How to Fix an Argument in Your Marriage.

By Dr. Andrew Millar
Clinical Psychologist
Santa Maria, California

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Dr. Millar is a 4th generation Californian with roots in Berkeley.  In addition to many years in practice, he publishes his psychological insights in regular columns for the Santa Maria Times and the Lompoc Record.
Psychology Center of Santa Maria - 5075 South Bradley Road - Suite 125 - Santa Maria, California 93455 - (805) 934-8421
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There’s nothing like a big fight in your marriage to cause emotional pain. The person to whom you promised yourself, your partner in life, the person you trust and to whom you are most vulnerable seems to become unreasonable and attacking or withdrawn. Communication seems hopeless. The fight doesn’t seem to make any sense. It can seem as if there is no way to fix the original problem or the problems caused by the argument itself.

Just to stop the pain you might attack back or you might leave to get away from the fight, which are both expressions of the common fight-or-flight response to danger. But neither solution works because the argument and the pain don’t really go away. In fact, your spouse probably gets even more frustrated and angry, so the argument escalates.

Unresolved arguments cause real damage to marriages. Sometimes marriages break up because of the fighting and pain. Sometimes people stay together by sort of pretending that they don’t have the problem that caused the fights. In that case, the pain can remain for years at some level, causing harm in all sorts of little ways. Husbands and wives can become distant from each other because of continuing pain and resentment. Often, spouses drag out the old arguments to score points against each other when they get into new arguments. Layering old arguments on top of new ones causes so much complexity that there can be no way to find your way through the layers to solve the original problem.

There is conflict in almost every marriage, but people who have stable marriages know how to quickly resolve an argument and keep the wounds to a minimum. The good news is that it is possible to learn and apply skills to turn an unhappy marriage into a happy and stable one. Often it is not even hard to make things better by using those skills, as long as the marriage problems have not gotten too complex and the couple uses the skills regularly. When problems are complex, the marriage skills, plus some extra work to remove the barriers to the relationship, can still improve the marriage.

 The best strategy is, of course, to not have to fight in the first place. I do not think it is a good idea to avoid difficult topics because unresolved problems can become huge problems in the long run. Instead, it is really important that each spouse have a way to bring up concerns, but to do so in a way that the other spouse can listen without pain or distress.

A "Soft Startup" is key to expressing concerns without causing a fight. It gets the message across while minimizing the chances that the other spouse will perceive the message as an attack. That in turn avoids pain and the usual fight-or-flight response. So, "I’m sick of you leaving your clothes all over!" becomes "Honey, would you help me with something? I’d really like us to keep the place picked up more." This strategy is most successful when the solution is about what both spouses can do to fix the problem together.

The next best strategy is to resolve a fight as quickly as possible and with as little damage to the relationship as possible. People in stable marriages often use "repairs" to resolve conflicts. A repair can be anything that stops the conflict and starts a couple toward a discussion to resolve the conflict. Married couples often develop their own repair techniques. One of them might smile to make the other laugh. One might say "Wait, I said that wrong. Let me go back," or "I think we're getting off track here," or something to change the process of the conflict. Effective types of repairs are describing a feeling, having a way to say "I'm sorry," expressing agreement with your partner's points, saying how you appreciate your spouse, asking to stop the conflict, and letting your spouse you need to calm down.