STOP ARGUING: You Both Could Well Be Right!

Why do we even argue in the first place, is an interesting question to ponder. We all argue and hopefully we eventually learn not to argue as much or we just give up. The cause of argument is often situational and we may be tired, hungry or just irritable which is just life and circumstances. However, it is worthwhile to look at the pattern of your arguments to start to see some common themes which you may wish to address. This blog is about the deeper causes of arguments.

Think or reflect back to your most recent argument. I will use my own example to start with. Currently I am travelling with my husband in Italy and it is experiencing a heat wave. We had just bought a new individual evaporated air cooling unit that needs water to be effective and works from a USB. So our plan was to try it in the car as our car air conditioning unit doesn’t work. We had just stopped to have a cup of coffee in a nice Italian Café and I suggested we finish our drink bottle and fill with water so when we go to the car we are able to instantly make our little unit operational, to endure the heat while we travel in the afternoon. I thought that was a perfectly logical and efficient way of meeting a need to try our new machine and experience coolness. My husband had a very different idea: he didn’t want the water now so the bottle would be empty, he didn’t feel thirsty and wanted to keep it for some time later in case he became thirsty, as we finished our shopping.

I usually do not insist on my idea being carried out as it is just an idea, take it or leave it, I just want the other person to listen and acknowledge, but this time I insisted as I get irritable when I get too hot, and my husband was adamant: he was not going to drink the balance of the water and change his mind; and I was adamant I did not want to walk away from the café without water. I gave up trying to convince him as he was by now very angry with me, and when we got to the car there was no access to water, and we then travelled to several self-service petrol stations (it was Saturday afternoon, siesta time in Italy) and still no water and half an hour later he found water for me. You can imagine how I was now feeling.

Our suggested actions would have met our physical and emotional needs for each of us, we just needed to meet very different needs and values. We did not go into what those needs were, as to each of us it seemed so obvious as to what the need was and wondered why the other was being so difficult, I just had a simple request and was that too hard to meet?

It became a power struggle between us as to who was going to get their way or their needs met over the other person. This is a very natural process that occurs in a relationship and if we do not reflect upon it becomes a pattern of interaction and one partner will often dominate over the other because the other would rather have peace and lack of confrontation, as it takes so much effort to do battle and feel that degree of estrangement over what often are such trivial matters in the scheme of issues.

Who has the right to win in a relationship that should be one of equals? When it becomes a power struggle, it is a very ineffective way of relating to each other and never has a happy ending. Our emotional upsetness escalates and then our primeval need to win become more important than the ultimate unity of the relationship, so we start to compete with each other, rather than consulting to find a solution that will meet both needs. My husband was convinced it would be easy to find water, I had already noticed our environment and knew it would not be easy so I was so insistent about my strategy. When you start to argue about an issue, you are both wrong! It requires us to be able to stand back from our emotions, recognise what emotion you are feeling and be more present and reflective of the others needs in a situation.

How hard is that to accomplish! When you have not met an emotional need or you feel a basic value has been not been acknowledged it can seem impossible. In the situation I felt my husband had disrespected my need, which of course, I had not articulated and given any context to meet his need of specific information and gone straight to a solution, I felt would work, and had not engaged him in finding a solution and then insisted my idea would be the best. My ego was involved and I was not considering his need to satisfy a physical need of satisfying a thirst later. His lens to the world is action and mine mind. I do not live in my body, I am not as conscious as he is of bodily needs and their immediate impact. I live in the world of thought and finding solutions to challenges around me, and see the end in the beginning whereas he is sequential, systematic and step by step and how he deals with a situation, he does not jump from here to there and my approach seems totally chaotic and not thought through. I look for big picture solutions and brain storm ideas then decide in the circumstances what would be the best solution and like to do that interactively. My husband sees the suggestion as totally inappropriate and not thought through, where as in brain storming you just mention any idea but you start the process and interactively find a solution and your first thought is to just simply to start the process, a better thought will appear as you consult and hear each other’s view-points, then you come to agreement.

We could look at scenario after scenario and we would find the same pattern, we each have different emotional needs we are not conscious of and need to be more present in the moment to read our emotional reactions. Why is this so hard to do? It takes 1/60^th of a second for our brain to go from a thinking brain to an emotional brain, due to a fear we have not being able to recognise an emotional need that has not been met. The more we can practice the actions suggested in the first two blogs and recognise our fears and emotional needs, we realise it is not about being right it is about understanding both our own needs and being able to talk about them and to also recognise your partners fears and needs and how to accommodate each other.

A conflict of opinion is not so much the challenge, as when we make it a conflict of the people involved, that we can then become the cause of hurt and misunderstanding to the other, as we can start to be disrespectful and blaming and shaming to the one we profess to love. We all seek to feel respected and the next blog will elaborate upon this theme and why we can often feel we are being disrespected. You then can see how our non-verbals are often the cause of misunderstandings.

Once again it is about being conscious of our emotional reactions and take it back up to the thinking brain, to acknowledge by saying to yourself with language what you are feeling in the moment so you can once again think and reflect rather than simply reacting by blaming and shaming the other so you can feel you are right and they are wrong. It is far more powerful to use humour and to remember that we are all different but still just beautiful, as we see the world so differently. That is the essence of my studies into the six different Social Brain Modes. Read more about that in my free e-book: Understanding People. Click here to request a copy.

The more we are conscious of our feelings we can simply try to step into the shoes of the other and be empathetic to their needs and style and be more creative and playful in addressing points of difference. Each Social Brain Mode has very different emotional needs and fears that sabotage their relationships, we can assist you to find out your own Social Brain Mode by engaging in a webinar we offer. The details of how each Social Brain Mode functions is contained in our e-book “Your Social Brain Mode”. This invaluable information has totally changed my capacity to understand and relate to others. As some of my friends often say, “It has totally changed my life.”

We offer you the same opportunity. Visit our website: Relationship Infinity, and browse through the various services that we offer. By becoming aware of your emotional needs and the needs of others, you will become a person with a higher and stronger level of:

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Happy reflecting!

Dr. Arini.

P.S.
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