The Only Guide For Why He Is Distant After An Argument Puhn says she knows a couple is doomed when they say, "We used to fight a lot, but now we raise our hands and walk out." It's not that they don't disagree on things. "It means they're letting the relationship go, which is what happens before they leave or find an affair," Puhn says.
Elissa Sanci is an Associate Staff Writer at the product review site Wirecutter.com and a former editorial assistant at Woman’s Day. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at life and luxury blog. One morning last fall, Kyle Benson, 30, sat in his home office, lost in his work. His cat was meowing because its litter box wasn’t clean. As his girlfriend was rushing out the door to get to work, she asked him why he hadn’t cleaned it. He thought she was criticizing him. And that’s how the couple got into a heated argument, Benson recalls — over a litter box. It might sound silly, says Benson, a relationship coach in Seattle, Washington, but the argument revealed a lot about their relationship and how they handle conflict. “What’s interesting is the research has shown it’s not necessarily conflict that’s bad, it’s how couples interact in conflict,” Benson tells NBC News BETTER. “The first goal, before even starting to resolve the conflict or try to understand what went wrong, is to try to make a repair attempt …, so then you can actually engage in a dialogue to actually work towards resolving the issue,” he says. The first step, according to Benson, is to discuss how each of you felt during the argument. “By just listing off some of the feelings and not going into the details, it kind of helps both partners start to understand what emotions were present in the conflict and sometimes what was lurking below the surface in terms of the feelings that were there and the perceptions that people had,” says Benson. The second step, says Benson, is to listen with intention. You and your partner had two separate experiences during the argument, he says, and you need to understand your partner’s experience rather than only your own. “One of the things about conflict communication with couples is often the big problem is partners aren’t really listening to each other, and one person is speaking and the other is waiting until their turn to speak, and so you have two monologues going on instead of dialogue,” says Benson. The 45-Second Trick For Fighting Fair In A Relationship: How To Get What You Need Focus on what you perceived and felt during the argument. Avoid criticizing or blaming the listener. Listener: Focus on how the speaker experienced the argument, not how you think they should have experienced it. Really try to understand things from their perspective, and validate it. Say things like, “When I see this from your perspective, it makes sense that you felt that way. ”What that does is it actually slows down the conversation and really helps the listener focus on what their partner is saying rather than interpreting it and bringing in their own personal conversation and dialogue,” he says. The couple’s cat used to belong to Heather’s father, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease. She explained to him that she felt stressed about having to care for both her father and the cat, and that seeing the cat cry was a big trigger for her. Benson explained to his girlfriend that when she demanded he stop working and clean the cat’s litter box, that he felt his boundaries were being violated. “I felt my personal needs weren’t being addressed, and I talked about my boundaries and what I can and cannot do and how to work with that in a relational way with my partner,” he says. “She was critical … and she apologized for that. ”Benson acknowledged to his girlfriend that he shouldn’t have responded defensively. “I owned up to that,” he says, “and we got to a place where we both accepted each other’s apologies. ”Kyle Benson and his girlfriend Heather During this step, you’ll both discuss ways to argue about the issue more constructively if it happens again, says Benson. Benson says he and Heather decided to make time at the end of each day to talk about their feelings. “We can actually start to talk more about … those emotions in our relationship rather than letting them build and potentially cause other issues like this event,” says Benson. Benson says that using the aftermath of their fight to repair their relationship helped them understand one another’s perspectives and brought them closer together. “Underneath a lot of these conflicts — even things that seem really silly —there’s often a lot of feelings and deeper meanings and often couples will argue about the content or what happened or who’s right and who’s wrong, and that often makes things worse,” says Benson. Getty Katie Buckleitner Whether it's a small silly fight that sprung up in the moment, or a brewing conflict that's finally come to a head after what seems like MONTHS, fighting with your S.O. can be a huge source of stress, even after you've aired your grievances. As great as it might feel to say everything on your mind, it's always awkward trying to get back to baseline after that, so be mindful.
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