Do you wonder why it’s hard to go for a week or even a day without arguing with your partner? If so, you are not alone. As a couples therapist who has been practicing for over 15 years, I regularly see couples who seek therapy to address lack of communication, frequent arguments, and poor conflict resolution. I want to share some ideas about why you might argue so often and some steps you can take to put a stop to the patterns.
Having disagreements in not necessarily the problem
It is virtually impossible to be in a long-term relationship and not end up in a disagreement, argument, or “fight” at some point. The healthiest relationships are often characterized by the ability to engage in respectful discussion or debate, reach deeper understanding of each other, offer validation and empathy, and arrive at mutually agreeable resolutions. For many of us, however, communication can devolve into frequent and ineffective arguments that leave us questioning what the heck happened.
There are numerous reasons couples end up in frequent arguments. These reasons might be influenced by history or factors outside of the current relationship, which can be confusing and sometimes frustrating. Other reasons are directly related to patterns in our current relationship. Regardless, being aware of these potential reasons can help you identify potentially effective ways to decrease the frequency and intensity of arguments and improve the general feel of the relationship.
Potential reasons for frequent arguments that do not seem to come out of nowhere include:
Unresolved grievances- Poor understanding of emotion
- Lack of communication skills
- Volley of emotional reactions
- Difficulty self-regulating
- Defensiveness pattern
- Pursuit-withdrawal pattern
Let’s take a brief overview of each of these factors and general considerations in changing or resolving them.
Unresolved grievances
One of the reasons couples end up arguing frequently is unspoken and/or unresolved grievances. Frustrations, hurts, or other grievances experienced in the relationship might go unaddressed or unresolved. These grievances can lead to the buildup of resentment and negatively impact both the way we experience our partner in the relationship and the overall level of negative emotionality within the relationship.
Unresolved grievances can be one of the reasons that you might feel confused about why even a seemingly minor issue can escalate into a full-blown argument. What might seem like an insignificant event or interaction might reflect a long-standing pattern with which the other person has been dissatisfied. If they have not voiced their dissatisfaction with you, their reaction can seem unreasonable or unfounded, catching you off guard and confused.
Grievances can also contribute to the development of “negative sentiment override.” Negative sentiment override, which is often associated with the decline or loss of friendship in long-term relationships, is when words or behaviors that we observe in our partner, that were previously seen as positive or at worst neutral, are now perceived as negative. For example, suppose I am getting ready to leave the house for the day and my partner says, “I hear the temperature is going to drop today, you might want to take a coat.” Early in the relationship I might think, “How thoughtful” and see the words as a sign of care. If negative sentiment override sets in, I might perceive the same words as controlling, rather than caring, behavior. This, of course, can lead to negative reactions and arguments.
Poor understanding of emotion
As I’ve mentioned in several other blogs, most people are not taught effective ways of dealing with emotion. In fact, many people quickly learn in life that expressing negative emotion is unwelcomed by other people in their life. Subsequently, people often do not develop effective skills in understanding or communicating their inner emotional world. This can result in strong emotions having significant impact on people and their behavior largely outside of their awareness.
Understanding emotion includes realizing that emotions often have an associated behavioral urge. For example, feeling unheard is often accompanied by a behavioral urge to raise one’s voice. Feeling threatened is often accompanied by an urge to fight or flee. These behavioral urges are often not the most effective way to handle a situation and might even make things worse. If someone does not have a good understanding of the connection between emotions and behavioral urges, they might frequently give into the urges which can unintentionally and unnecessarily escalate the situation.
For example, if I do not have a good understanding of my own emotions, situations can lead to emotions I’m not aware of and lead me to behave in ways that seem confusing. If, say, I had an older sibling growing up and that person frequently disregarded my views, opinions, ideas, and needs, I might grow up with a pattern of feeling dismissed in relationships. Without a good understanding of emotion and how it impacts behavior, I might tend to quickly end discussions, exclaiming in a huff that, “you don’t care about me.” Of course, if my partner disagrees with that assessment, an argument about that might ensue.
Lack of communication skills in expressing emotion
One consequence of not being taught effective ways of dealing with emotion is that many people do not develop the requisite effective skills in expressing emotion. While we don’t necessarily need skills in expressing emotion in much of our daily lives, learning how to effectively express emotion in the context of a long-term romantic relationship is crucial because romantic relationships are typically built on emotion.
The most common way that people express emotion ineffectively is by expressing a thought instead of an emotion. For example, if I say, “I feel like you aren’t listening to me,” it might seem that I am expressing an emotion since I used the word “feel.” However, immediately after the word “feel” comes the word “like”, which is the tip-off that I’m expressing a thought rather than a feeling. This is particularly problematic because the thought is an interpretation of the other person’s behavior (i.e., they aren’t listening) and if they do not agree with that interpretation, they will likely tell me that I’m wrong. Now, not only do I continue to feel unheard, but we are also arguing about a new topic regarding whether they are indeed listening.
From an effective communication skills perspective, learning to identify and label emotions is crucial to effectively expressing to your partner how you feel in a way that (hopefully) will not trigger an argument. Identifying and labeling emotion is not an easy task for many people. Some people have developed significant confusion about their own emotions based on how emotions were handled in their family growing up. Some people simply lack the robustness of vocabulary to accurately label emotion. For most of us, however, learning to identify and label emotion effectively is a matter of intentional practice.
Volley of emotional reactions
Another reason we might find ourselves in frequent arguments with our partner is what I call a “volley of emotional reactions.” I’ve described this phenomenon in detail in another blog (https://inctherapy.org/why-does-my-partner-get-mad-at-me-so-often/), however for the sake of this discussion, I will summarize it here.
A volley of emotional reactions is an escalation in emotion that is essentially the result of difficulty tolerating someone else’s emotion. For example, suppose I share with my partner that I felt dismissed yesterday during a conversation we were having. She might have an emotional reaction to me sharing my feelings, which I become aware of either because she says it, because her tone of voice changes, or because of body language. I, of course, will not like that she has an emotional reaction to me sharing my emotions and will react to her reaction. She, in turn, will likely react to my reaction to her reaction. Each successive reaction increases in intensity and this whole process can take a matter of seconds.
The volley of emotional reactions does not have to even be initiated by someone sharing a difficult feeling. It could start because I perceive my partner to be in a bad mood or because I interpreted words or tone of voice in a negative way. Regardless, the volley of emotional reactions is another reason that you might find yourself in frequent arguments with your partner and feel confused as to why.
Difficulty self-regulating
Perhaps the most common and wide-ranging reason for frequent arguments that seem to come out of nowhere is difficulty with self-regulating. Self-regulation is the ability to monitor and effectively manage your thoughts, emotions, and behavior. The vast majority of people I know struggle with self-regulation, which can have a number of negative impacts and tends to have the biggest negative impact on their close or romantic relationships.
While a thorough lesson on self-regulation is beyond the scope of this blog, I will offer a couple of points to better understand self-regulation in this context and give you some ideas about how to get started with improving self-regulation in your life.
When we experience emotional activation (i.e., feel an emotion), sometimes the emotional intensity and it’s impact result in an emotion-driven response that is ultimately ineffective and often makes things worse. To fully understand this process, it is important to understand that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected. Based on your interpretation of the situation, you might experience an emotional reaction to that interpretation, which can impact your physiological functioning (e.g., heart rate increase, blood pressure increase, nervous system change), and often leads to a behavioral urge. While the internal emotional and physiological state is usually uncomfortable, giving into the behavioral urge often has a negative impact on our surroundings and relationships.
For example, I know that I have a tendency to feel dismissed and criticized in close relationships (most of us tend to perceive interactions in certain ways that are unique to our prior life experiences). Suppose my wife makes a comment that I interpret in a way that leaves me feeling dismissed. Activating that emotion can then lead to an uncomfortable internal state and, in my case, lead to the behavioral urge to slam the door.
There are many points within the process I just described to “intervene” in a self-regulating way. The point is that I need to intervene before I act on the behavioral urge and until I am “back to normal.” Otherwise, slamming the door will likely lead to some sort of interpretation, emotional reaction, and behavioral urge in my wife. In other words, I have initiated a volley of emotional reactions.
We can intervene at various points in the emotion activation process and perhaps it makes sense to initially focus on the ability to resist the behavioral urge, since this has the most immediate negative impact on the relationship. Because the behavioral urge is usually aimed at immediate reduction in the uncomfortable physiological state we are experiencing, one of the first things we want to be able to do is to reduce the intensity of the physiological response. In other words, we want to learn how to reliably relax in the face of heightened physiological response.
The most accessible tool to help you relax is your breath. Your breath is always with you, no extra tools are needed, and the breath is a direct pathway to heartrate reduction and muscle relaxation, which are strongly correlated with a relaxed state. There are numerous breathing exercises that you can search for and access. So, try various strategies and test which strategies can help you reduce your heart rate and relax. Then practice the strategy(s) so you can readily use them, even when emotionally activated.
Before moving on, I do want to acknowledge that for people who have experienced past trauma, the entire process of nervous system activation and self-regulation can be complicated by that past trauma. Learning to self-regulate can be hard and I encourage anyone learning to improve their ability to self-regulate to stick with it. Your health and your relationships depend on it. And everyone can learn to improve their ability to self-regulate.
Defensiveness pattern
If you have ever heard of the Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you might realize how ineffective defensive responding is in maintaining a close partnership. When the defensive response becomes a pattern in your relationship it primes the engine of communication for arguments and a lack of understanding.
Defensiveness is described as a psychological and behavioral defense mechanism used to protect the ego from perceived attacks, criticism, or feelings of inadequacy. Instead of acknowledging a mistake, individuals often deny responsibility, make excuses, or deflect blame to shield themselves from experiencing vulnerability, shame, or guilt.
The antidote to defensiveness is taking responsibility for your part in the conflict.
The defensiveness pattern can be particularly insidious when paired with ineffective expressions of communication. (Please quickly review the section on Lack of Communication Skills in Expressing Emotion, above).
Because the antidote to defensiveness is taking responsibility for your part in the conflict, when your partner expresses their emotions ineffectively, you might be put in a position of taking responsibility for something you didn’t do. If my wife feels unheard and expresses that ineffectively by saying, “You aren’t listening to me,” I don’t want to take responsibility for not listening to her if I am listening to her.
Perhaps you can start to see how all the factors I’ve mentioned might work together (for better or worse).
Regardless, I could still look for the antidote to defensiveness by saying, “Perhaps I’m not expressing my understanding of what you are saying in a way that leaves you feeling heard.” Of course, if both my partner and I are using effective communication, this interaction becomes much less clunky and much more effective.
Pursuit-Withdrawal pattern
The last factor that can lead to frequent arguments with your partner that I’ll mention here is what is known as the pursuit-withdrawal pattern. The pursuit-withdraw pattern occurs when one person urgently and incessantly attempts to continue a conversation while the other person urgently tries to end or pause the conversation.
The simplest explanation for this pattern is that one person wants to talk about the issue at hand until they feel better, while the other person cannot continue to talk about the issue (effectively) until they feel better. The pattern is driven by emotional discomfort for two parties who employ opposite approaches to try to feel better.
Neither approach is right or wrong, better or worse; they simply work against each other in negative ways.
One of the most effective strategies to disrupt the pursuit-withdrawal pattern is to learn to effectively take breaks from the argument/discussion. To effectively take a break from an argument, there are numerous unwavering requirements.
First, both parties need to take responsibility for learning to recognize when their level of emotional activation is getting to the point where their ability to effectively communicate suffers. When we become emotionally flooded, we are less able to effectively communicate. Once we recognize that we are flooded we need to ask for a break.
Second, when a break is requested, it needs to be honored immediately. Pushing to continue the conversation when one or both people are flooded pushes for ineffective communication and increases the chances that more serious relationship damage will occur.
Third, a break needs to intentionally be used to self-regulate and pull ourselves out of that flooded state. Simply going in the other room and thinking about the last thing the other person said that bothered us or planning the comeback we will say when the conversation resumes is not taking a break. It is not taking a break because it does not give us a chance to self-regulate and instead keeps us in a state of heightened emotional activation.
Fourth, at the earliest chance after we are no longer flooded, we need to reinitiate the conversation. If we do not reinitiate the conversation, the person who is typically the pursuer will not have the chance to feel better, which will potentially perpetuate the very pursuit-withdrawal pattern we are trying to disrupt.
Closing
Having disagreements and feeling hurt by our partners is an inevitable part of a long-term relationship. That doesn’t mean we need to continue to engage in patterns that trigger unnecessary arguments or hurt.
Many of the reasons for frequent arguments can work together to make arguments more likely, more frequent, more intense, or to seemingly come out of nowhere. It follows that recognizing and making positive changes in all the ways will work together to make arguments less likely, less frequent, less intense, and more clear on why they occur.
You can read some of my other blogs to learn more about many of the concepts I’ve touched on in this article. If you have questions or would like to explore therapy for you or your relationship, do not hesitate to reach out.
Dr. Mike Ghali, owner of Individual and Couples Therapy, has been practicing therapy for over 20 years. While physically located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he holds in-person sessions, you can also schedule virtual sessions with Dr. Mike from any state that has enacted PSYPACT legislation. Learn more in the FAQs.
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