Living day to day in a relationship with unresolved conflict is one of the reasons why couples fight over small less important issues. When anger or hurt happens over time in any relationship, with each person harboring unresolved anger it can slowly erode the love over time. Proper communication is the key to resolving conflict along with two people willing to listen to each other and understand. Couples can communicate with each other about what bothers them all day long and still not come to any resolution if the other person does not understand where they are coming from.
Listening is the other factor that goes along with resolving conflict, “that is actively listing” to the person communicating “paying attention”. There is one big catch, most couples that get to the point where they are ready to communicate, and have their partner ready to actively listen may not communicate properly. They may start out by putting their partner on the defensive, then that person automatically shuts down. As a therapist when I counsel couples one of the first concepts that I teach them is never to blame the other person and expect them to listen. The sentence should never start out with the intent of blaming or changing the other person. That will only shut down the conversation and put that person on the defensive. Starting the conversation with statements about how you feel, can never be argued, they are your feeling about you.
Example “I feel hurt, or unloved when you constantly show up late” that statement is much more effective then “why are you always late” or “yelling you are never on time” being direct on your own feelings will open up the communication for change. You have just let the other person understand that you get hurt or upset when they are constantly late. The flip side to that may be the person that runs late has their own problem being on time, and knowing now how much it upset you, then when they do make the effort to change and start showing up on time you thank them instead of getting mad (positive reinforcement). When they don’t show up on time you can simply let them know that you appreciated the last time that they did show up on time. Humans form habits right or wrong, but couples can change and grow together with team work on both sides.
When couples fight over little thing in the relationship it is best to look at the anger as hurt, how did it get to the point where the hurt got so deep that it turned into anger. Understanding the hurt in your own self will better help your partner to consciously take time to not hurt you again, but don’t expect change overnight. The other aspect that comes with understanding is forgiving each other for the past and moving forward in a positive direction….creating new moments with less hurt, more love and better communication.
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