Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
Speak in I-statements about a specific situation. Drop the you-statements, the blame, and the always and never.
I felt worried when the call did not come lands. You are so thoughtless attacks. Stay with I and the specific.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Be mindful of God, and speak in a direct fashion and to good purpose (Quran 33:70). An I-statement about a real moment is that direct, well-aimed speech.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَقُولُواْ قَوۡلࣰ ا سَدِيدࣰ ا
Believers, be mindful of God, speak in a direct fashion and to good purpose
Qur’an 33:70read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
You-statements read as attacks and trigger defense; speaking about a specific situation in terms of your own feeling and need keeps the conversation workable.
Gottman, J.; Coan, J.; Carrere, S.; Swanson, C. (1998). Predicting Marital Happiness and Stability from Newlywed Interactions. Journal of Marriage and the Family doi
Newlywed interaction patterns; accepting influence; soft start-up.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Framing complaints as I-statements about a specific event, rather than you-accusations, keeps conflict from escalating.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Manage Conflict; Gottman-Rapoport intervention (Speaker: I-statements, gentle start-up).
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.