Therapy grounded in real inner work and genuine human connection.
Throughout your life you will connect with people you encounter at school, work, and in your personal life. As you develop relationships with different people you will need to utilize a variety of skills to maintain positive, healthy relationships that make life more enjoyable. In …
One of the most important things to understand in relationships is your attachment style. It demystifies so much. When you don’t know your attachment style, things you do and feel in your relationships either feel very personal about your partner or about yourself. For example: …
Fighting in relationships is inevitable and, actually, important.
The couples I worry about most are the ones that don’t fight. Because it means it’s harder to get to what’s really going on. Fighting can be what comes before a new level of intimacy, a step toward more commitment in the relationship, a big breakthrough in understanding yourself and healing from the past, negotiating and coming to terms with your differences so each partner can be fully self expressed. But in order for it to build your relationship, fighting dirty has to go.
So let’s talk about what fighting dirty means and how can you learn to fight in a way that is actually productive and produces positive results.
Dr. George Dimon defines fighting dirty as “… fighting without principle-guided limits and boundaries. It’s placing winning over everything. And it’s using whatever tactics or psychological “weapons” you can think of to secure the dominant position.” (Dr. George Simon, “Fighting Dirty Destroys Relationships”, Dr.GeorgeSimon.com, June 21, 2019, www.drgeorgesimon.com/fighting-dirty-destroys-relationships)
This can include name calling, verbal attacks, not allowing the other person to talk, the silent treatment, bringing up past mistakes, dismissing or invalidating their feelings…and the list goes on.
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably done one or more of these things. It’s OK. I was tempted to do one of them yesterday. You’re here to learn. And once you know better, you have a path forward to do better.
Fighting dirty can happen in any type of relationship whether it is a romantic one, a relationship with a family member or even just with friends. Sarah Lee, Trauma & CPTSD Therapist gives more insight on dirty fighting within the family HERE. (Lee, Sarah [@childhood_trauma_therapy]. “Does your Family Fight Dirty?.”* Instagram, other contributors, November 4, 2021, https://www.instagram.com/p/CV3KiQwsTbd/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link.)
“Dirty fighting is often a subconscious behavior that is learned in childhood and continues into adult relationships. Many people are not even aware they are doing anything wrong or hurtful when they fight this way. They may see that they are having difficulty resolving relationship disputes, but they don’t connect it to how they engage in conflicts.” (Banks, Bobbi [@heybobbibanks]. “Fighting Dirty in Relationships Looks Like.” Instagram, other contributors, dDecember 18, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/p/CmUEYtGAVwP/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link.)
Dirty fighting becomes more about winning, not about hearing the other person out and trying to understand how you ended up in the fight in the first place. After a dirty fight, both people usually end up confused, hurt or just worn out from the battle of trying to win.
So let’s talk about how you can break the cycle.
So we’ve already established that fighting is normal and necessary; but how can you learn to fight fair? Here are a few tips:
A lot of couples might keep it to themselves when they’re mad at each other because they’re scared of starting potentially relationship-threatening arguments. But a recent study found that avoiding these conversations is actually more likely to harm a relationship than help it. (Syrtash, Andrea, “All Couples Fight: 11 Therapist-Approved Tips to Argue Fairly”, Glamour.com, February 29, 2020, www.glamour.com/story/how-much-fighting-is-too-much-in-a-relationship)
So don’t avoid the fight, trust one another to handle the conflict and fight in a way that is fair and helps you move your relationship forward.
Getting caught up in the moment and blurting out things is not a healthy way to express your frustrations with your partner. If you are upset and trying to hurry up and say your piece then it usually ends up coming out wrong or sounding insensitive, even if you didn’t mean it that way. If you just pause a moment and think it through a little more you can hopefully say it in a way that allows them to understand why you’re upset, and not just feel like a complaint.
Bringing up past mistakes or character flaws is just going to fan the flames and keep you going in circles with an argument that has no end. Whatever the disagreement is or whatever situation has led to the argument, discuss that and don’t bring in other issues. If you don’t stick to the issue that got you to the argument then you can get so far off track that you get confused about what you are even fighting about and your feelings of anger or hurt will then be multiplied.
Obviously this will have to happen before an argument starts, but if you can both agree on how you will handle arguments in the future and then stick to the rules you set, you can fight in a more fair, “healthy” way. Some examples of ground rules may be: never call each other names or attack each other’s character, commit to practicing using “I statements”, agree that you can tap out if it becomes unproductive, but always commit to coming back to the conversations. These are just a few ideas but no matter what your rules are, it can help you to feel safe to express your feelings and know that you are both committed to fighting fair.
Conflict in a relationship is inevitable. But it’s comforting to know that if you put in the effort to manage conflict in a positive way it can strengthen your relationship and bring you closer to your partner instead of tearing you apart.
Couples therapy can be so helpful to work through issues and learn positive ways to communicate with your partner. The couples who see the most impactful results are those who start sooner. Destigmatizing couple’s therapy and preparing for the process together can set you and …
This comes up a lot. I get that it is confusing. How can an interaction between two people not be personal? Meaning, how can you not take what someone does or says personally??? Well, it FEELS personal. Of course. The things is, most of what …
The fear of intimacy.
I know. Most people have a hard time wrapping their head around the fact that people experience a fear of intimacy and a strong desire for it at the same time. What makes it even more crazy is fear that shows up in relationships and intimacy is often hidden from conscious awareness.
Author David Rico is my favorite expert on the specific fears that create the cat and mouse game you see can see to varying degrees in most romantic relationships: the fear of engulfment and the fear of abandonment. The level of commitment or longevity of the relationship do not seem to inoculate us against these fears.
Most people are familiar with the fear of abandonment.
David Richo says the fear of abandonment is “the fear that someone will go away and we will not survive it. (“Not to survive” is defined as being defenseless and resourceless)” (From his book: When Love Meets Fear: Being Defenseless and Resource-full p.122).
So, in essence, once we are attached to someone, we fear that we will not be able to make it through a separation from that person. In addition, we will respond to anything we may perceive as someone leaving, whether it is physically or emotionally.
If you tend to experience the fear of abandonment, you might perceive someone leaving even when that is not the case because you are have gotten good at trying to predict and protect against the pain of separation.
This fear is actually just as widespread and, in my experience as a therapist, seems even more difficult to notice for the person experiencing this kind of fear.
The fear of engulfment is defined as “the fear of someone getting too close” (p. 122). So, it is the fear that someone will invade our inner space, take us over in some way, or diminish who we are.
Again, this fear is triggered by someone’s perception that they are getting crowded, when that might not be the case in reality.
Both of these fears do not necessarily represent any real threat. They are fears that relate to experiences in the past, ones that already occurred because, as David Richo points out, “An adult cannot be abandoned, only left, not engulfed, only crowded” (p. 123).
As adults, even if someone leaves, we can take care of ourselves whereas a child’s survival would be compromised. If someone intrudes on us, we can speak up to create space whereas a child has to tolerate the conditions until he can find another way to survive.
David Richo says that most people experience these fears to some degree in their intimate relationships, as they are simply a condition of being in relationship with another. Also, it is possible to be on both sides of the dynamic at different times, although, you may tend toward experiencing one fear over the other.
The fear of abandonment is easily recognized since this person is the one who is often trying to fix things, will compromise themselves to hold onto their beloved, and the words they use to communicate about what is bothering them matches the fear: they do not want their person to go away.
Some of David Richo’s words to demonstrate how the fear of engulfment shows up are: aloof, harried, showing anger, entitlement, “coldness, refusals to make commitments, need for more space and more secrets, indifference, intolerance, rigid boundaries, embarrassment about affection in public” (p. 125).
The person who experiences the fear of abandonment will usually be the one to leave the relationship. That usually happens because the person who fears engulfment can tolerate the situation because they continue to run and have gotten good at it, so they don’t get engulfed…but they also don’t experience the reward of intimacy. Ultimately, the person with the abandonment fear gets fed up with fighting for the relationship, not getting their needs met and compromising themselves, so they are the one to walk away.
Another interesting point that David Richo makes is that “the fear of intimacy is directly proportional to the fear of abandonment” (p. 124). That means the person upset about their partner going away is just as afraid of their partner being close. Except, it doesn’t feel that way, so their fear of intimacy is usually masked until they choose a partner that is willing to stay present or, who experiences the fear of abandonment to a greater degree, pushing them into the fear of engulfment.
Essentially, these fears are two sides of the same coin.
David Richo says that the person experiencing engulfment fears (usually they do not experience it like fear) may have had an experience of having over protective or helicopter parents. This is part of why people will defend their parents and their childhood because it is not a question of deprivation or abuse; it is a question of too much.
Their natural human drive toward independence and growth may have been stunted and compromised by over involved parents. This causes a very unpleasant internal experience but it is hard for the conscious mind to perceive this since it does not seem like anything is “wrong” on the outside, it just feels bad inside.
Another reason people may have this fear is if parents were very critical when they got close to them. So, allowing someone to come close equals someone finding that something is wrong with you.
Another formula that seems to cause this fear is if someone had a parent who may not have been very aware of their child’s experience because they were dealing with their own overwhelming experience of addiction, domestic violence, chaos or financial struggle. So, closeness in this experience was the equivalent of being bulldozed by the parents’ needs.
In all of these scenarios, I don’t mean to suggest that parents of someone who experiences the fear of engulfment are bad, evil people. No. They are probably great people doing their very best who love their kids a lot.
We are all human who are beautiful and flawed raised by humans who are beautiful and flawed. It is our job as adults to be aware of these injuries that caused the fear and work through them so that we can love healthfully.
There is a formula that David Richo suggests: admit it out loud, stay with it for a second longer than you can stand and act as if the fear was not holding you back in that second.
That means, you let your partner have space and attend to yourself while you are afraid of them leaving or you let your partner get a little closer by holding them, sharing what you have inside or take a tiny step in committing to your relationship and breathe through it! This literally helps to rewire your nervous system and the neural pathways in the brain.
Finally, David Richo instills some hope when he says that we have a program for dealing with these fears as adults: “When you go, I grieve and let you go.” “When you get too close, I ask you to give me more room” (p. 121).
If you find yourself experiencing these fears or this dynamic in your relationships, contact us. We’d love to support you in working through it.