Does this scene look familiar?
From time to time, we are going to disagree with our spouse. Sometimes it can be an exchange of clarification, other times it is a white knuckle disagreement. Russ and I experienced this early on in our marriage when we miscommunicated. Russ had just connected over the phone with a longtime friend, who was in town. As I arrived home, Russ was excited to share how he connected with this friend. Reading in between the lines, I assumed this was code for ‘I’d rather join my friend tonight instead of going out on our date.’ So naturally, I suggested for him to join his friend. Russ’ response shocked me. Instead of being grateful he was downright angry with me. He did not like the fact I interpreted his sharing with hinting.
When communication fails…
So here I’m offering a kind gesture and it is met with anger. I retreated quickly. I chose to disconnect and not talk. One day went by, a second day went by…meanwhile Russ is thinking ‘are you kidding me?’ He was used to wrapping up a disagreement within seconds. He was not familiar with this ‘hunker down’ disagreement mentality.
Tiger vs. Turtle
From several years of therapy, we learned certain behaviors happen when you flood. Flooding is a fight or flight reaction to stress. Commonly known stress hormones are:
- adrenaline – hormone responsible for your immediate reaction, similar to the behaviour used while driving and someone accidentally cuts you off
- norepinephrine – hormone makes you more aware and focused
- cortisol – this hormone is a little more complex but it basically is the hormone that tells your brain there is a threat
Flooding is the overwhelming release of these hormones, which cause us to either fight, flight or freeze. We have learned if you can p-a-u-s-e during the flooding stage and wait 20 minutes, this gives the body enough time to reabsorb the stress hormones back into your system. You will actually feel differently about the conflict and you might protect yourself from saying unkind things.
You could easily identify my behavior as a turtle. I shut down. The more Russ would try to talk to me the more I went into my shell. When I would flood, I literally would go blank and could not fight back. Russ, on the other hand, is a tiger. Ready to fight and be done with the issue. We had to learn the hard way that the only way a turtle comes out from their shell is if they feel emotionally safe. You can imagine the restraint it took Russ to wait for me.
So how did the fight end?
After three days of not talking to Russ, (I was a cut and run girl and I wasn’t sure how to do that inside of a marriage) I knew I needed to put my big girl panties on and address the issue. The lack of talking was becoming worse than the actual fight. We talked about our assumptions and intentions and we were able to see under it all was behavior modeled from our family of origin dynamics. We also came up with a new way to address the tiger vs. turtle dance. If Russ would give me the space to calm down, I promised him I would discuss the issue within 24 hours. This allowed him to calm down, as well, knowing we would address the fight.
What pattern do you see in your fights? Comment below if you see your pattern.
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