288 - Repair Attempts
Get back on track
Our previous episode about the repair SHOP involved dealing with fallout after a fight, but this one covers how to handle situations when you’re fighting with a partner and the fight starts to go off the rails. Learning how to keep fights on track is vital to preventing conversations leading into destructive and hurtful behaviors that may harm the relationship without solving the problem.
Some of the possible cues that your argument or fight might be spiraling are:
Switch tracking, or changing the subject/when one person’s reaction to the other’s feedback ends up changing the subject.
Interrupting, both mutual or unilateral.
Emotional escalation, or something striking a nerve, becoming suddenly overwhelmed with sadness/anger.
Body/nervous system activation, usually a heart rate over 100 BPM or certain physical manifestations of PTSD.
Four horsemen, otherwise known as toxic criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness/blame.
Unceasing negativity about oneself, partner, relationship, situation, etc.
Cyclical pursuit and withdrawal behaviors.
Attempting repairs
Any statement or action that prevents negativity or loss of control, helps you and your partner stay on track and provide more helpful feedback to one another, steers things away from destructiveness and towards constructiveness, etc., is a good attempt at making repairs during an argument or fight. Studies have shown that the happiest couples had a lower threshold of negativity, and the first three minutes of a fight or argument set the tone for the whole conflict.
In real life, repair attempts might look something like this:
Disclosing feelings: Getting vulnerable and opening up, which is also a key component of nonviolent communication (NVC).
Getting meta: Assessing the conflict as fairly as possible, being aware when you’re getting off topic, and gaining perspective.
Slowing down: De-escalating, pumping the breaks, or giving a warning.
Stopping: HHALTDSing, taking a pause, or pulling the ripcord to stop things from getting out of hand.
Finding agreement: Moving towards compromise, giving your partner the benefit of the doubt, and accepting influence.
Appreciation and affection: Encouraging your partner, offering affection/love languages, building up the relationship.
Kind humor: Use jokes or silliness at an appropriate time, not with any malicious intent.
I’m sorry: Taking ownership and responsibility, apologizing, and making amends.
Make sure that you actually accept the repair attempt; it takes two to resolve any issues, and if only one is attempting the repair then it’s basically useless. It’s easy to want to resist a partner’s attempt at repairing, but it’s vital to start developing the skill of recognizing your partner’s repair attempts. Then you can be more open to receiving them and shifting the direction of a fight.
Remember: accepting a repair doesn’t mean the fight is over, or that it’s resolved, or that you’re not going to get to be heard. It’s the first step in all of these.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about getting your fights back on track with repair attempts or maybe derailing a fight is better or is the relationship the train and the derailing is the fight and you want to get it back on track. I'm not quite sure about this metaphor.
Emily: I like that metaphor.
Jase: When arguing with a partner, sometimes the conversation can get out of hand, can spiral out of control or lead to destructive behaviors that harm the relationship without resolving the problem. Today, we're going to be talking about what it looks like when fights are getting out of hand as well as how to both give and receive repair attempts in order to successfully de-escalate those conflicts and get yourselves back on the train tracks of your relationship.
Dedeker: We're going to teach you how to be a train repairman today or repair person really. It doesn't really matter what gender you are, repair person.
Emily: That just reminds of a Spirit Tracks, the little game.
Jase: Zelda game.
Emily: The Zelda game.
Dedeker: Zelda drop a train on them, as I used to call it.
Emily: Sure. Yes, exactly. It was a cute game actually. It was fun. Spirit Tracks.
Jase: Yes, it was a fun one.
Dedeker: Repairs. First of all, I'm going to clarify that what we're talking about today is different from repair shop, which is a framework for processing after a fight, which we covered in Episode 234. If you want more information about processing and reconnecting after a fight or argument, go check out Episode 234. How do you know when a conflict in your relationship or someone that you care about is starting to get out of hand or going to a bad place? How early do you know or what are the signs that let you know this is not going to go good?
Jase: I think that's the challenge is detecting it earlier.
Emily: Yes, and sometimes, people's thresholds are different for that time at which it's like bad or not. It can be hard to maneuver but definitely if maybe voices start getting a little more raised or heated or angry retort is thrown in there, some, I don't know, spicy language, something along those lines.
Dedeker: maybe a little more curt or a little more spiky. See you go for spicy. I go for spiky.
Emily: Spiky.
Dedeker: That's how I feel it in my body.
Jase: Right. I guess for me it's also there's a feeling in my body. It's hard to explain. I tend to feel it in my upper chest and my shoulders that's like-- I don't know. Almost like a vibratiness or something that's like, I'm excited, I'm more in attack mode and it's not a good feeling. I think that that's usually when I start to notice some of those other things we're talking about like the spiky/spicy language or maybe more gibi jabs as I like to call them, little dig along with the thing that you're saying. When I start to notice those, I'll often check-in and I'll notice that I feel that extra vibratey excited. I hate that I'm using the word vibratey for this.
Emily: It feels like the word gets more shallow. Yes, a little bit. I don't know. When you're relaxed, it comes easily but when you get in that place, it stops becoming so normal and it gets to a place where you have to think about it a little bit more and be like, "Okay. I need to calm myself down in this moment."
Dedeker: I know for me it's very much like body tension. I feel like especially my stomach and chest muscles really tightening up almost that's deflecting off or getting ready to deflect off and attack of some kind. Emily, you pointed out--
Jase: Like a tightness in the corners of the mouth too. A drawing tight of the face. I guess similarly for better punching. I don't know.
Dedeker: Better to receive a punch?
Jase: I guess like your face will protect itself against punches by tensing up. I don't know.
Emily: Like involuntary muscles within our bodies, I guess, that just tense up.
Jase: Verbal punching obviously not real punching.
Dedeker: That's our experiences. Of course, this can be very different for different people. I think for some people, it could be when my partner starts ignoring me or stonewalling me or when I start stonewalling my partner or when I feel the urge to walk out of the room or raised voices is fine, but it's not until someone drops the first F-bomb that's what I know things are not going into a good place. Everyone has their different cues, I think in their own bodies and their own experiences as well as what they see happening with the other person that can cue them into knowing like, "Oh, this is maybe starting to spiral."
Emily: Let's talk about a couple other ways that you see that a disagreement is starting to spiral out of control. I was guilty of this one couple months ago with my partner switch tracking, which we talked about in Episode 168 but it's essentially changing the subject. One person's reaction to the other person's feedback ends up changing the subject. For example, my partner and I were talking, I said something to him that hurt his feelings and made him feel shitty and then I switch tracked and was like that, "Well but you didn't do the dishes."
Ridiculous, I know, but I flipped into an additional grievance that I had with him in that moment even though he was talking about something completely different. If you want to learn more about that subject, go back to Episode 168, communication hacks booster pack where we talk about switch tracking.
Jase: I think it's not usually just an abrupt change of topic, but I criticized you and now my return criticism is about how you criticized me or something like that, where you end up talking about two different things, having two different arguments at the same time. The next one is interrupting. This could be either just one person always talking over the other or it could be both constantly jumping in and not letting each other finish thoughts.
Similarly, emotional escalation. This is when you can have that feeling of suddenly being overcome by anger or sadness or something like that, where it's just like those feelings come up a lot stronger than what the content of the argument was about is a good sign that things are escalating to the point past the actual subject you're even talking about.
Dedeker: It's not going to happen in a moment where it feels like, Oh, yes, something my partner just had struck a nerve, either quite appropriately or maybe not quite appropriately. That can also be tied to if you're noticing activation in your body or in your nervous system. That's things like if you're noticing your palms getting sweaty or your muscles tightening or Jase vibrating or-
Emily: Shallow breathing.
Dedeker: -shallow breathing, sweating. The Gottman's are very much sticklers about if your heart rate gets over 100 beats per minute or 90 beats per minute if you're very much in shape that that's probably a good indicator or chances are good that something's going to take a horrible left turn. You're going to stonewall or you're explode or something like that.
Emily: Check on your Apple watch real quick.
Jase: I know, I'm just going to say-
Emily: I'm like, how do you know?
Jase: Now that so many people have Apple Watches or Fitbit or whatever, sometimes, if Dedeker and I start having a heated conversation, I'll check my Fitbit real quick, so I'll be like, hold on, hold on, I'm flooded. I'm over 100.
Dedeker: You can do that on your phone since a lot of phones have that fingerprint heart rate sensor as well or you can do it the old fashioned way just by sticking your two fingers up under your jaw there. There's a lot of ways to take your heart rate. For some people, there's also certain physical manifestations of PTSD, if something related to your PTSD or trauma gets triggered in an argument that the body and nervous system can sometimes take over in a particular way.
I do want to note and we can go into more details about this at another time, but your body being activated and your emotions being escalated or activated are not always one in the same. Sometimes we can mistake and think like, okay, if I'm going to take a halt or take a pause during a fight, that means when I come back, I know you'd be feeling super great and totally calm and peaceful and that's not necessarily true. It's important for your body to be calm or calming, but you can still be freaking angry or pissed or sad or have your emotions. They're not always exactly one and the same.
Emily: Another Gottman's favorite are the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse. Any toxic criticism maybe that's coming up or contempt, Dedeker mentioned stonewalling, defensiveness or blaming, things like that. If you see that starting to come up, then definitely, your disagreement is starting to spiral maybe out of control. I also have been guilty about this regarding myself, but unceasing negativity, which can be about yourself or your partner, the relationship in general, the situation that you currently find yourselves in. If that starts happening then maybe it's time to check yourself.
Dedeker: Another indicator can be if you're recognizing pursue and withdrawal behaviors. For more specifics about that, you can go check out Episode 228 or 275 as well. This is also another common dynamic that happens during arguments of one person being the pursuer who may be very aggressively is trying to move the argument forward or move the conversation forward and one person could be the withdrawer who's very much trying to calm the argument and stop the argument and maybe take themselves out of the argument. That can happen in a cycle and often these are things that are indicators of like okay, we're getting into our familiar choreography with this or demon dance battle, if you will.
Of course, there's plenty more of these, plenty more cues, plenty more indicators, you probably know better than anybody else when an argument is headed down the toilet as it were or headed to a not very productive place. What do we do to stop this from happening? Today we're going to be talking about repair attempts.
Jase: Yes. What is a repair attempt? It is any kind of a statement or an action, it could be silly, it could be sweet, anything that helps to prevent the negativity from escalating out of control or helps get the conversation back on track, maybe lighten the mood just slightly.
Emily: It also can make your fights start feeling better as Jase said, getting back on track, steers the conversation away from the destructive place more towards a constructive, more mutual understanding of one another and then also you can reestablish the connection between the two of you because yes, sometimes in fights, it really does feel like, it's me versus them but instead if the two of you versus the problem, then this repair attempt can start heading you in that direction.
Dedeker: Repair attempts, again, any kind of statement or action that will help you and your partner better respond to feedback and better be able to get on the same team like Emily was saying, it kind of shifts you out of that me versus you to the us versus the problem mentality and also help the two of you get to a place of being more receptive to finding the areas where you do agree. We're going to be talking more specifically about what repair attempts actually do look like in practice and in reality, but first, let's talk about why? Why? Why even do this?
Jase: Why bother?
Dedeker: Why bother? Don't you just want a bite? It feels so good sometimes. Not a lot of time, but sometimes. We're going to talk about research that's been specifically done on repair attempts within the context of conflict. There has been a lot of research on just generally conflict resolution within relationships. For this episode, we're only looking at few studies, we're looking at the research that has been done by Gottman Institute researchers as well as research done by Lawrence Kurdek in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Jase: Researchers Janice Driver and Amber Tavares from the Gottman Institute looked at the behavior of couples who were either relationship masters or disasters. These are some terms that they've used for these and basically what that means is masters are the term they used for couples they studied who stayed together and are happy in their relationship and the disasters are the couples who either split up and or we're unhappy in the relationship.
What they found in regards to this is that the happiest couples repaired at a much lower threshold of negativity. To phrase that another way, essentially, as the fight would start to escalate, like the point where it's, "Ooh, this is getting too far, we're going to repair this and get it back on track" would happen sooner.
A lower threshold. I guess as the intensity goes up when it clicks that meter to go, oh, hey, let's repair this and get this back on track, the happier couples did that sooner. What happened in the first three minutes of conflict, set the tone for the rest of the conflict. They termed this pre-emptive repair or repair attempts that take place within those first three minutes were the most effective for not only getting it on track, but keeping it there.
Dedeker: Jase, first three minutes, that's not a lot of time.
Jase: Yes, it's like right as you're starting. Let's start repairing right before breaking.
Dedeker: You know what? I think that makes sense. Anecdotally, when I think about my own experience and also the work that I do and also just hearing from family and friends, I think it makes sense that sometimes, especially if people have been in a long term relationship, that sometimes you know right out the gate.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: Sometimes that's on topic. Sometimes particular topic like, Oh, we always fight about this and so you know but I feel like again just anecdotally that there's a lot of people who just know that right from the beginning whether or not it's going to get rough or not.
Emily: Yes, and sometimes it can maneuver its way into more or less rough over the course of the conversation but it is an interesting thing that they found. They spoke more about their findings. They said that these repairs primarily address the effective climate of the interaction aimed at establishing emotional connection rather than repairs that appealed to cognitive problem solving logic or rationality. That's interesting.
Jase: Talks about emotionally connecting getting on the same page.
Emily: I would agree with that for sure. When somebody is trying to rationally be like well, you're wrong because of X Y and Z, it's really annoying for me at least. They continued on and said these effective repairs include shared humor, affection, self-disclosure, expressing understanding and empathy, taking responsibility for a part of the issue being discussed and we're okay codes. I want to talk more about that at some point where okay, codes, I like that idea a lot.
Finally, they said some specific repairs were effective during the heat of the conflict, minutes four to 12, and some repairs, although very few repairs were effective in the 11th hour, that is the last three minutes of the conflict. Wow, that does seem pretty late in the game to start a repair.
Dedeker: Yes, I guess we're learning that the longer you wait to repair in some way with your partner, the less likely it is that it's going to be effective.
Emily: They also said that 96% of conflict that started negatively had like a harsh startup or a criticism right out the gate, they never got turned around which makes sense, I think.
Dedeker: That's a lot, that is almost 100%.
Emily: Exactly.
Jase: That's something that we talked about a little while back in terms of how to bring up criticisms. I think we talked a little bit about the idea of the soft start and that's not really the subject of this episode, but that's also apparently very important for this if 96% of things that started very harshly rather than having a soft start, never get turned around. That's also something worth thinking and I would almost say it's like, that soft start into a discussion is starting with a repair attempt. It's within that first three minutes, we're going to start right off from a note of, I'm trying to do this in a way where we're connected and we're on the same team. That makes a lot of sense, actually.
Emily: I think that's huge as opposed to coming at your partner with a super combative attitude just right out the gate, they can feel that and it's probably not going to go very well, people are going to get defensive/
Dedeker: It's also so easy to do if you're in a moment of being angry or pissed off or frustrated or sad or whatever like you reach your boiling-over point and then it's like, oh my god, you never do this right and that's like a harsh startup and that's probably not going to get turned around.
Emily: Absolutely. Finally, Kurdek’s research found that each partner's the level of relationship satisfaction is positively related to the frequency with which both partners use constructive strategies to resolve conflict, such as agreements, compromise, humor and negatively related to the frequency with which each partner uses destructive strategies to resolve conflicts such as conflict, engagement, withdrawal and defensiveness. Basically, all the things that we were just talking about.
Yes, don't do those things. We are going to continue and talk about what repair attempts actually look like in real life and give some examples, but before that, we are going to discuss some of the ways in which you can keep the show going and make it free for listeners out there like you.
Jase: Let's bring this into real life now. What do repair attempts actually look like in real life? It is a little hard to nail down just one single answer of how this may look in your relationship conflicts because as we said before, the definition is just any action or something that you say that moves you toward more constructive arguing or brings you back together. That can really vary depending on your relationship, your humor styles, your personalities, what's genuine for you, all those things.
However, this is something that's been categorized and studied in a lot of detail by the Gottman's and something that we've talked about a lot, ourselves. Dedeker and I actually just the other day had a fun time going through the list of repair attempt types and trying to identify which ones we thought we used the most, things like that. For this episode, the three of us have compiled some rough categories and examples to get you thinking and maybe even inspired to try some of these out or identify which ones might feel the most organic and natural for you to try in your fights.
Dedeker: Okay. Our first category here is the repair attempt of disclosing your feelings. Maybe easier said than done or maybe easier done than said for some people, I don't know. That includes getting vulnerable, opening up and you'll notice that disclosing feelings is a key part of a lot of good communication frameworks like NVC or reflecting or there's so many marital therapy approaches that involve-- really come back to focusing on the emotions and on the feelings.
This is an important part of also having a softer start-up to your conflicts. Instead of going straight for, you're an ass because you always do this thing and it's just starting with, I'm feeling really overwhelmed and stressed about X, Y and Z. Just things like I'm feeling sad or ooh, when I heard that, that hurt my feelings or saying something like, I feel sensitive about this particular topic or I feel criticized right now, do you think that you can rephrase that? Which is interesting. I'm actually all about encouraging people to ask their partners to rephrase things if they can do it in a non-shitty, non-combative way. What do you all think?
Jase: It's hard to imagine it not-- not hard to imagine, but I could easily see that one. I don't know, getting both partners even more riled up. What do you think?
Emily: I like what they said though here, I feel criticized or hey, that made me feel a little criticized, is there another way that you could put that, that perhaps isn't so critical?
Dedeker: Yes or you can even say-- even not even make it about their actions, just be like, ooh, I'm noticing that I'm feeling defensive about this, do you think you could put this in another way? Or you may not even have to make that request, you could just be like, I'm feeling defensive about this.
Emily: Perhaps they will put it in a different way after they hear that you have felt defensive in that way.
Jase: You know what though? As I'm thinking about it more, I think that second part of the, can you rephrase that? Or could you say it another way? I think there's a key there, because if it's just, that sounded like criticism, just sounds like I'm shooting down the way that you said that thing to me but if it is, I'm reacting defensive to that or I feel criticized by that, can you rephrase it?
Still puts it back on I do want to understand and I want to hear and listen to you. I do think that's a key part and it makes a lot of sense to keep it from just being as type of switch-tracking of that just sounds like criticism or oh, you just used an always or never statement to just derail everything to be about something else.
Emily: The next one is going to be getting Meta, which we enjoy doing here on the Multiamory Podcast. Exactly. Tri-parts of communication is all about Metacommunicating but this is assessing the conflict that the two of you have as fairly as possible. Being aware of when the two of you are starting to stray off topic, try to gain some perspective so here are some examples of how to do that. It sounds like there are things that are important to me that you didn't notice and there are things that are important to you that I haven't been noticing.
Dedeker: I like that one.
Jase: Stepping outside of it and just stating, okay, this is where we're starting from, makes it feel like we could fix it.
Dedeker: It's only really a repair attempt if you're truly making an effort to be objective as possible and as fair as possible. If the way that you get Meta and some of the conflict is like, well, sounds like you're an immature baby and I want you to grow up, that doesn't count as repair attempt.
Emily: No. If you're acknowledging the part that maybe you had in the issue at hand in addition to theirs and maybe you don't even have to say what they did wrong, but just to be like, Hey, I recognize that you're hurt in this moment that perhaps I could have done a better job with X, Y, and Z. Another one is, it seems like we've been misunderstanding each other's intentions for a while.
Jase: A variation on this, I've noticed that I will use in those moments-- tell me if either of you have experienced this, but that moment when you're having a disagreement or a heated discussion where the other person finally put something in a way or says something where it suddenly makes sense and you go, "Oh shit", internally, it's that, "Oh shit, I've been doing this thing that's hurtful to them." In that moment, there's this strong temptation to then defend why you've been doing it.
Maybe switch your tactic to defend why you've been doing it because suddenly it makes sense. You're like, Ooh shit. I found that in those times when I'm able to catch that moment and use this, Oh, I think I now understand something that I hadn't got before that I didn't realize that I know you've told me this before, but I didn't quite get it the way you just said it. Can you help me understand that a little bit more and then let's work together to come up with a solution? Something along those lines that just really jumped out to me when you gave that example.
Emily: Another example of getting Meta is, I think we're getting off track and distracted. Let's go back to talking about the real issue. That's a really good one because that can happen a lot in these situations. It's good to just be like, okay, that's not what we're talking about though. That's not what this particular argument or discussion is about. Let's get back on track.
Dedeker: The next category of repair attempts are what I call slow down repair attempts. That's things like de-escalating in whatever way you can, pumping the brakes or doing something like giving a warning, a yellow light at a traffic stop. Slowing down can be things like saying, Oh, okay, I got a little carried away, let me take that back and try again or okay hold on. Let's slow down, I really want to make sure that I'm actually understanding what's going on or saying something like, hey, this is a really difficult topic for me to open up about so please give me a little patience.
That's what I mean by offering the warning a little bit of like, if we're talking about this particular topic or this particular thing that happened or my history or this baggage or whatever, we need to go slow through it. Again, it's making this attempt to make sure your partner stays connected to you and that we're staying on track with not only the direction we want to go, but also essentially the speed that we want to go in that direction.
Jase: Then aside from slowing down, which is what those are, it also might be appropriate to just stop for a little bit. This is where halts or halts comes in, which is if you find
that you're hungry or horny or angry or lonely or tired or drunk or doing drugs or anything like that that's going to interfere with your ability to have a good conversation about this is take a pause, pull that ripcord, come back to this again later. This could look something like, I need to pause this discussion, give me 20 minutes to chill out, to cool off whatever or I'm feeling flooded. You could even look at your Fitbit and be like I'm feeling flooded, give me a little bit time to calm back down.
Emily: I'm on 101 heart rate, give me a second.
Jase: Oh my gosh. I'm at 97 right now. I’m very.
Emily: You were in the middle of a show, that makes sense, adrenaline.
Jase: Yes, seriously or can we please stop talking about this for now? I need some time to think. I think with this category to be careful of not-- figure it out and walk out of the room as a way to stop the conversation. There's an element of, hey, I really need this. There's an element of vulnerability to this or I really need this or can we please, could we pause for a bit and come back? I think that's a key distinction there between just another form of stonewalling.
Emily: The next one is finding agreement. Moving towards compromise, giving your partner the benefit of the doubt, accepting influence, things like that, saying something like, I never thought about it that way or you know what? That's a good point or agree with part of what you're saying or even just say, let's make a mutual effort to check in with each other about this. I like that one a lot. It's not just about that particular conversation that you're having, but maybe something else comes up again that you're like, okay, this was triggering in the past for my partner.
Let's have a discussion about it in the moment and be like, Hey, how are you feeling right now about what I just said or what just happened? That's a nice way of, yes. Trying to agree and trying to understand how they're feeling in that moment and beyond.
Dedeker: Again, the sooner that you can move towards just like validating your partner's point of view, like saying things like, okay, yes, that is a good point. I haven't really thought about it that way. Even if you don't agree with absolutely everything, even if you don't agree with absolutely every single part of how they saw it, that the faster that you can move there, the faster the two of you are going to be able to get towards actually being able to compromise and agree and find something that works for the both of you moving forward.
Jase: In that vein is the next category, which is appreciation and affection. This is words of encouragement to your partner, offering affection, using their love languages, building up the connection. This is also one that can be done non-verbally as well. All of these have nonverbal versions of them, which we're not talking about as much, but this could be something like reaching out to hold their hand or something to just give that moment for you to connect with each other. Some examples of how you would say this would be something like giving an appreciation. You have been a lot better about X, Y or Z lately.
Emily: Taking out the trash, doing the dishes.
Jase: Right. I know you've been a lot better about this. It helps give them, it's not just, well, I'm trying and it's not doing any good, or I appreciate you listening to me even when I got really upset, or it can just be understanding, like we've both been really stressed about this issue lately, or just straight up affection like the handholding could be, can you hold me for a moment? Could we just reconnect? You could even be very Meta about it. Can we just hug for a moment and just reconnect with each other?
Dedeker: Yes, I know. That's when you've definitely used on me in the past, I think sometimes. Maybe not recently, but yes, I know, I definitely have memories of when you've noticed that the conflict is starting to maybe spiral or go into a negative place that you've been the one that has been like, okay, hold on, pause. Can we just hug each other for a second and then keep talking about this?
Jase: That does sound like me, yes.
Dedeker: Because it is you. It's very you and I appreciate it. Speaking of the next one, next pair attempt comes under the category of kind humor. Again, this is one that you have to be careful with, this is things like whipping out an in-joke or silliness that's used at the appropriate time. Remember that for humor within the context of conflict to be something that is repairing and moving the two of you toward connection and toward constructive arguing, it needs to be both kind and potentially reciprocal as well. As in, it's not me laughing at you or me poking fun at you, it's we're both laughing at this or giggling at this in some way.
There has to be no contempt or no malicious intent behind it as well. That's also one that Jase uses on me all the time. Fortunately we have like seven years of in-jokes to be able to whip out, that actually does help dissolve the tension. I know that myself included and a lot of people, end up feeling very, very resistant to humor within conflict because they feel like, Oh, you're laughing at my problems or you're just trying to use humor to get us out of the conversation and trying to ignore it.
That's why it's also very important just to be very mindful and intentional with the humor. That like well-placed silliness and playfulness and humor can really go a long way in helping to break the tension while at the same time not trying to just scrub away the conversation. You're not just trying to crack a joke to get the two of you to stop talking about it.
Gosh, this is a new one that Jase has been whipping out on me is yes, because Jase and I, we're actually literally reading the Gottman Institute textbook about the way that they have codified repair attempts in their research studies, which is just fascinating and like way too detailed. One of the examples, what was it? It was like, someone was saying like, Oh, you've gone sour what's going on? Or something like that.
Jase: Something like that. It wasn't in the humor category, this was in a different category of just observing or connecting.
Dedeker: Jase was like, I'm going to use that one on you and I'm like, no, you're not because I know that if you try to tell me that I'm sour, it's going to make me more sour, but then now that he's whipping it out now it's funny, of course.
Emily: Feels good.
Jase: I always kind of put on my academic face too. I'm like, you've gone a bit sour. What has happened just there?
Dedeker: Actually, I think it's been effective for me because it's both silly, you being silly, but also it's you being tuned into my emotions. It's like you notice. It's like a good double whammy of both being silly and also I'm like, okay, he has noticed that I've gone sour about something and he does care. Ironically, it works. Ladies and gentlemen and people and friends beyond the binary use, Jase Lindgren's patented, "You've gone sour, whatever is the matter" line and tell us how that went for you. Also my partner, Alex, he has a line he uses on me all the time, which is just to point out the nearest dog, basically.
Jase: That's good.
Emily: You're getting pissed and suddenly, he's like, "Look, a dog." Not sweater.
Dedker: It did come out of a real life situation where we were walking around somewhere and we were starting to get a little like-- I was getting testy about something or we were getting intense about some topic and then he was just like, Oh look my baby look, there's two dogs. I was like, Oh my god, they're so cute. Oh my god. Then we walked along and then I was like, wait, hold on a second. So now he just uses the closest available dog as a repair attempt, I suppose. I feel like this is something the three of us do also like when we get into arguments in work meetings or in business meetings.
Emily: Yes. I think we know each other quite well and we have also like seven to 10 years of stuff to whip out. It's like, here's something fun. I can't recall any at the moment.
Jase: I do like we have a good number of these inside jokes or just recurring. I think what's handy about this when you have a lot of inside jokes is that you'll tend to have those ones that you can use them whenever. You can just throw them away. They don't even have to really be related to what's going on. It's just a reminder of something we all laughed about and something that we found funny.
I've actually found that the three of us will often take turns in our company meetings whipping those out and just letting them a little bit . Right. When we're debating something and it's starting to get like, no, you don't understand. It's this way, it's got to be this way. No, it should be this other way. Those little bits of humor, I think, really do a lot to keep us--
Emily: Defuse the tension, yes.
Jase: Yes, to keep us remembering that we like each other.
Dedeker: That's important to . I do feel like not even just humor, but I do feel that like in our little co-parenting triad of an emotional podcast baby relationship that we do tend to take turns being the one to whip out the first repair attempt, I suppose, and moving conflict towards something constructive.
Emily: That's why three is nice sometimes because if two people are arguing, the third one can be like, Hey, .
Dedeker: There's a dog.
Emily: I have a cat. Exactly. The next one is, I'm sorry. I say this a lot. Sometimes it's the best thing to say as my mother would say like, choose which mountains you want to die on and sometimes it's best to just say you're sorry. Taking ownership, taking responsibility, apologizing, making amends, any of those things, saying something like, I know that I tend to snap at you when I haven't been taking care of myself very well.
Like, I'm sorry for yelling like that. Let me start over. That's a really good one. Even just, if you raise your voice and you can say, Hey, I apologize. I didn't say that as well as I wanted to, let me try that again, or I want to do what I can do to make this topic feel safer but I'm not quite sure how. That's an interesting one, apologizing for being unable in the moment to really say something or do something in a way that makes it feel safe to your partner and hopefully they can help you in that way.
Dedeker: What I like about that particular example is that when you're taking ownership or apologizing or trying to make amends, is that it doesn't always have to be perfect necessarily. It can still be a repair attempt. Even just this of projecting to your partner the fact like I am willing to try to make this conversation feel safer or make this thing feel better and I'm not sure how, but like I want to. Even that can be just again, that little drop in the bucket, that one little step that helps move the conversation to a more constructive place.
Jase: Then the last category we have here is just to be creative. It's coming out of a category. It's like in here at the end of the list, be creative. You all know what works best in your relationship, what works for you. If you're not sure, maybe experiment with some of these, see what works. Talk to your partner about it. We've also talked before about micro-scripts, which are having just a little phrase, maybe it's something that one person says something and it has a certain response that goes with it or it's just a set phrase that reminds you of something you've agreed upon.
I think that the humor of the you've gone sour, tell me about that, also has a little element of micro-script in it. You could do that with any of these from this episode. Say the two of you listened to this episode and you thought one of the things we said was just ridiculous. You could use that one as a ha-ha, right? This reminds us of that episode. It's funny but it's also a little micro-script.
Share with each other. What works for you. What's helpful when your partner does it? What makes you feel safer or calmer during the conflict et cetera. You can even look at past things and be like, Hey, we were having a heated discussion that went pretty well, what did we do? Did we do some repair attempts in that? What might those have been? Just get creative and try some things and see what works.
Dedeker: Also, this is extra important, maybe just as important as putting repair attempts into the soup that is your fight. I'm about to really make some metaphors here .
Emily: I was going there by all means.
Dedeker: Don't forget that you have to also accept that repair attempt in some way. You have to catch that ball. I do literally think about it that way sometimes that like when a partner gets vulnerable enough to be like, okay. I'm going to try to repair this in some way by either saying I'm sorry or by dropping a little bit of humor or asking, Ooh, can we slow down things like that. That it's really, really important that you catch that ball that they thrown at you because it's totally possible for your partner to make a repair attempt and you can either totally miss it or you can not miss it, but ignore it or you can flat out reject it and ultimately, cause more damage.
It really does take both parties and your partner can make a good repair attempt, but if it's not caught by you, if it's not accepted, that is basically useless. It's not really moving you toward a constructive place.
Jase: Yes. Repair attempts are not just a one-sided thing. It's not something that you can just do on your own. It is something that the both of you have to be involved with, whether you're doing it consciously or not. That's how it works. Again, the Gottman's have spent a lot of time in their textbook codifying not only how you do the repair attempts, but also how you respond to them.
Generally, the responses are essentially just another repair attempt or just receiving it. If it is appreciation or something like that, that it can be easy to resist, but if the other person appreciates you for that, that's that moment of, okay, thank you. Yes, you're right. Or if you're feeling very heated and they make some sort of a joke, even if it really wasn't very funny or good or just giving them a pity chuckle.
Emily: That was a nice attempt.
Jase: Right. That's actually a great example, Emily, of they make a bad joke and your response is also a kind of so-so joke, of wow, don't quit your day job or whatever. It could be a way of responding in kind with some other humor or even appreciation or being Meta about, okay, I appreciate you're trying to break the mood, yes, let's take a breath or something like that.
Dedeker: Let me say that this part of this truly has been life-changing for me because I feel like for most of my life when I thought about fights and what made them better and how to get out of them or how to resolve them, my impression was just like, yes, we both get mad and then we just fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, until finally, maybe one of us calms down or both of us calms down. Then we can finally talk about things being good.
I realized that I definitely had this really long-standing habit, which still crops up sometimes of being resistant to repair attempts of because I'm too mad or I'm too activated or I'm too upset and so when my partner finally does say, you know, what, I can take responsibility for that or when they finally are say something like, actually, can we pause or you know, what, actually I think there may be an agreement here that we can come to that if I'm upset, sometimes it's very easy to want to resist it.
I think part of that is sometimes our socialization as well as like if we grew up seeing people around us and the relationships around us mostly doing this very intense me versus you fighting and where fighting is about winning, then repair attempts are not conducive to that.
Emily: Understanding and recognizing your partner's repair attempts is a skill and then throwing repair attempts at you is also a skill. Sometimes these repair attempts are not always this perfectly executed as we hope that they're going to be. Sometimes you might hear something from them, like, you're getting off-topic. We can't keep doing this or I can't do this right now, we need to stop this conversation. It may feel like it's combative and perhaps it is a little combative.
It is important to also recognize, hey, maybe they are trying to have some repair attempt happen like, okay, we're starting to get off-topic here, we need to move back into the original conversation. Let's do that. That's what they're trying to say essentially or hey, I cannot really handle this right now. This is really triggering to me or really hard for me. I need to step back from this conversation for a minute. That's an additional type of halt, repair attempt.
Even if you see them perhaps not executing it in the best possible fashion, it is important to recognize those repair attempts and start to take them and catch that ball and be like, okay, I see you. I see what you're doing, even if, you could get better at it. Thank you for trying.
Dedeker: . We're going to go out-
Emily: We're going to keep going.
Dedeker: -in the backyard and we're going to keep practicing the .
Emily: Relationships are practice. Understanding each other in communication is practice.
Dedeker: It is true.
Emily: This is another type of the--
Dedeker: Remember that accepting your partner's repair attempt, it doesn't automatically mean that the fight's over or that it's resolved or that you've lost and they've won or that you're not going to be heard. Again, these are just like steps in the right direction. There probably isn't a singular repair attempt that's going to be able to just completely solve the fight, maybe there will depending on the topic of the conflict and the history there. Again, it's part of this dance. It's this coordination. It's cooperation.
Emily: Not a demon dance.
Dedeker: Not a demon dance.
Emily: Different dance.
Dedeker: An angel dance.
Emily: An angel dance.
Jase: That's good one.
Dedeker: That's a whole other episode.
Emily: It's going to be a new inside joke now.
Dedeker: Some things that you can do now to start applying this to your life when you're not in a moment of conflict with your partner or with this other person, you can take some time to write down some specific repair attempt strategies that you feel comfortable trying. Think about who you are when you're in conflict when you're upset and it's like, well, I don't know if I could crack a joke right then but I could be vulnerable and disclose my feelings or I could ask for things to slow down what I notice it's spiraling. It's like you can sit down and get analytical with yourself if you want to and start writing out specific strategies that you feel comfortable with.
Jase: Listen to this episode. If you can listen to it with a partner or ask your friend or your partner, whoever to also listen to this and then talk together about which of those phrases or strategies seemed like something that maybe you already do a little bit of or made sense and you'd like to do more. Or, as we talked about with the Gottman's getting sour line, if one of ours, you think it's ridiculous, that could become a joke one of yours. There's lots of options here.
Dedeker: Or you could just say no to it. You could just be like, I know that if you trot that out in a conflict, I'm going to go up the wall. Don't say that.
Jase: Right. Don't do that. Then as Emily was emphasizing that this is practice on both sides, some of it might feel weird at first until you make it your own and it's just going to become more natural as you try to do it and start using your own words and figure out how it feels real and genuine for you.
Then also, for people with multiple partners or I would argue that everyone has multiple relationships because we have relationships with all the people in our lives, that different repair attempts may be more or less effective with different people. Also keep that in mind. Know your audience, I guess or experiment, if one just completely whizzes by unnoticed or get blocked, maybe try a different one and see what works.
Dedeker: For our bonus episode today, we're going to be talking about this fascinating phenomenon of content that I found when I was doing research for this episode, which is all the places on the internet that insist that they know the single magic phrase or magic word that can totally stop a fight in its tracks.
Jase: Really? It's just totally stop a fight.
Dedeker: All right, so many blog posts--
Emily: I Want to hear this.
Jase: I need to learn this.
Dedeker: So many blog that are like, yes, this is the one phrase that's going to end any fight or this is a single word that can stop that conflict in its tracks. It's all over the internet. So many blog posts.
Jase: I can't wait.