The Fastest Way To Start A Fight and How to Avoid It - Episode: 127
Your intent is almost always good. That doesn't mean it lands.
You tell your partner to calm down because you want the tension gone. You point out the bright side because you want her to feel better. Neither one works, and you end up defending yourself instead of connecting.
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In this episode, we pull apart the gap between intent and impact and the uncomfortable thing beneath it. When you push your partner toward a calmer and more optimistic version of how they're feeling, the honest reason usually isn't for them. It's because their emotion is making you tense, and you want relief.
Highlights:
- Why "calm down" makes things worse
- The difference between wanting your partner to feel better and wanting to feel better yourself
- Why explaining your good intent leaves your partner more misunderstood than before
- What happens when you catch your own tension before you speak
- Two ways to respond that don't ask your partner to change how they feel
- Why the couples doing well are usually the ones talking about this stuff on purpose
Practical takeaways:
- Before you respond, notice what you're feeling. That's the whole first move.
- Ask who you're really trying to settle, them or you.
- Drop the case for your intent. It's not the thing that needs attention.
- Say the harder sentence: "I'm tense, and I want to tell you to calm down, but I know that's about me."
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Welcome And What This Show Is
SPEAKER_00 0:04
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, Tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community, and most importantly, your family.
A Camping Trip And A Strange Book
SPEAKER_00 0:20
All right, what's up? Episode 127. Last weekend, Brenda and I went camping, just the two of us. Our daughters went to their cousin's house, and my sister and brother-in-law took care of them. And Brenda and I had two nights in the woods on our mountain bikes, and it was a total blast. It's been a while since we've done this, but we brought a book to read together and discuss as we went along. Brenda pulled the book out and started laughing because the title is Treatment of Developmental Trauma for Non-Abused, high-functioning people. And she laughed because she was like, What stage are we at in life right now where this is the book that we want to bring up and talk about together? And sparked good conversation between us. I think we only read one page together, but but the different bullet points had me thinking about some things from my personal history and then her personal history and how it might shape our parenting and how we relate to each other. And it was a really good conversation. And I bring it up because it's been a common thread lately. Actually, the reason we brought the book with was
Reading Together To Build Closeness
SPEAKER_00 1:35
because we were talking to our friends out in our driveway a couple days before the trip, and they mentioned that they're reading Good Inside Together. That's a parenting book by Dr. Becky, who's awesome. I've mentioned her on the podcast before. She's got a great podcast. I guess the book is good because these friends have been enjoying it. And then in the men's group that I run, the Brotherhood, we were discussing the topic of sex and intimacy in our relationships. One of the guys shared that him and his wife a couple years ago read a book together called Come As You Are. One great title of a book. And then two, the prompts in it create a really good dialogue between the two of them as they improve their sex life. So my takeaway, these two couples are both couples that I see as having solid relationships. And there are things that I can learn from them. And if they were both reading a book together, it was a good reminder that when Brendan I are talking about this stuff together,
Intent Vs Impact In Real Life
SPEAKER_00 2:35
reading books together, listening to podcasts together, we're always improving our relationships. And so the segue into the main topic of the episode is that to work on our relationships, there's two facets to it. One is learning more about yourself, which is what I do a lot of the time with the men that I coach. And that's I'm gonna talk you through one of the men that I was working with recently. And then the second part is having different types of conversations with your partner. And a book or a podcast can be a really good way to facilitate those new kinds of conversations. So what we're gonna talk about today is intent versus impact.
The Apartment Noise Fight
SPEAKER_00 3:22
I was working with a client a couple weeks ago. We were talking on a Tuesday after a Monday when him and his partner kind of got into it. And what was going on was that they aren't married yet, they don't have kids yet, and they were moving in for the first time, and they had been in this new apartment for about two months now, and there was a lot of noise coming from upstairs, and it wasn't bumping music partying, but it was just loud banging and stomping, like an elephant was walking around. And it was off and on for the last two months, but it was annoying, and they had had to contact their property manager, and they even went upstairs and talked to the neighbor. And the night before we were coaching, it was like 10 o'clock on a Monday, they were kind of winding down, getting ready to go to bed, and the noise started. And his partner had had enough. She was like, get on the phone right now with this property manager, send him an email, we gotta get out of this. This is ridiculous. She had had enough, she was at wit's end, and I get it. And we don't live in an apartment building, but on a Monday night, if I'm trying to wind down and get ready for the next day, and my kids are not ready to get down, I can get frustrated and lose my cool. So that's where she was at. And my client was a little more steady at this point. He was sitting at his computer when she started saying all these things, and he turned to her and said, Hey, calm down, we're gonna figure this out. Before he even said, We're gonna figure this out. As soon as he said calm down, that got her going even more. What it turned into was a bigger argument. He was trying to explain to her that he wasn't trying to upset her or shut her emotions down. He was just trying to explain that they're gonna get through it. He was explaining that he had good intent by saying calm down, but his impact
Stop Explaining Yourself Start Understanding
SPEAKER_00 5:31
did not match his intent. In the coaching session, what we started talking about was after he said calm down, he wanted to be understood that he wasn't trying to get her more upset, that he was trying to help her. And I pointed out that as you're trying to explain your intent and be understood, what you're not doing is understanding her. And she was the one that was misunderstood in the first place. So you're trying to explain your intent is only disconnecting you guys more. And so once we got there and he realized okay, he wasn't helping the situation, we dove into the why.
The Hidden Reason We Say It
SPEAKER_00 6:13
Why did he say calm down? We have these good intentions to help our partner feel better, have our partner see a different perspective when they're caught up in a work situation or there's a parenting situation. Like one client I had, his daughters didn't get into the school that they wanted to get into, and some of their friends were gonna be going there, and his partner was really bummed and overwhelmed about having to tell their daughters this news and was worried their daughters were gonna be really disappointed. And my client told her that he understood, but also said, you know, let's look at it this way. And he started looking at the opportunities for the different schools and how this might build strength and character in their daughters. And he had this intent to help her see a different perspective, but it didn't land that way. She took it as he was just telling her to get over it and she wasn't truly heard. So his intent was to empathize, and his intent was to help her see a different perspective, but the impact wasn't there. So this happens all the time. We're well intentioned, but our words and our actions don't have the impact that we want. So let's explore what we have control over because we can't control how they impact our partner, but we can control how we say it, what we say. So back to that first client. Why was he wanting her to calm down? The first thing I asked was, all right, rewind to that moment when you're sitting at your computer and she starts saying the everything that she's saying about emailing and the noises happening above. How are you feeling? He was like, I was feeling tense and on edge. All right, so you're tense up and on edge, and then the one of the first things you say to her is calm down. Why? If she was calm in that moment, why do you want her to feel that way? Oh, because then it would just be an easier conversation and I'd be feeling better. So let's call this out. We have this altruistic intent to help the other person feel better, but the real driver is that we want to feel better because we're on edge, and his impulse reaction to tell his partner to calm down actually creates more of what we don't want. It creates more tension, it creates more disconnect. This is an opportunity for them to get better at future conversations like this. The coaching session is starting to facilitate this for him. And the first thing we did in the coaching session was recapped what happened, and then we did a replay, understanding what he was feeling and thinking when he said calm down, understanding his why. So we've rewound it and we understand all that thing. And I was like, all right, so what are you gonna do next time? And he laughed and he was like, Well, I should probably take my own advice. And I was like, What do you mean? He said, Well, I should have probably calmed down in that moment. I didn't realize that I was tense and on edge. My brain was telling me that everything was fine and I was calm, but I wasn't really feeling that way. So in that moment, I probably could have calmed down a little bit. And that was interesting to me because I thought about myself. And when my kids are not listening or worked up or they don't get their way and they start having big emotions, a lot of the times I'll tell them, okay, slow down, take a breath. And saying that out loud to them is actually a reminder to myself to slow down, take a breath, to be there with them in the moment. So that was
Two Better Ways To Respond
SPEAKER_00 9:57
an awesome first step. Like whenever we pause and calm ourselves down in the middle of tension, that's always the first step to create that space between someone else's actions, words, emotions, and our response. So a breath, calming down, perfect, good call, man. And then I said, What would you do after that? And he was like, I don't know. And he was like, I'd probably still say calm down. It's like, okay, well, we want to have a different conversation moving forward. We're not sure exactly what to say, but we know calm down doesn't work. We're gonna stop, we're gonna pause, we're gonna take a breath. And we started talking about other things. And I think there's two options in these moments. And one is to actually empathize with the other person. You take a deep breath and you calm yourself down and you see your partner, and you're like, yeah, this does really suck. This has been going on for a while, and it's frickin' Monday night. I just want to get to bed too. I wish we weren't in this situation. But then your partner feels heard. There's no pressure to have her shift her emotions. That's one option. Empathizing, connecting with the other person. The other option is to pause, take a breath. That's always the first step. Second communicating option is to communicate your inner experience. Like, hey, I notice right now I'm feeling tense. I'm telling myself I want you to calm down, but I know that's only because that'll help me feel better. I'm not gonna tell you to calm down, but just want you to know that's where I'm at. Those were where we landed. And talking to that client later, he said him and his partner revisited the calm down situation and the aftermath of that. And when he explained to her what was going on for him, she really appreciated that. And she was also able to explain herself a little bit more about how she was feeling in that moment.
Repair The Moment And Grow Together
SPEAKER_00 12:06
And to go back to what I was saying at the beginning of the episode: when you're in a relationship, reading a book together, listening to a podcast together, one of the people in the relationship going and getting coached or counseling or therapy and learning about themselves and then talking about these things leads the relationship forward into a new place. And you can have a tough relationship right now, or you can have a good relationship. Doing these types of introspective work and then talking about it, learning more about yourself, learning more about your kids. It's it makes life interesting and you start to feel fulfilled. So when you're in conflict with your partner, our intent is always almost good and positive. We're not trying to piss our partner off more, but slow down into that intent and see the real reason behind it. Why do you want to change your partner's emotion? And usually it's so you can feel better. And instead of following that impulse to try to have them look on the bright side or have them calm down, take a breath and try one of those two communication pathways. Communicate your inner experience or really empathize
The Core Takeaway And Goodbye
SPEAKER_00 13:26
and understand why your partner is feeling the way that they are. Believe their story a little bit. Okay, that's what I got for you guys today. I hope you have an awesome one, and I'll catch you next time.
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