let’s reflect.
At Good Human Work, we believe that real change takes time. We learn, we reflect, we practice change, we rest, we repeat.
February 1, 2025
What is “healthy conflict” anyway?
At Good Human Work, we believe that real change takes time.
We learn, we reflect, we practice change, we rest, we repeat.
This week, we are focused on the human need to connect.
Let’s learn.
Let’s face it: relationships aren’t all good feelings and happy endings. They require some effort and intentionality.
In every relationship, there are times when we find ourselves in disagreement. Hopefully it’s an issue that’s minor or relatively unimportant, but over the course of time we can find ourselves arguing over a range of insignificant and more serious issues. For some couples it becomes an all too frequent pattern.
So when we get asked the question “How often do healthy couples fight?”, the honest answer is that it varies depending on the couple.
As couples’ therapists, we're often less concerned about how frequently a couple fights and much more concerned about how healthy and productive the conversation is between them.
Let’s reflect.
It’s important for each of us to know how we typically respond in a panic situation.
The health of an argument provides a lot of information about how each person reacts under panic and stressful situations, how the couple navigates difficulty, and how much vulnerability and empathy are allowed by the partners in the relationship.
When we disagree with our partner, it brings up all sorts of complicated feelings that can lead to us becoming defensive. These may be feelings of hurt, fear, jealousy, or disappointment - all of which can easily turn into anger that fuels the fight. Defensiveness shows up side-by-side with these feelings, because we’re having a type of panic response. This looks a lot like our stress response, and leads us to dive into our most basic survival strategies - flight, flight, and freeze.
It’s important for each of us to know how we typically respond in a panic situation. While it can absolutely vary depending on the situation (sometimes I may “fight" and other times may "take flight"), when the panic is due to a relationship, we often see regular patterns. It can be helpful to spend a little time thinking about how we respond in different conflictual situations to gauge what our “default” response looks like.
If you tend to shut down, tune out, or want to escape the situation then you’re likely in “flight mode” (freeze is similar for interpersonal conflict).
If you tend to try to "talk it out”, feel the need for things to be resolved RIGHT NOW, or repeat yourself trying to be heard, then you’re likely in “fight mode”.
This all can sound strange at first, but our brains are wired to connect our significant others with emotional survival.
When there is a “threat” (read: partner disagreement), our brains generally end up in a panicky state. Since we have a typical panic response and so does our partner, we end up in similar pattern of interaction each time we argue. This is often why conflict ends up unresolved and both partners are exhausted by it. (And when you meet with your couples’ therapist, it’s definitely one of the patterns they will be tracking.)
Let’s practice change.
Once you and your partner realize how each of you responds, you can begin to strategize about how to better structure disagreements in the future to disrupt the pattern.
Openly discussing the unhealthy pattern of conflict allows us to reconstruct what it needs to look like. You can be aligned with your partner through changing the unhealthy pattern to a healthy one. It may be that you need brief timeouts, structured listening activities, and self-soothing techniques, or it may be helpful to have a licensed therapist teach you how to restructure these difficult conversations.
During the process of identifying unhealthy patterns and disrupting them, it’s essential to learn a repair process as well. As we’ve written about previously, a repair process is important for solidifying the healthy pattern and can be built into a relationship at any point.
Remember, it takes work, but improving connection, communication, and the way in which you disagree can generally turn things around.
If you’re unsure how to handle this, reach out for a session. We’re here to help.
