Sometimes, seemingly out of left field, your partner becomes someone you don’t recognize. An invisible line gets crossed and you find yourself being treated like his or her enemy or someone they are disinterested in rather than as their cherished partner. One minute everything seems fine and the next you don’t recognize this person inhabiting your loved one’s body. What do you do? Is it a passing, but forgivable, mood? Or is something bigger going on here? Is it time to pack your bags? Time to stand up for yourself? Or is it time to work on your relationship together? The fact of the matter is there are no hard and fast rules here except to pay attention, hold your own counsel, and trust your gut. Chances are when things get this out of hand it’s because neither of you have developed effective enough communication skills to be really heard by each other. When communications are running smoothly — even when you have very different points of view, and emotions and stakes are high — both parties are concerned not only for their own preferences, but for the health of the relationship and the well-being of their partner as well. The bottom line is that a marriage or partnership can only be as healthy as the two people involved. Since there are no perfect people, there are no perfect relationships. Most of us have never learned how to have healthy disagreements and therefore end up either fighting for our own point of view or withdrawing from the conversation. This kind of fight or flight response carries with it two very dangerous consequences. First, it triggers a primitive physiological response where our blood flows to our extremities and quite literally renders us less brainpower with which to work. Secondly, it places us in an adversarial response mode where we view our partner and his or her different point of view as the enemy we are fighting against or fleeing from. When it gets to this point anything your partner says other than “you’re right” will be rejected and just add fuel to the fire.

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