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Your marriage
What keeps a marriage well is not the big gestures. It is knowing each other, turning towards each other in ordinary moments, staying regulated when it gets hot, and repairing quickly when it goes wrong. Most of the practices here take under five minutes.
Narrowed down
5 practicesTheme · Staying regulated in conflict
How long you have · Twenty minutes
After a fight has cooled, revisit it once without blame, each saying how it felt.
Not who was right. How it felt for me, how it felt for you, and what we each needed.
On the fight you keep having, stop trying to win it and ask what it means to them underneath.
What are you hoping for, or afraid of, in this. Then only listen for the dream beneath.
Before you argue your side, say their side back so well that they feel understood.
Summarize what they mean until they say yes, that is it. Then, and only then, your turn.
If you go silent and shut down, do not just stonewall. Say you need a break, and come back when calm.
Silent withdrawal makes it worse. Name that you are overwhelmed, take twenty minutes, then re-engage.
When either of you floods, take a real break of at least twenty minutes before continuing, and agree when to return.
Past a certain heat the body cannot hear reason. Stop, settle, and come back at the time you set.