Five Tips to Stop Chronic Fighting

Are you in a place in your relationship where it seems like all you do is fight? I’m not talking about a blow-out now and again. I’m talking about the situation in which most encounters set off a fight. You fight when you’re together, you fight via email and text, and you fight on the phone. All the fighting erodes trust or makes it disappear, and things start to feel hopeless. Fighting begets more fighting, and it is hard to find your way out of the cycle.

There are things you can do to ease the situation. It takes some effort and some willingness to reflect on yourself and your feelings, but you can stop chronic fighting. In this blog, we ’ll outline a few key steps you can take.

1.        Stop Fighting Via Text or Email

Communication consists of much more than words. Tone of voice, facial expressions, body posture, where your eyes are focused, gestures, whether you are tense or relaxed, and much more help to convey the message received by the other person. The only thing conveyed in a text is words. None of the other essential components of communication are involved. So, when you argue or try to repair an argument via text, your partner will likely interpret your message using only your words, which are too easy to misinterpret, especially if your partner is experiencing strong emotions like hurt, anger, or shame. When you text, the words you write likely reflect your own hurt, anger, and shame—rather than your best thinking, your residual affection, or your desire for connection.  

For example, suppose you’re fighting about money. In person, you can tell your partner his/her recent purchase ruined your budget, but your tone of voice might be calm, amused, or even loving. In a text, those same words might come across as harsh because they aren’t modulated by your presence.

Email is a little different because you have more room to explain and express yourself than you do in a text. But even with a greater depth of explanation, the other essential elements of communication are missing. And if you use email while you are really angry or upset, that greater amount of room is likely to become fodder for complaints, criticism, and defensiveness.

In short, if you and your partner are involved in chronic fighting, your texts and emails are likely to make things worse.

2. Break the Lockdown of Chronic Fighting

We tend to fight because we feel threatened or unvalued. When we’re flooded and in the fight/flight/freeze cycle, we feel that we’re facing a beast we must vanquish. We’re locked down. Our efforts are to force the other to hear us, to prove we’re right, and to have our worth validated. We think that if we can get our partner to concede or back down, we’ll feel better. Or else that we must continue to assert ourselves lest we be trampled on or hurt again. 

The truth is more complex. It may be that your partner has done something wrong or that you have, but when fighting becomes chronic, it’s no longer about right or wrong. Chronic fighting happens when two hurt people continually set each other off. Both are right in some ways and wrong in others and both have become so locked into fighting postures that they are living on a hair trigger. The content of the fight ceases to be primary: instead, it becomes about two people in lockdown trying to defend and protect themselves

To end the cycle, you need to get unlocked. Only you can make this happen. Take a breath. In fact, do a breathing exercise for five minutes. There are lots of free breathing apps for Apple and Android phones. Do soothing activities to relieve your flooding. Most importantly, once the flooding subsides, ask yourself these questions:

• What did you experience in the fight?

• What can you learn from that experience about how you feel about yourself?

• What parts of yourself have you shut down during the fight?

It’s critically important to get perspective on the fight and think about what can and can’t be changed.

3. Don’t Diagnose Your Partner

When you and your partner are caught in a cycle of chronic fighting, it is too tempting and easy to go to your best friend, Google, and look up your partner’s “symptoms.” Google will dutifully supply you with a variety of diagnoses and symptom clusters. You may convince yourself that your partner is a narcissist, has borderline personality disorder, has a dismissive-avoidant attachment style, or one of many other conditions or disorders. This will help make you feel that it’s your partner who has the problem, and it may give you the sense that your partner is the one who needs help or who must be “fixed.” And of course, this takes the attention and responsibility off of you.

It is rare that both partners do not contribute to what underlies chronic fighting. So, while diagnosing your partner helps you feel better about yourself and worse about your partner, it simultaneously can make your partner feel diminished and defensive and increase the intensity and frequency of your fights.

Assigning a diagnosis requires experience and objectivity which you don’t have. And even if your diagnosis is close to the mark, it does not mean that you have not contributed to the conflict. Most importantly, diagnosing your partner does not foreclose the reality that both of you need to be able to communicate in a healthy and productive way. If you truly hope to communicate, it is best to avoid the diagnosis gambit.

4. Recognize When You Get Flooded

Human brains get flooded when they experience things that seem like a real threat. Your brain doesn’t differentiate between threats to your physical, mental, or emotional wellbeing. A threat is a threat, so your brain responds by pumping adrenaline, and you go into fight/flight. In this state, critical thinking is shut down, your ability to listen is shut off, and your whole system is on high alert.  Useful communication simply doesn’t happen in this state.

If you follow your partner around when either of you is flooded, continuing to make your case or assert the rightness of your cause, you will not get what you want. In fact, when flooded, you’re more likely to say mean and hurtful things and to view your partner as an opponent.

That’s why it’s so important to recognize when you’re flooded and when your partner is flooded. It’s the perfect time to agree to take a break and set a time to continue the discussion later. The flooded person needs to breathe, to do soothing activities that have nothing to do with the fight. If you’re the flooded person, once calm, think about yourself, not your partner. What are you feeling? What do you need? Where can you improve your communication? Have you missed areas of possible compromise or agreement?

5. Stop Trying to Resolve the Issue

According to relationship researcher John Gottman, 69% of a couple’s problems are not resolvable.  They’re permanent features of the relationship. As a result, Gottman argues that couples should emphasize building friendship and conflict management skills instead of focusing on problem resolution. When you and your partner are locked in a pattern of chronic fighting, you’ve probably lost the ability to resolve the issues you’re fighting about. Chronic fighting gets you stuck in attack-and-defend mode. No problem-solving is possible in this mode—only continued fighting. In this mode, you’ve lost the ability to listen to and understand each other. You’re most likely trapped in your own flooding, rumination, anger, and fear.

That’s the time to stop worrying about resolution and start focusing on hearing each other. So, write a treaty, call for a Camp David summit, or do whatever it takes to agree to put off trying to resolve your issues. Agree that you each need an opportunity to talk about yourself and to be heard by your partner. Here’s how this can work:

• Both partners agree to attempt to cool down and get into a calm place before commencing the discussion. Agree on a time and place to talk.

• Each partner takes a turn to talk without interruption. You can agree with your partner on a time limit for the talker, but you don’t have to. If it is your turn to talk, you focus on yourself. Instead of talking about what your partner did or didn’t do, talk about your inner experience and your feelings. Use “I” statements and avoid blaming or shaming.

  •  “I feel you acted like a jerk when you said I’m just like my mother” is NOT an I-statement. It is accusatory and judgmental.

  • “I felt diminished and hurt when you said I’m just like my mother” IS an I-statement. It focuses on your feelings and does not accuse your partner.

• When it’s  your turn, cover the following steps, one by one

  • “I feel…”  (What are you feeling and how is that affecting you?)

  • “I need..” (What do you need for yourself, what do you need from your partner, what do you need outside of the relationship?”)

  • “I own up…” (What haven’t you told your partner that your partner needs to know? What have you kept hidden? What have you withheld?)

  • “I appreciate…” (What do you appreciate about your partner, especially recently if possible.)

• When one partner finishes, the listening partner may ask questions for clarification only. No comments, no rebuttals, no editorials, no responding.

• ·Then reverse roles and the other partner talks through the same four points. When that partner is done, the listening partner can ask questions for clarification only. No comments, no rebuttals, no editorials, no responding.

• When the process is complete, take some space to digest what you heard. Resolution always requires understanding.

Get Help to Stop Chronic Fighting

If you’re caught in the impasse of a chronic fighting cycle, you likely need help to come to resolution. You’ll need to learn how to communicate in a safe and productive way. At EMDR Associates, we have the training and experience to assist you in improving your communication, building your trust, and helping you master conflict-management skills.