“No One Wins Marital Arguments:” How to Stop Arguing and Start Having Constructive Conversations

By Philip Chanin, Ed.D, ABPP, CGP

Board Certified Clinical Psychologist

Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

www.drphilchanin.com

philchanin@gmail.com

“In the repair process, the listener has only one goal:  to help the speaker move back into harmony, to help him or her feel better.  The listener’s attitude is: ‘I am at your service.  How can I help?’  Anything else will be perceived as at best extraneous and at worst infuriating…Whenever you shift attention away from your partner’s concerns over to your own, you create a situation in which there are two speakers and no listeners.  And that is precisely how most of us do it, how we try, and fail, to effect change.”  (The New Rules of Marriage:  What You Need to Know to Make Love Work by Terrence Real, p. 208)

“When we cast a cool eye over the so-called listening most of us claim to do, it turns out that we’re most often not listening at all.  Whether it’s out on the table or locked in our heads, what most of us do, sentence by sentence and point by point, is argue.  Then we have the gall to get ‘frustrated’ by mates who are being ‘difficult,’ when in fact we haven’t really appreciated a word they’ve said.  Finally, we answer most of their concerns by discounting them altogether or by replacing those concerns with our own.”  (p. 212)

When patients contact me about starting couple’s therapy, almost universally they say that they need help with “communication.”  Very few couples who present for therapy know how to listen.  Instead, as I have quoted Terrence Real just above, “what most of us do, sentence by

sentence and point by point, is argue.”  My goal as a couple’s therapist is to help them have “constructive conversations” instead of useless arguments.

Real introduces the idea that partners must take turns in resolving conflicts.  He writes,

“Overwhelmingly, our common approach to problems is have a dialogue: You tell me your side and then I’ll tell you mine, and then we’ll thrash is out together…For most couples, any intensely charged issue quickly reveals that the that’s your side, here’s my side approach carries a high risk of increasing rather than decreasing tensions because neither side feels sufficiently heard or understood.  In a great relationship both you and your partner can, if you must, air your upset about an issue, but not at the same time.”  (p. 207)

Real continues, “The repair process is unilateral, not mutual.  One partner asks for and receives help from the other in order to move out of a state of acute discontent (disharmony) back into the experience of closeness and connection (harmony).  The listener must put his or her own needs aside…someone experiencing distress, even if he’s intent on making things right, isn’t  really interested in your thoughts, your feelings, or your reasons or explanations.  In those first raw moments of reconnection, the upset partner doesn’t care all that much about you one way or the other.  What he needs to know if whether or not you care about him.”  (p. 207)

Real adds, “Once you have demonstrated your care and sincerity, once you have addressed his concerns, then he might have an interest in you.  But before that occurs, a distressed partner will inevitably perceive any bid on your part to focus on your experience as a deflection. And

though you may have nothing but the best of intentions, he will see your behaviors as defensive, ungiving, selfish, or evasive.  And, by the way, he’d be right!”  (pp. 207-208)

Real elaborates on this point: “The truth is that when most of us engage in so-called listening, we have a hot nanosecond’s worth of attention span before we’re off and running.  And just what are we off and running to?  Rebuttal.  ‘Geez, that’s not right,’ we might say, or ‘Hey, I never said that.’ or  ‘That is such an exaggeration.’  Or, if you’re a psychologically sophisticated couple, you might sound something like this: ‘Honey, that’s your projection.’  ‘No, dear, it’s your denial.’”  (p. 212)

Terrence Real is a Boston psychotherapist.  For the past 30 years, Real has been developing what he calls Relational Life Therapy, and he has trained thousands of therapists in this model.

In Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship, his newest book, he writes, “It has been said there are two types of couples in the world—those who fight and those who distance.  I’d add a third type: those who do both.  One rails while the other shuts down.  Hailstorm and tortoise…Too many couples fight repetitively, resolving not much of anything, or one or both of you backs off, so you begin living ‘alone together.’” (pp. 2-3)

Real states: “First, repair is not a two-way street.  Almost everyone gets this wrong…You must take turns.  Repair goes in one direction.  When your partner is in a state of disrepair, your only job is to help them get back into harmony with you, to deal with their upset, and to support them in reconnecting.  I ask people, when faced with an unhappy partner, to put your needs aside and attend to the other’s unhappiness.”  (p. 208)

“Think of yourself as being at the customer service window.  Someone tells you their microwave doesn’t work; they don’t want to hear that your toaster doesn’t work.  Nor are they interested in your reasons.  They want a new microwave.  Take care of your customer first.  Only once they feel satisfied will there be any bandwidth for you and your experience.” (p. 209)

“Start with this.  Swear off unkindness; swear off disrespect.  Before you open your mouth, ask yourself: ‘Does what I am about to say fall below the line of basic respect? Is there a chance the listener will experience it that way?’ (p. 253)

As a couple’s therapist, on a weekly if not daily basis, I am sitting with couples who have repeatedly wounded each other with angry words and sometimes destructive behaviors.  Few of us learned, in our families of origin, how to handle conflict gracefully.  It’s not going too far to say that a single episode of toxic anger may destroy a lifetime of good will and permanently damage a relationship.

Real describes how conflict escalates: “Your endocrine system is on high alert, pumping stimulants into your blood stream.  Your autonomic nervous system—far below your consciousness—is in fight-or-flight, spurring you on or shutting you down.  The higher functions of your brain (the prefrontal cortex, the reins) have gone completely offline, while the more primitive parts of your brain (the limbic system, particularly the amygdalae) have completely taken over.” (p. 5)

Real continues, “The central question I ask myself during a therapy session is simply this one: Which part of you am I talking to?  Am I talking to the mature part of you, the one who’s present in the here and now?  This is the part I call the Wise Adult.  That’s the part that cares about us.  Or am I speaking to a triggered part of you, to your adversarial you and me consciousness?  The triggered part of you sees things through the prism of the past…The past superimposes itself onto the present, fundamentally confusing the mind.”  (pp. 6-7)

Real then describes the origins of what he calls the Adaptive Child: “But most of us do not reenact the experience of the trauma itself.  Instead, we act out the coping strategy that we evolved to deal with it…The Adaptive Child is a child’s version of an adult, the you that you cobbled together in the absence of healthy parenting.”  The traits of the Adaptive Child are described as “Black and White, Perfectionistic, Relentless, Rigid, Harsh, Hard, Certain, and Tight in the body.”  The traits of the Wise Adult are described as “Nuanced, Realistic, Forgiving, Flexible, Warm, Yielding, Humble, and Relaxed in the body.”  (pp. 7-8)

Real continues, “’Adaptive then, maladaptive now.’  The same strategy that kept Dan sane and preserved him as a child is about to sink his marriage…One of the telltale characteristics of the you and me Adaptive Child is that it is automatic, a knee-jerk response.  It’s the…visceral reaction that comes up from the feet and washes over the body.  I speak of it as our first consciousness, and I divide it into three sections—fight, flight, or fix.”  (pp. 14-15)

Real often draws upon the teachings of poets and mystics.  He writes, “The great spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti once said that true liberation is freedom from our own automatic responses.”  When we become reactive to our partners, Real explains, “The present-based, most mature part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, has lost connection with the older fast brain, the subcortical limbic system.  Without that connection, you lose a pause between what you feel and what you do…Over time, with training and practice, we can change our responses.  We can shift from being reactive individuals to being proactive teammates who, in cooperation with our partners, intentionally shape the transaction between us.”  (p. 17)   

Real continues, “In your close relationships, urgency is your enemy, and breath is your friend.  Breath can change your heart rate and your thinking physiologically…The real work of relationships is not occasional, or even daily: it is minute-to-minute.  In this triggered moment right now, which path am I going to take?  Rather than being overridden by your history, you can stop, pause, and choose.” (p. 18)

Real writes, “The Wise Adult, the prefrontal cortex led by the right hemisphere of our brains, recognizes the whole and understands how interdependent we are.  But when we are under stress—and for some of us, that is most of the time—the protective Adaptive Child muscles in and takes over…Because I see mostly extreme cases, almost everyone I’ve met has lived much of their lives using the Adaptive Child parts of the brain…people who primarily live from their Adaptive Child parts are generally great successes in the world financially and professionally.  Meanwhile they make a hash of their personal lives.”  (pp. 37-39)

In The New Rules of Marriage, Real described “needing to be right” as the foremost losing strategy in marriage.  In Us, he returns to this theme: “I ask couples I work with to swallow a few important bitter pills.  Here’s the first: There is no place for objective reality in personal relationships…there’s no way out (of an argument) because the assumption of objective facts is wrong to begin with.  In intimate relationships, it’s never a matter of two people landing on the one true reality, but rather of negotiating different subjective realities.” (p. 44)

Most of the couples I work with struggle greatly to repair their relationships after a conflict.  Real describes his approach: “I turn to Lucy, role-playing Stan…’Honey,’ I say gently, ‘I’m sorry you felt bad.  I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.  Is there anything I can say or do right now that would help you feel better?’  Then I turn to Stan.  ‘I’m sorry you feel bad,’ I repeat.  ‘Is there anything I can say to help you feel better?’  ‘Stamp that on your forehead,’ I tell him.  ‘Put it on your mirror when you shave in the morning.’”  (p. 46)

Chapter 3 in Us is entitled “How Us Gets Lost and You and Me Takes Over.”  He begins by describing what happens to couples when a conflict begins: “When we get trauma-triggered in our close relationships, our Wise Adult shuts off, and we are seized by our Adaptive Child.  We feel ‘taken over.’…Your dysfunctional stance is what your Adaptive Child keeps repeating, unconstructively, in relationships—pursuing, withdrawing, pleasing, complaining, controlling.”  (pp. 53-55)

Real then describes what he calls a “relational trauma wound.”  Abandonment is a child ego state.  ‘Adults don’t get abandoned,’ I tell Joe.  ‘Adults get left, or even, if you want, rejected.  But they survive.’  Abandonment means, ‘If you leave me, I die.’  Children get abandoned.  When you feel that petrified, desperate feeling, you are no longer in your adult self.  You are in a child ego state.  Joey wants Linda to care for that hurt, angry seven-year-old.  We all want that.  We all want our partners to reach in and heal the young wounded parts of us with their love.  And they always, to some degree, fail us…the only person who can with absolute consistency be there for our inner children is us.  And that’s okay.  That’s enough.  Once we learn how to do it.”  (pp. 60-61)

Real continues to describe the formation of the Adaptive Child state: “While reaction to trauma tends to resist it, the second mode of Adaptive Child formation, modeling, tends to internalize it.  Everyone does both.  Whenever a young person encounters trauma, they react to it and they also repeat it.  Modeling has elements of identifying with the aggressor.  In modeling, you don’t resist the dysfunctional mores of your family—you re-enact them…The Adaptive Child is who we revert to when we are triggered.  It is an immature ego state, frozen at about the age of the (violating and/or neglectful) injury.  Most of us flow into and out of these states fairly regularly.”  (p. 70)

Chapter 5 in Us is entitled “Start Thinking Like a Team.”  Here Real encourages his clients not to try to repair a relational rupture from the Adaptive Child position: “Remember your first skill…relational mindfulness.  Take a break, throw some water on your face, take cleansing breaths with long exhalations, go for a walk.  But don’t try to grapple with relational issues from your Adaptive Child.  Get yourself reseated in your Wise Adult before attempting repair.  Ask yourself which part of you is talking right now, and what that part’s real agenda is.  If your agenda in that moment is to be right, to gain control, to vent, retaliate, or withdraw—then stop, call a formal time-out if need be, and get yourself re-centered.”  (p. 123)

Real adds: “Everyone gets to go crazy in long-term relationships, but you have to take turns.  I call this relational integrity.  It means that you hold the (Wise Adult) fort while your partner goes off their (Adaptive Child) rails.  It’s not an easy practice, but it builds strong relational muscles.  If you behave well, and your partner responds in kind, that’s a good day for everyone.  If you behave well, and they don’t—and you manage to stay in your Wise Adult self despite your partner’s provocations—that’s a bad day for your partner, a mixed day for the relationship, and a stellar day for you.  You may not have achieved the result you wished for but you remained steadily in the you that you wish for.”  (pp. 123-124)

A Recent Case

This past week I was talking to one of my patients, whom I will call John, a late 40’s attorney who is married with three children.  He described an episode with his wife, whom I will call Jane, the previous week.  There had been a miscommunication regarding childcare, resulting in his wife missing her own therapy appointment. John had gone out to lunch with a friend.  Their argument went as follows:

Jane: “I’m always second—you’re going out to lunch with a friend!  I could have gone to my appointment!  You’ve victimized me so badly.  You pushed me to talk about it.  You hurt my feelings—you didn’t put me first.”

The argument continued into the evening and the following morning.  John described “crazy texts” from Jane in the middle of the night.  He couldn’t sleep.

John: “I’ve had enough of this bullshit—manipulative bullshit.”

Jane: “You had a chance to help me go to an appointment.  You’ve said my mental health is a threat to our marriage.  You hold money over my head.  You’ve been taking advantage of me.  You chose your friend over me.  You resent me.  Don’t treat me like a child.  I’ll never forgive you for any of these past things.  You’ve clipped my wings—I’m a shell of myself.  We haven’t been partners for years.  You shame me for being exhausted from motherhood.  I’ve been such a disapproved of wife.  I have no energy to stand up to you.  You relish my pain.”

In my mind, this was a good example of how many couples argue. As Real states, “You have two talkers and no listeners.”  These arguments are painful for both parties, both of whom feel misunderstood and not cared about.  Many couples struggle to recover from these encounters.  As Real has written, “Hold a moratorium on your vain attempts to get the other person to change.”  Real describes “full respect living” as a “minute-to-minute” discipline.  “Before words leave your mouth, you pause and ask yourself: ‘Does what I’m about to say fall below the level of basic respect?’  If you judge what you’re about to say as disrespectful, I have great advice for you.  Shut up.  And pledge, sincerely, from this moment forward, to do your best to curb actions and words that shame another.” (p. 155)

Real writes about what creates a sense of safety in a primary relationship: “The neuroscientist Stephen Borges posits that feeling safety in another person with whom we interact consists of two important qualities—the absence of an agenda, and the absence of judgment.  I will neither intrude nor disappear…Even while you are triggered, you can take a moment, or twenty, and access your Wise Adult self, the part of you that can stop, think, observe, and choose.”  (pp. 189-190)

“To use the crisis rather than be buried by it, you have to keep yourself above the flood of reactivity that threatens to sweep you away.  You have to have a skill that can be cultivated and made stronger—the skill of self-regulation…(which) emerges from successful experiences of repair…that’s how it is, being human.  A hurt worth bearing.  We stand grounded in the humility of our own imperfections…the critical first step is remembering love, getting seated in a part of you that wants to repair to begin with.” (pp. 191-192)

Like the marriage researcher John Gottman, Real puts a great deal of emphasis on the importance of couples learning to repair when there’s been a conflict.  Real states, “To be truthful, most couples are not utterly devoid of repair—they’re just not very good at it.”

He adds, “Like the large guy on the seesaw, shouting at his wife to get down, we frontload

our attention on what our partners are doing wrong, not on how we might be contributing.  We focus on how unheard we feel, not on how we might speak more effectively.” (p. 209)

Real encourages couple to “let the repair happen.”  He writes, “Don’t discount your partner’s efforts.  Don’t disqualify what’s being offered with a response like ‘I don’t believe you’ or ‘This is too little too late.’  Dare to take yes for an answer.  If what your partner is offering is at all reasonable, take it, as imperfect as it may be, and relent…Allowing your partner to make amends and come back into your good graces is more vulnerable for you than crossing your arms and rejecting what they’re offering.  Let them win; let it be good enough.” (pp. 222-223)

I talk a lot with couples in my office about letting go of the need to be right.  Real elaborates on this, saying, “You can learn to let go of the trap of ‘objective’ reality and tend, instead, to your partner’s subjective hurts and longings, listening, really listening, with compassion and generosity rather than defensiveness and self-centeredness.  ‘I’m sorry you feel bad.  Can I say or do anything now that might help?’” (p. 182)

I will conclude with a quote from Terry Real’s second book, How Can I Get Through to You: Reconnecting Men and Women.  He describes what it means to act relationally in the most difficult moments.  “Anyone can behave with skill and integrity when their partner is doing the same.  What makes us grown-ups is the capacity to remain skillful, even when our partners act like full-fledged lunatics…Staying seated in maturity when your partner is acting like a big baby is like riding uphill. In the blast of his yelling, withdrawal, distortions, you dig deep, switch into low gear, and crank.  It isn’t particularly pleasant.  You may not even be sure how much longer you can keep going.  But the exercise builds great relational muscles.” (p. 255)