What To Do When You Break The "Rules" During A Fight
Your Plans For Better Conflict? Out The Window
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High conflict couples tend to develop a lot of "rules" for how conflict should play out. I'm not talking about basic, common-sense boundaries or bare minimum respect. Nope, I'm talking about super specific plans for how you'll do things next time, granular requests for what (you think) will help you stay calm, and fine-grained strategies that you hope will prevent the next blow out.
For example, after a bad fight, you might have a heart to heart and decide that next time:
- whoever brings up a hurt will receive sole focus until their feelings are resolved,
- you'll use a certain structure of speech like "I" statements only,
- or both people will make sure to practice reflective listening after every single thing the other person says.
None of these rules are a bad idea. And it's not wrong to sit down after a conflict and dream about how you want it to go next time—in fact, I recommend that you do!
But it can also set you up to fail, because your next conflict is probably not going to go exactly the way you hoped and then you'll feel hurt, confused, or even betrayed. After all, you made a plan. Why is it so hard to follow?
In today's post, I'm talking you through what to do when you and your partner come up with a bunch of rules that sound just fine in a calm moment...and then you break them. We'll explore:
- the reason you set these rules to begin with,
- why they get broken,
- how "rules" can help...and how they can hurt,
- and what to do when the rules aren't followed.
Let's dive right in.