A healthy relationship doesn’t mean that there’s never any fighting. Couples can have disagreements and still be on each other’s side.
As psychologists, we’ve been happily married for 35 years, and we’ve found that in conflict, your mission is to allow yourself to be vulnerable — to turn attack and defend into self-disclosure and openness.
The language of ‘fighting right’
When conflict arises, the happiest and most successful couples use a language of repair and collaboration. This is something that anyone can learn to do.
We’ve organized our suggestions into six categories of phrases and what kind of repair they help with. These are tried-and-true phrases for calming down an escalated conflict, pulled from years of observation of over 30,000 couples:
1. “I feel”
Use this when you need help expressing your emotions in the moment.
Examples:
- “I’m getting scared.”
- “Please say that more gently.”
- “That hurt my feelings.”
- “That felt like an insult.”
- “I feel blamed. Can you rephrase that?”
- “I feel like you don’t understand me right now.”
2. “I need to calm down”
Use this when you start feeling flooded and/or need a moment of repair.
Examples:
- “I need your support right now.”
- “Just listen to me right now and try to understand.”
- “Can I have a hug?”
- “This is important to me. Please listen.”
- “Can you make things safer for me?”
- “Can I take that back?”
3. “I’m sorry”
Use this when you need help phrasing an apology.
Examples:
- “My reactions were too extreme. I’m sorry.”
- “I really blew that one.”
- “Let me try again.”
- “I want to be gentler to you right now and I don’t know how.”
- “I can see my part in all this.”
- “How can I make things better?”
4. “Stop action”
Use this when you are flooded and need a break.
Examples:
- “I might be wrong here.”
- “Please let’s stop for a while.”
- “Give me a moment. I’ll be back.”
- “Let’s start all over again.”
- “Let’s agree to disagree here.”
- “I’m feeling flooded. Can we take a break and talk about something else for a bit?”
5. “Getting to yes”
Use this when you want to validate your partner…
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