Be Understood!

Your conflicts sometimes lead to painful or bitter fights. When all is said and done after your difference du jour, you both feel frustrated, hurt, dejected and misunderstood. You both know you will repeat your familiar but painful scenario in the near future; it’s a matter of when, not if. You feel helpless and confused, and have no idea how to break the pattern you faithfully, but regrettably, repeat. In the end, the refrain is the same: “You just don’t understand!"
We all want to be heard and understood, and when we’re not, all too often we blame our partner for it. However, the responsibility for being understood begins on your own side of the street, not your partner’s. Unwittingly, you undercut being understood when under stress.
Ironically, you probably ‘know’ what constitutes effective and ineffective behavior when hashing out an issue. And yet, ineffective stuff easily surfaces. For example, calling your partner a derogatory name seldom leads to your partner feeling safe, but you do it anyway, with predictable consequences.
This happens, in part, because emotional states tend to trump clear thinking. Keeping emotional reactivity low can be a challenge. Humans run from pain much faster than doing the crucial work that leads them toward pleasure. Why? Our brains are wired to run from danger and pain. It’s a survival reflex.
Ineffective behavior in the service of decreasing your pain reduces emotional safety. In short, a relationship is only as emotionally safe as the partner who feels the least safe.
When couples decide to join their lives together, they believe their union is a team. Introduce conflict in to your day-to-day lives, it may feel like you’re on opposing teams! Amazing, isn’t it? How often have you said to yourself, your partner or a friend, “when we fight, I can never win,”? Or, “I knew I married Mr./Ms. Right, I just didn’t know his/her first name was ‘always’!”
Being right during a conflict goes hand in hand with winning. The result is the same. The ‘right’ one feels good, and the ‘wrong’ one feels bad. The net effect: distance, and a failure to produce emotional safety and relationship closeness.
So, here’s what to do instead of pounding a nail in to your shoe. What if you did some things completely different, such as the following: 1)gave up being right and winning 2)spoke with honesty 3)talked about yourself. OK, now, suspend disbelief, take a deep breath, give it a shot, try any or all, and see what happens:)