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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
65 practicesTheme · Staying regulated in conflict
How long you have
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…
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.