Do you want to get better at managing stress and conflicts in intimate relationships? Here are 10 tips from a registered couples therapist on how to navigate conflict and come out closer on the other side.
Stress and conflicts are a natural part of being in a relationship, just as they are in other parts of life. Expressing unmet needs, addressing boundaries or uncomfortable feelings, and confronting differences are all necessary inevitabilities of a healthy intimate relationship that can also tend to be a main source of stress and conflict. When partners lack the resources, conflicts can escalate and make it feel like the connection or security of the relationship is at risk. This can lead to emotional overwhelm or flooding, which can make it harder to think clearly or be constructive in resolving the conflict because survival – instead of connection – becomes our main focus. This is where dysfunctional strategies – such as conflict avoidance, withdrawal, stonewalling, appeasing, yelling, passive aggression, verbal or physical aggression or abuse, manipulation, defensiveness, criticism, or contempt – can unfold and become a pattern. These strategies may help us feel some control or relief in the conflict temporarily, but ultimately prevent us from connecting authentically with our partner and limit our ability to experience safety, support, or fulfillment in the relationship.
Since it’s unrealistic to try to avoid, control, or prevent stressors and conflicts from happening, it can be helpful to focus on cultivating a sense of safety. When both partners consistently feel safe in the relationship, it can help make it easier to be vulnerable, to express one’s needs and feelings, and to have the capacity for repair.
Here are 5 ways you can proactively cultivate a sense of safety with your partner:
- Encourage Authentic Sharing – help your partner to feel safe in expressing their thoughts, feelings, and needs by actively suspending the urge to judge, label, or assume. These automatic responses hinder curiosity because they make it about you instead of your partner’s experience, and can signal an opportunity for you to pause and practice self-regulation.
- Establish Boundaries – have regular discussions about each partner’s boundaries – the physical, emotional, spiritual, sexual, and intellectual ones. Allowing for each partner’s unique boundaries to be expressed and respected is a significant way that safety and trust is built.
- Consistency – strive to be consistent in your choices, behaviours, and responses. This helps our partner to experience stability and predictability in the relationship, increasing the shared sense of safety and security.
- Support Dreams and Celebrate Successes – be proactively curious about your partner’s interests, views, and dreams, both big and small. Supporting them in handling and overcoming the challenges they encounter creates a positive, uplifting, and rewarding shared space that has renewable momentum.
- Spend Quality Time Together – prioritize spending regular quality time with your partner. Find shared activities or moments for connection and make them a ritual in your schedule. Regular, dedicated time together increases intimacy, security, and safety.
In intimate relationships, co-regulation is a dynamic practice where each partner learns to emotionally attune to one another so that they can each be a source of support and stabilization for the other.
Here are 5 ways you can use co-regulation to support your partner:
- Active Listening – practice limiting distractions and using body language (ie., using eye contact, nodding, verbal affirmations) that shows you’re engaged in hearing what your partner is saying and understanding their experience.
- Showing Empathy – acknowledge your partner’s feelings when they express them to you, and let them know that they’re valid – even if you don’t fully comprehend the situation or agree with the choices they made.
- Grounding Strategies – grounding can help us restabilize when we’re overwhelmed or emotionally flooded because it reconnects us with our body and our surroundings in the present moment. Knowing one another’s preferred grounding strategies (and having their consent around when and how to offer them) can help you each support one another when overwhelmed. For example, help them engage their senses with their favourite music, a hot or cold beverage, or scents or aromatics. Suggest a walk or a bath. Or sit with them and practice deep breathing – with slow, deep inhales through the nose and long, extended exhales through the mouth. Sharing in the restabilizing experience of grounding can help soothe you both and reinforce a sense of safety while being present with one another.
- Offering Physical Touch – bring the primal source of comfort in being held to your partner by offering hugs, hand-holding, rocking, or nurturing touch.
- Team Problem-Solving – take an active interest in the issues that cause your partner distress, and offer your support as a teammate in brainstorming possible ways to address them.
Written by: Katie Sharpe
