How to Argue With Your Partner (And Build Intimacy)
If there’s one thing I never learned before my current healthy relationship—it’s how to argue constructively.
Constructively, as in feeling heard by the person I’m engaging with, and actually coming out of it feeling content and satisfied.
Oh, and hopefully not being interrupted mid-convo with defensive, “well, you did THIS.”
I’m going to show you exactly how to properly argue with your partner in this article. This is if you’re looking for a healthy, conscious way of communicating, and you and your partner are willing to bend your old (very ingrained) communication patterns.
As a breakup coach, many of my clients share their regrets about exploding to their ex, or how they’d wished they’d handled themselves better in arguments during their relationship.
This is why I’m making this article. I want to help you reframe what conflict means in a relationship, and give you helpful tools for next time. (Yes, there’s always a next time.).
What You Need to Know About Arguing & Conflict
Okay, so before I jump into the formula for building intimacy during a fight, you need to know a few things.
Firstly, arguing is still better than not arguing at all. My mother might disagree with this one but that’s a whole other can of worms I can’t get into right now. The goal in a relationship isn’t to reduce fighting, but to increase the quality and outcome of the argument. Is that going to happen every time? No, because we’re human.
Ultimately, done with intention, arguing can:
bring you both closer together
provide solid tools for next time
help you two understand each other more
create an opportunity for deeper connection
and in my case, help me blog about it
Bringing up things to our partners that are “areas of opportunity” (don’t we all love that sentence) actually give us opportunities to get closer and better understand each other.
So many times we shy away from conflict because we learned (maybe in our childhood) that arguing is “splitting mom and dad up,” or that having intense emotions is “wrong” because it “hurts people.”
This ultimately leads us to avoid conflict and do silly things, like break up with people over text just to avoid seeing how the hurt we caused our partner. (No, I do not recommend this that’s why I’m talking about it.)
Arguments actually build intimacy, if you follow a few profound guidelines.
Ready to learn what that is? Okay, let’s jump in.
Step 1: Argue While Sitting Down Together
Have you ever realized that there’s never a good time to argue? Many times fights come out of left field or quickly escalate in the middle of the grocery store over the dishes not being done.
In most of my previous relationships, I’d often feel deprived of being able to communicate my feelings and needs, and so we’d avoid talking about things as then I’d be “interrupting” my then-partner in what he was doing. So, we’d just kind of talk about it for 2 minutes before bed, or 1 minute on the phone. This frustrating cycle of rarely feeling heard, or feeling like a burden for wanting to talk about important stuff that upset me ultimately broke us up.
Now, in my conscious partnership with my fiance, we don’t argue unless we are sitting down and actually feeling willing to discuss what’s been brought up from one of us. This is a conscious choice that needs to be made from both of you.
In many relationships, I think a lot of stuff gets swept under the rug and brushed off, and at least one of you feels really unheard. Next time you feel the urge to bring something up, or are sensing your partner wants to talk, sit down and actually listen to each other. This brings me to my next point.
STEP 2: Actually Listen to What Your Partner Has to Say BEFORE Responding
Do you ever notice that when you’re listening to someone talk, you’re actually formulating your response BEFORE they’re finished? That was me back in the day when I’d network at events and just have my elevator speech handy. (It was not the best way to build authentic connections.)
In this step, you’ve got to be willing to be present and hear your partner’s concerns before you share your side of things. Sometimes, I get so focused on what I’m going to say to my partner that I miss what he’s saying as I’ve already gone into defence-mode just by him bringing something up in the first place.
I create my response to show I’m right, and he’s not, when really—we are just both sharing our points of view about a situation. It’s important to let go of the need to be right so that you can actually see what your partner needs in the conversation.
When you actually listen to your partner, without feeling the need to respond right away with your perspective, you’ll be less likely to talk in circles; and we all know how long arguments can last over the same thing because we just literally keep repeating ourselves to be heard (and avoid truly listening).
In fact, when you give your partner space to share their side of things, you’ll also be cultivating space for them to bring up stories from the past that contributed to their feelings and fears in this discussion. This is so important because it helps you understand more about where it’s coming from (and that it’s also not always about you). This is also a chance for you to understand what makes your partner who they are, and enhance the vulnerability aspect in the relationship.
STEP 3: Share Your Perspective With Your Own Perception
If you are trying to explain to your partner what they did that triggered you, make sure you describe your side of things without using any blame language or language that fills in the blanks of what you think your partner is thinking.
Avoid:
Saying things like “You purposely did [fill in the blanks"]”
Using “never” or “always” when describing your partner
Criticizing or talking down to your partner
Instead:
Use “I statements” as in I feel, I think, I saw
Express your emotions and how certain actions/words had you feeling a certain way
Share any stories that this incident brings up for you
Explaining your side of things is really about helping your partner understand what’s going on for you, instead of making it about being right or wrong in the situation.
STEP 4: Validate Your Partner BEFORE You Respond
Alright, so maybe you’re someone who is willing to hear what your partner has to say, but the moment they’re done, you immediately jump into what you want to say. Maybe you even tell them WHY they shouldn’t think the way they do.
There’s just one step before (minus the “why”), which a little tiny sentence that sounds like this, “I can see why you’d think that,” or “I can see why you’d see it that way,” and this is the holy grail sentence while arguing.
Why is it so powerful? Because it’ll lower your partner’s defence-mode and it’ll help open them up to hearing your side of things without getting too triggered by the argument. 99% of the time, I’m willing to drop my defences once I know my partner has heard and understood me to a degree. My shoulders fall back down (into place) and I can begin to relax.
Now of course, if your partner is being a cruel, evil human and trashing you til the cows come home, this method isn’t going to work. This process of handling conflict is for two people who love and respect each other, and who are open to building their toolbox to enhance their relationship.
Now, you might think, “none of what they said is true though!” or maybe you just think most of it isn’t. All you need to be willing to do is understand, based on your partner’s views of life or the situation, that it’s understandable they’d see things that way. It doesn’t mean you agree with their point of view—just that you can see it.
Step 5: Use Empathy
Empathy is a great tool for handling conflict in a relationship. It takes you out of that fight, flight or freeze mode and back into remembering that you’re two people who care deeply about each other.
Again, I know I can get defensive and forget about being kind, understanding and empathetic to my fiance, but because I know how important this is to working through the problem at hand, I quickly return to my empathy. Empathy is sometimes the only remedy we need in any argument.
Empathy sounds like this:
“You had a really long week, I can see why you’re so stressed”
“I can see you’re really trying here, and I appreciate that”
“That must be so tough for you”
“I can see why that’s frustrating for you”
Bringing that emotional understanding to your partner not only helps keep that connection, but helps your partner process what’s going on for them in a deeper way. It’s like killing two birds with one stone.
Step 6: Name the Takeaways & Make a Plan For Next Time
No argument is complete without this last step. You want to close the conversation by actually saying what you learned about your partner and what they need. And then you can come up with something you both can do in order to manage the issue that brought this discussion up to the surface.
I remember when I first started dating my fiance, he would sometimes go out until 2:00 a.m. with his friends, and I would never know when he’d be coming back as he wouldn’t text me until he was in a cab or Uber on the way home. This really set off my wounds of separation anxiety from when I was a child and my mother worked so much and I never knew when she’d come home.
So one night, I feel feeling particularly vulnerable and needed to talk about it. Of course, I hadn’t fully processed those feelings and this was a good opportunity for me to. So, we ended up getting in a big, long argument and my stories came out, and he truly listened.
Then, we came up with a plan to minimize that trigger, and he now texts me a couple of times when he’s out and my trigger has rarely shown up since that conversation.
Don’t miss this step!
—
I hope this article was helpful for you! Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all to arguments, but the key is to be present and bring your empathy into the conversation whenever possible. The more you can learn about these techniques to help you stay grounded, the more you can support your partner too.