I saw a couple the other day in the supermarket disagreeing about carrots. The bag of carrots went into the trolley and out again.
They were controlling their voices but the energy around them was tense and electric.
It reminded me how the little things can trigger big reactions.
When couples argue, particularly in the privacy of their home, they can quickly become flooded with feeling. Sometimes in seconds.
Strong emotions like anger and resentment can trip the survival or primitive brain into action leaving one or both of them in flight, fight or freeze, or oscillating through each.
When a person’s survival brain is triggered there is a surge of neurochemicals like adrenaline and dopamine that drive the brain and body.
Blood pressure rises, muscles tense and heart rate increases . The person is primed for action and hypervigilant about anything that resembles a threat from their partner.
They can be shaking and want to run or pursue with invincible righteousness.
The couple who were standing there arguing about the carrots are trying to funnel a fire hydrant of energy and emotion through a garden hose.
Something has to give.
One of the first things that does is our capacity to listen. It just becomes harder to access another’s perspective. Connection to rational thought and problem solving may disappear as the survival brain gets busy accessing memories of similar situations and how we need to respond to survive.
And this is all going on unconsciously in nanoseconds.
Couples may speak over each other and deny and defend; getting their point across can become a priority. Others may withdraw internally, go silent or physically leave the space.
## Helping Couples Find a different way…
Couples who have become really overwhelmed need to calm their primitive brains first before they can engage in meaningful discussions with their partner.
Individuals can use the emotional scale of 1 to 10 to rate their level of emotional overwhelm, 1 being calm and 10 being really emotional. Couples can do this quickly and they need to rate their own, not each other’s.
If a person rates anywhere between 6 and 10 it is not the time to talk, analyse, or try and work things out; their rational-wise brains are partially or fully offline.
Instead, they can pause, take a break, but agree to come back and work it out .
Individuals who move their bodies, such as taking a short walk or going to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, may use up neurochemicals, shift the focus and calm the primitive brain.
Mapping the way their unhelpful argument cycle plays out is critical for couples to change the way they navigate disagreements.
Creating and agreeing on a plan about how to manage this cycle when it gets activated can be preventative in circuit breaking unhelpful patterns and creating new more healthy ways of navigating conflict.