JUST ASK JO: My Partner and I keep fighting over the same things over and over again. How do I get us past this?
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Question:
Hey Jo!
I feel like my partner and I have the same fights over and over who does more of what who’s doing less of what. And of course silent treatment. How do I get us past this?
Thanks,
Tracy
Answer:
Hey Tracy,
I know the feeling all too well. My husband and I went through almost 2 years of arguing over the things over and over again. It was exhausting! So please know that you're not alone and not the only one who's gone through this. The repetitive arguing lead us to seek out a marriage counselor, which helped to draw out the things we were missing from one another: quality time, quality conversations. After 6 months of what felt like we were just running in the same circles of blame, we finally confronted our shit.
The first step in getting past the recycled arguments is to look at the behavior (or reaction) that happens when you get into a fight. Is there a repetitive pattern or recycled behavior that happens immediately after? We all tend to be reactionary when we get hurt. It's a natural human behavior that happens in order to protect our emotions or feelings from digging deeper into that pain.
The second step is to switch from reaction to reflection. Reflection allows us to take a step back from the disagreement and to look at it from a distance with a different perspective. For example, if your fight is over the housework not being done the reaction to the argument will typically result in negative assumptions about the other person's intent ("they are too lazy to care about me...they don't appreciate what I do"). But if you can switch your mind towards reflection you might be able to see things like "maybe they had a bad day at work or they are probably tired and exhausting day".
One of the things that I've come to realize is that at the end of the day Jonathan really cares about me, he doesn't mean to piss me off or hurt me even when we argue. The moment I started to switch my heart from reacting from a place of hurt to reflecting from a place of love I was able to better approach the arguments to find a resolution.
If this is a relationship you want to keep, hang in there. Love will always find a way.
Sincerely,
Jo
