Repair Is a System, Not a Stumble

By Dan Oakes, MEd, LPC, CSAT — Arizona Family Institute

Do healthy couples fight? Why do my partner and I keep stumbling through the same conflicts with no resolution? How do you actually repair a relationship after an argument instead of just waiting for it to blow over? Yes, healthy couples fight — every relationship moves from connection to disconnection and back again. The difference isn't that strong couples avoid conflict. It's that they have a process for getting through it.

Let me show you what I mean with something ordinary.

Say you walk into your kitchen, turn on the faucet, and nothing comes out. No water. You don't spiral. You don't decide the house is broken. You have a process. You check the valve under the sink. Still nothing? You check the valve at the street. Still nothing? You call the water company and make sure the bill got paid. Step, step, step. You know the sequence, so the problem doesn't scare you.

Now think about conflict. Most couples don't have a sequence. They stumble. They get mad, pull apart, go quiet, and just sort of hope it resolves itself by morning. And sometimes it does. But there's no map. So every fight feels like the first one.

The goal is to make repair systemic. To say, we are going to have conflict — we're both strong-willed, life is hard, of course we will — and here's what we do when we do.

Here's the good news. If you've been together a while, you already have the beginning of a system. Most couples do. Maybe yours is time. You're both too hot, so one of you says I love you, goodnight, we'll talk in the morning — and morning comes and you're calmer. Maybe yours is apology. You come back together, and you both own a piece. Yeah, I was being pigheaded. Yeah, I was rude.

Time and apology. That's already a process. Most people just never named it, so they don't trust it.

So name yours. Sit down when you're not fighting, and ask: "How do we actually get through it?" What works? Then say it out loud to each other. This is our process. Lock it in. Because the fight is rarely the real damage. The real damage is two people stumbling in the dark, convinced no one knows the way out.

You know the way out. You've used it before. Go find your valves.  

If you're struggling to identify the pattern that will help you get out of conflict, contact the Arizona Family Institute. We would love to help you.