# How to have healthy marital conflicts

Conflicts are normal, and increase as the relationship grows:

- Work or other family members can cause stress.
- People *constantly* miscommunicate their thoughts and expectations.
- While venting or complaining, people may feel anger at the listener's lack of sympathy.
- Expect trust issues between your partner and your parents, as well as you and theirs.
  - Conflicts become extremely complicated when someone values their parents' views over their partner's.

Marital conflicts strengthen us, but are also a necessary foundation to build toward the playfulness of romance and enjoying [children](parenting-children.md).

A. Raise your issues early:

- Ask yourself openly why you feel upset.
- Don't overthink it, since they probably see the problem from their point of view as well.
  - Gently approaching issues is difficult if you've spent lots of time thinking about it without feedback.
- Expect they want to resolve the [conflict](people-5_conflicts.md) as much as you.
  - If you have a grudge with them, they're entitled to one with you as well.
  - [Release your resentment](mind-feelings-happiness-stress.md) with them, and openly express if you have any.

B. Approach at the right time:

- It should be privately, away from others.
- Leave everyone else out of it.
- Make sure you're both calm, undistracted, and focused on each other.
- Handle and mitigate all emergencies, then discuss *after* the emergency is over.

C. Respect them and their views:

- Respect they understand and know things you don't, and vice versa.
- No degrading language, swearing, or yelling.
- Listen to them with the Speaker-Listener Technique:
  1. The person who feels the most severe pain at the moment is the Speaker and has the floor.
     - The Speaker must speak honestly.
     - To respect time and attention span, they only get 1-2 minutes to speak.
  2. The other person is the Listener, who must paraphrase whatever the speaker said after listening.
     - The Listener must edit out all responses or disagreements to the Speaker.
     - The Listener is simply trying to understand the Speaker, not solve a problem.
  3. The Speaker corrects the Listener on anything they got wrong.
  4. If the Speaker finds the Listener's summary acceptable, they switch roles.
  5. Repeat back and forth until both sides feel fully understood.
- Try to be correct instead of right.
  - If you're wrong, very quickly admit it and try to understand how.
  - You're likely both using different definitions for the same words.
  - Closely watch their body language and responses as you both speak.
- Apologize when you hurt them and forgive them when they hurt you.

D. Stay on topic:

- Stay on *one* topic at a time.
- [Conflicts](people-5_conflicts.md) are a shared battle against an issue, *not* between you and your partner.
- Honestly share your thoughts and feelings.
  - Expect them to not understand the first time.
  - If it may hurt them, apologize in advance.
  - Staying distant or closed off will motivate them to respond in kind.
  - If you're melodramatic about your feelings, they won't take you seriously.
- Own all your feelings, especially when you're frustrated or angry.
  - When walking out or putting up mental distance, clearly indicate when you'll revisit it.
  - If you're overwhelmed or it becomes too severe, ask for time to calm down or reschedule the discussion.
- Establish healthy boundaries.
  - If they say hurtful or abusive things, leave the conversation and specify when you'll revisit it.
  - If they demand you stay in the [conflict](people-5_conflicts.md), reschedule a specific time when you'll discuss the issue again.
  - If they press the matter and don't honor your boundaries when you've indicated when you're revisiting it, leave immediately.

E. Make a plan to resolve the issue:

- Try to come to a shared compromise or understanding.
- The plan should have sensible, attainable [goals](success-3_goals.md) for both them and you.
- Keep track of what they've done right and improved on, not what they've done wrong.
  - If you only track what they've failed at, they'll lose the motivation to change.
- The relationship will be held back by the person who cares the least about their partner.

F. Clarify what they mean to you:

- Affirm a few things:
  1. You love them
  2. The conflict isn't the end of the relationship
  3. Respect and repeat their hopes, aspirations, and desires back to them
  4. Why the agreed change is good for both of you

Keep envelopes for them to open the next time you have difficult feelings (e.g., sad, angry, need a hug).

You might get stuck in a conflict loop:

- Marital conflict loops are reproducing [old childhood patterns](hardship-ptsd.md), and tend to happen whenever one of the partners has [unresolved childhood trauma](hardship-ptsd.md).
  - Conflict loops only resolve when *both* partners desire a resolution.
  - A hurting marriage only succeeds when *both* spouses apologize and accept they both have unmet needs and might be behaving wrongly about them.
- Breaking conflict cycles are challenging, especially when you're [unaware](awareness.md) they're happening.
- Look at your spouse as part of your team, which is difficult when your spouse is repeating a pattern from your childhood.
- Don't even *think* of divorce as an option.
- Counter-intuitively, a relationship starts recovering when a spouse *receives* the first apology, not from giving one.

Many marital conflicts come from past psychological issues:

1. At least one spouse feels continually rejected or hurt by the other, usually from expectations they set from their past relationships or how their parents treated them.
2. That person's issue keeps arising in conversation but never resolves.
3. The spouse with the worst psychological projection holds fast to their views and won't move or compromise at all.
4. The conflict loses any humor, amusement or affection.
5. Over time, both spouses treat the other one as an enemy, often once the other spouse reacts inappropriately to the first spouse.
6. Both spouses hold progressively more extreme views and become unwilling to compromise.
7. Eventually, they'll both completely sever emotional ties with each other.

Watch for 4 unhealthy defensive behaviors:

- Criticism: attacking their partner's personality or character
  - Usually intended to make someone right and someone wrong
  - Diagnoses others' failures, but not oneself
  - Uses generalizations:
    - "You always..."
    - "You never..."
    - "You're the type of person who..."
    - "Why are you so..."
- Contempt: attacking their partner's sense of self
  - Intended to insult or psychologically abuse
  - Communicating from perceived superiority:
    - Insults and name-calling
    - Correcting their grammar
    - Hostile humor, sarcasm or mockery
    - Body language and tone of voice involve sneering, rolling eyes, and curled upper lip
- Defensiveness: seeing oneself as a victim
  - Can include any method that wards off a perceived attack
  - Makes excuses for behaviors
  - Meets complaints or criticisms by disregarding theirs and striking with an unrelated charge of their own:
    - "That's not true, you're the one who..."
    - "I did this because you..."
    - "Well, I was doing it because..."
- Stonewalling: withdrawing to avoid conflict
  - While they often think they're staying neutral, they legitimately want to be uninvolved.
    - Stonewalling elevates heart rate even without any outward expression.
  - Stonewalling conveys disapproval, distance, separation, disconnection, and smugness:
    - Stony silence
    - Monosyllabic mutterings
    - Changing the subject
    - Removing oneself physically
    - Silent treatment

In most marital conflicts, you're safer when you *lower* your defenses (not raise them) because it converts your partner from an enemy to an ally.

When you're *both* miserable, it's often wise to simply postpone a conflict until you've both somewhat rested and recovered.