We are all guilty of letting our ego and our pride get in the way when we fight with our girlfriends or boyfriends. In the heat of the moment, our animal instincts takes over but instead of protecting our lives, our instincts lead us to protect our pride. There’s a common misconception that if we don’t fight back we will appear weak and that we will be taken advantage of or walked all over. I’m here to say that not fighting back in your relationship can give you the upper hand and help strengthen your relationship instead of chipping away at it leading to breakups.
I’m not saying you should roll over and play dead. But instead, learn to diffuse the fight. I don’t mean walk away, run away or ignore the other person. I mean learn to recognize that the current situation is leading to a shouting match and tell yourself that “I need to put my anger aside for now and not fuel the fire”. This is one of the hardest things to do, because in the heat of the moment, you’re running on instinct and you may not recognize that the situation is getting out of hand until it’s too late.
Let’s say you do manage to put your own anger aside. What does that do for you? By not fueling the fire and using a calm voice to continue the conversation, you prevent putting the other person on the defensive. If you are calm but the other person is not calming down, do something unexpected. It might also make them laugh if you do it right and lighten the situation (but don’t be a clown! they might think you are making fun of them).
Once you’ve diffused the situation, have a calm conversation with your lover on the topic that led to the fight. You may find that as you progress through the conversation, more anger comes up, just keep yourself calm and when you recognize that your lover is starting to get angry again, just remind them how much progress you two are making by staying calm.
Another important aspect to this technique is you need to show that you are listening. Paraphrasing your understanding of what they are saying will help show that you are listening and that you are putting the effort in to understanding their side of the story. Be very careful here. You need to make sure you understand their side and paraphrase correctly to show that you do indeed understand. If you start paraphrasing and the other person interprets that you didn’t understand them at all, this could back fire. Often what happens is that we have an image in our head of what the other person is trying to say, and we paraphrase our preconceptions instead of what they are actually trying to tell us. Don’t put your brain on cruise control at this point! Pay attention!
The important thing to remember is that when fights happen, we all react defensively to protect egos even if we deny we have one. Create an environment where you and your lover’s egos are not at risk, and you will find that you can resolve almost any situation that arises in your relationship.
