Shownotes

Episode Background

Fighting is a natural part of being human. Fights between couples can be nasty, but often something positive emerges. How can we have a constructive fight with our partner? How can we get a good end outcome, without the nastiness? How can we understand and build a deeper bond with each other during fights?

In this podcast episode, written jointly by Sarah and Sharad Lal, we look at common fight patterns between couples, understand the reason for the animosity between two people who dearly care for each other, and look at ways to be able to have constructive fights and deepen our relationship.

Concepts discussed include attachment theory, emotion focussed therapy (EFT), love languages, active listening, and monthly meetings.

People discussed included John Bowlby, Dr. Sue Johnson, Dr. Gary Chapman, and Tim Ferris.

Relevant Resources

Relevant Books

Love Languages - Dr Gary Champman
Hold Me Tight: 7 conversations for a lifetime of love - Sue Johnson

Episode Transcript

Hi, everyone. Welcome to how to live a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host Sharad Lal. This is episode seven. Hope all of you are having a good start to the year. Mine has been full on - a four week old baby and a toddler. But no complaints. We're all doing well.

Today's episode is a little tricky.

We'll talk about fighting with our spouses, our partners. I've co-authored this episode with my wife, Sarah. So there's a balanced perspective. Fighting is a natural part of the human condition. Fighting with people we have close to is even more common. Over the years, Sarah and I have had many heated discussions, disagreements and conflicts in our relationship as co-founders in building a business and now as parents. This is to be expected. While fights are not fun - we're often nasty to each other, lose our cools - but at the end of the fight, the outcome is better than either of us could have individually done. This got both of us interested in how to fight well. So we get the end result without the anger, aggression, and disconnection. We read up about this to therapists, coaches, and friends, and found a few techniques that worked for us in this episode.

I'll share some of those. We are by no stretch of imagination experts nor have we perfected the art of fighting well. We are still very much learning and hope some of what we've learned is useful to you.

Before getting into this episode, a few short housekeeping notes. This episode, and others can be listened to on www.howtolive.life. www.howtolive.life also has show notes and additional resources for reference. If you like the show, please do support us and leave a rating wherever you're listening. Now, even Spotify allows ratings. So if you listen on Spotify, please do so. That'll be awesome.

Back to the episode, fighting well with our spouse. What's always intrigued me is how some of us can be so nasty to someone we care about or how some of us can be cold and disconnected to someone we love in a moment of need.

Couples, therapist, and clinical psychologist, Sue Johnson puts forward a very relatable theory. She paints a picture of a fight where one partner is aggressive and nasty while the other is withdrawn and cold. One locks themselves in the room while the other is banging on the door. Now, if this is you, don't worry. It's very common. This is a template that Sue calls protest polka. Many of us have experienced this. On the surface it seems like both folks don't care about each other and are trying to hurt the other person. But in reality, the drama is something else. It's a cry for love, for attention, for emotional security. It's what psychologists call an attachment cry.

To understand this better, we need to go back even further to a path breaking theory put forth by psychologist John Bowlby - the attachment theory. According to this theory, when a mother gives love, attention and security to a child, the child is able to regulate emotions, better. Feeling secure, loved, and safe the child grows up to be confident and independent. This sets up the child for life.

However, when a child doesn't get the safety or attention from the primary caregiver, he can either become aggressive or withdraws. His emotional regulation gets affected sometimes for life. Bowlby tested this theory, not only in human beings, but also animals.

Now this was a path breaking theory in the 1950s. When parents were told not to cuddle their kids too much, to discipline them, to be strict with them, even hit them.

Sue Johnson was a huge fan of Bowlby. She worked extensively with couples and realized that the attachment theory is not relevant only for kids, but also for adults. For adults, we look at our spouse or partner for attachment needs. When we feel emotionally safe, wanted, loved, appreciated by our partner. We feel safe to be ourselves. When this bond gets broken, we revert to the inner child and have the attachment cries, the attachment protests.

This could either be aggressive and vocal in a way demanding love and attention or withdrawing and cold in an attempt to protect ourselves.

With all the above the two things that stood out for me were firstly, when we fight with our partners and get mean and nasty to each other, at the core of it, we're not trying to hurt our partner, but this is a protest, a tantrum for attachment, for love, to feel emotionally secure and connected to a partner. It's because we value the love, care and safety our partner provides, we protest when it's being taken away or when we feel it's being taken.

The second thing that stood out, some of us might think of ourselves as strong, independent people. Ironically, when we can depend on our partner for emotional safety, we can become fiercely independent, we can go out into the world and be who we are.

As Bowlby said for kids when kids feel secure that the mom is around or the primary caregivers around, he is willing to go out and play with other kids, try different things, be independent, explore and grow. That's the same for adults when the attachment needs are met.

So, if we find ourselves in this fighting pattern, what should we do? Typically the focus of the argument becomes on who is right. We tend to stick to our guns, prove ourselves to be. We look at logic, bring facts from the past examples of other couples and anything that can prove our point.

We're looking at ways to blame our partner. In trying to be right by blaming, we both lose.

If we still need to blame someone psychologist, Sue Johnson recommends blaming this pattern. It's this pattern between us that's taken the matter out of hand. We can always say that, Hey, we're doing this polka thing again and take time out to move forward from here.

As we saw in episode three, when we're emotionally charged, logic does not work. We need to get into emotions and feelings.

A good way to do this as suggested by Sue Johnson is to talk about our deepest fear that's leading to these emotions. What's triggering us? What's causing this reaction?

Let's take the example of a couple fighting about moving to another city on the surface, the argument could be as follows.

The husband wants to move because it means a big promotion for him, more money for the family and a better lifestyle for. The wife does not want to move because she would need to give up her job. And the kids would be displaced from school. They fight for days on the pros and cons of moving. The discussions get heated. One of them gets aggressive. The other withdraws, the energy in the houses is charged, there's tension for weeks and the couple of gets nowhere.

Now if the couple calls out the pattern that they're stuck in, takes time out, reflects on their emotions, What's driving this reaction. The real issue gets uncovered. The wife comes back and pores her heart out. She isn't upset about losing her job. She doesn't really care about her current job. She's scared of being uprooted from the town. She grew up in the community. The familiarity. When they move to the new place, her husband will get busy with work. He will travel. The kids will get busy in school and she will be left isolated. That's her deepest fear.

The husband then talks his deepest fear. If he doesn't take this promotion, he'll be stuck in his career. This isn't the deep fear. His wife looks at him as a superstar, family and friends admire him deeply for all his success. If he doesn't progress, they will lose respect for him. He will lose his identity as such an inspirational person in the community.

Now takes a lot of work and courage to be able to understand this about oneself and talk about it to one spot.

Being vulnerable. Like this is very scary and difficult to do, but when one can become vulnerable and authentic with one's partner, the emotional connection not only gets rekindled, but gets deepened. As you can see the real issue here wasn't about losing one's job or missing out on a promotion, not the logical stuff.

It was about isolation, respect, identity. Once this is clarified and spoken about in a safe space, the deeper connection strengthens the attachment bond that Bowlby and others talked about now it bought the husband and wife feeling secure. They can have a difficult conversation in a constructive manner.

They can truly see each other clearly and arrive at the best. Reaching to this depth is not easy and takes a lot of work psychologist. Sue Johnson has a framework of seven levels of conversation to reach this place, for folks interested, I'll have a link in the show notes about a book and the framework.

The next concept we found extremely powerful is the concept of love languages. When we feel loved, when our love tank is filled up, we feel emotionally safe. In this state we can understand each other better. We can communicate openly and we can fight. However, all of us express and feel love differently to show our love. We might spend the whole day cooking a beautiful meal, but a partner might prefer a quality conversation. Instead, quality time, fills her love tank and not necessarily a meal.

Similarly a partner might give us this expensive gifts she's chosen and gone through a lot of work to get, but we might prefer a big hug. Hugs and kisses make us feel loved and not gifts. Dr. Gary Chapman and award winning author. Who's helped millions of couples find love. Came up with this concept of love languages.

This is the way we express love and feel love. When we do not understand each other's love, language we get lost in translation. It's like one person is speaking French while the other speaks German. Dr. Chapman believes that there are five universal love languages.

The first quality time, being able to spend time with each other, having a conversation, a walk, or any quality interaction. The second words of affirmation, providing encouragement, praise and not criticism. The third acts of service, doing something like cooking, a meal, cleaning the house or being of service to one's partner in any way. The fourth gifting, the fifth physical touch massages, hugs, cuddles, kisses.

This concept is so powerful because once we know our partner's love language, we can shower love in that. We want to give them in that language. This will help fill his or her love tank. In order to use this concept, It's important to know our, as well as a partner's primary love language, while it may be obvious to some Dr. Chapman has a questionnaire, which you and your partner can fill out to discover this. I will leave a link to his book and a link to the questionnaire in the show notes. By understanding this well, we can express love in the way our partner receives it best.

The next learning is from the world of coaching. This is simple but powerful. Active listening. Often when our partner comes to us with a problem or an issue, maybe it's some politics at work or an argument with a family member. Some of us tend to quickly provide a solution, just shut off the conversation and say, Hey, why don't you do this?

Why don't you do that? This could lead to an unnecessary fight.

Often up, partner's not looking at a solution. They're just looking at venting out what's in their mind, talking through something difficult. They just want to be listened to.

A good way to be an active listener is to sit back with a full presence and just listen. That itself is a gift to a partner, resisting the urge to provide solutions, maybe we can be curious, ask questions. That's all we need to do.

And if he can hold that space for our partner where he, or she can talk through their problems and just process them, just take them out or not even reach a solution. That's the service we can do to a partner. Active listening is a very important part of everyday living with our partner.

The last learning is a very practical one monthly meetings. The great podcaster Tim Ferris had a problem. Whenever his partner would bring up an issue, he'd be busy with something else.

As a result, he wasn't ready for a deep conversation. While he understood the importance of the problem, the timing of when it was brought up caused fights. So he came up with a great system, monthly meetings during this meeting, which had a structure, they talked about all the issues. And then over time they even talked about good stuff, inspired by this, Sarah and I have been doing these powwows for a few years. Now we do them in a cozy cafe over an hour. It's in both our calendars. We followed the same structure as Tim Ferris and his girlfriend. Each one starts by saying what they did well, what they could do better than what their partner did well and what he or she could do better after the first partner, the second partner has a go.

Through the course, good stuff gets celebrated and difficult issues get discussed. The discussion is very constructive because both parties are fully present. They're ready to have this conversation. The location is comfortable and it's easy to talk about stuff. We also use this to do some planning, planning for the house, for the kids, for admin stuff. I would highly recommend this.

You can have fun with this and see what works for you.

I will upload the template Tim Ferris and his girlfriend use in the show notes.

So those are the four principles, concepts, tools that we had for you.

If any of these resonate, here are a few action steps you could consider, you can reflect on the kind of fights you have with your partner and see what template or patterns do they follow. And once you know that you can see the signs when they actually coming about, and that's when you can call time out and disengage.This could be a useful discussion with your partner.

The other very useful tool off course is love languages. You could do the questionnaire and see what your, and your partner's love languages are. Monthly meetings are also a really good, fun way to just check in with your partner, keep in touch, and be connected.

So any of these tools, you can give it your own words and see what works for you and experiment.

Before we end, here's an important note, relationships and individuals are deeply complex. There may be many scenarios which acquire other approaches like support from counsellors support from extended family trauma based patterns, which need deeper work.

So the tools that we mentioned here may not be suitable to everyone once again, we're not experts. These are just learnings. With that a gentle reminder, all show notes are available in www.howtolive.life.

Thank you for all the comments and encouragement. You can continue to be in touch with me either on social media or on www.howtolive.life. If you like what you hear, please do consider giving us a rating on whatever platform you listen to us on. That's it for today. Wish all of you a wonderful day ahead.

Follow us on
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PodcastHowtolive/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcasthowtolive/

#007 Fighting well with our partner