Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
If you take a break from a fight, name when you will come back, and come back.
Give me twenty minutes, I am not leaving this. Then return, calmer, as promised.
Qur’an and Sunnah
The God-conscious restrain their anger and pardon people (Qur'an 3:134). Restraint that returns to make peace is the whole of it.
ٱلَّذِينَ يُنفِقُونَ فِي ٱلسَّرَّآءِ وَٱلضَّرَّآءِ وَٱلۡكَٰظِمِينَ ٱلۡغَيۡظَ وَٱلۡعَافِينَ عَنِ ٱلنَّاسِۗ وَٱللَّهُ يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ
who give, both in prosperity and adversity, who restrain their anger and pardon people- God loves those who do good
Qur’an 3:134read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Stepping away to calm down is wise; leaving with no return turns a pause into an abandonment. Naming the time, and keeping it, makes the break safe.
Levenson, R.; Gottman, J. (1983). Marital interaction: Physiological linkage and affective exchange.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology doi
Physiological linkage during conflict predicts declining satisfaction.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A break without a promised return reads as abandonment, not soothing.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Manage Conflict.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.