Hello folks, autumn is in the air in this part of the world, bringing upon bright colors, clear skies, and in our home, an invitation to sit by the fire, talk, laugh, watch football, eat, drink and be merry. That is the fun part. Spoiler alert: In marriage, there are other parts too: closeness brings about disagreements and arguments. It is inevitable; it is part of the deal and peculiarly necessary (arguments lead us to the reason we picked our partners, mastering how to repair them heals us.
Don't worry; arguments, fights (excluding extreme dirty-fighting) and disagreements are not indicative of marital distress. What is, though, is its recurrence, the proportion of fights to the good times and most importantly, the mechanism of correction. In other words: how often, how many and how dirty and how they get (un)resolved.
The magic is to learn how to go from disharmony back into harmony.
I learned, in the process of becoming certified in Relational Life Therapy ™, over the years working with couples in therapy, and for a while in my own marriage, this is one aspect that has proven to be at best, adequate and at worst, inexistent. Even in really emotionally healthy families (rare, but there are some!) this re-pair skill is practiced behind closed doors. For the most part, we became adults and partnered up, being significantly clueless in this area.
The good news is that by learning a few things and practicing them often (remember this is like growing a new muscle, it takes doing) you can master the re-pair process after a fight. By the way, if you are thinking at this point, why fight in the first place? You haven't been married yet, you are in denial or, you are "superficially" married (a topic that has to do with intimacy/love avoidance).
"We all make sense in our own minds". With this in mind….
If we wholeheartedly believe that our partner genuinely cares for us, we can abandon our righteousness and listen to his/her reality. We can only hope they will do the same for us, which of course, is the ideal but not necessarily what happens at first, however if you are married to a caring and decent guy/gal, they will catch on quick (mainly because it actually feels really good to master this process).
Here is a roadmap to re-pairing a disharmony.
She: "The reason I made myself feel that way was because of that picture your slutty co-worker sent you once over a text and every time you check your phone, I think of that".
He: (remembering that: we all make sense in our minds based on our own interpretations) "I get that, I get that if I were in your shoes I may feel the same way"(empathy). Note: At this point, your reality doesn't matter, the fact that you may have been checking if your father was out of surgery wouldn't make a difference! Not yet.
She: "What would make me feel better right now is to hear how safe I am with you, why you were checking your phone over dinner and in the future, don't even take your phone out".
He: Give what you can give genuinely.
He: "What would really help me is that you talk to me on the spot when I am doing something that hurts you, so that I can either stop doing it or talk about what is happening".
Roles can be reversed (encouraged) so then "she" would be the "receiver" and "he" the "approacher".
If you are now asking yourself, who talks like this in a marriage? The answer is: the ones who want to have a great one.
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