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He Said “I Need Space!” and Stormed Out! Are We Breaking Up?

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Isn’t it just amazing how a regular conversation on a happy day can turn into a vile, nasty argument? One minute you’re happy and in love, the next you’re screaming at the top of your lungs, and can’t think of enough hurtful things to throw at your partner! AAAhhhhh!

And then something snaps, and one of you yells “I need space!” and storms out!

Dear Dan and Jennifer,

When an argument occurs, more times than not, a guy will say “I need space”.

Is there a deeper meaning to “I need space”? Is he going to break-up with me? He was really angry when he told me this.

— Cris, Pennsylvania

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCFqIcrjY28[/youtube]

“I Need Space!” – What it Really Means

It’s typically the man who needs space, but not always… Maybe it’s the pressure of the argument, maybe it’s something else. The fighting just gets to be too much… and he just can’t take it anymore. So he backs, or runs away to catch his breath and get some air.

“I Need Space” is avoidance, a cry for help from a wounded animal. The argument, the fighting, or life in general has gotten to be way too much and he needs a break from all of the stimulation.

When he says that, you should respect it as frustrating as it may be. Sure you want to understand what’s wrong, what triggered it, and at this point, how you can make it better. But that’s not always possible. Trying to approach someone who’s pulling back like this will often just push him farther away. In this emotional state, he is truly acting like a wounded animal and will likely bite if you try to approach.

So is this the first sign of a break up? Is the end in sight?

Probably not. People argue and fight, and that’s unfortunately just a normal part of any relationship. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he wants to break up, just that he needs a break at that point. It can be as simple as that.

However, if your relationship gets into a cycle of arguing and drama all the time, it very well may lead to break up! People spend time together to find happiness, companionship, and love. Not to fight and argue. No one likes to fight all the time and eventually, someone will leave.

Clash of the Personality Types

Some people thrive on conflict, and others avoid conflict. We are all different, which is really a great thing – wouldn’t it be boring if we were all the same? But here’s where problems can start…

Those who thrive on conflict, will debate a topic until they’re completely exhausted. Others simply hate fighting and arguing, and will do anything to avoid conflict.

So for obvious reasons, a relationship between a person who thrives on conflict and a person who always avoids conflict can quickly end in a bitter break up unless they learn to work together and respect one another’s boundaries.

3 Golden Rules to Keep Fights and Arguments from Destroying Your Relationship

Here are our 3 Golden Rules for resolving disagreements and avoiding fights:…

  1. Check your ego
    Fights and arguments are caused by the ego – your ego’s need to “win”, to “be right”. That’s how a simple disagreement or a regular conversation turns into a screaming match. He says something hurtful, she says something hurtful back, then you have to say something even more hurtful, and so on. It just gets dumber and dumber. Really. As an argument progresses, the collective IQ between the two people drops dramatically – at least is seems that way to an outside observer.
  2. Never use the word “You” to start a sentence in an argument
    Keep it about YOUR feelings, and never accuse the other person of what they did or should do. The moment you start saying “you did this” or “you said that”, the other person gets defensive, and all intelligent conversation ends on the spot. Game over.
  3. Agree to disagree
    This is one of the most important relationship secrets EVER. Here’s an amazing tip: you will NOT be able to convince everyone that you’re right on ANY topic. Fact is, we’re all individuals, and we see everything at least a little differently from each other. And that means, we’re occasionally going to disagree. The ego of course hates disagreement, so you end up fighting with people you disagree with and trying to ‘convince’ them why your perspective is obviously the right one. But how about this – respect others for their viewpoints and appreciate your differences, and move on. You don’t really have to change anyone’s mind about anything.

Who Are You And What Have You Done With My Partner?

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When I got married I was such a happy person. My husband was gentle, kind, giving, and such a great dad.  It came as a complete shock to me the first time he got angry with me.

You see, I am an anger phobic from way back.  I will never forget cringing as my grandmother screamed at my mentally retarded uncle.  She would go on tirades that filled the house with angry blasts of her voice (this was no small task as the house was a 3 story boarding house).  I was never comfortable with anger (especially not my own!) and I would do just about anything to avoid it.  Additionally, when anyone was angry I had huge judgments regarding them.  Anger, in my opinion meant ugliness, abusiveness and there just wasn’t any excuse for it.

So marrying someone human enough to get angry startled me. I didn’t understand where my loving, gentle husband had disappeared to and who was this person in my bedroom anyway?  After all, I didn’t see that I could possible have done anything to have brought on his wrath.  I never did anything to deliberately hurt anyone, especially him, my most beloved.  The anger that I felt as a response separated us.  I felt totally disconnected from him. I couldn’t understand where he got off being so angry with me for nothing I could comprehend.  Who was this angry monster and why did he seem to hate me?

That’s how it felt to me. If someone was that angry with you they had to hate you, right? Consciously I knew that was wrong, but it definitely felt that way. The little kid inside cringed at every angry word he spoke.

I was fearful of his getting angry so I started editing what I told him.  In other words, controlling him by not giving him all the information.  That always backfired of course, because eventually he would discover what I had not told him and it would make him even angrier.

I don’t recall how long it took for me to realize that underneath the raging exterior of my formerly loving partner was a lot of fear and hurt.  What’s more, what he was angry about was never really about what I thought it was about, it wasn’t really about what I had said or done, it was about something far bigger, and older.

His anger was what I call a “Self-Protective” stance that he took to manage his hurt and fear. Often when someone is hurt they will become larger than life. They will raise their voice, puff up their physical self to maximum capacity and try to look as threatening as possible in an effort to appear more powerful than they feel (Imagine a puffer fish here).  They appear large and loud and scary so that you will be intimidated into stopping whatever it is you are doing that is hurting or scaring them. Underneath there is a kind of desperation and terror.  But that is not what they show; they show an overpowering, larger than life toughness to attempt to force change.

The person that had been so frightening to me was in fact scared and hurt.  Now, for some of you that might not be new information, but for me it was a huge newsflash.  Knowing this changed everything.  It empowered me to respond differently than I ever had to an angry person.

Instead of responding as a helpless victim and cringing, trying to control them by placating them with platitudes, running around trying to fix the problem that upset them, or worse, reacting with anger in return – I learned to give them empathy.  All of the old ways of responding, I discovered, created more resentment and anger.

Empathy, I was thrilled to realize, created a whole new kind of relationship and helped me find my kind, gentle husband again.  He had always been there, inside the attitude that had scared me so badly.  His Self-Protector stance had left me fearful and confused.  But once I figured out that I could change everything by changing how I viewed his anger, our relationship was transformed.

Our anger is a survival mechanism that kicks in when we are threatened in some way.  It throws us into a Self-Protector position in order to keep ourselves alive. Now, in most cases in today’s world, we are not really going to die, but on a brain level, that’s how it feels.  If our partner responds to our hurt and fear with empathy for our feelings, then we can slowly let go of our need for our Self-Protective reactivity and let ourselves be vulnerable again.

The next time your partner is angry with you. Stop. Don’t do what you always have done. This time, notice the hurt or fear and say something to indicate that you noticed they are hurting, like “I’m sorry, I can see there is something I did that hurt you. Can you tell me what’s going on?”  or something similar in your own words.  Give her some indication that you understand she is hurting.  Let him know that you care that he is hurt.  Odds are you will find out that the upset wasn’t really about you, but about something from your partner’s history. So be open, be curious and empathetic.  This will allow their anger to bring you closer instead of pushing you further apart.

Arguments and Fights: Why Won’t You Listen to Me?

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How many times have you been in a situation with someone you know pretty well, maybe your spouse or your best friend, when you just couldn’t get through to them? For some reason beyond your understanding they just refuse to listen to what you are saying. They argue, they say irrational things, they confound you with statements unrelated to what you are trying to say, they just don’t seem to hear what it is you are trying to get across.

Why is that?

Okay, we have all heard of the “Fight or Flight Syndrome”. That’s’ when your brain takes over and you feel you have to either fight or run away from the situation.  But what does this mean to us on a personal level? What it means is our brains are engaged in a battle for our survival and it is sending us messages intent on helping us survive whatever the threat appears to be.  That threat could be as simple as avoiding embarrassment, it could be defending against something that you said that the other person perceived as an attack.  Whatever the threat, the other person is reacting to you as though you are a threat.  They see you as “the bad guy” and themselves as “the victim”.

Now, if you asked them, they would deny this. They are not lying to you, they are not aware that  “the bad guy” and “the victim” roles are unconsciously engrained into their way of perceiving the world. Actually, it’s a part of all of our unconscious minds.  We can’t help it it’s automatic.

Picture this: A husband, let’s call him Jim, is trying to help his wife who is swamped with Christmas preparations. She told him that she has to set up the tables for their holiday dinner and gave him a vague notion of how she wanted it done.  Without asking for more details, Jim thinks he can help his wife; lets call her Susan, by setting up the tables for her.  He hurries around hastily setting up the tables before she comes back from Christmas shopping, hoping to surprise her. Well, boy, was she surprised. Susan says, “What is this?”

Jim proudly says, “I set the tables up for you.” Suddenly, without warning, Susan explodes on him, telling him this is not at all what she wanted, and why did he think this is how she wanted it? And why didn’t he let her do it?  Jim was dumbfounded. He starts yelling back at her how he was just trying to help, and didn’t she want his help? Susan is aghast that he can’t see this is not what she wanted. She starts telling him he was just trying to horn in on her show, that this holiday dinner is important to her because her new son-in-law’s family is going to be there and she had it all planned out. Jim insists that he was trying to help her and she is just being petty.

The discussion erodes from there into an all out fight.

What happened here? Both people were trying to accomplish the same goal, but they got seriously derailed. Why? It’s because their brains kicked into survival mode.  The whole argument escalated because neither of them realized how suddenly they had become each other’s enemy.  Each saw the other as “the bad guy” and themselves as “the victim”.  Whatever understanding they may have had of each other’s stress was out the window and they were each solely focused on surviving the current threat.

So what is the alternative? The alternative is to choose to react with compassion. Now, that sounds like a big task when you are feeling threatened, and in fact, it is.  But the key to doing it is really quite simple.

The key to reacting with compassion is to begin with taking ownership of your part in the situation. How do you take ownership when you have no idea what triggered the other person’s reaction?

You start by taking a breath.  Breathing may seem simple, but it’s not.  Our bodies react to threat by going into hyper-alert. In the hyper-alert state our breathing can stop.  We can stop this automatic reactive response by consciously choosing to take some breaths.

Next, remember who is talking to you.  Remind yourself of the good things you know about this person.  Then remain open and curious about your own role in the situation.  You can say, “You seem angry, is there something I said or did that upset you?” Find your own words to convey that you are aware of something you did having triggered an emotion in this person.   Once you have opened your own heart to listening to their pain, you are in a better place to be heard.

Reigning in our own “Fight or Flight” reactivity helps us hear and be heard. When we can calm those automatic reactions in ourselves we are less likely to respond to others in threatening ways.  By calming our own reactions, taking ownership of our part in the situation and offering empathy to the other person, we are not longer a threat to the other person.  By removing the threat, the other person can then let down their protective reactivity and listen to what we have to say to them.

So the next time you find yourself thinking, “Why won’t they listen to me?” stop and breathe.  Then find out what upset them.  Give them some empathy, and say your piece.  Their ears will be open, check it out for yourself.

How to STOP Arguments and Fights from Killing Your Relationship

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Endless fights, arguments, and snipes late into the night…

You’ve seen it time and time again. Everything is going great, you and your partner love each other dearly, and your relationship couldn’t be better. Then, it strikes without warning. Someone says something, the other responds, and it’s on!

What appears to be a simple misunderstanding escalates into an argument, a fight, and someone ends up sleeping on the couch. Worse yet, one of you starts throwing things, then storms out of the house. Remember the frustration, the anger, the resentment?

Remember how puffed up your ego got? “Yeah, so there!” OK, clearly that didn’t go as planned. And you can bet nobody gained anything from that exchange.

What happened? How did a simple question turn into a screaming match?

In your mind, the other person “just doesn’t get it”. But here’s the problem – in their mind, YOU “just don’t get it”.

And what’s even WORSE is having ANY kind of emotional discussion (read: argument) by phone or email. NEVER do that if you can avoid it.

So how can this possibly be resolved without endless fighting and eventually maybe even breaking up?

When a “discussion” escalates into an argument, all sense and reason seems to leave the building. At that point, it’s all EGO, and going downhill hard. Everybody is getting puffed up trying to one-up the other person by saying something just a little more hurtful in response to what they just heard last. A guaranteed path to achieving nothing useful.

Could you agree to disagree?

Imagine… What if you don’t have to win?

Really, think about that for a moment. Do you really NEED to win? So what if you disagree? What if you like something, your partner doesn’t, and that could just be OK?

Could you agree that on this particular topic, you like red, she likes yellow, and you’re “both right” when it comes to your own life choices. And as partners and friends, you agree to respect each other’s decisions. You “agree to disagree”.

Suddenly, you don’t have to fight. You can be happy together again, and face new days in joy and harmony.

How can you achieve this peace?

So here’s a question from a gentleman wondering if it’s normal to have fights and arguments with his partner.

Dear Dan and Jennifer,

“No relationships are without arguments and quarrels” – Is this true?

– Edmund (Singapore)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiOKTNUn9cA[/youtube]

Relationship Problem – Fighting Like Wild Animals?

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Standing in Quick Sand

How many times have you found yourself in a discussion with your partner that suddenly turned sour and you don’t really know how you got there? You’ve said or done something that set them off and you are not sure how it happened, it’s just that suddenly you are standing in quick sand and sinking deeper by the second.  Now, of course, you want to dig yourself out, but everything you try just pulls you in deeper.  At this point your heart is racing, you are sweating and unsure of what to say or do.   Your partner is behaving like a wounded animal and you don’t have a clue how to fix it.  Sound familiar?

Well, it should sound familiar because we all do it.  We all have times when our communications do go as we intend and we find ourselves battling a battle that we don’t understand.  We don’t know what started it and we sure as heck don’t know how to stop it.  Sometimes divorces result from just such interactions!

All of us have our moments. All of us have certain things that set us into a survival mode that leaves us feeling isolated, terrified, angry, hurt, or just plain depressed.  This survival mode feels personal, as if our partners deliberately intend to wound us in our most sensitive places. Momentarily our partners may lose sight of who we are and, yes, say or do something to deliberately hurt us, but unless our partner is a psychopath, they don’t go into the conversation with the intention of hurting us. So why is it we so often find ourselves in the quick sand?

Human beings are animals.  We have an old part of our brain (old in the evolutionary sense) that reacts in a primitive manner to any hint of perceived threat. We can’t really help it; our reactions are part of our brain function.  The more insecure we feel in a relationship, and the more important that relationship is to us, the more likely we are to be triggered into this primitive reactivity.  The set of behaviors triggered by our brain chemistry are pre-programmed into us from our ancestry to increase our chances of survival in the wild.

Lauren and Stan had been married for over 20 years, yet they had never established trust. Their “old brain” was still behaving as if their partner were a threat to them.  Lauren’s mother was depressed and her father was an angry, frustrated man who raged at and physically abused his children.  As a result, any time Stan expressed his frustration with anything that Lauren did, she accused him of being abusive.  She shamed him and withheld sex from him. She believed herself to be protecting her children. Her old brain kicked in and she went into what I now call “Self-Protector” mode.

Her attacks threw Stan into his own “Self-Protector” mode.  She would snap at him… He would be forced to withdraw into a protective angry shell.

I couldn’t understand how their marriage had lasted so long.  Once Lauren was able to understand how she had thrown Stan into the role of her father, and that she was in an old brain reactive mode because of her abuse history and not because of Stan, she was able to relax her angry stance.  Stan was fearful of expressing any feelings to her because of her past rages, but when he saw her pain as she talked about her father’s abuse, he softened to her.  He was then able to let her see how her raging at him had affected him, and she could actually let herself have empathy for him.  It still took some time before she could trust him enough to let him discipline their children, but she did.  He was able to have empathy for her fear and distrust instead of seeing it as being about him.

Our old brain is particularly active if we have abuse in our childhood history.  Our survival instincts had to take over in that event when we were little.  Then when anything reminds us of what happened before (i.e. disciplining children) we are emotionally triggered back into our old brain survival instincts.

Lauren and Stan were lucky enough to learn this before Lauren died of cancer two years later.  She was able to let him care for her and take over as primary parent. He was able to let her see his pain and vulnerability.

Establishing a deeper level of understanding of our partners’ reasons for blasting into the old brain reactivity helps us get closer and enriches our connection.  The next time we find ourselves in reactive place with our partner, asking ourselves “What is this really about?” can help us move through the current conflict and into a deep abiding love.