How Did Your Arguing First Begin?

In your romantic relationship, how did your arguing first begin?

Okay let’s discuss the negative pattern that happens between you and your partner. The negative pattern is the whole set of bad habits that you both do together when you interact with each other. It’s the reason much of you communication doesn’t feel good.

Everybody that enters a relationship brings a whole history with them.

Childhood, your past relationships, and your current relationship… all include your experiences of what makes you feel bad with a partner, and what makes you feel good.

Rules

A long time ago, maybe a year, maybe 20 years, you both came up with a very specific set of rules about how you would interact with each other. This is an unspoken, silent contract that you both signed and agreed upon.

This happens in every relationship. The problem that happens is when the rules have a little too much focus on hiding the truth from each other. The problem happens when the rules are a little too frozen in place, and don’t have any flexibility.

For example, I won’t talk about my concerns about your drinking, because I know it makes you angry. And I feel rejected when you get angry. So I won’t mention it, as long as you don’t talk about my over controlling parenting style. We can stay happy together, as long as we don’t talk about such things.

When these agreements between you are in place, you spend years and years reinforcing the rules of this contract. These rules that started out keeping you feeling comfortable and included with each other have now become almost the main constant way you act with each other, and how you treat each other.

Hiding The Truth

So what started out as a little bit of hiding the truth has now turned into arguments that cause devastating feelings.

What we’re going to do is pull apart, piece by piece, the unspoken contract you’ve created together.

Here’s a very general example of how this works when you’re really stressed with each other.

When you walk in the room, and your partner doesn’t say hello, doesn’t acknowledge you, and you feel rejected, you might feel angry, or hurt, and you both keep playing the same game with the same set of rules of not talking about this.

We’re going to dismantle this process, step by step, and you’re going to learn how this happens, when this happens, and why this happens.

So what’s the goal? For you to walk into the room, feel that your partner took a moment, maybe just one second to acknowledge you, and you both don’t feel a mountain of tension and stress between you both.

You must break apart piece by piece how this happens, so you can then begin to… make it a great relationship.