When couples come into my office and share that they haven’t fought in the last couple of weeks, it’s not necessarily a sign that they’re doing better, or that therapy is working. What I want to know is that WHEN the fights, or ruptures occur, how quickly, how skillfully, and how effectively are partners able to do the repair?
Research shows that healthy couples fight. Sometimes those fights can even be ugly. Fights in relationships are NOT a strong predictor of success or failure—in fact, some couples who fight big are thriving in their intimacy. The difference is that healthy couples don’t cross certain lines, such as physical aggressiveness, and also, they know how to do effective repair work. These fights, or errors in relationships, are actually a necessary occurrence that lead to changes, both in behavior, as well as in the neurological underpinnings that are related to habitual cycles between partners. When we look at this from a neuro-biological perspective, there are a few important things going on when an upset happens in a relationship.
We don’t all need major brawls to have healthy intimacy, and big fights don’t automatically lead to growth, for certain! We do, however, need certain discomforts that push us to create change, for intimacy to thrive. It’s lovely when things are in flow, in our partnerships. We need to anchor those flow states into our memories, and into our bodies, as those states can be a resource to buoy up positive feelings toward our lovers when times are difficult. Those states of flow are the expression of what we do well—where we’re “proficient” with one another. Dr. Andrew Huberman states, “Optimal states of flow are an expression of nervous system capabilities that are already embedded in us.”
They’re not, however, a state for learning.
Essentially, we don’t GROW in FLOW.
Errors, on the other hand—those ruptures in relationships, are necessary for learning and growth. There’s a phenomenon called Adaptive neuroplasticity, meaning the nervous system’s ability to adapt to new stimuli and create new neural pathways, leading to positive cognitive, emotional, and behavioral change. When these relational ruptures occur, the nervous system is queued through distinct biological mechanisms that something isn’t going right, and certain neurochemicals are deployed that signal the neural circuits that they have to change. Essentially, to create plasticity and grow in relationships—or really any area of our lives—we need for things to occasionally go wrong. We need to create or at least allow for errors.
One way to increase adaptive plasticity related to relational health is to invite ruptures into relationships, in a structured way where partners intentionally practice the skills necessary for healthy conflict resolution. Of course, to do this, we have to practice conflict—an idea most find outrageous! Most of us do whatever we can to avoid conflict.
Let’s discuss why conflict can have value when we practice it intentionally.
When we feel upset or triggered in our relationships, we experience a release of adrenaline, which can be very uncomfortable. When we can recognize that moment as a potential training session for our nervous system, and see the potential benefit, dopamine is released. Dopamine feels pretty good. And when we decide to focus on a more productive outcome than what we normally get, by practicing new skills, for example, acetylcholine is released. These are all neurotransmitters or chemicals that carry messages from our brains to our bodies through nerve cells and the three of them combined are the exact neurochemical cocktail the brain requires to create change. Adaptive change—GROWTH. This is how we train our nervous systems for more productive relational outcomes, how we increase our relational capacity and our satisfaction in our intimate relationships.
Think of this as going to the gym for our nervous systems.
For many of us, especially if we’re not used to training our bodies, the idea of pushing our bodies to capacity doesn’t always sound pleasant. Plenty of us also knows, however, that it is through practices such as strength training, of pushing ourselves beyond comfort to the point where there are micro-tears in muscles, and through rest and recovery, that our bodies repair and build stronger muscles. This same tenet is true for our emotional muscles.
In other words, we can’t read a book about fitness and automatically have new bodies. Likewise, we can’t simply read a book about healthy relationship habits and automatically have those habits or alter those deeply engrained, automatically generated, nervous system habits. We must practice in the moments when life and love make it the most difficult. We have to push beyond our comfort.
Conflict Date Night
A practice I recommend to many of my clients, and that my partner and I have employed for the majority of our relationship, is Conflict Date Night.
People often laugh or scoff when I share this. But consider this...
How often do you and your partner schedule date nights, and how often do couples therapists, even, encourage those? Personally, I rarely suggest date nights, and here’s why:
If you’ve not truly resolved the underlying conflict—either the big things, or the small things that have built over time, and you have a date, often, there’s underlying tension. Partners can feel the need to have a few drinks to lower inhibitions, and then, the very same date nights intended to connect people leave them in arguments feeling even less connected.
Consider an alternative:
When we feel upset, we often have an impulse to take action immediately. Sadly, this is when our brains are least capable of skillful discourse because we’re emotionally hijacked. Our brains are triggered and our prefrontal cortex—the thinking, objective, rational part of the brain—has essentially gone offline as the emotional brain takes over. This whole process is for another article but suffice it to say that the initial moment of upset is usually the worst time to discuss upset feelings with a partner. If we can remind ourselves that Wednesday night at 6:30, we’ve scheduled our conflict date night, we’re more able to put those feelings on a shelf for a bit and give our nervous systems time to cool off and come back to a state of emotional homeostasis.
This pause also gives us time to mentally prepare, to plan how we’re going to bring a subject up effectively and skillfully to our partners, hopefully in a way that strongly predicts that they’ll be able to hear our concerns with an open heart and mind. Our ability to effectively respond when we’re feeling upset with our partners is an incredibly strong predictor of how successful our relationships will ultimately be.
Having a plan for conflict is also an invitation for practice, offering both partners an opportunity to be vulnerable, move into those uncomfortable edges, intentionally, and be seen in a way that many of us are not used to. It’s like having our gym-time on the calendar. We have scheduled time for emotional strength training. This time also allows the person hearing to practice maintaining emotional stability—to hold onto ourselves as our partners share things that may not feel comfortable.
I’ve often asked my partner—who is the less likely in our partnership, to launch a complaint and would prefer to let things roll off his back—to practice sharing the small stuff, even, that might, over time, build resentment. There are a couple of reasons I believe this is important. Number one, so that he can get some nervous system training when the stakes are small so that when they are bigger, he has some practices that will support him in knowing how to launch a more significant complaint in a skillful way. Secondly, it helps me to trust him—I see him bringing things to me that he’d much rather sweep under the rug, affirming to me that our relationship is important enough to him to practice these skills, even when it’s not easy.
In other words, healthy conflict builds trust.
And guess where trust leads...
While I’d love to launch into a discussion on eroticism, that’s for another article as well. What I will say, however, is that trust, for many people, enhances arousal, and trust is often built when we navigate conflict well. In other words, don’t underestimate the value of a good argument!
Many people ask what subjects my partner and I discuss on these weekly Conflict Date Nights or what I recommend to partners. Over the years I’ve made some lists, having sat with thousands of couples in their most difficult moments, of the areas where couples tend to struggle. I brought these topics to my partner as an invitation for weekly discussion, and we agreed to check in on each of these areas, and sometimes different ones, each week.
At 6:30, each Wednesday night, both of our phones send a reminder to us that it’s time for our check in. Sometimes we talk while cooking dinner, more often than not, we sit at our kitchen counter with our notebooks, sometimes our computers, so we can access calendars, and we start with what feels most important to one or both of us, and the general topics we discuss are:
Vibes & Interactions (this title shared with me from one of my clients)
Finances
Sex
Chores & Responsibilities
Kids/Family
Health & Wellness
Spirituality
Social time/Calendars/Travel
Trust/Communication
Connectedness
If there’s a specific issue that one or both of us feel is more pressing, we go there first. If one of us had something come up during the week that we’ve been contemplating, and it feels heavier, that issue takes precedence.
We are intentional about the opportunity for growth, for increased intimacy, for stretching our relational capacity and skill level, and for intentionally strengthening ourselves, emotionally. My clients often share these same sentiments and have found this to be a helpful, albeit challenging, practice.
Whether you’re ready to put Conflict Date Night on your own calendar or not, maybe consider that conflict can be seen through a different lens, one that has us viewing it with the capacity to stretch and strengthen our most intimate relationships. Personally, I’ve found that Healthy conflict is my love language ♥️
For the Love of Your Life,
Angie