Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it is producer Keisha here, and welcome back
Speaker 1: to another episode of Life Uncut. As some of you
Speaker 1: are already aware, Laura and Britt are on their midiar break.
Speaker 1: Except if I'm being completely honest, I actually have started
Speaker 1: to feel quite bad because I've made Laura record just
Speaker 1: as much as normal, and.
Speaker 2: I've been messaging both of them like a hundred times
Speaker 2: a day.
Speaker 1: So, Laura and Britt, if you are listening, I'm really
Speaker 1: really sorry that I have not let you have a
Speaker 1: proper holiday. It has been so nice for me to
Speaker 1: catch up with some of you in our dms. You
Speaker 1: can still send through all of your accidentally unfiltereds and
Speaker 1: you're asking cuts. I'm gonna be banking them for when
Speaker 1: the girls are back. Just slide into our dms on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Life Uncut Podcast. And yes, it has been
Speaker 1: me posting a whole bunch of memes, so I hope
Speaker 1: you've been enjoying.
Speaker 3: Though.
Speaker 1: Is something super exciting that he's going to be dropping
Speaker 1: in your podcast libraries this Thursday Is that our favorite
Speaker 1: batchy couple of course, Laura and Maddie Jay are going
Speaker 1: to be catching up with our brand new bachelor Jimmy
Speaker 1: Nicholson Pilot Jimmy, the one that you've seen the commercials
Speaker 1: with him pulling his little luggage through the airport seeing
Speaker 1: all the people.
Speaker 2: In love that one. We did a call out to you.
Speaker 1: Guys to see what kind of things you would like
Speaker 1: to get to know about Jimmy, and some of your
Speaker 1: questions have been absolutely hilarious and it would seem as
Speaker 1: though Pilot Jimmy was a little bit of a bachelor
Speaker 1: before he was a bachelor. So that will be dropping
Speaker 1: in your podcast libraries this Thursday. But for today, we're
Speaker 1: going to be taking a trip down memory lane, which
Speaker 1: means that we are revisiting some of our favorite episodes
Speaker 1: from the past and today. The episode that we are
Speaker 1: jumping back to is episode eighty six.
Speaker 2: It is from.
Speaker 1: December last year, and it's called Fight for Your Right.
Speaker 1: Talking conflict resolution styles, we thought that this was a
Speaker 1: kind of good one, particularly right now if you're in Sydney,
Speaker 1: a lot of you are going to be locked inside
Speaker 1: with your partners, your family, or your housemates, so we
Speaker 1: thought it would be a nice time to go back
Speaker 1: and take a look at some conflict resolution styles and
Speaker 1: which one you kind of fit into I actually remember
Speaker 1: listening back to this episode and realizing that I had
Speaker 1: an avoidant style of conflict, and it made a whole
Speaker 1: lot of sentence as to how I kind of deal
Speaker 1: with conflict in my life. So I really hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy it. See you back here on Thursday for a
Speaker 1: brand new episode of Laura and Maddie Jay catching up
Speaker 1: with our brand new batchie Jimmy Nicholson.
Speaker 2: We hope you enjoy the episode. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: I have been really really looking forward to doing this
Speaker 2: episode because we did we did what we did attachment styles,
Speaker 2: and we've done love languages in the past, and I
Speaker 2: feel like this conversation around conflict resolution and our conflict
Speaker 2: styles is kind of like the third phase in those conversations. Well,
Speaker 2: they all intertwined, don't they, Like they all have something
Speaker 2: to do with each other. I think they were so
Speaker 2: quick to talk about how our love languages define our
Speaker 2: relationship or how our attachment styles define our relationship. But
Speaker 2: I actually think, genuinely what results in like a long
Speaker 2: term happy relationship is our ability to resolve conflict. Like
Speaker 2: I think conflict and our conflict resolution is so important
Speaker 2: in actually being able to maintain a long term, happy
Speaker 2: relationship and Britain. I have done so much research and
Speaker 2: unpacking this, and we've looked at a couple of different studies.
Speaker 2: We've also kind of broken down for this episode, what
Speaker 2: are the five different conflict styles and then also like
Speaker 2: what are the different types of fighting that we get into,
Speaker 2: Like you know, whether it's like passive aggressive, whether it's defensiveness.
Speaker 2: All these different character traits of how we deal with
Speaker 2: conflict and how we act in like a real nitty
Speaker 2: gritty way. We want to unpack all of that in
Speaker 2: this episode. So, I mean it sounds like a heavy one,
Speaker 2: but I'm sure all noting the last and arguments that
Speaker 2: are a completely unavoidable part of every relationship. I think
Speaker 2: if you try and completely avoid them, you're never going
Speaker 2: to resolve things that come up, and you're never going
Speaker 2: to be able to work together as a team to
Speaker 2: actually find that deeper level of love and respect for
Speaker 2: each other. And there's this fear about arguments and this
Speaker 2: fear about fighting that it's always going to end up
Speaker 2: in oh, we're going to break up, you know. I
Speaker 2: think that there's only some relationships that are so volatile
Speaker 2: where you feel like every time you have a fight,
Speaker 2: it's going to mean the end of the relationship. But
Speaker 2: I think you know, fights can be a really really
Speaker 2: great way of galvanizing you. Conflict can be an amazing
Speaker 2: way of making you work together as a team, and
Speaker 2: it really kind of separates the people who are going
Speaker 2: to make it for the long hall and the relationships
Speaker 2: that are going to fucking fizzle.
Speaker 3: The thing is, like Laurid has said, conflict's arguments. Fighting,
Speaker 3: it's all inevitable. There is absolutely no way you can
Speaker 3: have a long term, healthy relationship without the fighting. In fact,
Speaker 3: they actually say that couples that don't argue and disagree
Speaker 3: and fight at all, that there's something wrong in that
Speaker 3: relationship because it means that someone's probably suppressing their feelings.
Speaker 3: The thing that they say is it's not actually the
Speaker 3: fighting that's the problem. Couples have a really hard time
Speaker 3: coming to terms with the fact that it's not the
Speaker 3: fighting and it's not what it's about. The thing that's
Speaker 3: important is how you deal with the fight, and that's
Speaker 3: why we wanted to go into this. That's why we
Speaker 3: thought it was so important to go into this, because
Speaker 3: how you deal with a fight is literally what will
Speaker 3: determine your relationship.
Speaker 2: Maybe you are in a relationship where you're like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, me and my boyfriend, we never fight. We
Speaker 2: love it so much. Well, no, I don't think you're
Speaker 2: necessarily lying. I just don't think you've necessarily done the
Speaker 2: full spectrum of your relationship yet. Matt and I we
Speaker 2: never ever used to fight, like I honestly, before having kids,
Speaker 2: before like living together, when we were in our honeymoon phase,
Speaker 2: we never fought. And I was like, this relationship is bliss.
Speaker 2: This is how relationships are supposed to be. And now
Speaker 2: that we have more responsibilities, now that there's more stress,
Speaker 2: now that there's more pressure, now that we have to
Speaker 2: deal with money, like all of these different aspects of
Speaker 2: a really serious, committed relationship that are going through the
Speaker 2: full journey of life. Yeah, of course we argue. We
Speaker 2: don't fight like Matt and I never We never fight
Speaker 2: in a way that's like toxic to our relationship. But
Speaker 2: we argue and then we resolve it. And I think that,
Speaker 2: you know, us being able to argue and respect each
Speaker 2: other has been really really beneficial in us actually forming
Speaker 2: a deeper connection. And I would say, even though now
Speaker 2: we argue in our relationship very sporadically and from time
Speaker 2: to time. We're way close, so now than what we
Speaker 2: were when we're in our honeymoon phase when we were
Speaker 2: like everything is, everything is. The thing is in a
Speaker 2: while since I sang that song You're a welcome, sing that.
Speaker 3: To me all the time you see it to Marley Sho,
Speaker 3: You're it's got like, no, the thing is for everything
Speaker 3: that I've read, for every relationship therapist, every psychologist, and
Speaker 3: even like it does it is just how I feel
Speaker 3: about the situation as well. Couples that absolutely say that
Speaker 3: they never ever fight, they never argue, and never disagree.
Speaker 3: It's it's almost impossible someone is just suppressing their feelings
Speaker 3: and their opinions and their thoughts too much, because it
Speaker 3: is impossible to find two people in the world that
Speaker 3: can a find each other and then totally one hundred
Speaker 3: percent agree with every single thing in life, Like it's impossible.
Speaker 3: What it just means is maybe there's a part of
Speaker 3: you and we're going to go into this that has
Speaker 3: a bit of an avoidance style, which is where like
Speaker 3: you just want to please you just you can't be
Speaker 3: bothered to have the argument, so you're like, yeah, babe, like,
Speaker 3: that's fine, whatever, I'm so, let's not talk about it.
Speaker 3: So we're going to break them all down now. But
Speaker 3: we think the really important thing is once you know
Speaker 3: your style, and once you know your partner's style, it's
Speaker 3: important to know how to use that, how to change that,
Speaker 3: and how to work together to continue your relationship and
Speaker 3: progress in a really healthy way. Totally, because exactly what
Speaker 3: we talked about when we did the Love Languages episode,
Speaker 3: you might have a different conflict style to your partner,
Speaker 3: and that's where things can become really tricky. Like if
Speaker 3: and we talked about this on the last Ask Uncut
Speaker 3: episode where I did it with Matt, the person had
Speaker 3: written in saying that there's somebody who requires a lot
Speaker 3: of reassurance and their partner is more of an avoid
Speaker 3: and that leaves them feeling really invalidated in their relationship
Speaker 3: and in their fights, and that it makes them really
Speaker 3: frantic and really upset because they want their partner to
Speaker 3: tell them, you know, to love them and reassure them,
Speaker 3: but really when they're having a fight, their partner just
Speaker 3: wants to kind of go away and have a little
Speaker 3: bit of time to themselves. So I think it's really
Speaker 3: important and we actually did our own conflict resolution style tests,
Speaker 3: So there's a test that you can do that tells
Speaker 3: you how you deal with conflict, and you can sit
Speaker 3: down and do that with your partner as well, and
Speaker 3: that gives you a better understand of who they are
Speaker 3: as a person. And you know, relationships are all about
Speaker 3: compromise and compromising on your conflict styles and not expecting
Speaker 3: someone to fight in the exact same way that you fight,
Speaker 3: because that's unfair as well. You know, we expect to
Speaker 3: compromise in our love languages, we expect to compromise in
Speaker 3: our attachment styles. We expect this level of understanding in
Speaker 3: all other aspects of our life. But sometimes when it
Speaker 3: comes to fighting, we can be so fucking stubborn because
Speaker 3: what happens when you are angry about something or.
Speaker 2: You want to win. Now, I want to win. But
Speaker 2: what happens is that we have a rational mind and
Speaker 2: we have an emotional mind, and the emotional mind, when
Speaker 2: it is angry, is much more powerful than the rational mind,
Speaker 2: and we don't have the capacity to use both simultaneously
Speaker 2: at the same time. Very well. Even though we are
Speaker 2: a very advanced species, there's some things that we still
Speaker 2: haven't got our shit together on. You might even recognize
Speaker 2: this in yourself, But when you feel angry at your partner,
Speaker 2: if you're in a relationship, and I know I do this,
Speaker 2: when I'm angry at Matt for some thing, my rational
Speaker 2: mind completely goes out the window. I'm not angry and
Speaker 2: thinking at the same time, Oh, I love this man
Speaker 2: so much. You know, I'm gonna talk to him calmly.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have a lovely conversation. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 2: even care if he walks out the door right now.
Speaker 2: I want to strangle yourse I care like, of course,
Speaker 2: my rational mind would be devastated if he actually walked
Speaker 2: out the door. You'd be like, no way, I was
Speaker 2: joking back, totally, totally here. But in that moment of
Speaker 2: anger that overpowers any feelings of love, any feelings of adoration,
Speaker 2: of any feelings of you know, all of this hard
Speaker 2: work that you've put together as a couple. Anger is
Speaker 2: so powerful that it can override all of those other emotions,
Speaker 2: and it can make you feel very irrational and well.
Speaker 2: That's why it's important all the time to not necessarily
Speaker 2: have conversations around arguments when you're feeling angry, sometimes it's
Speaker 2: really important to step away from it, have that time
Speaker 2: to cool down, and then have the conversation about whatever
Speaker 2: it is that's made you upset. When you're able to
Speaker 2: actually use your rational mind so that you don't say things,
Speaker 2: or do things, or act passiveggressively, or just behave in
Speaker 2: a way that's going to damage the relationship further, or
Speaker 2: it's going to create more of a problem. You end
Speaker 2: up fighting not even about the thing that happened, but
Speaker 2: about the way that you're speaking to each other or
Speaker 2: the way that you're treating each other.
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is, we've all I all want you
Speaker 3: to think back. We've all sent a message or said
Speaker 3: something in the heat of a moment that you immediately
Speaker 3: regret and you're like, fuck, why did.
Speaker 2: I say that.
Speaker 3: That's because you should never ever ever fight or send
Speaker 3: a message or send an email or do anything when
Speaker 3: you are mad, Like please, don't step away from your computer,
Speaker 3: turn it off, throw it out the window, whatever you
Speaker 3: have to do.
Speaker 2: Do some deep breathing, and go for a walk.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent, nothing good ever comes from sending a
Speaker 3: message when you're really mad, because then what happens is
Speaker 3: you know that you might not have meant it, and
Speaker 3: you will apologize for it down the track. You'll be like, look,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry I said that. I didn't mean to I
Speaker 3: was angry. The damage is done. You've said it, and
Speaker 3: your partner or your friend or whoever knows that that
Speaker 3: is somewhere lying inside of you, and that sometimes can
Speaker 3: be irreparable. Okay, So let's actually get into what the
Speaker 3: argument styles are.
Speaker 2: So there is a researcher named doctor John Gottman, and
Speaker 2: doctor John Gottman is he's kind of the founder for
Speaker 2: this research. He spent thirty forty years. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: forty years. Let's go forty years. Sure. He spent the
Speaker 2: last forty years researching why some couples managed to like
Speaker 2: stay together and how they deal with conflict, versus why
Speaker 2: some couples their relationships disintegrate. So there's been two massive
Speaker 2: studies that have been done. One of them was this
Speaker 2: longitudinal study that went over the space of thirty years
Speaker 2: where he observed newlyweds and then years and years later
Speaker 2: figured out which ones stayed together which ones didn't. And
Speaker 2: he thinks and talks about commitment long research min issues.
Speaker 2: Does he well, it's actually heaving his wife who do it,
Speaker 2: and they're both psychologists and they have So basically what
Speaker 2: happened is in the seventies there was this huge influx
Speaker 2: in divorce rates, and as a sort of knee jerk
Speaker 2: response to this, a lot of psychologists and philosophers started
Speaker 2: doing research studies around why were people getting divorced and
Speaker 2: what impact was this going to have on children and
Speaker 2: on cup and their ability to live long and happy
Speaker 2: lives now that divorce rates were going up exponentially. And
Speaker 2: then David Gotman sort of jumped on the bandwagon in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy, but he did some really profound research around
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six and that's when he did this newly
Speaker 2: weired research study. And basically the results of this have
Speaker 2: come out to say that it's a ninety percent predictor
Speaker 2: of couples that are going to stay together and couples
Speaker 2: that will divorce. Because he believes that conflict style comes
Speaker 2: down to everything in a relationship. And so five conpict
Speaker 2: styles that there are. Three of them are healthy and
Speaker 2: can be used in different ways. Two of them are
Speaker 2: incredibly unhealthy. So the three healthy ones are conflict avoids,
Speaker 2: volatile couples, doesn't really sound like that should be positive. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it is volatile couples validating couples. They're the three positives.
Speaker 2: The two negatives are hostile couples and hostile detached couples. Now, Brittan,
Speaker 2: I both did our own tests, and before we unpack
Speaker 2: what each one is, what are you, Brittany? So mine
Speaker 2: was actually really surprising.
Speaker 3: I did Oprah's test because I love Oprah, but then
Speaker 3: we did this same taps, So I, yeah, I thought
Speaker 3: I'd be avoidant, but I actually got a validating style
Speaker 3: of conflict, which I can see as well. But it
Speaker 3: was surprising because I thought in my mind that I
Speaker 3: was just a complete avoid of conflict.
Speaker 2: But turns out I'm not.
Speaker 3: I do avoid conflict at all times. I mean, you
Speaker 3: can even look back on my Bachelor Bachelor in Paradise.
Speaker 2: I just I wasn't even.
Speaker 3: On the show because I was like me, I just
Speaker 3: got so awkward whenever there was a fight, I was
Speaker 3: just like, I don't I just naturally it makes me
Speaker 3: really anxious. Like I not that long ago got into
Speaker 3: an argument with a friend, which I have never done
Speaker 3: in my life. Like I've never argued with a friend,
Speaker 3: and I was almost physically sick at the thought of
Speaker 3: fighting with someone and talking about it, and I literally
Speaker 3: avoided it. I was literally saying, let's forget it. I
Speaker 3: don't want to talk about anything about it. Let's move
Speaker 3: on with our friendship. But she her style of conflict
Speaker 3: was quite like aggressive and quite we're talking about this, now,
Speaker 3: we're dealing with this, now, this is what And I
Speaker 3: was like, Matte, don't want to pretend it didn't happen,
Speaker 3: even though I was not in the wrong at all.
Speaker 3: I just like, look, I'm apologizing that you felt that way,
Speaker 3: but let's move on because I'm done with it.
Speaker 2: I will avoid it at all costs.
Speaker 3: But validating just means that I don't.
Speaker 2: Want to be in it. But when I am in it,
Speaker 2: I won't avoid it.
Speaker 3: So when you're avoidant and you're in a fight, proper
Speaker 3: proper couples that are avoidant, or you're a proper person
Speaker 3: that has avoidant argument style will literally shut down. They
Speaker 3: won't even engage in the conversation at all. They won't
Speaker 3: hear anything, they won't contribute, they'll literally just walk away
Speaker 3: or sit there in silence. That is what it means
Speaker 3: when I get to that point I will happily have
Speaker 3: the conversation. If I'm in the room and it's happening,
Speaker 3: I will go at it. I will prove my points,
Speaker 3: and I won't avoid it once it's there, I'll just
Speaker 3: avoid the situation happening.
Speaker 2: Avoidant conflict style doesn't mean it doesn't mean stonewalling, and
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean silent treatment. And I think that that's
Speaker 2: the really important I think the language in this can
Speaker 2: be a bit confusing, So that's what I would just
Speaker 2: want to like separate out. Avoidance styles just mean that
Speaker 2: when there's conflict, you need a little bit of time
Speaker 2: to go away to process and then you'll have a
Speaker 2: conversation about it. It doesn't mean that you avoid it completely.
Speaker 2: People who avoid completely and will get into this later.
Speaker 2: People who avoid completely by giving someone the silent treatment.
Speaker 2: That's actually one of what they call the four horsemens
Speaker 2: of conflict. And it's like that's the beginning of the end.
Speaker 3: Well, that's the frustrating bit where you're in the fire
Speaker 3: and you're like say something anything because they're just sitting
Speaker 3: there in silence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think sometimes when people do that, like silence,
Speaker 2: like silence is more powerful than anything else and it
Speaker 2: could be more hurtful than anything else. We'll get into
Speaker 2: what that is and break down avoid in a little
Speaker 2: bit further. But I was really surprised by mine. Actually, no,
Speaker 2: I take that back. I wasn't surprised by mind at all.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure suggressive. I'm not a hostile fighter. No,
Speaker 2: mine was still a positive conflict style. I'm a volatile,
Speaker 2: volatile conflict style, which basically just means that like, I'm
Speaker 2: very passionate, I am very opinionated, and I don't hold back,
Speaker 2: but also I make up very quickly, so and Matt
Speaker 2: is exactly the same. And I would have thought that
Speaker 2: we were like a bit more collaborative, but then reading
Speaker 2: about how we fight, and this is really interesting. One
Speaker 2: of the things that was like one of the key
Speaker 2: questions in our little questionnaire was like, what do you
Speaker 2: do when somebody is trying to bring up conflict with you?
Speaker 2: And like, for me, in the heat of the moment,
Speaker 2: if Matt is angry at me and he's getting telling
Speaker 2: me what I've done wrong, in my mind, I'm formulating
Speaker 2: my rebuttal like that's what I'm doing. I'm not listening
Speaker 2: to what he's saying. I'm like I'm I'm gonna tell
Speaker 2: you what you did wrong. Actually that is totally you,
Speaker 2: totally And it's like a defensive thing, and I've spoken
Speaker 2: about a little bit on past episodes. For me, it's
Speaker 2: not like I am really really conscious of it now,
Speaker 2: and I try not to do it because I understand
Speaker 2: that it's not helpful and it doesn't actually progress the
Speaker 2: conversation to a point wherehere, you know, making up. But
Speaker 2: the reason why I do it is because I don't
Speaker 2: want to believe that I have hurt his feelings. So
Speaker 2: instead of actually accepting and saying I'm really sorry that
Speaker 2: I've done that, I'm really sorry that I've hurt your feelings,
Speaker 2: straight away, I continue to hurt his feelings. No, what
Speaker 2: I do is that I invalidate those feelings by saying like, well,
Speaker 2: that didn't happen and or like you're overreacting, which yeah, fully,
Speaker 2: But we do a tweet to other because Mat and
Speaker 2: I are exactly the same in the way that we fight,
Speaker 2: and we've talked about this now and like we recognize
Speaker 2: that in each other, and as soon as someone is
Speaker 2: doing it, we can easily say, like, hey, you're not
Speaker 2: listening to me, you're deflecting this isn't helpful. Let's talk
Speaker 2: about this in ten minutes.
Speaker 3: And both very strong personalities. And I've seen you have
Speaker 3: little arguments, like nothing serious, but I've seen it, and
Speaker 3: I can tell you it's definitely.
Speaker 2: Not collaborative style. It's like you're both strong.
Speaker 3: And you're both stubborn, and you both want to be
Speaker 3: right and you both don't want to be wrong. But
Speaker 3: that's completely normal as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: who like default is defensiveness in relationships and in fighting.
Speaker 2: But like, the other thing with volatile conflict styles is
Speaker 2: that you also make up really quickly, and you also
Speaker 2: make up in a very passionate way, so like make
Speaker 2: I mean anymore you're all pregnant bird over here. But
Speaker 2: more so, just like our fights are very short lived,
Speaker 2: Like any argument or conflict that we have in our relationship,
Speaker 2: I give it an hour before one of us is like, baby,
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. Like you know, we always see things
Speaker 2: from each other's perspective. It's just we deal with things
Speaker 2: as soon as they happen, and we usually are dealing
Speaker 2: with things when we're both still a bit mad. And
Speaker 2: that's the problem is like when you're a bit mad,
Speaker 2: Like I said, your emotional mind overcrowds your rational mind.
Speaker 2: So that was our conflict styles, and we thought that
Speaker 2: we would just kind of bring that to the table
Speaker 2: because when we did love languages, we unpacked what ours were.
Speaker 2: And Britta and I are so different, but also we
Speaker 2: get along so well. So it's like just shows that
Speaker 2: you can have different ways of well, different personalities, you
Speaker 2: can have different ways of dealing with things, and you
Speaker 2: can still be really great together.
Speaker 3: It's funny because I'm so I was just thinking of
Speaker 3: when you were talking about that, how opposite I am.
Speaker 3: I'm so competitive in every other aspect of my life,
Speaker 3: like in sports or in trying to win the best
Speaker 3: podcast whatever.
Speaker 2: No, but I am.
Speaker 3: But I retreat completely with conflict. I don't know what
Speaker 3: it is. I don't care to win in a fight.
Speaker 3: I don't need to win in like a verbal flight.
Speaker 3: Like if you put me in a competition where it
Speaker 3: was like a wrestling match, I'll wrestle to the death.
Speaker 2: But in a fight.
Speaker 3: When you say that, you're sitting there and you're like
Speaker 3: thinking of your rebuttal and you're thinking how you can
Speaker 3: and you'll never be wrong. Because you don't want to
Speaker 3: be wrong. I in a fight would rather even though
Speaker 3: I know I'm right, I would rather just say, you
Speaker 3: know what, you're right, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I won't do it again.
Speaker 3: There might be like an undertone that's passive aggressive, which
Speaker 3: I would hope wasn't you know. It's like me being like, yep,
Speaker 3: you're right, I do everything wrong. I don't mean it
Speaker 3: really like that, but it's probably there. But it's just
Speaker 3: because I would rather get the argument over. I hate
Speaker 3: nothing more than I would rather admit defeat and just
Speaker 3: be like, fuck, you know what, Like okay, I did
Speaker 3: this wrong, let's move on, let's get over it.
Speaker 2: I think I would rather have open dialogue where I'm
Speaker 2: mad at a partner it's all out on the table,
Speaker 2: then have someone be passive aggressive to me, because I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I know that those feelings are there. I know that
Speaker 2: that's what you think of me, and I know that
Speaker 2: that's how you're feeling towards me, but you're not actually
Speaker 2: verbalizing it. You're just gonna have cheap digs at me
Speaker 2: like that, to me is more hurtful than sitting down
Speaker 2: and being like, hey, I don't like this and being
Speaker 2: a very frank conversation. Let's fully unpack what the five
Speaker 2: styles of conflict is. Number One, we've already done volatile couples.
Speaker 2: That was what I am so like we can kind
Speaker 2: of like tick that one off. Number two conflict avoids.
Speaker 2: We did kind of touch on conflict avoids. You know,
Speaker 2: that's the people who need to take some time out
Speaker 2: to process their feelings, to really think about the situation.
Speaker 2: Usually they're the ones that want to have nice conversations
Speaker 2: once they've calmed down, and don't want to have conversations
Speaker 2: about conflict when when the conflict is in the heat
Speaker 2: of the moment. It's a really smart way of dealing
Speaker 2: with conflict. There's only so.
Speaker 3: Long you can actually avoid a conflict anyway, Even if
Speaker 3: you are an avoid you can't do it forever. And
Speaker 3: all that's going to do is perpetuate and grow and
Speaker 3: turn into something ten times bigger than it ever was.
Speaker 3: It's something that I have tried. I have to start to.
Speaker 2: Work on as well.
Speaker 3: Is not put it off so long because it just
Speaker 3: implodes and it festers. Fest is such a great word
Speaker 3: for it. If there's something in you that needs to
Speaker 3: be dealt with and something in your partner that needs
Speaker 3: to be dealt with, and you're pushing it away. It's
Speaker 3: not going to disappear. It's going to fester and brew
Speaker 3: and implode.
Speaker 2: Even though you may not be getting that instantaneous reassurance
Speaker 2: from someone who's an avoid they're not avoiding you because
Speaker 2: they don't love you and they're not happy. They just
Speaker 2: need a little bit more time to process than what
Speaker 2: you do. And I think, like from the question that
Speaker 2: we had last week, where this person was much more
Speaker 2: reactive and they needed to have that reassurance from their
Speaker 2: partner straight away, I think that that's when you have
Speaker 2: to have that greater level of understanding of who your
Speaker 2: partner is as a person and respect the fact that
Speaker 2: like some people need to retreat after an argument and
Speaker 2: that's okay, doesn't mean that they're gonna dump you, just
Speaker 2: means that they need to process what the fuck is
Speaker 2: going on? Absolutely, And then what Britany is, which is
Speaker 2: a validating couple. Did you want to unpack that a
Speaker 2: little bit more? Yeah, I mean, like we unpacked what
Speaker 2: it is for me. But basically you're characterized.
Speaker 3: By being easy and calm and and your cruise in
Speaker 3: a relationship. You don't want the fighting, but you still
Speaker 3: need to come to the table. You still need to
Speaker 3: contribute to an argument, and even though you don't want to,
Speaker 3: you need to sort of step.
Speaker 2: Up to the plate. Then there are the two really
Speaker 2: negative conflict styles. Now. The first one is hot style couples.
Speaker 2: And I think, like, you know, if you're in a
Speaker 2: relationship where you have a really really toxic conflict style,
Speaker 2: because you feel like you're in this perpetual fighting cycle.
Speaker 2: So hostile couples, they have a high level of defensiveness
Speaker 2: on the part of both parties and that neither of
Speaker 2: them are ever going to give in. Yeah, they're right,
Speaker 2: it's their way on the highway. They don't want to
Speaker 2: see it from the other person's view, and they're animant
Speaker 2: in being right now. The thing with hostile couples is
Speaker 2: that often hostile couples will stay together, but they'll stay
Speaker 2: together in very unhappy marriages. And this will be like,
Speaker 2: you know, they're committed to each other, but there is
Speaker 2: not happiness or positivity in their marriage because there's this
Speaker 2: like fine ratio that doctor John Gotman talks about, and
Speaker 2: he says, like to have a great marriage or to
Speaker 2: have a great long term relationship. It doesn't have to be marriage.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I keep referring to that, but you know,
Speaker 2: to have a great long term relationship, it needs to
Speaker 2: be this five to one ratio, five times positive, one
Speaker 2: times negative. And people who are in hostile relationships, the
Speaker 2: ratio is fully out of whack and they have way
Speaker 2: more hostile engagements than what they do positive.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of criticism in these relationship and
Speaker 3: a lot of like the terminology they use is you
Speaker 3: always and you never and you don't and you won't,
Speaker 3: and it's very aggressive and it's very in your partner's face.
Speaker 3: There's no listening. There's no listening to what you're a
Speaker 3: partner is saying and changing your point of view. It's
Speaker 3: like you've said it, this is right, and you're not
Speaker 3: gonna budge on that fact. And that is where it
Speaker 3: really unravels, because there's no coming full circle and being like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, you know what, like what you just
Speaker 3: said is right. I didn't realize the do that does
Speaker 3: not existent. It's like I'm right, you're wrong, and this
Speaker 3: is never going to end. And when two couples are
Speaker 3: like that, it is explosive and neither of them are
Speaker 3: ever going to admit defeat.
Speaker 2: And this is where the relationship unreal. And like Britz said,
Speaker 2: this idea of like you never So, for example, if
Speaker 2: you're upset about your partner not doing enough housework, instead
Speaker 2: of having conversation, which is like, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: really feel supported, I would love it if you did
Speaker 2: this more, coming into that conversation saying you never help me,
Speaker 2: you never do anything because you're lazy. Well, yeah, you
Speaker 2: get on the backfoot straight away. Absolutely. It's it doesn't
Speaker 2: open up a dialogue for any sort of constructive conversation.
Speaker 2: And that is a real like keynote of being a
Speaker 2: hostile couple. But like we said, hostile couples often stay together.
Speaker 2: They're just really fucking unhappy. Sounds great, anyway. Number five
Speaker 2: is hostile detached couples and hostile detached couples they will
Speaker 2: not work out. That is like this is joom gloom,
Speaker 2: and you're going to break up town.
Speaker 3: Well, there's never a resolution, there's never ever a clear victor.
Speaker 3: It's always just like a stalemate and let's kick this
Speaker 3: back up again next week. There's highly emotional, highly aggressive
Speaker 3: style of fighting, and that is one hundred percent my
Speaker 3: way of the highway, one hundred percent toxic, and often
Speaker 3: more than not will not work out. Yeah, So it
Speaker 3: says that the hostile detached couples. These couples are like
Speaker 3: two armies engaged in mutually frustrating and lonely stand off
Speaker 3: with no clear victory, only a constant stalemate. They snipe
Speaker 3: at one another during conflict, and the area is full
Speaker 3: of emotional detachment and resignation. So this is like the
Speaker 3: this is the worst one, and this is when things
Speaker 3: will really come to an end in a relationship. You
Speaker 3: can't stay in a hostile detached relationship and have any.
Speaker 2: Sort of happiness. You're just feel completely invalidated and unloved.
Speaker 3: When I think about, you know, my past relationships and
Speaker 3: the fighting and the arguments and how that all went down,
Speaker 3: I think one thing that I really struggled with was
Speaker 3: my partner was very aggressive and very defensive. The defensiveness
Speaker 3: was probably the biggest characteristic of a relationship. That was
Speaker 3: obviously because he was a sociopath. He was marrying someone
Speaker 3: else at the same time. He had this double life,
Speaker 3: and it's very common in that situation to have defensiveness
Speaker 3: and to deflect and put that back on you. So
Speaker 3: I struggled with that for a long time, and maybe
Speaker 3: that's why I became a little bit more suppressed in
Speaker 3: my fighting style, and I was just a bit accepting,
Speaker 3: more accepting than I should be, because I was always
Speaker 3: made to feel like I was the one starting the
Speaker 3: problem and I was the one in the wrong, and
Speaker 3: he did this because of me and everything he did,
Speaker 3: and he cheated because of me, and he was marrying
Speaker 3: someone else because of me. It got to the point
Speaker 3: where he was so defensive on everything that I was
Speaker 3: always like, I'm so sorry that I made you do that,
Speaker 3: And that was something I really struggled in with my relationship.
Speaker 3: So I think defensiveness and that is actually something we're
Speaker 3: going to talk about. It's one of the characteristics of
Speaker 3: something called the Four Horsemen, which is really interesting. Laura
Speaker 3: talked about it at the start, but we will go
Speaker 3: through that. But that was something that I really really
Speaker 3: struggled with, and it's the main characteristic that I've ever
Speaker 3: had in any relationship.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting as well, Right, like you, like
Speaker 2: you don't just acquire a fighting style, it comes from
Speaker 2: like your childhood as well, So like the way that
Speaker 2: you react to conflict when you're a kid, or the
Speaker 2: way that you react conflict with your parents, or the
Speaker 2: way you see your parents react to conflict, how they
Speaker 2: fight with each other. All of that influences the way
Speaker 2: that you are able to relate to your partner as
Speaker 2: you get older. And I think, like when you actually
Speaker 2: unpack the way your parents behave and your parents have
Speaker 2: conversation verse than the way that you do it, there
Speaker 2: is always these parallels where you have these similarities because
Speaker 2: like we're taught this is learned behavior, and this learned
Speaker 2: behavior over so many years. So when I think about myself,
Speaker 2: sometimes I've definitely dealt with defensiveness in relationships. But like
Speaker 2: for me, the one thing that I had to like
Speaker 2: really curve and be super aware of is passive aggressiveness.
Speaker 2: And because I think that I don't see my parents
Speaker 2: doing it that much anymore because they're not in a
Speaker 2: relationship with each other they've been divorced since I was three,
Speaker 2: But the way that they communicated my whole childhood was
Speaker 2: so passive aggressive, and I was really really attuned to it. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, you think that sometimes these things fly under
Speaker 2: the radar for children, but it really doesn't. So the
Speaker 2: four horsemen, they are four different personality traits. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've ever heard the four horseman expression before,
Speaker 2: but basically it's an apocalyptic metaphor which depicts the end
Speaker 2: of times in the Bible. So it's saying, if you
Speaker 2: have these four traits in your relationship, then it's doom, gloom,
Speaker 2: and break uptown for you. So the number one is
Speaker 2: something that they think we can all relate to, and
Speaker 2: that's criticism. Like, there's nothing worse than being in a
Speaker 2: relationship where you feel like you're constantly being criticized by
Speaker 2: your partner. And whether it's small things or big things,
Speaker 2: but feeling like what you're doing is not good enough
Speaker 2: really leaves you feeling deflated and really leaves you feeling
Speaker 2: like you're not valued. I know, like for Matt, criticism
Speaker 2: is the one that he struggles with the absolute worst.
Speaker 2: I have to be really careful about how I deliver
Speaker 2: my critiquing of things that he's done wrong, but it has.
Speaker 3: To be constructive criticism. And it makes such a big difference.
Speaker 2: Totally because I know that like, he will become defensive
Speaker 2: if he feels like he's being criticized and it makes
Speaker 2: him feel useless, you know, And I think that that
Speaker 2: makes everyone feel useless. Criticism makes you feel like you're
Speaker 2: not good enough, or you haven't done a good enough job,
Speaker 2: or you've let someone down. And no one wants to
Speaker 2: feel like that, especially not constantly in a relationship.
Speaker 3: No, And they do say you have to learn to
Speaker 3: differentiate between a complaint and a criticism. So I'm going
Speaker 3: to give you a little example. Complaint, I was scared
Speaker 3: when you were running late and didn't call me. I
Speaker 3: thought we had agreed that we would do that for
Speaker 3: each other. That's the complaint. That's a nice way to
Speaker 3: do it. Criticism you never think about how your behavior
Speaker 3: is affecting other people. I don't believe you are that forgetful.
Speaker 3: You're just selfish. You never think of others. They're literally
Speaker 3: saying the same thing, but one is so aggressive and
Speaker 3: is not going to get you anywhere, and one is
Speaker 3: constructive criticism, where it's like, you know, I was worried,
Speaker 3: so you need to call me because I want to
Speaker 3: feel safe in the relationship, not like you're a selfish pig.
Speaker 2: And yeah, sometimes it's frustrating to have the same conversations
Speaker 2: about the same thing over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: But one of the things that's important to take away
Speaker 2: from this conversation is that in every single relationship, you
Speaker 2: are going to have a couple of key things that
Speaker 2: you argue about that probably will never go away. You know,
Speaker 2: like you're never going to resolve every fight that happens
Speaker 2: in your relationship. Maybe you guys argue about money. Maybe
Speaker 2: you will argue about money until the day you die.
Speaker 2: Maybe you argue about the fact that your partner doesn't
Speaker 2: quite do enough washing, maybe you will argue about that
Speaker 2: for till the day you die. I think that there
Speaker 2: are things in relationships where sometimes you will never resolve
Speaker 2: them completely. They're always going to be there. But that's okay.
Speaker 2: You just have to like pick your battles and live
Speaker 2: with which things are acceptable and which things aren't, Which
Speaker 2: kind of leads us into the next horseman, which is
Speaker 2: number two, contempt the worst one. Yeah, like, okay, you
Speaker 2: cannot treat your partner with contempt and expect the relationship
Speaker 2: to ever work out. And I think we see this
Speaker 2: a lot in relationships after children are born, and this
Speaker 2: feeling of like you don't do anything to help me,
Speaker 2: or the other way around. Maybe it's from the husband
Speaker 2: to the wife, where it's this conversation of like, well,
Speaker 2: I work hard and you're just home with the kids
Speaker 2: all day and you don't do anything, And it's this
Speaker 2: like lack of recognition for the unpaid labor. And I've
Speaker 2: seen it with my friends. I've seen it in relationships
Speaker 2: where the husband who goes to work, who doesn't see
Speaker 2: the amount of work that the mum is doing, doesn't
Speaker 2: respect the amount of work that the mum is doing,
Speaker 2: and there's this real lack of appreciation between the two
Speaker 2: parties and this feeling of contempt of like, you're just
Speaker 2: spending the money, you're not trying hard enough. And I
Speaker 2: think that that's like a really dangerous place to be,
Speaker 2: and there needs to be this open conversation and this
Speaker 2: real acceptance that actually, you know, both people are trying
Speaker 2: really hard, and like, just because you work hard doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that you own busy. Like you don't get to
Speaker 2: be the person who says, oh, I'm the busiest, Like
Speaker 2: you're allowed to both be the busiest. That's that's totally acceptable,
Speaker 2: and one person feeling stressed out doesn't invalidate the other person.
Speaker 2: Feeling stressed out, body language.
Speaker 3: If you think of things like eye rolling, yeah, turning
Speaker 3: your back on them, waving your hand in their face, Like,
Speaker 3: it's very dismissive, and it's definitely the worst one. There's
Speaker 3: never ever going to be a positive outcome with contempt.
Speaker 3: There was actually some really interesting research that did show
Speaker 3: that couples that are contemptuous of each other are more
Speaker 3: likely to suffer from illnesses like just like the common
Speaker 3: cold and things like that because they're immune systems weaker.
Speaker 3: I think that's amazing. It's very powerful how you feel
Speaker 3: and how you speak, and the stresses in your life.
Speaker 3: What it can do to your body, like harboring hate, yeah,
Speaker 3: like just so much negativity and so much stress that
Speaker 3: your body just goes into a meltdown.
Speaker 2: It's well, I'm going to get that. I guess the thing, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, we actually touched on this a little bit
Speaker 2: in the Positivity episode, how you can't just will yourself healthy.
Speaker 2: So I don't think that you can will yourself sick either.
Speaker 2: But I think the interesting thing that actually is and
Speaker 2: came from these research studies is that it's having higher
Speaker 2: cortisol in your system, so that stress hormone, which is
Speaker 2: what makes you sick. So constantly living in this fint
Speaker 2: or flight stage of a relationship where you feel that
Speaker 2: anxiety and you're constantly on edge, you never get to
Speaker 2: settle into being happy because you're always fighting. It's the
Speaker 2: heightened cortisole in your body that actually makes you sick. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what just lowers your immune system? There, you go, okay, agree,
Speaker 2: what's moving.
Speaker 3: The third one is defensiveness. We've already touched on that.
Speaker 3: I just spoke about it. It's just where you're going
Speaker 3: to constantly feel invalidated, unjustified. I don't think we need
Speaker 3: to go into it too much. We've all been defensive
Speaker 3: in a relationship. We've all been with someone that's very defensive.
Speaker 2: We know what that's like. Yeah, And I guess like
Speaker 2: with defensiveness, like the thing is is that they're invalidating
Speaker 2: your feelings because there's too busy trying to figure out
Speaker 2: a rebuttal to tell you why they're right or why
Speaker 2: you're wrong. So like that's definitely like the hallmark of defensiveness.
Speaker 2: The last one on the list as well is stonewalling,
Speaker 2: and we touched on that at the beginning when we
Speaker 2: were talking about avoidant personality types and how being an
Speaker 2: avoidant personality types is different to like being someone whose
Speaker 2: stone walls. So I have been in a relationship before.
Speaker 2: It's the relationship I've touched on a couple of times
Speaker 2: in this podcast where you know, we're together for two
Speaker 2: years and he had a lot of narcissistic personality tendencies
Speaker 2: and a lot of cheating went on, and the way
Speaker 2: that he would punish me for an argument, or the
Speaker 2: way he would punish me even if he had been
Speaker 2: the one who had had the bad behavior, but the
Speaker 2: way he would punish me would be to completely ignore me,
Speaker 2: turn his phone off, ignore me, not give me any validation.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't hear from him for two three days, and
Speaker 2: it put me into such a state of distress because
Speaker 2: I felt like I didn't know if we were together
Speaker 2: or we weren't together. But I think that like giving
Speaker 2: someone the silent treatment is such a cruel form of
Speaker 2: torture worse, and it takes such control away from the
Speaker 2: other person and it really just invalidates everything that they're feeling,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 3: Feel like it's a very immature form of fighting stone walling.
Speaker 3: I feel like, as what you do when you're a
Speaker 3: teenager in your early twenties, where you'll literally I remember
Speaker 3: being in a relationship and they were stonewalling me. They
Speaker 3: wouldn't respond to me for days. We were still together
Speaker 3: and it was fine. Then four days later they come
Speaker 3: back and it's like it's just what was normally done
Speaker 3: that just wouldn't fly.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Even the worst of people usually say I can't talk
Speaker 3: to you right now. Usually they give you a message,
Speaker 3: but ston't complete stone walling and complete like shutting down
Speaker 3: and silent treatment. I find it a very mature form
Speaker 3: of fighting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess like some people can use it
Speaker 2: as a really like purposeful and manipulative tool, like I
Speaker 2: know in my relationship, like he used it as a
Speaker 2: way of punishing me, like that's what that was, Whereas
Speaker 2: I think other people use it as almost like a
Speaker 2: I physically cannot fucking fathom having this conversation right now,
Speaker 2: like I'm so emotionally flooded, I just need to remove myself.
Speaker 2: But they're not thinking about how that makes their other
Speaker 2: partner feel at all. And you know, removing yourself from
Speaker 2: a situation for days and torturing your partner is not
Speaker 2: acceptable either, So I think it's important to kind of
Speaker 2: figure out is your partner doing it intentionally to punish you,
Speaker 2: or are they doing it as a reaction to something.
Speaker 2: Either way, neither of them are great, but one of
Speaker 2: them is slightly better than the other.
Speaker 3: The best thing that you can do in this situation is, Okay,
Speaker 3: you don't want to talk to them, you don't want
Speaker 3: to deal with it. You walk away, go for a walk,
Speaker 3: go into another room, read a book, do a meditation,
Speaker 3: go to the gym, do anything for a few hours
Speaker 3: to get your thoughts together, to calm down, to lower
Speaker 3: your heart rate, to think the process through, to be like,
Speaker 3: maybe I am wrong, maybe I'm not wrong, and then
Speaker 3: go back and approach the situation in a mature, respectful,
Speaker 3: and calm way. And the key word here is calm,
Speaker 3: but anyway, guys, like they're the main key areas.
Speaker 2: So they're the five conflict styles, and they're the four
Speaker 2: characteristics that really really characterize what creates a destructive relationship
Speaker 2: or what creates a positive relationship.
Speaker 3: And just to tie it up at the end, guys,
Speaker 3: just some things to remember and take away from this
Speaker 3: is except that conflict is inevitable.
Speaker 2: It's going to happen. It's fine, it's not the end
Speaker 2: of the world.
Speaker 3: Remember that conflicts can in fact be beneficial. We all
Speaker 3: need it at some point and we can all learn
Speaker 3: a lot from it, and that is a big one.
Speaker 3: Just remember to live and be accepting that you maybe
Speaker 3: you're wrong and you can learn from that. Always use
Speaker 3: neutral language. Don't come at them aggressively. It's not you
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 2: You never do this. You're an asshole. Don't do that.
Speaker 3: So really think about the way you're talking, especially when
Speaker 3: you're upset.
Speaker 2: And one of the most important ones.
Speaker 3: Is agree to disagree. It's okay to in the end
Speaker 3: have different opinions and different feelings about something, but you
Speaker 3: need to get to the point where you're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I see why you feel this. I don't agree with it,
Speaker 3: but I'm validating it and I'm okay with it and
Speaker 3: let's move on. So agree to disagree is the biggest one.
Speaker 2: I think, Like the last thing I want to say
Speaker 2: in regards like to wrap this all up. You know,
Speaker 2: it's easy to talk about all the different conflict styles.
Speaker 2: It's easy to talk about all the things that you
Speaker 2: do wrong in a relationship, or all the way that
Speaker 2: we like negatively communicate. But I just think that one
Speaker 2: of the most important take homes is kindness. Like you
Speaker 2: can become so close to your partner that you treat
Speaker 2: them in a really unkind way, Like you might even
Speaker 2: treat them in a way that you wouldn't treat your
Speaker 2: friends or your family. You know, you can say things
Speaker 2: and behave in a way because you are so close
Speaker 2: to them that's actually your worst reflection of yourself. So
Speaker 2: I think it's really important to remember that, like relationships
Speaker 2: that are happy, in relationships that will last a lot,
Speaker 2: like a lifetime, or you know, will be fulfilling and positive,
Speaker 2: are relationships where there's a lot of kindness and a
Speaker 2: lot of mutual respect for each other and you treat
Speaker 2: them how you want to be treated. Absolutely, I know
Speaker 2: that's like the most simple and sometimes like benign thing
Speaker 2: to say, like treat people the way you want to
Speaker 2: be treated, But it's not. It's one of my favorite saying.
Speaker 3: It's just fucking be a good person, But it's true.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, I think we can forget to be
Speaker 2: kind to the people that we love, and that's something
Speaker 2: that makes them feel appreciated, It makes them feel validated,
Speaker 2: and it makes them feel safe in the relationship. So
Speaker 2: you know, go text your partner if you're in a
Speaker 2: relationship and be like, I appreciate you, Like those things
Speaker 2: are really important and cue you need to show that
Speaker 2: every day by Banbury Karaba