In the 1980s, the psychologist John Gottman invited couples into his Seattle, Washington “love lab.” His aim? To watch them fight. Over time, Gottman found patterns that consistently predicted whether a couple would break up or stay together. He called these patterns, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and identified these patterns as contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
He also identified the skills that made successfully married couples work. These skills included responding to small daily requests for attention (like putting down the phone and taking the time to really listen to your partner). Successful couples attempted to repair ruptures when they happened, and they tended to use “I” statements in conflicts, rather than accusing or criticizing their partner.
Most people see conflict in a relationship as being a bad thing, but productive conflict can be a sign of a functioning relationship. According to Christopher W. Moore, author of The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict, “conflicts… can lead to growth and be productive for those who are involved.”
Though Gottman and Moore come from two different domains—mediation and psychology—they both believe that the communication skills that can save relationships can be taught—or modelled by an experienced mediator or therapist.
Yet so many couples go into their marriages not knowing these essential skills. And too many couples learn these skills when it’s too late—when they’re in couples’ counseling trying to excavate years of resentment, or when they’re sitting in front of a mediator during their divorce.
With the right skills, many couples can avoid ever having to sit in a mediator’s office—and some might even be able to avoid divorce. But what are these skills? What differentiated Gottman’s master communicators who stayed happily married from the ones who struggled in his lab? And what communication skills can couples learn from mediators to help them address and resolve conflicts before they escalate to divorce?
- Causes of Conflict
- Communication
- Avoidance
- Win-Lose Outcomes
- Compromise and Collaboration
- Accommodation
- Win-Win
- How Mediators Help Couples in Conflict
- How Therapists Help Couples in Conflict
- Finding Connectors
- Positions and Interests
- Bringing Mediation Tools to Your Conflicts
- The Importance of Framing
- The Art of Productive Conflict
Causes of Conflict
Conflict in relationships comes from many sources. According to Christopher Moore, the mediator and author of The Mediation Process, relationship conflict can stem from past negative events, trauma, the fear or belief that you’ll be harmed, miscommunication, real or perceived incompatibilities in both spouses’ needs or interests, and competing values. Competition and a desire for power, influence, or control can also lead to conflicts in relationships.
Resentment and anger from prior conflicts can also influence present conflicts.
Communication
How couples communicate when disagreements arise can shape how conflict gets handled in a relationship. It’s important to note that how we communicate in a conflict can differ from how we communicate in other situations. The mediator Christopher Moore identified five main approaches to communication in a conflict.
Avoidance
The conflict is avoided altogether. When a couple avoids conflict, the conflict doesn’t get resolved but rather gets set aside because the couple fears the cost of conflict. Some examples include: the spouse who doesn’t confront their partner’s infidelity; or on a smaller scale, the spouse who doesn’t confront their partner for failing to help with the kids or with the dishes. Avoidance in marriage can lead to an escalation in resentment, but in some high-stakes mediations avoiding certain topics or issues might help the couple focus on the negotiables and ignore irrelevant information that could impact negotiations. For example, in a divorce involving infidelity, the mediator might avoid bringing discussions of the infidelity into divorce negotiations. Given that Washington is a no-fault divorce state, infidelity isn’t a factor in divorce negotiation, anyway.
Win-Lose Outcomes
One party seeks to “win” the conflict, usually through dominating or controlling the other party. These kinds of conflicts tend to arise in relationships where there is a power imbalance. Imagine a spouse who responds to a complaint about lack of support at home by offering sarcastically to quit their job entirely. Many situations where outcomes seem mutually exclusive can often be reframed through negotiation. In the example above, the spouse doesn’t need to quit their job. But maybe they can say no to late meetings occasionally, so they can support their spouse at home.
Compromise and Collaboration
In a compromise, each party gives something up, to gain something else. I’ll do the dishes on Saturday, if you do them on Sunday.
Accommodation
One party gives in and meets all the other party’s needs to preserve the relationship, but with the expectation that they will receive some benefit in the future. Right now, I’ll quit my job to stay home and raise the kids and do the bulk of the housework. But we will set aside money from your job that I’ll use later to launch my small business when the kids start school.
Win-Win
These are the types of negotiations mediators strive to achieve. We both love jogging in the morning on the weekends. I’ll watch the kids on Sunday morning, if you watch the kids on Saturday morning, so we can each get a morning jog. We both want quality time with the kids after our divorce. Dad doesn’t work on Mondays and Tuesdays, so he’ll take the kids on those days, while Mom will get the kids on the weekend while Dad works.
How Mediators Help Couples in Conflict
Mediators use a range of strategies to help parties repair relationships—when that is their goal.
And they use a range of strategies to help couples negotiate a divorce settlement if the marriage is over. These strategies can include:
- Listening to what your spouse has to say and then reflecting on what they said in your own words, rather than rushing to a response.
- Shifting your conflict framework from positions (I want this specific outcome) to interests and needs. (I want dignity, respect, consideration, and recognition that my concerns are legitimate). In divorce, shared interests can include having a secure place to live, financial security for retirement, and the well-being of the children.
- Acceptance of your differences (views, behaviors, and values).
- Agreeing to changes.
How Therapists Help Couples in Conflict
Toni Aswegan of Riverbank Therapy notes that individuals can have more productive conflicts, by trying to keep discussions focused on the facts of what happened, and the feelings the facts produced.
She explains, “Feelings and needs are inarguable. No one can tell you that you didn’t feel what you felt.”
Yet, keeping an argument focused on feelings and facts is easier said than done.
Aswegan explains that saying “I feel like you’re being a jerk” isn’t stating a feeling, but saying “I feel sad and angry” does the work.
Finding Connectors
Connectors are the things that bring you and your spouse together. Connectors can be your children, a shared business venture, shared values, faith, or shared communities. Connectors can often be a bridge in a conflict, the path to successful negotiation and settlement.
Positions and Interests
It is important to recognize that in every argument both parties hold positions and interests.
In any argument, positions are desired outcomes. You want your spouse to do the dishes if you’re the one cooking the meal. You want your spouse to remember your anniversary. You want them to stop showing up late for dinner dates. You want your spouse to stop racking up credit card debt.
In a divorce, positions might include wanting more parenting time with the children or wanting to be named the primary residential parent in the parenting plan, wanting to keep the house in divorce, or wanting alimony.
Your interests in any conflict are the underlying needs, fears, and underlying motivations that drive you to hold the position you have. For example, beneath the desire for your spouse to do the dishes might be a deep need to feel respected in your relationship. Beneath the desire for your spouse to remember your anniversary might lie the deep need to feel recognized or appreciated. Beneath the desire to put a stop to your spouse’s spending might lie the need for security and predictability.
And in a divorce, beneath the desire to have more parenting time with the kids is often the fear of losing the children or losing touch. Fear of change can also play a role. Beneath the desire to keep the house lie concerns about financial security and the need to have a place to live. Beneath the desire for alimony is the need to be able to support oneself, especially for a single parent.
When couples shift from arguing about positions (I want you to do the dishes; I want more parenting time with the kids) to discussing interests (When you don’t do the dishes, I feel disrespected and unappreciated; I want my connection to my kids to remain just as strong in the future as it is today), the conversation can often be more productive. In a divorce, this could look like: I’m scared that if I don’t get the house in divorce, I won’t be able to afford a house of my own in the future.
By focusing on interests, you expand the range of potential resolutions to the conflict.
For example, there are many things your spouse can do to help you feel respected and appreciated, but when the argument focuses on the dishes, there’s only one solution to the problem. The couple with the dishwashing conundrum might decide to buy a dishwasher or decide to eat out more often to take the load off the spouse who does more of the cooking and cleaning. And sometimes, a small act, like helping to dry the dishes, or putting them away, can help the other party feel respected.
In a divorce, shifting the narrative from “I need to keep the house” to “we both need to find a settlement that allows us to be able to finance and secure our own housing after the divorce” changes the argument from something with mutually exclusive outcomes, to something where the outcome can be mutually beneficial.
Positional negotiations can also allow for productive reframes of the conversation. You both might not want to do the dishes, but you both want a clean house. Your interests are aligned. You merely disagree with how to get the job done, and who does it.
In divorce, situations that on the surface appear to invite mutually exclusive outcomes—who gets the family home, parenting time with the kids and who pays alimony, can, with a little reframing, reveal shared interests—we both made an investment in the family home, and want to protect our share of it; we both want to be good co-parents for our kids; we both worked hard in this marriage—but only one of us got paid traditionally.
Divorce disputes can sometimes feel like a zero-sum-game, but they rarely are. Many couples have shared interests, even when their marriage is over. Often, both sides have become so entrenched in their positions that they might even conflate their positions with their interests, or their positions are so front-and-center that they obscure their true interests. This can also happen in a marriage, where the dishes have become symbolic of a need for deeper connection, more attention, or quality time together.
In a divorce, a fight over the house, isn’t always just about the house.
It is understandable that a parent might equate getting more parenting time with the ability to better parent and connect with their child, spend quality time, and make decisions. A good mediator will show that the parent’s interest—to be a good parent who spends time with their children is not the same as having all the time with the kids.
There are often many possible solutions to any given problem. Shared parenting time. Shared decision-making. 50-50 parenting time splits. Focusing on quality time rather than quantity of time, and more can all help parents find reasonable solutions to some of the toughest conflicts in divorce.
In the cases Truce® works on, the shift from positions to interests is the single thing that opens up settlement. A fight about the house stops being about the house once both spouses can name what the house represents: usually security, stability, and a place for the kids.
Bringing Mediation Tools to Your Conflicts
In formal mediation, a mediator might gather background information about a conflict and develop a formal plan for mediation. If you’re trying to resolve a conflict in your own marriage, you might not need a formal plan, but you might want to take some time on your own to reflect on what you want, and more importantly, why you want it. The goal is to move beyond positions (I want my husband to help out more with the kids), to interests, I want my husband to help out more with the kids because I want my time to be respected, considered, recognized, to feel safe, to feel like a family, or whatever deeper need your position satisfies.
Then, schedule a time to talk with your spouse. Yes, schedule. You don’t want to bring up the conflict anew while driving to your in-laws’ house or while having dinner with the kids. Find a quiet time when you are both alone and can talk about your interests. Many mediators won’t let parties discuss positions during the first mediation meeting because of the risk that both parties will get entrenched in their positions.
Focus on the facts, and how the situation makes you feel. Toni Aswegan of Riverbank Therapy draws from Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication®. After stating the facts and feelings, you can then express your needs and make a request.
Many couples can brainstorm solutions that go beyond entrenched positions, just by focusing on discussing their deeper needs—the need to feel loved, respected, considered, recognized, and the need for safety.
This matches what our lawyers at Truce hear from clients. Couples rarely arrive in our office because of one big rupture. They arrive after years of small ruptures that didn’t get repaired.
Later, you can brainstorm solutions that respect your interests. For example, if you don’t want your spouse to rack up credit card debt because it threatens your sense of financial safety, rather than controlling your spouse’s spending, you both might agree to create a postnuptial agreement or contract that clarifies that your spouse is personally responsible for her own debts from her own earnings, allowing you to contribute your own earnings to an independent retirement or savings account.
Sometimes, couples need additional help. Seeking the assistance of a formal mediator or family lawyer with mediation training to help you address intractable conflicts can help you resolve these issues before they lead to divorce.
The Importance of Framing
Christopher Moore, the mediator and author of The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict, explains that mediation can be seen as a game. There are games where there are winners and losers, like poker, and then there are collaborative games, like putting together a puzzle, where parties work together toward a shared goal. A good mediator strives to make the mediation process feel more like a puzzle than a poker game. The goal is for everyone to work together toward mutually beneficial solutions.
There are many ways a situation can be interpreted. Your tank can be half-full or half-empty, depending on your worldview or framing.
A mediator will often reframe or restate one or both parties’ positions to help de-escalate conflict. Sometimes a mediator will reframe a position in a way that “detoxifies” it, by removing judgmental, derogatory, and negative language.
It can be helpful to think about how you are framing your positions in conflicts with your spouse. Does your language contain Gottman’s “four horsemen?” Contempt, criticism, stonewalling, and defensiveness?
What are some examples of Gottman’s “four horsemen?” Here are a few:
- Blaming the other party.
- Using generalizations “you always” or “you never”
- Invalidating the other person’s feelings, beliefs, or interests.
- Meeting a complaint with a complaint of your own.
- Responding to issues with no response. Or one-word answers. Or short dismissive phrases like “whatever” or “fine.”
- Labelling: “You’re just being sensitive.”
- Attacks on the other person’s character.
- Name-calling.
- Condescending language.
- Being dismissive.
Many statements can be reframed into more neutral language.
“You never cook dinner and I have to manage the grocery list even when you do the shopping” can become “I’m overwhelmed when it comes to meal planning and prep” or “Can we figure out a dinner planning system that works for us both?” or “I think we’ve gotten out of sync on dinner planning and prep. Can we reset?”
If there’s an argument you and your partner seem to keep happening over and over, with your partner’s permission record your next argument, and then together, feed your statements into Claude or ChatGPT, asking the chat to play the role of a skilled mediator, asking it to reframe your arguments.
The Art of Productive Conflict
At the end of the day, it’s not that we fight, but how we fight that matters.
Marriages don’t end in a single fight, but because of deferred conversations, accumulated resentments, and grievances that went unexpressed.
Some couples use mediation strategies to fight productively, while others need the help of a professional mediator or couple’s counselor.
In fact, more couples are drafting mediation-first clauses into their prenuptial agreements. A mediation-first clause crafted in a time of peace can offer peace of mind later.
As life changes, conflicts can arise. With a mediation-first clause in your prenuptial agreement, you and your spouse can build an approach to handling conflict based on your values and based on the goal of preventing divorce.
In this way, a prenuptial agreement isn’t a prediction of divorce—it’s prevention.
Ready to talk more specifically about your situation? Book a Case Evaluation with the Truce® Law team.
This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every situation is unique. For guidance specific to your circumstances, consult a licensed family law attorney in your area.