No matter how happy and joyful you are with him, there will always be times when two people have conflicts. Sometimes it will be a matter of principle, sometimes it’s just a small matter of salt and pepper. What happens if you get into a fight?
Partial conflicts spread to affect the relationship between two people
Unhappy When couples discuss issues, they often ‘diffuse the discussion’ and get caught in a weird circle called the kitchen sink.
What is a kitchen sink? It’s everything that happens when a local conflict diffuses into your entire intimate relationship. You were talking about the bathroom sink and all of a sudden the conversation goes to how I treat your mother, even going back to which time I was late before we started dating, and all of a sudden you start settling scores. Happy couples don’t do that, they always talk about things. And unhappy couples can’t do that, can’t keep the conversation focused on one topic.
We all know how important it is to talk about things to resolve them. But we have a habit of rehashing old arguments as soon as we fight. For the sake of the person you love and your relationship, it is advisable to break everyone of this bad habit.
Like to “summarize themselves” is not a good thing
Self-summary It’s the love of emphasizing what they want to say about themselves. In contrast, happy couples like to summarize what the other person said. Unhappy couples always say: I’ll emphasize it again; I’ll tell you again; you’re not getting what I’m saying; you’re not listening to what I’m saying; what I’m saying is ……; that’s all I’m saying.
The happy couple, however, would say: look did I understand you? The difference here is huge; happy couples are more open to communication. You can imagine the unhappy couple would say how come you can’t listen to me properly? How come you don’t understand me? None of this could happen if you were continuing to summarize yourself.
Real communication comes from the opposite of self-summarization, where you say: you just said something and I don’t know if I understood it right; did I understand you; no, let’s try again; did I understand this time; great I feel so happy . I feel so happy. Because I understand you, you will be happy too. And self-summary always gets in the way of that happening.
Pre-assumptions add to mutual unhappiness
Pre-assumptions It’s when you think you know what someone is thinking. For example, you don’t care about me, and although you send me flowers, you’re just trying to impress me for a previous mistake! It’s a lot like mind reading, blocking communication. If the conversation you are engaged in is full of presuppositions, then you are actually having a conversation with yourself. Pre-assumptions cut off the other person’s path of speech because he has no choice.
The unhappy couple says: I know what you’re thinking; I know why you’re doing that. The happy couple says: What were you thinking? Why did you do that? You see the difference, folks; the difference is closed versus open. Open means I want to know why you did that, open up and tell me; tell me what that really means to you.
Happy couples ask open-ended questions, and unhappy couples ask questions that they can’t answer. They have a question-setting technique called hostile questions. Such questions appear to be a question, but there is really no answer. They are just accusations, with no answers that will keep the conversation going. For example: What were you thinking? How stupid would someone have to be to spend $500 on that thing?
People get into cross-complaints
For example, someone says, “Honey I have a problem, I don’t like the fact that you spend our time together watching TV. A happy couple would say: Well, let’s talk about that. What would you like me to do differently? Or what would you like to do? The cross-complaining couple would say: I forgot until you said so, you jerk, you never give me any space. There are similarities between cross-complaining and self-summary, where two people dwell on their respective problems and try to find solutions, but have nothing to do with each other’s subject matter.
Negativity is mutually contagious
After ten minutes of conversation Negative emotions come into play. Their negative emotions also affect each other. That is, one spouse’s negative emotions are transmitted to the other spouse’s behavior. For example, if you say you’re pissing me off, I’ll respond strongly, and you certainly didn’t expect me to be assertive.
Happy couples will act neutrally when the other person is negative, which is a skill when you think about it. If your spouse says: You really bored me last night. That’s a criticism, and no one likes to be criticized, so how do I respond? The screen in front of you shows a series of choices: there’s negative, neutral, and positive. Which one to choose? The unhappy couple will simply choose the negative behavior: you’re sick of me, aren’t you, and I’m sick of you!
Happy couples will put a lot of effort into dealing with this situation, for example: Am I boring you? Let’s talk about what makes you annoyed with me. Sure, it’s not easy, but it will take you out of the negative cycle. Imagine if any relationship was like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where you throw things at me and I hit them back, well, let’s do it, great! You keep dwelling on it and the negativity keeps building up and it just gets worse and worse.
If you don’t want your relationship to get too messy, someone needs to propose getting out of this vicious cycle. Don’t turn neutral behavior into negative behavior, and don’t be the first one to push down the dominoes because you know what will happen.
Be careful how you express yourself when arguing
You can bring positive emotions to express negative content. This study lists three positive emotions: humor, empathy, and interest (note: this should mean interest in maintaining the relationship). If you have more negative content, but you express all three of these emotions at the same time to your partner, and if you do it against all odds, then the negative person can still have a better quality marriage. In other words, okay, you’re negative, which is not good; but if you’re not emotionally positive either, that’s bad.
In times of conflict, you’re in the middle of the most negative events, but you can also express: You know what, I still love you. I’m freaking out right now, but I still love you. This sends a powerful message that love is more important than conflict. We don’t like conflict, we don’t like disagreements, but I want to remind you that we have a strong foundation. Conflict may affect me greatly and it may be important, but it is far less important than the emotions that link you and me. The message that is being delivered is this.
When two people are together, it’s normal to fight. The most important thing is to find a way to solve the problem in a way that is acceptable to everyone, rather than getting stuck in a circle of mutual complaints. Learning to fight is one such lesson, have you learned it?