In most marriages there will occasionally be times when you find yourself bickering over things that don’t matter. You may wonder to yourself, why are we even arguing? Sometimes these arguments will pop up out of the blue or sometimes you’ll find yourself arguing all day. The question is whether there is a way to avoid these little arguments or not. My answer is yes, for unimportant bickering there is, but you may have to swallow your pride to do so.
The answer lies in how we either deescalate or escalate the communication with our partners. Deescalation involves lowering levels of arousal and hostility with soft words or actions. Escalation is increasing the tension or arousal level in response to your partner. Let me give you an example of how one could escalate or deescalate a situation. Picture that you decided to try and make a new recipe and you completely burned it. The whole house filled with smoke and now has a rather sour smell. Your partner arrives home and immediately makes a face and in an annoyed voice remarks “what’s that smell”. Escalation response: “wow! I try to cook something new and this is your response? It’s not my fault that the recipe had the wrong cooking times! I’m not cooking for you anymore.” Deescalation response: “yeah. I know, it smells awful in here. I accidentally burned something. I think I’ll stick to familiar recipes for a while.”
The first response invites defensiveness and increased escalation in your partner. The second response allows you and your partner to remain light hearted about the situation. The difficulty in choosing to deescalate is setting aside knee jerk reactions. Sometimes you would seem entirely justified in escalating a situating with a retort or sarcastic response. Is it worth it though if you move farther away from achieving a close, harmonious, and loving relationship with your spouse? Usually it is not, and choosing to deescalate will make both you and your partner feel better.
A word of caution, I am not advocating excusing mean or abusive behavior. There is a big difference between a partner being slightly rude or grumpy and someone being mean or abusive. If your partner engages in degrading you or criticizing you harshly, then deescalating is not enough to fix the issues.
Craysy Life 