How To Argue With Your Partner

arguments in relationships are typically so regrettable and often so bitter it's natural to hope we might with greater maturity overcome them once and for all but given what human nature is actually like it would be unwise to make this our goal the hope can't be to eliminate arguments altogether it should be to try to find our way to a better kind of argument arguments tend to start when we confront it usually rather suddenly I would appears to us to be the radical selfishness intransigence or sheer nastiness of the partner it is extremely tempting to react with equal force we aren't after all a pushover we've been hurt and we must hurt back we will make them suffer as they have made us suffer there may be variations in just how we opt to inflict the suffering perhaps we'll do a lot of shouting or slam a door or maybe we'll eat this one out with a sulk but the underlying principle is the same we've been hurt and we have to punish but at this point we might ask ourselves what we're really seeking after all we're not trying to administer abstract justice or punish for the sake of it this isn't a criminal court or the Headmaster's office what we're truly seeking in a close relationship is something much more touching we want the other person to love us properly and to be kinder that's why we're slamming the door calling them a and have been pretending they don't exist since breakfast surprisingly almost the last thing we ever do when we've been very hurt is to say that we've been very hurt it feels just too humiliating to reveal our wound to the person who inflicted it to show ourselves as vulnerable in front of the very individual who it seems has unbearably abused a vulnerability this is both hugely understandable and doesn't advance things in the least because we're not in a relationship to be emotionally safe we're there to find connection an act of retribution while it may give us a momentary impression of impregnability never increases our chances of obtaining the love and understanding we formed a couple in order to derive we might consider a different and slightly paradoxical approach we might exactly at the moment when we've been wounded by our partner instead of hitting back make what we could term a dignified a vowel of hurt and fear rather than get furious we might attempt to register and get directly at what is ailing us through a two-fold admission we might say firstly I'm so hurt that someone I've put my emotional trust in should say or do that to me and secondly and this takes proper courage we might add I'm so frightened that I should be emotionally deeply exposed to someone who would appear to hurt me like this this should give the partner pause for thought one hasn't insulted them or hurt them back in the usual way which is what typically blocks their ears and sets off a vicious cycle of attack and counter-attack we are being dignified and honest we are lashing out but nor are we begging we are neither being very strong nor very weak where neither punching nor crawling we're just standing still admitting on genuine sadness fear and nakedness in a tone of marked self-possession too often arguments become interminable and to outsiders slightly daft because both people refuse to admit that they're sad not mean it isn't what time to leave for the airport or whose turn it is to do the dishes that's created the argument it's that both parties are in different ways feeling unloved and misunderstood but refusing to say this in quite so many words in a wider society with study arguments at school for at least four years there is complicated as algebra and far more important and we'd all get a lot better at confessing our wounds in a tone of self-possessed dignity we'd admit with calm that though were capable and strong in most areas of our lives here right now in the arena of the relationship we are hurt and and yet a brave and mature enough as well as committed enough to love to dare to tell the partner so in a plainest mist undecorated and most heartfelt of words we might thereby save ourselves a lot of time we believe in making the world a more emotionally intelligent place and to that end we've now also published some extraordinary books as well as other merchandise that reinforces some of the themes illustrated in our videos please click on the link below to see more

Channel: The School of Life

Views: 620,892

Rating: 4.9303274 out of 5

Keywords: the school of life, school, life, education, relationships, mood, alain de botton, sermon, philosophy, lecture, wisdom, London, talk, secular, self, improvement, curriculum, big questions, love, wellness, mindfullness, psychology, Alain, de, botton, How To ARgue, confrontation, how to, heated discussion, PL-relationships, Relacionamentos, Relaciones, des relations, रिश्तों, 关系, Beziehungen, Comment discuter, Wie man argumentiert, 怎么争论, कैसे बहस करने के लिए, Cómo discutir, Como argumentar, كيف يجادل, argue

Id: QQmqMZ-1v7c

Length: 4min 56sec (296 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2017