The 3 conflict reactions in relationships

Sooo much drama until one realices this!

I had a 'fight' with my partner about our views on feminism (2 and 2!) until I just told him: 'stop trying to win this, I feel like you don't really care about how I think and you just want to be right' and he told me: 'well, I can say the same thing to you' and it was just so easy to understand each other and drop it… we apologised and kissed and focused on our bond. Would love your take on how to better handle this combinations :-)

I just think it's sad the 'us and them' narratives created by the pink ego box that is social media

That last bit is on point!

10 Tips for the Good Conversation:

1. Talk about one thing at a time. This means, that you only talk about the one's world / experience / perception and finish it before you talk about the other's. In this way you will experience dialogue instead of 2 monologues

2. Agree on what thing and whos world you want to talk about

3. Be constructive. What do you want out of the conversation, say it out loud

4. Be sincerely interested in each other's well-being. That is, there is certainty that both of you will get space and be heard and would like to meet your diverse needs. It's actually love

5. Immerse yourself in your partner's world. Make it active by listening and understanding - repeat what you hear and examine if there is something you can't make sense of. Forget first of all about finding solutions - they come when you both have been seen, heard and understood by the other

6. Be open. Notice whether you are in defense (contractsions in the body, explains, stops listening, raises the voice, possibly anger, possibly crying etc.). Practice staying open (and thus vulnerable) - even though you can sometimes forget it, your partner is with you, loves you and as such is willing to be with you and not against you ?! If you believe something else, then you have the power struggle - and it is time that you either quit or take a pause and take a break

7. Be honest. Obvious but not always easy: maybe you are not trained to express your deepest needs, maybe you are afraid of your partner's reaction and consequences, maybe you are used to manipulating to get what you need, maybe you already have abandoned yourself or the other person, you may usually have long, tedious discussions about just that need / desire. To be honest, is to dare to risk yourself and your relationships in order for it to be good. If you xxx, then you must be quite fortunate for your relationship to be more alive and satisfying

8. Stand by your feelings without shedding your partner's ex. "I'm angry with you that you ..." rather than calling him / her idiot, irresponsible and anything else. If a negative feeling is hard to get rid of, then it may be because you are not yet completely seen, heard and understood by your partner. Sometimes it can also be because of emotions that you also have from your past

9.Be specific. What do you want your partner to do or say - or dislike doing or saying exactly. It is too diffuse to say, "I want you to show me more attention". Tell what actions and words you would like and when / in what situations. Remember it is only your wishes - your partner is not obliged to meet these!

10. In some situations, you may need to make appointments or find solutions. Avoid compromises that drains. Sacrifice is healthy to the extent that you do it by desire and love - conversely, it is really unhealthy for both you and your relationship if you do it by duty or fear of your partner's reaction. Life is in a constant natural change: both of you and therefore your relationship is changing also regardless of whether you want it or not. If you go with it, it doesn't have to bring about revolutions or the spark that goes away. It is therefore a good idea that you regularly exchange wishes, dreams and needs for each other, ex being family and, in general, for your life.

Anger is by far the most difficult to handle because we have learned that anger is wrong.

Anger is understood as a kind of deficiency in the individual's personality, in which the angry person is in his right to withdraw in self-righteous indignation with comments such as "So let's go, or" Direct yourself ". You can easily make yourself a victim or a martyr.

And if both parties begin to perceive themselves as victims when the other becomes angry, the relationship begins to run off track because we do not understand what lies behind anger.

On the web and in literature on relationships there are plenty of good advice on how to get better at communicating and controlling outbursts of anger. The problem is that it does not help because anger must not be controlled and subdued at all.

Anger must be understood

So what is anger and how do we understand it?

Basically, anger is a healthy and natural emotional response to feeling that your limits are being exceeded and that you feel threatened. So the anger fits you and has a message for you about where you are vulnerable and what you carry with you emotional pain from the past.

When you get angry, you are in fact scared and unsafe.

The anger is what you show on the outside, which enables you to fight and protect yourself. But behind the anger is always vulnerable feelings that we either do not want to know or suppress. It can be suppressed sides of our personality that has to do with our self-image.

That we may be afraid of not being strong enough, wise or skilled enough.

But it can also be deeper feelings, as a basic fear of being abandoned, or not worthy of love. Many of these deep emotions trigger violent outbursts when we feel we are being attacked or criticized.

And these are the deeper feelings that can trigger powerlessness and abandonment because they trigger the same conflicts and quarrels time and again.

Anger never arises unless you feel threatened or afraid.

What we can feel threatened by is very different and has to do with the content of the emotional backpack and survival strategies we have with us from the land of childhood.

Anger never arises unless you feel threatened or afraid. What we can feel threatened by is very different and has to do with the content of the emotional backpack and survival strategies we have with us from the land of childhood. This means that you are responsible for your anger. It is not your partner who makes you angry. The anger, on the other hand, is triggered by something in yourself that you are afraid of or feel threatened by. While your partner may come upon one of your emotional corpses, it's not because your partner deliberately wants to hurt you. When you next react with anger you now know that there is something you are afraid of and feel threatened by. You may not be able to feel criticized because you have old wounds around your self-esteem or certain personality traits. Perhaps you are afraid that you still do not mean something to your partner that he probably Will leave you etc. ... And exactly the same mechanisms applys to your partner.

See the child in yourself and in your partner. The next time your partner becomes very angry, step back instead of going immediately to counter-attack to defend yourself. Try to look at your partner as a child carrying old unprocessed emotional wounds instead of an unreasonable and agonizing opponent. Try to understand that your partner right there, where he is immediately angry and unreasonable, is in his "childhood life", which is governed by ancient emotions and patterns. Think about what it really is that he is afraid of and what emotions, he has so much a need to defend himself against. The moment you fail to follow up on your partner's anger, but step back and just let off his angry blade, you'll be given a unique opportunity to stop the quarrel before it gets started. And at the same time, you can begin to understand your partner on a deeper level. When you yourself get angry or feel unfairly treated, you use exactly the same method.