If you spend an inordinate amount of time with someone, you’re bound to have disagreements.
For Reddit user Secretpies, the latest one she had with her husband was about shopping.
The couple drove out to get a few pieces of furniture; however, when they needed to take the boxes to the car, the woman and her spouse had different ideas on how to proceed.
She wanted to move the vehicle as close to the store as possible, but he thought it would make them lazy.
This woman refused to carry the furniture she bought with her husband to their car
Image credits: Vlad Kutepov / unsplash (not the actual photo)
So he called her lazy and their disagreement started quickly escalating
Image credits: cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Secretpies
Proving each other wrong almost never helps couples
Image credits: RDNE Stock project / pexels (not the actual photo)
As a psychologist who works with clients, Dr. Seth Meyers often observes similar issues between romantic partners.
“The problem is that the cycle [of proving each other wrong] is fruitless, with each member of the couple becoming their own attorney and generating arguments as if they are dueling attorneys in a courtroom,” he wrote.
According to Meyers, when a couple argues ineffectively, both of them focus on their own ego and get stuck in a fight-or-flight mindset in which there is theoretically one winner and one loser. Therefore, rather than seeing their partner as an ally, these types of arguments force people to look at their significant other as an opponent.
When this win-lose dynamic gets reinforced, the effect is simple: rather than anyone winning or feeling more understood, each member of the couple feels further isolated and frustrated,” Meyers explained.
In her book Radical Compassion, psychologist and meditation teacher Tara Brach notes that reacting too quickly and too emotionally is usually the primary factor that continues and strengthens these conflicts.
Brach says that understanding and investigating, not labeling and dismissing, are the things that help couples navigate their everyday lives. Nobody wins when everyone gets too focused on how right they are and wrong the other is. Instead, we should strive to show more care toward not just our own, but also our partner’s feelings, as irrational or unfair as their behavior may appear at first.
However, judging from the last passage of the woman’s post, it sounds like it might be too late for her and her husband.
As her story went viral, the woman joined the discussion in the comment section
