How to De-escalate Conflict in your Relationship

When an argument happens with your partner, you may feel a wide range of emotions such as betrayal, anger, and disbelief. Although there are several different strategies to de-escalate, therapy may be the best option if you find yourself getting stuck in the same pattern time and again. Your therapist can teach effective de-escalation and help your relationship heal and grow. One therapeutic technique that can help is utilizing effective timeouts.

Timeouts can help you and your partner de-escalate when your emotions are running high in an argument, to a place later on where you revisit in a more calm approach. Remember these four “C’s” to maximize timeouts.

• Clues- Identify clues for when a timeout is needed - some examples include feeling unsafe, emotionally overwhelmed, or “flooded”. Another clue may be when your goal is to win the argument rather than to truly listen and understand your partner. 

• Commit- Respect your partner’s request for the timeout and wait until the established time has been agreed on to revisit the discussion. Don’t push your partner to talk about the issue prematurely or when either person is feeling emotionally charged. 

• Cool down- during the break, engage in emotional self-soothing which can include going on a walk, cooking a meal, or another method to help distract you to not focus on the conflict. 

• Come back- Take at least 1 hour, but within 24 hours revisit the conflict and have a discussion with your partner. At this point, both parties should be feeling more relaxed and this is an opportunity to talk about how to improve communication, take ownership for any faults, and reconcile with your partner. 

Further reading: https://www.hopecouples.com/resources/Strategies%20for%20Working%20with%20Couples%20with%20High%20Conflict%20in%20the%20HFA.pdf 

Is it time to stop applying the golden rule to our relationships?

Found in nearly every major religion and a cornerstone of ethics for millennia: the golden rule - to treat others as you would like to be treated - is a maxim of the ages. It is no wonder that the golden rule is oft-applied to improving our interpersonal relationships. Regularly, I find clients reducing discord in their partnerships to not following this tradition. To their surprise, I find the golden rule is often the source of many relationship issues, not the solution; I think it is time to toss this rule out the window.

Instead, I recommend treating others as they would like to be treated. Our preferences, values, needs, and wants more often than not differ from others. For example, we all have that loved one during the holiday season that offers us a gift that misses the mark - in fact, upon further examination, it seems to be a gift they would have enjoyed, not you. Partnerships function in a remarkably similar way. Everything from division of labor and finances to demonstration of affection and sexual intimacy needs re-evaluation from a framework of openly asking our partners how they would like to be treated and to set aside the projection of our wants and needs onto others. When you can accept differences, openly communicate, and provide for others what they long for you will see a remarkable improvement in your relationships.

George Bernard Shaw mirrors these sentiments well when he wrote, “Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same” and “The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.”