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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
When · After a row
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.
Take the full twenty minutes. Five is not enough.
Physiological recovery from flooding takes longer than it feels like it should. If you come back after five minutes you are still carrying it. Take…
Write about your last argument as a stranger who wants you both to do well.
Take twenty minutes. Describe your most recent argument from the point of view of a neutral third party who wants the best for both of you. Do not…