Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
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.
Qur’an and Sunnah
We made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another (Qur'an 49:13). Even between two, the work is to truly know, not to defeat.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقۡنَٰكُم مِّن ذَكَرࣲ وَأُنثَىٰ وَجَعَلۡنَٰكُمۡ شُعُوبࣰ ا وَقَبَآئِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوٓاْۚ إِنَّ أَكۡرَمَكُمۡ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ أَتۡقَىٰكُمۡۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرࣱ
People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into races and tribes so that you should recognize one another. In God’s eyes, the most honoured of you are the ones most mindful of Him: God is all knowing, all aware
Qur’an 49:13read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Most stuck conflicts sit on top of an unspoken longing or fear. Naming the dream underneath is what finally moves the two of you.
John Mordechai Gottman; Nan Silver (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work
Lay presentation of the Gottman Method: Love Maps, fondness and admiration, turning toward, accepting influence, solvable vs perpetual problems, shared meaning.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Naming the dream under a gridlocked position moves a couple from gridlock to dialogue.
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.