Why does every disagreement turn into a fight?

Is conflict in a relationship normal?

Yes. Arguing is what happens when 2 separate people share one life and want different things on the same evening. The difference between you is not going anywhere. What changes is what it does when it meets a Tuesday with too little sleep in it.

A quiet house proves nothing either way. In some nothing is wrong; in others somebody is swallowing something, and swallowed things come back attached to the dishwasher, the timing, the tone on the phone. Setting out to stop arguing is the wrong target: in my experience it buys a quieter house at the cost of a colder one.

Why does the same argument never get solved?

Because most of what you argue about is a difference between you rather than a problem, and a difference has no solution. The useful question in the middle of one is which of the 2 it is.

• A problem. Situational, like who does the cleaning or what time you leave, and a workable arrangement closes the subject.
• A difference. It rests on who each of you is and the kind of life you need, one of you planning and one of you improvising, and it stays open for as long as you are together.

Couples who live well with a difference keep talking about it, with humour and some affection, and settle nothing. Couples who do not reach a point where the subject produces one painful exchange or an icy silence.

Here is what catches most couples. You want the argument over, and you want it over in your favour, and both of those arrive in the same sentence. Your partner puts out a hand halfway through and you take it while still holding your case ready. That is not dishonesty. It is what wanting 2 incompatible things at one moment feels like, and the argument stays open because each of you keeps half-accepting an ending that is not quite an ending. I have written about why the same argument keeps coming back.

Which behaviours do the damage in an argument?

Four behaviours do most of it: criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. They are known as the four horsemen, a term I have borrowed rather than coined, and each has something that works against it¹. I use the names because naming a behaviour while it is happening does half the work.

• Criticism. You go at your partner’s character where a complaint would have named the thing they did, so they defend who they are instead of what they did. What helps is complaining about the thing and opening gently.
• Defensiveness. Accused, you reach for your own innocence so that your partner backs off, and the subject survives untouched. What helps is accepting one true part early.
• Contempt. Sarcasm, ridicule, mimicking, eye-rolling. It is singled out in that source as the greatest predictor of divorce, and what works against it is slow: appreciation rebuilt over months.
• Stonewalling. The listener shuts down and stops responding because the body is overwhelmed, which from the outside reads as indifference or punishment.

I have written separately about the four horsemen and what they miss, contempt and why a partner goes silent.

What happens in your body during a fight?

Long before you choose your words, your body has settled how this is going to go.

You feel the jolt of being got at, then heat up the neck and face, a heart going faster than the conversation warrants, hands that want something to do. Then the thinking narrows: the generous reading of what your partner said stops being available, and what is left is the case for your own defence. That state is called flooding, and no decision of yours produced it.

While it lasts you are worse at this, which is why the instruction is to stop rather than to try harder. A break of at least 20 minutes is the standard recommendation, spent on music, a walk, a dull task. Rehearsing your case keeps your body where it was¹.

Two findings are worth having. Among 124 newlywed couples followed for 6 years, how the marriage turned out could be predicted from the first 3 minutes of a conflict discussion², which tells you that much of what decides an argument has happened before either of you has made a point. In 156 mostly affluent American couples followed for 2 decades, husbands’ anger during conflict discussions predicted a greater rise in cardiovascular symptoms, and no equivalent long-term effect showed up for wives³. Neither study forecasts anything about you, and the costs do not fall equally on the 2 of you.

What does unrepaired conflict turn into?

What is not closed does not evaporate. It gets filed.

Nothing dramatic happens on the day. The argument tails off, somebody goes to bed, and in the morning it is not mentioned. Each of those unclosed evenings stays on a record you are both keeping, and the record changes what the next remark sounds like. A neutral question about the time arrives as a dig.

Resentment is that record more than it is a mood, which is why an apology that changed no behaviour closes nothing on it. Then comes the watchfulness: one of you checks the mood of the room before speaking and edits sentences in advance. That person is doing most of the work of keeping the house calm, and when they finally say so out loud, what comes back is that they are too sensitive. In the end all 3 meet in one argument that never finishes. I have written about how to let go of resentment and walking on eggshells.

How do you fight better and repair afterwards?

You get worse at arguing and better at stopping, because a clumsy repair beats an elegant point. A repair is anything either of you does to stop it getting worse: a joke, a hand on an arm, saying that came out badly and asking to start again.

• Start softly. A hard opening is hard to come back from, and the first 30 seconds carry more than the next 30 minutes.
• Complain about the thing. The bins, the timing, the plan you did not know about. Leave their character out of the sentence.
• Accept one true part, early. Say what you agree with before you defend yourself.
• Agree the break in advance. Settle the words and the minimum time while nothing is wrong, and let whoever calls it be the one who reopens it.
• Ask about the worry. Almost every entrenched position has a fear underneath it, and the fear is more negotiable than the position.
• Finish it out loud. An argument that trails off into silence has been postponed, and it comes back with interest.

A repair only lands when the ordinary warmth underneath is in reasonable shape, which is why rebuilding that warmth comes before the hard conversation.

These steps are not enough, and are the wrong instrument, in 3 situations: where you are both flooded, so that nothing said will be heard; where contempt has settled in, because appreciation has to be rebuilt before any technique holds; and where one of you controls the other, where better technique only hands the controlling partner a better vocabulary. What stays genuinely uncertain is which of those you are in: from the inside, a controlling relationship and a badly conducted one describe their arguments in almost the same words. That distinction is worth the free 30-minute call on its own.

Questions people ask

How do I raise couples therapy without it sounding like an accusation?

Say what you want more of rather than what they are doing wrong, and ask for one session instead of for therapy. A partner who hears a diagnosis refuses, and a partner who hears an invitation is being asked for an hour, which is a far smaller thing.

What happens if we start arguing in the session itself?

That is useful rather than embarrassing, because I get to see the thing instead of a report of it. I slow it down at the point where it turns, which is the part neither of you can see while it is happening.

Will the therapist take a side?

No, and I will say plainly when I think the load between you is unequal, which is a different thing from taking a side. Where one of you is carrying more of the repair work, naming that is part of the job.

Should we have couples therapy, or should one of us go alone first?

Couples therapy is the better place to start when the trouble is between you, and individual work comes first when one of you is carrying something older and heavier. It is not unusual to run both, and that is worth deciding deliberately.

How do we choose a couples therapist when we disagree about everything else?

Pick on whether you both feel able to speak in the first session, not on the method or the training. If one of you leaves that hour feeling outnumbered, say so, and try somebody else rather than concluding that therapy does not suit you both.

When every disagreement escalates, my recurring conflict masterclass teaches you both how to stop the spiral earlier.

Sources

1. The Gottman Institute, The Four Horsemen: The Antidotes
2. Carrère, S. and Gottman, J. M., Predicting Divorce among Newlyweds from the First Three Minutes of a Marital Conflict Discussion, Family Process, 1999
3. Haase, C. M., Holley, S., Bloch, L., Verstaen, A. and Levenson, R. W., Interpersonal Emotional Behaviors and Physical Health: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study of Long-Term Married Couples, Emotion, 2016

How this article was written: I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. I read the draft, correct and improve it and stand behind every clinical statement. The professional and clinical judgement is mine.