It’s easy for a tense conversation to become an argument. This often happens because
everyone is trying to be understood, and no one is showing that they are listening. One way
to slow down and keep conversations productive is to check and make sure you have
understood your partner correctly.
It’s common for people to listen to their partner, feel like they have understood, then highlight
where they disagree. This type of communication can easily lead to an argument where
everyone is unhappy. It leaves people feeling like they are misunderstood and attacked,
which often invites them to defend themselves. When they defend themselves, the other
person often feels attacked, so they defend back. You can see how this cycle would
escalate.
If you want to avoid this cycle, try reflecting back what your partner has said before you add
anything yourself.
You can focus on three things while you do this reflection:
1) Emotion. This is the most important. Even if you don’t fully remember what they said,
if you can correctly identify emotion, it will help them to feel understood. It’s common
for people to feel multiple emotions about something, so try to get as many as
possible. E.g. “You are angry because you thought I would be here earlier.”
2) Content. Though not as important as the emotion, tracking the content of what they
said can also help people to be understood. E.g. “You remembered us agreeing to
meet at 3 when we talked yesterday.”
3) Validation. If you can validate any part of your partner’s experience, it will go a long
way towards de-escalation. E.g. “It makes sense that you would be upset. You were
waiting much longer than you thought you would be, and it seemed like I didn’t care.”
It is also useful at the end of your reflection to check if you got it right, or if there was
something important that you missed. This helps you both to feel you are talking about the
important issues.
This is often difficult for people at first. Keep in mind it is a skill set, and you don’t need to do
it perfectly to start seeing positive results. If you can offer a reflection 10% of the time, you
will likely see some changes. Keep practicing and it will feel more and more natural over
time.