How to stop a fight immediately

00:07
so did you know that you can stop a
00:10
fight immediately in its tracks
00:13
now if you're anything like me and
00:15
avoider you know that's going to be
00:17
really good news
00:18
and um and so what we want to do in this
00:20
session is we want to teach you how you
00:22
can
00:24
learn to de-escalate a fight um how to
00:26
repair after a fight faster
00:29
and then with time and with practice you
00:32
may get to the stage that you can do
00:33
these immediate interruption
00:35
so i discovered this a little bit by
00:37
accident during the honeymoon phase of
00:40
of dating my wife and
00:42
we were we were traveling back and forth
00:45
uh between australia and new zealand
00:47
because we were in different countries
00:49
and um uh and i was really busy at the
00:52
at the time um i was you know have
00:54
started another business it wasn't going
00:56
particularly particularly well and i was
00:58
juggling that with my therapy work and
01:01
and uh and traveling back and forwards
01:03
and kids and it was all a bit
01:04
overwhelming and so we were going for a
01:06
walk around the the viaduct and um
01:10
my
01:11
my partner at the time uh my wife who
01:13
was my partner at the time was was
01:15
complaining that that she um didn't
01:17
think that i was very available to her
01:20
and um so i was pretty tired i was i was
01:23
pretty exhausted and so i was just kind
01:25
of sitting there and kind of listening
01:26
to her but internally i was certainly
01:28
thinking like what the hell i'm working
01:30
so hard you know i'm i'm doing all of
01:33
these things to try and make sure that i
01:35
get uh to spend time with you and i'm
01:37
you know and so i was kind of feeling a
01:39
bit resentful and and feeling quite
01:40
criticized um by the process
01:43
and um
01:45
and so and then what happened is as we
01:48
were walking along i i sort of like
01:49
glanced over at her and i saw her face
01:51
and she looked really unhappy
01:53
and um and so we're you know fully in
01:55
the honeymoon stage and i'm also looking
01:57
at her i'm thinking oh my god you're so
01:59
beautiful i just i just love you and um
02:02
and i just kind of had this sort of wave
02:03
of tenderness and compassion
02:06
for her
02:07
honeymoons are great honeymoon is a
02:08
really good time to learn skills like
02:10
this
02:11
and it sort of broke me a little bit out
02:13
of my my self-pity because i've been
02:16
kind of hearing her through a lens of
02:18
her being angry at me and so that was
02:20
triggering my my feeling or or fear of
02:23
that i was being criticized and blamed
02:26
and um and so what happened is i
02:29
i i kind of looked at her and and so i
02:31
thought well hang on a sec
02:33
i don't think she's actually trying to
02:34
do that and so
02:36
i was thinking about what's motivating
02:39
her to say this stuff
02:41
and so i'm thinking and then i'm like oh
02:44
okay what she's actually saying is she
02:46
misses me
02:48
and so then i like i did this quick
02:50
revision in my head of everything that
02:52
she's saying it's like wow she's saying
02:54
that i'm really important to her that
02:55
she she really wants to spend time with
02:57
me and it's been really hard for her not
02:59
being able able to do that and then
03:01
suddenly i'm like well yeah i feel
03:03
exactly the same way it's super hard i
03:05
hate being so exhausted and you know i
03:07
hate that we just have these these
03:08
limited periods of time and i just i
03:10
just want to spend all my time with her
03:12
as well
03:13
so i just and so all of this is running
03:15
inside my head she's still talking away
03:17
and i turned around and said hey can i
03:19
tell you something i really appreciate
03:20
about you my partner was like oh okay
03:24
and i sit around and i just looked at
03:25
her and i said babe you know what i
03:27
really appreciate about you is that
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i hear that you just you really want to
03:31
be connected to me and and i i feel
03:35
really excited you know to hear that i
03:37
love you so much and i really want to
03:38
spend time with you and
03:40
it's been really hard that i haven't
03:41
been able to do that but i just i love
03:44
the fact that you you're caring about
03:46
our relationship and you want to be
03:47
close to me and um
03:49
yeah and when i think about that i feel
03:51
really excited and um i feel really
03:53
lucky
03:54
and so my partner's eyes are kind of
03:56
filling with tears and she's like oh you
03:58
know he's like he's got me you know she
04:00
felt really understood and kind of had a
04:02
hug and it instantly turned this from
04:05
what was actually a fight
04:07
into immediate connection and what we
04:10
did was we went under under the conflict
04:13
we bypassed that and um and we got to
04:16
connection so what i want to do uh for
04:18
you now is i'm going to bring up a model
04:20
that we we develop so i can just show
04:23
you kind of step by step the processes
04:26
that you can
04:27
use in order to stop fighting because
04:29
whenever we're fighting what we're doing
04:31
is we're moving out of connection and
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that basically means we're wasting
04:35
time and energy and effort on something
04:38
that that doesn't produce
04:40
any good good kind of result
04:43
and so um yeah we're going to basically
04:45
step you through step you through this
04:47
process
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so in order to understand the fight we
04:50
have this slightly complicated looking
04:52
um
04:54
design here but we're going to break it
04:55
down really simply
04:57
and so what you need to understand is
04:59
that if you want to avoid a fight the
05:02
way that you avoid a fight is through
05:04
dialogue okay and so a dialogue may be
05:07
uncomfortable it may be challenging but
05:09
it's not going to leave you with that
05:10
sick kind of traumatized feeling in your
05:12
body you know that you really just want
05:14
to get away from
05:16
and so um and sometimes for avoiders it
05:18
can be a little bit hard for us to to
05:21
feel the difference between a
05:22
challenging conversation that's still
05:24
not a fight
05:26
but
05:26
but with a very little bit of practice
05:29
it soon becomes pretty clear
05:31
and so the way that we avoid a fight
05:33
is that we have a dialogue a dialogue
05:36
basically has one speaker one listener
05:39
my suggestion is if you are the avoider
05:41
practice being the first listener
05:43
and and what we are doing is we are
05:45
listening to find out what our values
05:47
needs and longings are
05:50
and then once they've spoken and they've
05:51
been heard fully then we transition and
05:54
so then we speak and then they become
05:56
the listener and if we do that that's
05:58
going to then take us up to connection
06:02
okay
06:03
that is the fastest easiest way to get
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out of out of a fight and the more you
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can do that the less stress you're going
06:10
to have in your life and everything's
06:11
going to be great
06:12
now the reality is at some point in time
06:15
because we live in our own world
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we will be doing something our partner
06:19
you know comes along and they're
06:21
initiating something or we're initiating
06:22
something but we're doing this thing
06:24
called dual monologue
06:26
okay which means that our partner is
06:28
talking but we're also talking in our
06:30
own own head now
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in the example that i gave with with
06:34
karen she's saying i miss you know
06:36
you're not spending enough time and in
06:38
my head i'm i'm kind of like oh but you
06:41
know i'm doing this and there's all of
06:42
these things and so i didn't say a word
06:45
but i was still running a conversation
06:47
in my own head so that's what dual
06:49
monologue is now there is nothing wrong
06:52
with dual monologue so long as you both
06:54
agree it's completely normal you're not
06:57
expected to spend all of your time in
06:58
your partner's world because remember
07:00
you know you're a sovereign sovereign
07:02
being
07:03
um but if we disagree dual monologue is
07:06
the thing that's
07:07
that is a precursor that's likely to
07:09
take us into a fight and if we want to
07:12
stop a fight early we just need to shift
07:14
from dual monologue into dialogue which
07:16
means if the first person who spots the
07:18
fight and in a lot of cases it will be
07:20
the avoider switch into listening that's
07:23
how you escape from a fight
07:25
so
07:26
if we don't do that then what's going to
07:28
happen is we're going to introduce these
07:29
four behaviors so remember i said that
07:31
gottman identified these four negative
07:33
behaviors that um that they would score
07:37
and compare with the positive behaviors
07:38
to predict divorce these are these four
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behaviours so i call them the four
07:43
relationship killers
07:45
criticism defensiveness contempt and
07:48
stonewalling
07:49
so criticism is when uh is different
07:52
from a complaint so a complaint is like
07:56
so my partner was making a complaint i
07:58
you know i'm not getting to see you
07:59
enough
08:00
criticism is when uh either our partner
08:04
says that or that we hear it as so the
08:07
message i was hearing is you're not
08:09
being a good boyfriend you're not uh
08:12
valuing me you're not prioritizing me so
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i made it personal i made an attack it
08:16
was like she was throwing rocks at me
08:19
okay and so then i responded in my head
08:22
with being defensive so i'm like oh but
08:24
you know i'm busy i've got this i've got
08:26
this you know i did all of these kind of
08:27
things and so uh and so in order to have
08:31
a fight you need dual monologue
08:33
plus both of you need to do at least one
08:36
one of these and in most cases the the
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vast majority of fights will start off
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with one person being critical and one
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person being defensive
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and the really great thing about
08:45
fighting is that we're not super
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creative when we fight so most of the
08:49
time we tend to do the same things again
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so one of the really hard things about
08:53
fighting is that fights can feel really
08:55
irresistible and that we get
08:57
into a fight we get hooked our body goes
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into that fight flight
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mode and then it's really hard for us to
09:04
get out of it
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but um
09:07
but the good side of it is that if we
09:09
can just recognize that
09:11
uncomfortable horrible feeling in our
09:13
body
09:14
and um it can learn to recognize that
09:17
what i can assume is if that's happening
09:19
for me
09:20
99 of the time i will be being defensive
09:24
okay um and um and so generally if i'm
09:27
being defensive i i'm experiencing my
09:30
partner as critical
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now the thing that's really important to
09:34
remember is that
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it does not mean that my partner is
09:38
actually being critical or that that was
09:40
her intent because obviously in that
09:41
example we gave us the last thing my
09:43
partner was trying to was trying to
09:44
communicate to me
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but if your partner is experiencing you
09:49
as being critical or defensive that's a
09:52
problem in itself and then we need to
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address it off that basis
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so once that's happening ideally you
09:58
catch it you catch it early and what you
10:00
do is stop and we're going to teach you
10:02
a few kind of interrupt but it may be as
10:04
simple as going whoa hang on a sec
10:07
in my case i'm defensive so i'm going to
10:08
take responsibility sorry babe i wasn't
10:10
really listening to you um or um
10:14
could we say try that again or um sorry
10:17
babe i um yeah i have been so busy and
10:20
that have been really hard to spend as
10:21
much time with you um you know
10:24
especially when you've traveled all the
10:25
way to come and see me
10:27
so i'm taking responsibility and what
10:29
that does is it means that my partner's
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thing going to feel heard and and that
10:35
so their valuable their need or their
10:37
longing is being met and again that can
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take us to connection and the really
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cool thing is that if we're able to do
10:44
that
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then what we're going to do is we're
10:46
going to experience our partner's
10:49
longing underneath that
10:52
for the fact that actually she wasn't
10:54
saying i was a bad partner she was
10:56
saying that she wanted to spend more
10:57
time with me and i feel really good
10:59
about that
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and so that's one of the cool things
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that happens when you can you can do
11:03
that
11:04
if criticism is your pattern
11:07
um your your antidote the way you get
11:09
out is by being gentle okay
11:12
and this is particularly true uh
11:15
at the start of a conversation so it's
11:17
really important how conversations start
11:19
because generally the first two minutes
11:21
of a conversation will predict how it
11:22
ends so what you're going to want to do
11:24
is if you see your partner being
11:26
defensive or shutting you know kind of
11:28
tensing up or shutting down or that kind
11:30
of thing you can just say hang on a sec
11:31
did that feel like i was criticizing you
11:34
and they're going to go like
11:35
you know sometimes if they're really
11:37
stressed they'll lose access to their
11:38
words and you can say babe i'm really
11:40
sorry that isn't what i was intending or
11:44
babe i'm really sorry i was feeling
11:45
really critical and angry can i can i
11:47
have a do-over can we try that again and
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i'm gonna try and send that more softly
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so that would be how you escape from
11:53
those two now this is definitely the
11:55
best option uh or like second best
11:58
option is to catch it here
12:00
now if you don't catch it here
12:02
and it tends to escalate then we're
12:04
likely to see we're much more likely to
12:06
see contempt and stonewalling uh come in
12:09
uh to play and i think of those as kind
12:11
of like level two relationship killers
12:13
so criticism and defensiveness are
12:15
pretty common and and they're easier to
12:17
stop uh contempt and stonewalling are
12:19
more dangerous the relationship they're
12:21
certainly more stressful
12:22
on the body government did some research
12:25
that found that they could predict how
12:27
many infectious illnesses a couple would
12:29
would have in the following year by um
12:32
by looking at the the amount of contempt
12:35
that was shown in the relationship and
12:38
um
12:39
so i often kind of think criticism's a
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little bit like someone's throwing a
12:42
rock at you defense you put a shield up
12:44
and block it off contents a bit like
12:46
throwing a grenade and so then what
12:49
people do is they respond by retreating
12:52
into a bunker and at that point in time
12:54
no one's getting laid you know life is
12:56
not going to be good you're not going to
12:57
have a good good connection and so
12:59
basically your love is going to tend to
13:01
wither and die the you know if that
13:03
stuff continues
13:04
so if we see that that stuff the
13:07
antidote for contempt is to share about
13:10
your needs because when someone's uh
13:13
being contemptuous you know and you'll
13:14
often see teenagers do it because you
13:16
know they they're in this position where
13:18
they they're still dependent on parents
13:20
but they um they want to be independent
13:22
and so it's quite a difficult place for
13:24
them so often it's hard for them to say
13:26
you know like mom or dad you know i just
13:28
want to go and spend more time with my
13:30
friends and i feel like you're you're
13:31
really kind of cramping my style and you
13:33
know i still need you but i also need
13:35
you to trust me like having a an
13:37
emotionally vulnerable conversation like
13:38
that is pretty hard for teenagers and
13:41
because they're fair as the you know the
13:42
parents are just going to shut them down
13:44
or whatever so it's much easier for them
13:46
to just kind of roll their eyes and be
13:47
like oh god you know
13:50
because they don't have to be vulnerable
13:52
with with how hard it is that you've
13:54
made a decision that makes them feel
13:56
kind of awkward or socially
13:57
uncomfortable with their peers
14:00
so to share more vulnerably is the
14:03
antidote um to contempt
14:05
now if you are receiving contempt
14:08
what you actually want to do is call it
14:10
uh because contempt is super toxic in a
14:13
relationship so if your partner is
14:14
talking to you in a way that makes you
14:16
feel like they're treating you like an
14:17
idiot assuming that there are no major
14:20
safety concerns call it and call it
14:22
quickly
14:23
so you're basically saying i'm like hang
14:24
on a sec i know you're upset please
14:26
don't talk to me like i'm an idiot i'm
14:29
willing to listen but but it's not okay
14:31
for you to talk to me like that or treat
14:32
me like that
14:34
because that's not something that you
14:35
want to let a lip fly because literally
14:37
it will kill you
14:40
stonewalling is what happens when your
14:42
heart rate goes above 100 beats per
14:43
minute
14:44
it's basically gottman talks about the
14:46
thing called diffuse physiological
14:48
arousal which the way i think of it is
14:51
it's kind of like you um you jam the um
14:54
the accelerator on a car and chuck the
14:56
brakes on at the same time so it's just
14:58
you know these your your body is being
15:00
activated because you want to fight
15:02
because you don't like what's happening
15:03
and you also want to run away but you
15:05
don't want to run away because you're
15:06
still connected to that person so you're
15:08
just stuck in this frozen super super
15:11
stressful
15:12
state
15:13
so if that's happening what you need to
15:16
do is um call a timeout you need to
15:17
actually calm yourself down and get your
15:19
heart rate down
15:21
and
15:22
and so those are the ways to escape that
15:25
now if you don't do that and it really
15:28
kind of blows up and get terrible then
15:30
you need to do a bigger stop
15:32
okay
15:33
and um and what that's going to involve
15:36
is that
15:37
is something that we're going to talk
15:38
about in the x uh in the exercise but
15:41
fundamentally you need to stop the fight
15:43
by any means just like whoa whoa
15:45
this isn't working just stop you know
15:47
time out you know
15:48
do do something like that i'm going out
15:50
for 20 minutes i'll come back we'll try
15:52
and have a do-over but you don't you
15:55
don't want to stay in that
15:56
in that state
15:58
and it's really important to understand
16:00
that fighting harder is not going to get
16:02
you what you want
16:06
and so what we want to do is uh we want
16:09
to stop as soon as possible and then
16:12
what we need to do is it takes a little
16:13
bit longer we need to kind of get behind
16:14
the anger
16:16
understand some of the feelings and then
16:17
we're still running through all of these
16:19
processes
16:20
down to get to connection
16:22
now when couples come and see me
16:25
people often say oh look we just want to
16:27
stop fighting okay which i totally
16:30
understand everybody hates fighting it
16:31
sucks
16:32
but what we want to do is to understand
16:34
that with fights fights have two issues
16:36
they have escalation like how hot it
16:38
gets
16:39
and they have distance like how
16:41
disconnected do you get from that
16:43
process and so the way that most people
16:46
tend to do it is that if we can start
16:48
reducing distance and then start
16:50
reducing escalation that's going to
16:52
bring us closer to connection over time
16:55
so today we have two tools that we that
16:59
we're going to look at and the first one
17:00
we've already talked about in the
17:02
anatomy of the fight which is the stop
17:04
tool
17:07
and then the invitation will be to
17:09
experiment with your partner and find
17:11
something that works for you to have
17:13
basically a stop code that works for you
17:16
so that's the first one the second thing
17:18
is we're going to run through what is
17:20
called an immense dialogue and this is
17:22
where you've uh you've had a conflict
17:25
you've had a fight and then you you know
17:27
you've managed to separate or stop it
17:30
but you haven't yet come back together
17:32
to do the repair
17:33
and
17:34
and this is going to give you a
17:35
structured way to start doing that that
17:38
repair and so this exercise will be a
17:40
little bit longer
17:42
but it will give you some ideas and some
17:43
steps that you can follow follow through
17:46
and and if you can
17:48
my invitation would really be to
17:50
practice a few of these so you can even
17:51
just think about some fights that you've
17:53
had relatively historically and try
17:56
about two or three of them and
17:59
and just use the script uh and just you
18:01
know run through the videos just to try
18:03
and get the process right and then um
18:06
once you can do that that's really gonna
18:08
going to help you um and with a bit more
18:10
practice it's gonna feel a lot more
18:11
natural and a lot more fluid to do that
18:21
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