When ONE fight derails you completely

Dear friend, 

 

Everything with your partner is going well…you feel like you've made relationship progress, you've been keeping your commitments, and then you get in one fight. All of a sudden your partner starts talking about how you haven't changed AT ALL and how NOTHING is working and how they want to give up and you are sitting there thinking “WHAT!? We were FINE!!!”

 

Here are 5 things to say to your partner when they've gone into an all-or-nothing mindset about the relationship during or after an argument:

 

 

1. "I'm frustrated by this fight too, but I don't think it's fair or helpful to act like we haven't made any progress. Can we try to see this from a broader perspective?"

 

2. "This fight sucks, especially because we've been in such a good place. The better we're doing, the worse it feels to take a step back. I think it's important to recognize that without dismissing all the real progress we've made."

 

3. "When you use 'always' or 'never,' it feels like my efforts to improve our relationship are going unnoticed. Could you please change how you're talking about this?"

 

4. "Progress is three steps forward, two steps back. I believe we're still moving forward, even though today feels hard. I love you, and I believe we can get through this if we put things in perspective.

 

5. “I love you and I don't believe that this one fight represents our entire relationship. We need to give ourselves more credit for the work we've done in order to be fair and forgive each other. Can you work on that with me?”