Mastering Cognitive Reframing: The Key to Conflict Resolution in Any Relationship
The reframe is my favorite skill for maintaining calm and minimizing conflict amid high-stress relational situations
5-star review of my book This is How Your Marriage Ends:
“Please read this, before it is too late. I cannot recommend this book enough!
This book opened my eyes and laid me bare in ways I never expected. I have a long road ahead of me in correcting trust eroding/killing behaviors.
Please, please read this if you are in a relationship or plan to be. Especially if you are a man, please take the time, care, and concern to look out for the ways we hurt those we love the most!” - Crazed in Black
This is How Your Marriage Ends is 40% off on Amazon, available in local bookstores, or you can order an author-signed copy here from my friends at Islandport Media.
I sought out the best clinical advice I could find for maintaining a sense of cool and not letting my emotions get the best of me during stressful or potentially high-conflict situations.
Most of us have heard a lot of it before.
Practice deep breathing - It’s more than just giving yourself some time to calm down—it literally activates your parasympathetic nervous system which relaxes the body after periods of stress by slowing heart rates, increasing digestion, etc. Perhaps more importantly, it counteracts our body’s sympathetic nervous system which governs our “fight or flight” responses.
Use “I” statements - Using “I” statements reduces blame and takes ownership and accountability for emotions. As opposed to things like “You’re doing it again, asshole!!!” It’s more like: “When this happens, I feel as if X, Y, and Z.” It’s not blaming the other person. It’s informing them of something they’re not likely all-the-way aware of.
Practice active listening - Active listening always de-escalates. It’s seeking to understand what the other person wants or needs, instead of judging them as somehow wrong.
And I’m thinking about this because I have coaching clients and group members (you should seriously join our group — we have a guys-only meeting on Mondays, and a mixed women and men group on Fridays) who are working hard to repair eroded trust and disconnection in their marriages, but sometimes years of pent-up hurt and resentment result in emotional reactions to one another that do more harm than good.
I’m not a doctor. I don’t know how to heal pain. But I think I understand how to avoid or minimize the pain our partners feel on account of our behavior—and that can go a pretty long way in rebuilding trust.
In my how-to-chill-the-eff-out-in-stressful-conversation research, my favorite was:
Reframe the Situation
Cognitive reframing. Literally forcing oneself to change perspective as a thought exercise, and dramatically reducing any emotional charge attached to it in the process.
During the late author David Foster Wallace’s remarkable “This is Water” commencement speech, he hits his audience, and us, with a bit of life advice on having a healthy perspective.
And he talks about the asshole driver weaving in and out of traffic that nearly ran you off the road, resulting in you using colorful language about how that other person can copulate with their mother that you actually say out loud in front of your children and spouse.
“There are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations,” he said. “It’s not impossible that…the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am. It is actually I who am in HIS way.”
That’s a cognitive reframe. And a powerful one.
So. Is your partner hurting you on purpose? Or is it possible that they really don’t understand how or why the situation you’re in is affecting you as much as it is since they don’t know how to feel that same way about it?
Is your partner attacking you? Or is it possible that they are trying to communicate that something you just did hurt them, and there’s almost literally no other way to let you know than to tell you about it while they’re feeling the sting of the pain?
Is your partner giving you the silent treatment? Or are they afraid to say the wrong thing and hurt you again? Do they maybe not know how to describe what they’re feeling? Are THEY so emotionally dysregulated that they don’t know how to stitch the words together? Did they spend their entire childhood in a house where parents and others discourage people from sharing their emotions if they were an inconvenience to the rest of the family?
…
Next time someone is saying something to you that is getting your insides twisted, I want to challenge and encourage you to find a narrative that makes sense to you for why they might be acting or speaking that way.
If you know and care about them, ask them to clarify.
Choose them and the relationship over winning or scoring points.
Sure. That guy was driving like a maniac and putting others in danger. But maybe he’s desperately trying to rush his child to the hospital.
Sure. That other person is saying and doing things that don’t feel good to you. But maybe hidden beneath all of that is a story that will make sense to you, and help eliminate conflict, and promote understanding between the two of you.
Please try to find it.
Matthew Fray is the author of “This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships”, a relationship coach, and formerly the blogger at Must Be This Tall To Ride.
P.S. - I know these things can present really small to some of you in your busy lives and marriages/partnerships. But that’s exactly why developing mindfulness and communication habits around these domestic scenarios is so critical to maintaining peaceful, loving relationships. If you have trust erosion, and/or pain points and frustrations around things like this at home, consider working with me as your relationship coach to develop these skills and habits. This stuff matters. Book your next appointment here. - MF