5 good practices
to stop arguing
with your partner
Sometimes, small things take on vital importance and risk ruining a relationship forever. Maria Claudia Biscione, psychotherapist and sexologist, suggested 5 good practices to defuse tensions and regain serenity.
1 Habits, intolerance and arguments
When living together, over time many small habits of the partner come to light that are not tolerated and often spark arguments and even fights.
“When the way of relating to each other often takes on a critical and demeaning tone, it is easy to lose the thread of complicity and understanding,” explains Maria Claudia Biscione, psychotherapist and sexologist. “If you don't take action, finding more welcoming and tolerant ways, you risk ruining the relationship.” We discussed this with the expert, who suggested 5 good practices to defuse this type of argument.
2 At the beginning of the relationship, no one notices the other's "quirks", but then they become unbearable. Why does this happen?
At the beginning of a relationship, you tend to show your best side, highlighting attention, care, and the needs of your partner. You are also more tolerant, because the goal is to confirm and strengthen the relationship. The paradox is that instead of carefully evaluating compatibility of habits and personal characteristics at the start, you minimize them because the need to create a couple sabotages the initial signals.
3 What are the habits that bother women the most?
The expert says that the male habits women can't stand usually fall into three categories: messiness, the "couch man," and the "where is it?" The first concerns the total inability of men to understand tidiness as a reassuring and controlling concept.
The second concerns the presence/absence of the partner: you are next to me, but you are not really present, because if I talk to you, you don't listen, you don't hear. The third is about the usual question after a thousand directions: "but where exactly??"
4 What bothers men?
Women are certainly no less when it comes to bad habits: leaving hair everywhere in the bathroom, the symbiotic relationship with friends, compulsive cleaning, obsession with the body and shopping, the bossiness in wanting to manage things, meddling in his business even when it's his relaxation space, asking for help and then promptly criticizing.
5 How much and in what way do these bad habits become fuses that ignite arguments?
When you settle into a relationship, you relax and risk losing sight of the other person with their needs, habits, and desires. You become easily intolerant and the more arguments are triggered, the more you distance yourself (even sexually) from your partner to avoid complaints and disapproval.
Different reactions: women
Behind these easy arguments, the common point is often the same: "but why don't you do it like me?" For women, sometimes, it's a personal affront, representing a "you don't love me," "you don't see me," even if often that's not really the case. You risk falling into the dangerous mechanism of feeling excluded, of "you're not interested enough in me" or "we have nothing in common."
Different reactions: men
For men, the nagging of criticism recalls an annoying, controlling maternal script: often it's the constant need to talk about things or share that becomes the annoying female "habit" to defend against and escape from. Moreover, feeling criticized for trivialities is harmful.
6 Over time, how do these negatively affect the harmony of the couple? Can they even lead to the end of the relationship?
“Harmony is based on mutual reinforcement, on laughing at your own and others' flaws, on accommodation and compromise.” When all this is buried by a single communication pattern, the relationship becomes heavy and can bring out personal relational models that each person carries from their own background.
When this happens, it becomes difficult to distinguish what belongs to the past from the present, because it is precisely the present of the couple that has stopped replacing old ghosts.
7 The problem is that often you start arguing about the same things and never stop: how do you get out of this vicious circle?
“Doing the same things always produces the same results, so it is necessary to create new ways of interacting. To do this, you need to start with the motivation to regain mutual trust and activate a new virtuous circle.
8 5 good practices to stop arguing about your partner's annoying habits
1- Learn the art of tolerance: train yourself to accept the other, remembering that their flaws are exactly the same as ours. Also, try to practice more kindness when asking and smile when communicating.
2- Never forget respect: it is fundamental in every relationship, it means knowing how to look at the other, welcome them, listen to them without judgment or domination.
3- Bad habit or just their passion? If you can't stand your partner's passion, maybe it's because you see a special world you don't have access to. Try to enter it gently or, alternatively, learn from the other that giving yourself time is a precious gift you can learn to give yourself.
4- One for you, one for me. Sit down together and make a top ten list of the flaws you can't stand in each other, then choose one that you feel you can eliminate. Committing to change a bad habit is an act that means I can meet you halfway.
5- I can't stand you anymore. If the level of frustration over your partner's behavior exceeds a certain threshold, ask yourself if you still have the ability to look at the other as you did at the beginning of the relationship. Try to remember what brought you together and how much of that emotion still lives inside you. This will be the starting question that can show you the way forward.
