Here's A Way To Have Win-Win Arguments In Your Relationship

How couples fight is just as important as how they love, and it's one of the most predictive factors for a successful relationship. All couples have conflict and will cause each other distress from time to time. There are two partners with different brains, two different personalities, many different moods, and many different thought patterns: What could possibly go wrong? Anything and everything. Many couples I see think that because they're in love, they should never fight. And when they do, especially when they have that first major blow-up, they're concerned there's something wrong, even unrepairable, with their relationship. While this is true in some cases, more often it's because couples don't know how to communicate without inflicting harm.

You're more likely to be heard when you take care of yourself and your partner at the same time. Taking care of your partner includes responding accurately to your partner's signals. Take care of only yourself and you get nothing. Take care of only your partner and you abandon your own needs and desires.

Often, taking care of your partner is what's most difficult. You have to know how your partner thinks and feels about specific matters. You have to put yourself in their shoes before doing anything at all and prove to them verbally that you fully understand what they want, need, worry about, and are afraid of. If you don't lead with this knowledge, your partner will assume that they have to do that for themselves. When that happens, not only is valuable time wasted for both of you, but your partner is already heading toward a fight-or-flight response. They will think they have to defend their interests since you obviously aren't looking out for them.

It's vital that during distress the two of you move as quickly as possible toward mutual relief. Don't dilly-dally. That means you both will work as fast as you can to make matters right and good for both of you.

At the start of a conflict, remain face to face and eye to eye. We're visual animals. We receive and process crucial information when we pay attention to this region of the body. But what does this mean in terms of real life and how we relate to our partner in moments of tension? It means we need to face our partner directly. Our eyes see the world in high definition through the fovea, which is part of the macula. The fovea is the size of a pin. We're legally blind through the area outside of the fovea, meaning our vision is clearest when looking dead ahead—to the side, not so much. Because of our eyes' rapid movements, we're not aware of this limitation.