconsequential topics and escalate because of the language or tone. Most of us have been taught to speak — for business purposes — with excessive confidence. With our intimate partners this often lands as condescension or even narcissism. Instead of expressing yourself like you are the omniscient arbiter of objective reality, “The 405 to the 101 to the Hollywood Bowl is always faster than Sunset Boulevard!” try “I prefer if we take the 405 to the 101.” Some people prefer chocolate ice cream and some people prefer vanilla ice cream.
If you understand and accept that everyone is entitled to their preference, you can help avoid making statements that unintentionally land as criticism or condescension.
8. “How can I support you?”
Suggestions can often land as criticism. Again, suggestions can often land as criticism. Even when you intend to be helpful your words can feel condescending to your partner — probably because they’re not stupid and have already considered your suggestion. Instead of saying, “You should do this…” or “You should do that…” try asking your partner, “How can I support you?”
9. “I’m triggered”
Know your core wound(s), the stimuli that trigger you, and how to recuse yourself when the wounded child in you rears its dysregulated head. We all want to be loved unconditionally and during our childhoods we learned that our parents and caregivers smiled when we ate with forks and got good grades and frowned when we ate with our hands and failed our tests. When the wounded child in all of us emerges, things can get heated very quickly.
Knowing your triggers and being able to withdraw yourself to collect your thoughts and show up as your highest self will help preclude the discussion from devolving into name-calling or any of the four horsemen.
10. “Please forgive me for not understanding how you are choosing to show your love for me”
“Please forgive me for not understanding how you are choosing to show your love for me” is a “pattern interrupt.” It makes the receiver ponder what’s really going on. It’s tacitly saying, “I know that you love me but your behavior is not adducing that love.” Like NVC, it’s essentially inspiring the other person to course-correct without directly blaming them.
Bonus:
I’m a big fan of theoretical questions and here are two that I really enjoy utilizing when working with couples:
Imagine we had a time machine and could go back in time to 15 minutes before the beginning of that last big fight. Walk me through what each of you said and did, both explain where the discourse went awry (you were offended), what you partner couldn’t have done differently, and if you had the opportunity what could you have done differently.
Read More Here: Gen Z Is Ditching Dating Apps For Lavender Marriages: Is This The Future Of Love?
So did you learn how to stop the fight and validate your partner? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Written by Ira Israel, LMFT
Originally appeared on Medium
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