Cooling down communications is key to resolving relationship conflict

Imagine being in the throes of a heated argument with your mate, when suddenly his eyes glaze over and he turns stone deaf. Since he’s not listening to what’s bugging you, you turn up the volume, hoping to blast the wax from his ears. No use. Instead of understanding, he digs his heels and defends his actions. Now you’re really pissed, so you crank your emotional thermostat to the max and hammer harder. And big surprise; he’s more deaf, more defensive or just plain outta there is the flash of a firefly.

Why men withdraw from relationship conflict

Millions of women throughout the world are all too familiar with the way men distance emotionally or physically whenever relationship conflict erupts. The technical term for this conflict pattern is the demand/withdraw negative escalation cycle, more commonly known as husband withdrawal. According to research, husband withdrawal is the number one cause of relationship conflict and divorce as well as domestic violence.

Husband withdrawal is caused by a collision of two incompatible modes of handling conflict: that of the wife, who intensely expresses her hurt and anger and that of the husband who withdraws from the confrontation.

To extinguish this common fighting pattern, it’s vital to understand the biochemical imbalance that underlies it. Let me explain:

Men’s biology is hard wired to be hyper-reactive to stress and danger. This programming dates back to prehistoric times when men were hunters and needed to react with lightning speed: to flee or flight dangerous prey. Modern danger is no longer the ferocious tiger, it’s the pissed off wife or girlfriend. When she comes at him, baring her teeth and berating him with criticism, his body sees danger and involuntarily switches into ANS arousal, which triggers the fight-flight response.

Since most men don’t want to physically fight their partners, they flee instead.

There are three ways that men flee from relationship conflict

  1. The first type of fleeing is physical, when the man leaves the room or the house, hides out in his workshop or avoids coming home.
  2. The second type of fleeing is mental, or psychic fleeing, in which the mind takes a hike. The man is deaf, dumb, blind, and practically drools on his tie; he’s physically present but mentally gone.
  3. The last type of fleeing is what I call verbal fleeing in which the man justifies, makes excuses and defends himself in order to verbally escape responsibility.

Not knowing that these various fleeing behaviors are caused by primitive biological programming, a woman thinks that her guy is fleeing because he doesn’t care enough about her to resolve the conflict. Her hurt morphs into anger, which she expresses with great intensity, thereby unwittingly setting off more biological fire alarms, more fleeing, and a downward spiral of conflict is born.

How can you break this cycle?

The answer is what I call: Relationship Climate Control. Remember I said that heated fighting triggers a chemical imbalance in men’s bodies that causes them to flee. It turns out that cooling the climate literally shuts off the fight-flight response, which makes husband withdrawal magically disappear. Then and only then will a man stick around to resolve the conflict with you.

There are three primary ways to cool the climate. I discussed the first cool-down technique in my first blog. In this blog, I talked about the need to eliminate Fight Traps, which are those faulty fighting tactics that heat up the climate and cause more withdrawal behaviors.

In future blogs, I’ll discuss other ways to cool the climate.

Photo Source:Attractive man from MyStockPhoto.com

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© Copyright 2014 Jamie Turndorf, Ph.D., All rights Reserved.
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Known to millions as "Dr. Love" through her website AskDrLove.com, Dr. Turndorf founded the web's first and immensely popular relationship advice column in 1995. She consistently attracts new fans and keeps her existing audience engaged through her compassionate understanding as well as her frank delivery and earthy sense of humor. At the same time, she puts her listeners at ease while digging deeply in their psyches and prescribing her signature cure. Dr. Turndorf's multimedia platform allows her to share relevant and timely advice via radio, online, in print and on television. Her radio show, "Ask Dr. Love," can be heard in Seattle on KKNW and on WebTalkRadio, which broadcasts in 80 countries worldwide. Her column entitled "We Can Work it Out," is published monthly online in Psychology Today. Her critically acclaimed books have been teaching readers the hard and fast facts to healing relationships for years. Dr. Turndorf's methods have been featured on national television networks, including CNN, NBC, CBS, VH1 and Fox, and on websites such as WebMD, iVillage, Discovery.com, MSNBC.com. She has also been featured in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, Glamour, American Woman, Modern Bride, and Marie Claire. Dr. Turndorf’s latest Hay House book, Kiss Your Fights Good-bye: Dr. Love's 10 Simple Steps to Cooling Conflict and Rekindling Your Relationship, has been endorsed by New York Times bestselling authors Jack Canfield, Dr. John Gray and John Bradshaw. Since the recent death of Emile Jean Pin, her beloved husband of 27 years, Dr. Turndorf has discovered that relationships do not end in death. His miraculous manifestations, often in front of witnesses, have proven to her that there is life after life and love never dies. As a result of her experiences, Dr. Turndorf has developed a groundbreaking form of grief therapy that diverges from the traditional Western approach (grieve, let go and move on). By contrast, her method guides people to reconnect and, if needed, make peace with their departed loved ones. Her latest Hay House book on this topic is entitled Love Never Dies: How to Reconnect and Make Peace with the Deceased. To understand fully what Old Scars are, how they are formed, how they affect your relationships, and how to heal them, read my book . For Free Gift details or to receive a sneak peek of Love Never DIes, visit the book page: http://askdrlove.com/page/love-never-dies-how-reconnect-and-make-peace-deceased.

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