The High-Conflict Couple

This is a long awaited book!
Fruzzetti is a master clinician who does rigorous science

in order to provide those of us doing treatment and those in need of it something that
works. This is hope for all of us working with individuals, couples and families who
suffer. Thank you, Alan, for this timely and important work.
—Suzanne Witterholt, MD, distinguished fellow of
the American Psychiatric Association and director of
Ananda Services for Dialectical Behavior Therapy in the
Department of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota
Fruzzetti is a leader in work with high-conflict couples and families. This much-
awaited book provides an opportunity to learn his techniques and strategies, presented
in his unique teaching style that is so effective. The book is a must for every DBT
program as well as all those working within the field.
—Perry D. Hoffman, Ph.D., president of the National
Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder,
New York
The High Conflict Couple performs a major public service. Fruzzetti’s approach
starts with an important principle: that dysregulated emotions are the core difficulty for
high-conflict couples. From this he provides step-by-step practical methods designed to
enhance acceptance, intimacy, and communication based on the latest research regarding
emotion regulation and his own vast experience in working with couples and families.
In essence, this is an excellent book, useful for both clinicians and couples regardless of
the severity of their difficulties.
—Thomas R. Lynch, Ph.D., associate professor in
the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology and
Neuroscience and director of the Cognitive Behavior
Research and Treatment Program at Duke University
A warm and professional guide following in the tradition of acceptance and compas-
sion. A book on how to handle love and stay connected even in difficult circumstances.
We have waited for it!
—Anna Kåver, psychologist and author with
Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
the
high-conflict
couple
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Guide to Finding Peace,
Intimacy & Validation
Alan E. Fruzzetti, Ph.D.
New Harbinger Publications

Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject
matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psycholog-
ical, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the ser-
vices of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2006 by Alan E. Fruzzetti

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Catharine Sutker;

Text design by Tracy Marie Carlson; Edited by Brady Kahn
All Rights Reserved
PDF ISBN: 9781608820122

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fruzzetti, Alan E.
The high-conflict couple : a dialectical behavior therapy guide to finding peace, inti-
macy, and validation / Alan E. Fruzzetti.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-57224-450-4
ISBN-10: 1-57224-450-X
1. Interpersonal conflict. 2. Marital conflict. 3. Emotions. 4. Dialectical behavior ther-
apy. I. Title.
BF637.I48F78 2006
158.2—dc22
2006028315
For my mentors, Dr. Marsha M. Linehan
and the late Dr. Neil S. Jacobson
Contents
Foreword vii
Acknowledgments ix
1: Understanding Emotion in Relationships 1
2: Accepting Yourself and Your Partner 15
3: How to Stop Making Things Worse 29
4: Being “Together” When You Are Together 39
5: Reactivating Your Relationship 55
6: Accurate Expression 71
vi The High-Conflict Couple
7: Validating Responses: What to Validate and Why 93
8: Validating Responses: How to Validate Your Partner 107
9: Recovering from Invalidation 125
10: Managing Problems and Negotiating Solutions 141
11: Transforming Conflict into Closeness 157
References 173
Foreword
Marsha M. Linehan, Ph.D.
No relationship has only smooth sailing. All relationships have conflict

and an excess of negative emotion, so problems in intimate relationships
affect just about everyone at one time or another. Being in a high-conflict
relationship is exhausting and leaves both partners feeling miserable and
alone. Being in an unhappy and distressed partnership is associated with
increased rates of depression, anxiety, and substance use. Children in
homes with great conflict are more likely to be troubled and even sui-
cidal. This book addresses how to improve our intimate relationships,
and in turn, our own and our family’s well-being.
The book is based on the principles of dialectical behavior therapy
(DBT), a treatment that has a large number of clinical trials demonstrat-
ing its effectiveness. DBT was developed at the University of Washing-
ton and Alan Fruzzetti was part of the very first DBT treatment team.
He and the other members of the team gave the first critical feedback on
the treatment and were major contributors to the development of the
treatment in its current form. Alan has been working with DBT for
twenty years, teaching it and adapting it for couples, families, and adoles-
cents.. Almost all of the research to date has focused on applying DBT to
viii The High-Conflict Couple
individuals, with few studies including families. Thus, there is a real

absence in the literature: how to apply DBT to couples and families.
Dr. Fruzzetti is an expert in couple and family therapy and in
research on intimate relationships. He is at the fore of work in this area,
integrating mindfulness, emotion regulation, accurate expression, and val-
idation into a coherent package. He has written dozens of professional
articles and book chapters, both about DBT and about couple and family
interactions and treatments from a DBT perspective.
In this book, Alan takes his expertise in working with couples and
integrates it with his expertise in DBT. Like DBT, the book takes a
nonjudgmental approach that promotes both acceptance of yourself and
your partner, such as being mindful of yourself and your partner, and
being more self-validating. It also focuses on change, such as reducing
invalidation and negative responses to yourself and your partner while
increasing your own emotion self-regulation, improving your ability to
express yourself accurately, and building your skills to manage problems
more effectively. The book also focuses heavily on the integration of
these two strategies (acceptance and change), really helping you and your
partner to be more validating toward each other.
It is very important to note that this book is based on sound prin-
ciples and research, including research on basic emotional processes,
couple interaction research, and the many studies evaluating dialectical
behavior therapy. Very few books like this are actually based on research,
so that puts this book into a very elite group.
The approach in this book is sensitive to the needs of struggling
spouses and partners who have a lot of hurts and hopes. It addresses a
broad variety of situations that couples find themselves in and provides
thoughtful and practical ideas and practice exercises to help people
decrease destructive conflict and find more peace and intimacy in their
relationships.
Acknowledgments
Most people are lucky to have one real mentor in their lives. I have been
very fortunate to have had several. Relevant to this book, in particular, is
the inspiration I have received from my mentor, friend, and colleague
Marsha Linehan, whose development of dialectical behavior therapy
(DBT) is one of the truly innovative achievements in psychotherapy in
the past couple of decades. In addition, my former research advisor and
mentor Neil Jacobson, who died much too young in 1999, taught me a
great deal about couples therapy, couple interaction, and about research,
and inspired me to try new ideas and approaches to complex problems.
These are two people whose shoes I cannot hope to fill.
My friend and colleague Perry Hoffman has for years provided
support and friendship and has collaborated with me to adapt DBT to
work with families. Her tirelessness for alleviating suffering in families
continues to guide me. Many other colleagues and friends have contrib-
uted to my thinking about DBT and how to apply DBT to the problems
of couples and families, provided feedback about the ideas in this book,
given feedback about related papers or earlier drafts of the chapters in
this book, and/or provided helpful and ongoing encouragement. These
include, in particular, Linda Dimeff, Christine Foertsch, Anna Kåver,
x The High-Conflict Couple
Beverly Long, Elizabeth Malmquist, Richelle Moen-Moore, Alec Miller,

Åsa Nilsonne, Anita Olsson, Joan Russo, Renee Schneider, Doug Snyder,
Liz Simpson, Charlie Swenson, and Suzanne Witterholt.
Over the past many years I have been lucky to have wonderful
therapists in our DBT Couple and Family Clinic. Many have participated
in the development of the ideas in this book and helped pilot and/or
evaluate parts of this work. Special appreciation goes to Jill Compton,
Kate Iverson, Liz Mosco, Becky Pasillas, Jennifer Sayrs, Chad Shenk, and
Steven Thorp.
Of course, most of what we learn about couples comes from them.
So, I want to extend a special thank you to the many couples who have
participated in various research projects studying basic couple interaction
processes or evaluating the impact of various interventions. In addition,
many people involved in Family Connections programs, both leaders and
participants, have given me ideas, inspiration, and support.
And, Thich Nhât Hanh’s extensive work on mindfulness and on
using understanding to alleviate suffering has guided much of my work.
Much credit and appreciation also go to the people at New
Harbinger Publications, in particular Matt McKay and Catharine Sutker,
for their commitment to this book and for their ongoing support of its
ideas, and to Brady Kahn, for her thoughtful and very helpful editing.
They have been such a pleasure to have as colleagues.
My family has provided everything I needed to do this work. I am
grateful to my wonderful children for being who they are. And my wife,
mi esposa maravillosa Armida, continues to provide the love, passion, intel-
lect, and emotional partnership that make my life the rich and rewarding
adventure that it is. Without her love and support, I never could have
started, much less finished, this book.
Chapter 1
Understanding Emotion
in Relationships
Why is it we sometimes say the nastiest things to the person we love the
most? How is it that seemingly simple negotiations sometimes end up
with partners screaming at each other? How do we end up snapping and
acting in ways we swore we would never do again? What makes people
who love each other sometimes get really anxious when approaching
each other, or leads us to avoid talking about important matters? And,
more importantly, how can we learn to stop long-standing patterns of
destructive conflict, develop the skills to manage our negative emotions
and destructive urges, and learn how to talk and listen in ways that lead
to understanding, validation, negotiation, and closeness? These are the
questions this book will address.
Everyone knows, minutes or hours after a nasty fight, that what we
said made things worse and got us less of what we wanted. Yet, some-
how we said it or did it anyway and may even have meant it at the
moment. But now, with emotional arousal back to normal, guilt, remorse,
regret, hurt, and grief set in. Maybe we will be able to apologize and turn
2 The High-Conflict Couple
things around, but the whole episode is likely to happen again and again.
Destructive conflict in couples corrodes relationships and makes both
partners miserable. The central idea in this book is that highly aroused,
negative emotion—dysregulated emotion—is the core problem for high-
conflict couples and that there are specific skills partners can learn to
manage their emotions effectively, which in turn makes effective commu-
nication (accurate expression followed by understanding and validation)
possible. With enough practice, conflict can be transformed into close-
ness and couples can achieve the closeness, friendship, intimacy, peace,
and support that brings us joy and reduces our suffering.
Understanding Emotions and High

Emotional Arousal
Emotions are much more complicated than most people realize. Part of
the problem stems from the way we talk about emotion. First of all, we
talk about emotion as a thing (a noun), rather than as something we are
doing. But, in fact, emotions are complex processes like walking or talk-
ing, things that we actually do that affect other things inside us and also
affect others. It is easier to conceptualize thinking as something that we do.
Then, when we say we had a thought, we recognize that it was just one
moment, one small piece, of a long process. Emotion can be conceptual-
ized the same way. Thus, an emotion is just one moment out of a long
process of emoting or feeling. Unfortunately, we don’t have a good word
for the process or for the whole system in which we have emotions.
How Emotions Work

There are many components to our emotion system. At any given
moment, there are events going on all around us, such as sights and
sounds and other aspects of the physical and social world. There are also
events going on inside us, such as memories, images, thoughts, or sensa-
tions. All of these events, in addition to our attention, and our sensation
and perception systems (which allow us to be aware of what’s going on),
influence emotion directly. With new developments in neuroscience
almost daily, it’s clear that there are many biological and biochemical pro-
cesses in our brains that influence the course of emotions. However, the
Understanding Emotion in Relationships 3
extent to which we are aware of our emotions, how we label them (and
whether we are accurate), and how we express them also profoundly
affect the process. And, finally, how others respond to us—particularly
people we are close to—shapes the direction of our emotion in very
important ways. Certain responses, such as understanding and validating
our experience, soothe our frayed emotional edges, but others, such as
criticizing or invalidating our experience, are like salt in an open wound
in our hearts.
Emotion Dysregulation and Out-of-Control Behavior

Emotional arousal affects other systems directly, such as thinking
and physical action. Thus, when we regulate or manage our emotion, we
also are regulating our ability to think and act in ways that are effective
and move us forward in our relationships, at work, or with other activi-
ties in life. It’s been known for almost one hundred years that small to
moderate amounts of stress and arousal keep people alert and interested,
actually increasing self-control and performance on just about any kind of
task (Yerkes and Dodson 1908). It’s also true that past a moderate point of
stress and arousal, self-control and performance begin to drop (Mandler
1993). At high enough levels of arousal, we begin to focus very narrowly
on simply escaping from the aversive state of high negative emotion. This
process can take a long time to build up or may happen instantly.
Regardless, once our orientation is on escape, we can consider our-
selves out of control. Notice that this is not a pejorative label. Rather, being
out of control describes a natural state in which we are not thinking or
acting in a very clear way; we are no longer focused on our longer-term
goals but are increasingly focused on the immediate goal of reducing this
negative tension or arousal. The point at which we reorient our attention
to escape may be considered the point at which emotion dysregulation
begins; when our emotion system becomes dysregulated, it interferes with
optimal cognitive and other self-control functions (Fruzzetti et al. 2003).
Thus, being dysregulated is not the same as being upset. You can be
upset and still be quite able to make effective decisions, hold your
tongue, or otherwise “control” yourself—manage to act in ways that help
you achieve a better relationship, a better life, rather than simply escaping
an unpleasant (or even awful) situation by doing something that hurts the
other person, escalates the conflict, or, in general, makes things worse in
the long run.
In reality, this kind of dysregulated or out-of-control behavior

occurs rather frequently, on a continuum from very destructive out-of-
control behaviors, such as substance use or aggression, to less destructive
ones, such as saying mean things or avoiding difficult situations. For
example, when one partner is nagging at the other, being critical, the
other’s arousal goes up. It becomes difficult to remember that the com-
plainer is somebody you love, and who loves you back. Sometimes it
might only take a second; at other times you might feel it coming well in
advance, but eventually you lose your balanced perspective and say some-
thing mean or nasty in return. The point here is not that it’s unreasonable
or unfair to respond to criticism with criticism—it might be fair—but
rather that it just makes things worse for both people individually and
for the relationship. Individual and relationship well-being would be
improved if each partner were able to respond differently.
At this point, you might be thinking, “So, are you saying I’m just
supposed to be a doormat and accept being treated badly?” That’s a good
question, and the answer is no, because there is a third or middle path
between being resigned to being treated badly, on the one hand, and both
people treating each other badly, on the other hand. The alternative is to
break the cycle, responding in a way that deescalates the conflict without
reducing self-respect. In order to do that, you must first understand how
you get into these hair-trigger situations that lead you to create negative
interactions or respond badly to your partner when he or she is already
behaving badly.
Vulnerability to Negative Emotional Experiences

There are several factors that make you vulnerable to high negative
emotional arousal and subsequent emotion dysregulation. They include
how sensitive you are to relationship events and things your partner (or
others) says or does; reactivity, or how much you react when you do
perceive stressful or negative events; and time to equilibrium, or how long it
takes you to return to “normal” emotionally (Linehan 1993a; Fruzzetti
and Iverson 2006; Fruzzetti, Shenk, and Hoffman 2005).
Sensitivity
Some people are more emotionally sensitive than others, just as
some people have more sensitive hearing, more sensitive taste, and so on.
People with greater emotional sensitivity can sometimes tell what those
with less sensitivity are feeling before they know it themselves. This can
be unsettling in a conversation if not handled properly. People with high
emotional sensitivity seem to grasp intuitively how other people are
feeling, coping, and so on. Conversely, a person with low emotional
sensitivity can sometimes have a really hard time intuitively understanding
what another person is feeling. This person may need to have a lot more
explaining and more direct and specific requests in order to be emotionally
supportive and responsive. Low emotional sensitivity can leave a spouse or
partner feeling misunderstood or even lead to falsely (but understandably)
believing that the other person doesn’t care about him or her.
To make matters more complicated, people can be sensitive about
some topics or situations but not about others. These differences in over-
all emotional sensitivity result from ordinary developmental processes,
the way conflict situations were handled by parents during childhood, as
well as from the basic temperament with which you were born. But more
specific sensitivities can develop in any relationship. Many couples have
theme fights or topics about which one or both partners tend to be
sensitive. Similarly, one partner may have high sensitivity left over from a
previous relationship or from the current relationship about things that
happened even years ago. Understanding each other’s sensitivities can
help couples learn how to communicate more effectively, and trying to
increase or decrease your own sensitivity can also promote more effective
interactions. Chapters 2, 3, and 7 cover this topic in greater depth.
Reactivity
Regardless of how sensitive any of us may be, when we do notice
something that is emotionally relevant, our reaction may be small or
large. Big reactions are often louder, more rapidly and intensely
expressed, and are accompanied by higher emotional arousal. Thus, big
reactions (high reactivity) can communicate more clearly what a person is
feeling, but also can result in the person sometimes reacting too quickly,
getting upset or even dysregulated before all the information has become
available. This can sometimes be counterproductive, of course: if reactiv-
ity had been lower, the person’s response might have been quite different
and more productive. Conversely, small reactions—often quieter, slower,
and less intensely expressed—allow time to understand the whole picture
but may not effectively communicate how important something is or
what someone is feeling, easily resulting in misunderstanding. Learning to
regulate reactivity (more intense and rapid expression or less intense and
rapid expression) is an important part in learning to manage our own
emotions, which this book will focus on.
Time to Reach Equilibrium

Everyone has a kind of emotional equilibrium, or baseline level of
emotional arousal. By definition, emotional equilibrium is a regulated
state, in which we can think and act clearly, purposefully, and effectively.
When our arousal goes up, it takes a certain amount of time to come
back down to baseline. For some people, this happens very quickly,
perhaps in only seconds or a few minutes. For others, it may take many
minutes or even several hours. Not only is it painful to have negative
emotional arousal be high for a long time, it also means that during this
time, individuals are vulnerable to both increased reactivity and to
becoming dysregulated, because their arousal is already elevated. Under-
standing how long it takes to return to emotional equilibrium can help
couples decide whether, when, and for how long they should take a break
when discussing particularly emotional topics.
Putting the pieces together, you can see that high emotion sensitiv-
ity, high reactivity, and slow return to equilibrium make you vulnerable to
getting upset, or dysregulated, in a variety of situations, as is shown in
figure 1. Before even considering the specifics of a given situation or
what your partner is doing, you already may be on the path toward a
destructive reaction.
How High Emotional Arousal Affects

Your Relationship
There are many ways that negative emotional arousal affects your rela-
tionship, both directly and indirectly. For example, it may lead you to
overreact in some situations, and perhaps even to underreact in others.
This, in turn, makes it more difficult for your partner to respond in
understanding, soothing, or loving ways: he or she simply doesn’t have
accurate information on which to base a response. So, even if your
partner wants to respond in a loving way, and doesn’t have his or her
own negative emotional arousal to deal with (which is unlikely), it makes
the job harder.
Emotion Vulnerability
(high sensitivity and reactivity,
slow return to equilibrium)
Heightened Negative
Emotional Arousal
Figure 1
High Arousal Leads to Inaccurate Expression

As discussed earlier, when our emotional arousal is very high, our
ability to take a balanced or long-term view suffers, and our thinking and
reasoning abilities are similarly overwhelmed. Consequently, we say and
do things that reflect being overwhelmed, we become defensive, or we
simply do not describe the heartfelt desires and emotions that lie beneath
our negative arousal. Figure 2 shows how this may unfold: high emotion
vulnerability means that before anything much even happens, just as you
enter the situation, your arousal shoots up, because, first, you are emo-
tionally sensitive, either in general or in this kind of situation; second, you
are reactive (again, perhaps in general, or only in this kind of situation);
and third, you are slow to return to emotional equilibrium. Once your
arousal goes up, your thinking abilities go down, and you start to lose the
emotional balance that is needed to communicate effectively. Your high
arousal also fuels negative and judgmental thinking, which further fuels
negative emotional arousal—a vicious cycle. Then, being upset and
having a lot of negative and judgmental thinking, you say things that
don’t reflect what you really want (closeness, attention, understanding),
but instead say something bitter or nasty (inaccurate expression). This, of
course, creates hurt feelings in your partner, furthers misunderstanding,
and incites conflict.
For example, you might want to spend more time with your mate
and be disappointed that he or she will be coming home late today. But,
your negative arousal is the only thing you notice; you pay attention to
that and have urges to escape from the situation, either by withdrawing
or by pushing the other away emotionally. You become judgmental
(“what a jerk”), which jacks up your emotion further. Then, instead of
accurately expressing your disappointment, and also saying that you’re
longing for more closeness and time together (accurate expression), you
criticize your partner for being selfish or just roll your eyes and show
dismay or even contempt.
Heightened Negative
Emotional Arousal
Judgments and
Inaccurate Expression
Misunderstanding
and Conflict
Figure 2
Inaccurate Expression Also Increases Arousal

It turns out that the way we think about the situation and what we
tell ourselves about it can either soothe our emotions or act as a catalyst
for even more explosive negative emotional reactions (Fruzzetti and
Iverson 2006). More specifically, if we are able to describe the situation,
what we want, what is happening, and legitimize the emotional process
even when we do not like it, typically our emotional arousal will start the
return toward a lower state of emotional upset and eventually back to
normal emotional arousal (which might mean you are content or satis-
fied). In contrast, if we judge the situation, or our partner, as wrong or
bad, catastrophize the situation, or become hopeless or negative in our
expectations, our arousal will stay high or actually get higher, further
dysregulating our thinking and other actions. Figure 2 demonstrates how
our appraisals, judgments, and expression of our experience may flip
back to increase our arousal, just as our arousal makes our thinking more
judgmental and negative. The good news is that this interaction gives us
two places to practice more effective alternatives.
Conflict Patterns in Relationships

Over time, all couples develop fairly consistent ways of interacting,
or patterns, in conflict situations. These patterns may vary by topic or
situation, but they are often quite consistent. Again, “conflict” here
simply means situations of apparent disagreement, situations in which at
least one partner doesn’t like something the other is or is not doing, or
situations in which negotiation or agreement is desired.
Constructive Engagement Pattern

This is, of course, the goal: Partners bring up issues that bother
them when they are relevant, and they do so in a nonaggressive, descrip-
tive, and clear way. The other partner listens, tries to understand, and
communicates that understanding even when she or he disagrees. This
allows many problems to be solved and for partners to learn increasingly
how to be better mates for each other. And, importantly, when problems
can’t be solved, either because no solutions are available at the time or
because partners continue to disagree, in a constructive pattern, partners
can tolerate the disagreement, box it up (at least temporarily), and enjoy
each other in other situations. In fact, being able to explore the conflict
can bring couples closer, increasing mutual understanding and smoothing
out bumps in the relationship. Clearly, both partners must be able to
regulate their emotion, and must be aware of their wants, preferences,
emotions, opinions, and what they like and don’t like. Because their
emotions are regulated, they are able to express these things accurately
and nonaggressively and are able to listen and respond nondefensively,
with empathy and validation.
Mutual Avoidance Pattern

In a mutual avoidance pattern, partners dysregulate each other. That
is, when one partner experiences something negative and starts to get
upset beyond a certain point, the other perceives the rising emotion and
starts to spike emotionally as well. Then, each person, cognizant of the
other’s high negative arousal and potential for dysregulated responding
(ineffective, invalidating, getting angry, and so on), avoids bringing the
issue up at all. Of course, problems that can’t be discussed can’t be
solved. And when partners feel relief when not talking with each other,
an avoidance pattern can start easily. Closeness fades, even though active
conflict (arguing, fighting), per se, may be infrequent.
Destructive Engagement Pattern

In contrast to the avoidance pattern, here partners end up express-
ing a lot of hostility, fail to remember or express their love for each
other, and are unable to understand each other’s point of view (which is,
naturally, obfuscated by inaccurate, often hostile, expression). By the end
of every argument both partners have behaved badly and will have
regrets about their own actions—later, after they return to their emo-
tional equilibrium. And, most partners will have increased vulnerability to
emotional reactivity in the next conflict situation, fearing both their own
and their partner’s responses to conflict.
It is important to note that destructive engagement does not neces-
sarily start this way. It is so named because this is where the conversation
ends up. In fact, one or both partners may start out reasonably calm and
emotionally regulated, with clear awareness of their good intentions, their
commitment, and their love for one another. But without the ability to
stay regulated in a difficult situation, if the conflict cannot easily be
resolved, one partner (and soon after, the other) will become increasingly
upset and cross the line into ineffective behavior, or stop describing what
he or she wants accurately, stop listening with empathy, and so forth.
Sometimes the damage is minor, sometimes it is major.
Engage-Distance Pattern
Unlike the other patterns, in the engage-distance pattern, there is an
imbalance between the partners: one moves one way; the other goes in a
different direction. That is, one person wants to discuss or pursue a topic
and be together, but the other person, at least in that moment, does not
want to discuss a topic further or perhaps even be together and instead
seeks some alone time. What makes this pattern particularly tricky is that
the engager or distancer can start out doing so in either an effective,
constructive way or a more destructive, aversive, or avoidant way, but
regardless, the pattern ends up being a disaster (Fruzzetti and Jacobson
1990).
For example, if Sally had a difficult day at work, she may want to
talk with Ron about it. For example, she might say, “Oh, what a day I’ve
had!” But, at that moment, Ron might be involved with something else,
and therefore he may not notice that Sally really wants to talk and get
some emotional support. His response, “Hi, Sweetheart … I’ve been
trying to get this Internet connection to work … but it’s not cooperat-
ing,” is quite invalidating to Sally, and her arousal goes up. As her
arousal goes up, her focus shifts from what she really wants (support
from her husband, to be listened to and feel close to him) to her own
arousal, which was already elevated due to problems she had during the
day (emotional vulnerability). Then, she tells Ron, “Never mind,” in a
slightly nasty tone. Ron, still a little oblivious, takes the “never mind”
content seriously and feels a relieved: Sally is irritated, and it’s difficult
and often unpleasant to talk with her when she’s irritable. So, he cheer-
fully says “Okay” and goes back to what he was doing. Sally goes to the
other room and starts stewing in the negative arousal that resulted from
this additional “failure” on Ron’s part to be responsive. She starts feeling
overwhelmed with emotion (her original emotion plus hurt, sadness,
shame, and anger), negative appraisals (“he really doesn’t care about
me”), judgments about Ron (“he’s so selfish”), and/or judgments about
herself (“it’s my own fault; I’m such a jerk for thinking he’d be inter-
ested”). A few minutes later, now dysregulated, she yells at Ron, “I don’t
even know why I stay married to you” or “I don’t even know why you
stay married to me.” Ron now reacts defensively (his own arousal just
shot up), saying something like, “Why would I want to talk with you?
You’re acting like a crazy person! All I’ve been doing is trying to fix the
damn computer, and you’re acting like I committed murder or some-
thing!” Both partners feel let down by the other and will have increased
sensitivity going into the next conflict situation. There are many ways this
pattern can develop, but escalated negative emotions are always at the
core of this destructive pattern.
How Negative Interactions

Affect Individuals
Research has shown repeatedly that being in a healthy, close relationship
is good for people (e.g., Brown and Harris 1978). Similarly, being in a
distressed or highly conflictual relationship takes its toll on individual
well-being: For example, people are much more likely to be depressed if
they are in a distressed couple relationship than in a happy one (Fruzzetti
1996). Similarly, rates of substance abuse, anxiety disorders, health prob-
lems, and so on are markedly higher among distressed and high-conflict
couples (Whisman and Uebelacker 2003). In addition, high-conflict rela-
tionships have deleterious effects on children who are regularly exposed
to parental conflict (e.g., Cummings and Davies 1994; Gottman and Katz
1989). Importantly, research has also shown that when couples resolve
their difficulties and improve their relationship, individual well-being
increases substantially (e.g., Jacobson et al. 1991; Jacobson et al. 1993).
There is something about being able to express ourselves and be under-
stood, about companionship, about closeness, about being able to find
peace with our partner, which seems to salve our souls.
Using This Book

This book is about learning to manage your emotions effectively in order
to promote better communication, foster love and closeness, and solve
problems. It is based jointly on principles of dialectical behavior therapy,
a treatment for severe and pervasive problems of emotion dysregulation
developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan (1993a, 1993b; see also Fruzzetti
2002), and principles of couple and family interaction and intervention
developed by many in the field of couples therapy, including the author

(e.g., Fruzzetti 1997; Fruzzetti and Mosco 2006; Fruzzetti and Iverson
2004; Fruzzetti and Iverson 2006; Fruzzetti and Fruzzetti 2003; Fruzzetti,
Hoffman, and Santisteban, forthcoming; Fruzzetti and Jacobson 1990;
Hoffman, Fruzzetti, and Swenson 1999; Hoffman et al. 2005).
This book is intended for couples in high-conflict relationships or
who have enough conflict to be worrisome, or to warrant taking an active
role in trying to improve your relationship. This book may also be very
useful for couples who do not seem to have a lot of conflict but who in
fact avoid conflict or conflict situations because these situations typically
escalate. However, one caveat is needed: if high conflict in your relation-
ship includes physical or sexual aggression or violence, this book is not
intended to be enough for you. If you have been aggressive or violent
with your partner, it is important for you to use all available resources to
create safety in your relationship; please, seek out professional counseling
and/or other resources to help you gain this kind of self-control. If you
have been physically or sexually assaulted by your partner, please seek out
support and resources to help you make your relationship safer: no one
deserves to be physically or sexually assaulted. The phone number for the
National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233); you may
also visit the organization’s Web site for more information and to access
other resources (http://www.ndvh.org) or call your local crisis service.
The ideas and strategies in this book are designed to be helpful, but
they do involve doing things together and talking about topics or issues
that may be provocative because of your own and your partner’s previous
experiences and sensitivities. It is essential that both partners have the
self-control and the commitment to self-control to tolerate such potential
distress without becoming aggressive or violent. Only then can the
resources of this book be truly helpful.
Ideally, you and your partner will read this book together, practicing
skills from each chapter as you go along. But, of course, you (and your
relationship) likely could benefit from reading the book and practicing
most of the exercises on your own. Each chapter provides a step-by-step
guide to identify areas that need work, as well as areas of strength, and
gives practice exercises—some that you can do individually and some
practices that you can do together as a couple.
The book’s chapters probably should be read in order. The mate-
rials and skills are designed to build forward and cumulatively. Although
in principle you could skip ahead, mastering earlier skills will make later
skills easier and the likelihood of success greater. More importantly, this
book is intended as a guide for practice even more than a guide to under-
standing. The benefits you accrue from this book will very likely reflect
how much you practice the various exercises and skills provided.
Although it’s fine to read ahead, you might consider practicing the mate-
rial in each section before moving on to the next section. For example,
you might spend a week or more on a chapter before moving on to the
next chapter. In summary: practice, practice, practice!
Chapter 2
Accepting Yourself
and Your Partner
Couple interaction has often been compared to a dance: When the music
flows, the timing is right, and partners know their own steps and are
aware of the other’s steps, it can be magical. But, when anything is off,
partners begin to step on each other’s toes and the activity is anything
but fun (and can in fact be very painful). The painful outcome then
inhibits dancing to subsequent tunes. Being an effective partner, in danc-
ing or in other ways, requires practice and skill. Being an effective couple
or team requires practice together. And, just as in dancing, a partner
needs to be both an individual, doing his or her part, and an integral part
of the couple. In fact, when partners are very skillful, part of the fun is
letting go of self-awareness and instead participating in the joint or
collaborative activity. This can be true in conversation, on a walk, or
while making love.
Basic communication has two fundamental parts: one person talks;
the other listens, understands, and responds. Then, at various times,
partners change roles. It sounds simple, but as discussed in chapter 1,
negative emotions get in the way of this seemingly simple two-step. One
of the first places where communication breaks down is when we make it
more complicated in our minds, increase our emotional arousal, and then
go on to rationalize how reasonable it is to treat the other person badly.
Acting skillfully requires an awareness, or mindfulness, of ourselves (our
wants, thoughts, sensations, emotions), mindfulness of the other person
(his or her wants, thoughts, sensations, emotions), and finally mind-
fulness of how we are connected to each other (our interaction). Mindful-
ness primarily involves awareness, and as a skill, it means learning to pay
attention to things that matter to us most, and using that awareness to
direct our actions (Bishop et al. 2004; Brown and Ryan 2003; Fruzzetti
and Iverson 2004). This chapter will explore all three of these facets of
mindfulness: our self, our partner, and our joint interaction or dance
together, starting with how infinitely connected we are to our partners.
You Cannot Act Alone:

Awareness of Connection
In any partnership, the things we do as individuals affect the other
person and the relationship. In a couple, if one person is distressed about
something, it is also the other person’s concern, whether he or she
acknowledges it or not. Reciprocity ensures that you cannot act in isolation,
that what you do affects the other and, in turn, what the other person
does affects you. Putting the two together, you see that what you do
comes back to affect you. Philosophers, poets, religious leaders, mystics,
politicians, and sports junkies have all understood these axioms for
centuries: “What goes around comes around,” “you get what you give,”
“give and you will receive,” and “burn and be burned” all capture the
essence of this idea. Nowhere is this more true than in an intimate
relationship.
Don’t Soil Your Own Nest

Because we are so completely connected to our partner, it makes
sense not to treat the other person badly, for we’ll be treated badly in
return. In order to treat our partner in a harsh, unloving, critical, or inval-
idating way, we simply have to “forget” or be unaware of this reciprocity.
Accepting Yourself and Your Partner 17
High emotional arousal, remember, reduces our thinking and recall skills,
so this lack of awareness in conflict situations is not as silly as it may
sound. Yet, it may be very important.
Notice your level of emotional arousal right now. If it is low or
moderate, notice how you feel toward your partner, your commitment to
your relationship, and notice what you want out of your relationship. If
your goals include having a loving relationship, notice just that. Now, ask
yourself, what if you had been able to recall these loving intentions, these
desires, just seconds before the last time you snapped at your partner?
What if, at that moment, you were truly aware that this is a person you
love and who loves you, and that how you treat him or her would go a
long way toward determining whether you get what you want in your
relationship? Would it have been so easy to say the nasty thing? Probably
not.
Think about Sally and Ron from chapter 1. What if Sally had been
able to remember her actual relationship goals before yelling at Ron? Did
being nasty help her get the closeness she wanted? Might remembering
her goals have inhibited her from attacking Ron? What if Ron had
remembered that he loved Sally and that he wants a happy partner and
closeness with her? Could he so easily have dismissed her needs? Just
being able to remember the simple truism that “what you do affects what
you get” can make a huge difference. Because high arousal interferes with
thinking and memory, it is important for this awareness to be almost
automatic. To make this kind of mindfulness automatic, however,
requires a lot of practice.
PRACTICE
1. Notice how your voice tone affects the voice tone of the person you
speak to.
2. Change your voice tone and see how it changes the voice tone of the
other person (you may have to demonstrate the change a few times
before the other person matches you).
3. When your level of negative emotional arousal is low, notice how

much you love your partner, notice your commitment to your rela-
tionship, and notice the things you both want from your relationship,
such as companionship, friendship, support, and understanding.
4. Notice that you are in the same boat together: you sail or sink
together. Every day remind yourself about how you are connected to
your partner: “Your happiness is my happiness, and your unhappi-
ness is my unhappiness. When I take care of your needs, I am also
taking care of my own. When I treat you with love and kindness, I
am taking care of myself also.”
5. Notice how your mood affects others around you, and vice versa.
6. Before saying something to your partner, even in an easy,

nonconflictual situation, ask yourself, “Is this going to make things
better or worse?” or, if you prefer, “Is this going to get me what I
really want in the long term?” Practice this one as much as possible,
even several times per day. Notice how empowering it is to be able
to choose how you proceed rather than simply reacting.
Self-Awareness and Mindfulness of Self

Mindfulness is a term that has become more popular in recent years, and
has a lot of different meanings and applications (e.g., Baer 2003; Bishop
et al. 2004; Brown and Ryan 2003; Fruzzetti and Iverson 2004; Nhât
Hanh 1975, 1987). This section will focus on the aspects of mindfulness
that involve our ability to be self-aware and those that involve being able
to control what we pay attention to as a way of managing our emotions
and our actions.
States of Mind or Self

Our thinking self and our feeling self can work together, or they can
work at cross purposes. Or, to put it differently, when we are aware (and
accepting) of both our emotions and our logical thoughts, we are more
likely to act effectively. The various combinations of logic and emotion
result in three somewhat different “self” states, or states of mind. Dr.
Marsha Linehan (1993a, 1993b) has described these states as “emotion
mind,” “reasonable mind,” and “wise mind.”
Emotional Self or Emotion Mind

We need emotions to survive and to thrive in the world. Emotions
orient us, tell us how important things are, signal us about the likely
consequences of actions, and allow for complexity and intensity in our
relationships and other activities. Without emotions, we could not enjoy
anything, like or dislike anything, care much about anything, or be in
love. However, when we pay attention only to our emotion and are
unaware of logic or reason, things can be risky. Acting exclusively from
emotion, in some situations, means acting from urges without regard to
consequences. This is our pure emotional self, or a state of emotion mind
(Linehan 1993a, 1993b). The problem with our pure emotional self is not
that our emotions are strong but that they are not in balance with logic,
and our actions are more like reactions, only focused on satisfying
immediate emotion-based urges.
Logical Self or Reasonable Mind

Of course, we also need critical thinking, logical analysis, and
reason, often in the form of shorthand rules. Without rules, chaos would
reign. Logic tells us to drive on the right (in North, Central, and South
America, continental Europe and Scandinavia, anyway), get up and go to
work, exercise, and pay taxes. But, sometimes we operate exclusively
from rules and logic and get stuck in them. For example, we come up
with faulty rules, such as “I should like someone who likes me” or “only
lazy people stay home with a common cold,” or use logic (or pseudo-
logic) to decide how to act, such as “if he loves me, he should know
what I want, so I shouldn’t have to say.” The problem is not that these
rules lack logic. Indeed, some rules might work a good deal of the time
to keep your life organized. Rather, the problem is that they are out of
balance with emotion and that our actions are then rule-driven, without
regard to the consequences. Then, the rules often end up in opposition
to the reasons for having rules in the first place, to reduce pain and chaos
and enhance our lives, and instead increase misery.
Wise or Balanced Self, or Wise Mind

When logic and emotion are both present and balanced, we can
think of this as a wise or balanced perspective. Linehan calls this wise mind
(or, sometimes, wise self; 1993a, 1993b). When we are “in” our wise mind
(balanced reason and emotion) our actions are consistent with our wisest
goals, and are less reactive. Often, people suggest that logic and emotion
are opposite. However, in this view, they are simply different things.
Much as we would say that protein and carbohydrate are both necessary
parts of our diet but could be out of balance, we would say that logic and
emotion are both necessary parts of our experience and ourselves. There
is nothing illogical about emotions, and nothing unemotional about logic;
they are simply different systems. When we have sufficient amounts of
both, we can act wisely. Sometimes we think of this perspective as our
authentic or genuine self, and it reflects a kind of clarity and centeredness
about who we are, what is truly important to us, and what is in our
hearts.
Everyone has the capacity for such wisdom. You know what tem-
perature you like your bath or shower. You don’t need to scald yourself
or conduct an experiment with carefully calibrated thermometers to
know you like it warm, cool, or hot; your toe or elbow just “knows”
when it’s the way you like it. You know that your actions affect others,
and vice versa. And you know in your heart how truly committed you
are to your relationship. It is important to note that what is wise will be
different for different people: For some, four parts logic plus one part
emotion is what is needed in a given situation; for others, seven parts
emotion and two parts logic would be effective in the same situation.
Consequently, there is no such thing as being “too emotional” or “too
logical” if the one is balanced with the other sufficiently to get you
acting effectively in your life, neither reacting (not enough logic to
balance effectively) nor following rules blithely (not enough emotion to
balance effectively).
When your wise self “knows” that you want your relationship to
work, you are informed by both your investments in the relationship
(logic) and your attraction and love (emotion). If that is your wise self,
then when you have urges to hurt your partner, you are coming from
your hurt emotional self (out of balance), and when you tell yourself
that your partner “should” act in a certain way or he or she doesn’t love
you (ineffective rule), then you are coming from your logical self (also
out of balance). When acting from your wise perspective, your actions
are very likely to be effective: you are then most able to get what you
genuinely want without hurting others and without sacrificing your
self-respect.
The key skills to learn, of course, are how to recognize when you
are not in your wise mind and how to get back to it.
Getting to a Balanced Self: Describing and Not Judging

There are many ways to orient your attention in a difficult or
conflictual situation. You can interpret a situation, judge it, numb out or
run away from it, engage in a lot of other activities to avoid it, or get stuck
in your emotion about it. These are typically ineffective strategies. Alterna-
tively, you can notice the situation and your reaction and describe it.
Describing is one of the most effective ways to get to a more balanced place,
to interrupt rising reactivity, and to keep yourself from acting in ways that
make things worse (cf. Linehan 1993b; Fruzzetti and Iverson 2006).
Describing sounds simple, and when arousal is low, it can be easy,
although there are some pitfalls. You can describe things outside yourself,
such as the room around you, the temperature of the air, or the colors
and textures of a painting or photograph. Or, you can describe things
inside yourself, such as sensations, emotions, wants, or thoughts.
When we describe, we are intentionally not imposing an emotional
quality to what we are describing. Instead, we are allowing our emotion
to occur and accepting what might come up. Whatever emotion flows
naturally from describing is likely to be quite authentic.
A prototype for description is what an event announcer does on the
radio: he or she describes the activities going on, giving enough detail for
the listener to understand the situation. When we simply describe sit-
uations, we notice details and put words on them, including noticing
aspects of the situation or another person, as well as noticing and
describing our reactions (emotions, sensations, likes and dislikes, and so
forth). For example, when you are washing dishes, you can simply notice
and describe how the water, soap, and dishes feel in your hands, describe
the process of cleaning the dishes, and so on (Nhât Hanh 1975). Or,
when your spouse or partner tells you that he or she loves you, you can
notice and describe the situation (partner’s tone of voice and facial
expression) and your reaction (warm feeling inside, relaxing muscles in
your face or neck, perhaps a smile appearing on your face).
The Problem of Judgments

What makes describing difficult to do in a conflict situation is that
arousal is high, and judgments fly out of high arousal almost automati-
cally. Judgments identify things or people or their actions as right or
wrong. One problem with making judgments is that logic tells us that
things that are wrong must be stopped. But, typically, the things we judge
are simply things we don’t like. We want them to stop or be different,

but they are not necessarily wrong.
For example, Oscar stayed late at work to finish something that he
thought needed to be done before he left. Maria missed Oscar all day and
wanted him to come home about the same time she got home, around
5:30 P.M., so they could spend time together. Oscar left Maria a message
that he would be late, probably home around 7:00 P.M. Although she was
initially disappointed he would be late, she started judging him for it:
“He’s always staying late. He shouldn’t spend so much time at work. He
should be more interested in me.” Soon thereafter, as her arousal went
up, she also started judging herself: “I don’t know why I’m so upset, it’s
no big deal. He’s out there working hard, I have no right to be upset with
him for being a little bit late. There’s something wrong with me for being
so needy.” As time wore on, she went back and forth between judging
Oscar and judging herself, each time increasing her arousal. Finally,
around 7:30 P.M., she just got stuck on “Oscar is a jerk; he just shouldn’t
be so late” and found herself being very angry at him when he did come
home a few minutes later. Consequently, when he arrived, she com-
plained about the situation and criticized Oscar in a fairly hostile way.
Oscar was looking forward to seeing Maria despite being tired and hun-
gry. However, as soon as she started criticizing him, he felt attacked,
quickly became defensive, and started being judgmental himself, asking,
“how dare she treat me this way?” They had a fairly long and nasty
argument for several minutes. He then left the house and went to get
dinner at a fast-food place. Maria ate dinner alone at home and went to
the bedroom where she sobbed and eventually fell asleep. When Oscar
came home, he flipped on the TV and watched in the dark for a while,
then went to sleep on the sofa. This example shows how dangerous judg-
ments are. Judgments boost emotional arousal and lead to dysregulation,
far away from balanced and effective action.
Secondary Emotional Reactions

Notice in the example that judgments transformed each partner’s
initial, fairly modest, and totally valid emotion into something much
bigger and destructive. Normative, adaptive, and effective emotional
reactions, especially those that arise from observing and describing a
situation, can be thought of as primary emotions (Greenberg and Johnson
1990). These kinds of emotional reactions typically are universal, such as
feeling disappointed when we don’t get something we want, fear in a
truly dangerous situation, or contentment when things go our way. In

contrast, secondary emotions are those that either are triggered by judgments
or are reactions to primary emotions (Greenberg and Johnson 1990;
Fruzzetti and Iverson 2006). Secondary emotions are less likely to be
normative and typically are problematic and/or maladaptive. For exam-
ple, Maria was really longing to be with Oscar and disappointed that their
time would be shortened, but her judgments about him led her to be very
angry at him, and, intermittently, her judgments about herself led her to
feel ashamed of herself.
This highlights several important things about secondary emotions:
they are almost always destructive in relationships; judgments about
yourself lead to the secondary emotion of shame; judgments about others
lead to anger; and big secondary emotions simply fuel more judgments,
so the cycle naturally escalates.
The Problem of Anger in Relationships

Many people argue that anger is a normative and often healthy
emotion, that it motivates us to stick up for our rights, values, bound-
aries, and helps protect us in dangerous situations. This all may be true,
but there is a very corrosive aspect to anger in close relationships that
often overshadows any possible benefits. For purposes of this discussion,
anger is not synonymous with annoyance, dislike, or frustration. It can be
healthy and constructive to express those emotions in close relationships,
because that kind of expression can reasonably be heard and understood
and can result in positive changes and increased intimacy.
In contrast, feeling angry means having increased negative emotional
arousal; this in turn churns out judgments. Judgments then increase
arousal, which produces more judgments, which leads to inaccurate and
ineffective expression of emotions and desires, which then results in
misunderstanding and conflict (see figure 2 in chapter 1), and rarely leads
to effective changes. Thus, angry feelings and angry expressions in close
relationships almost always create distance, and distance is the enemy of
closeness and intimacy. So, what is the alternative when you don’t like
something?
The Power of Description

Description (cf. Linehan 1993b) has the power to defuse this
destructive cycle of judgments, negative arousal, misunderstanding, and
conflict. If we can describe the situation, describe our reactions (sensa-

tions, emotions, wants), and notice how our reactions make sense, most
often our emotions will be soothed, and we will return to a more bal-
anced perspective, and then act effectively (Nhât Hanh 1975, 1987). One
benefit of the strength of anger is that it is easy to notice, and noticing
anger can become a signal or alarm that we are going down a destructive
path. We can learn to notice this alarm and can respond by, first, reori-
enting our attention to look for judgments, second, letting judgments go,
not giving them power, and third, turning our attention to description
instead. After our anger has dissipated, we can then act more effectively,
which at that point will be much more authentic and easier to do.
If Maria had noticed herself becoming judgmental, she could have
stopped and described. She would have noticed that her husband,
Oscar, was working late and she missed him. She would have noticed
disappointment that he hadn’t come home earlier and could have also
realized how sensible missing him and feeling disappointed were in that
situation. Chances are, her emotional arousal would not have escalated,
and she would not have been overwhelmed with judgments, negative
thoughts, and anger. She simply would have felt disappointed. She then
could have reoriented herself to doing other things until Oscar came
home. Then, with her negative arousal (disappointment) being fairly
low, her natural and authentic reaction to seeing him (joy, relief, and
other positive emotions) would have been able to emerge, not having to
compete with judgments and anger. She then could have expressed her
joy at seeing Oscar: she would have smiled, quite automatically, because
she would have been able to notice that she was getting what she
wanted. He likely would have responded to this very positive stimulus
(Maria smiling and loving him rather than Maria criticizing and attack-
ing him) in a very loving way (smiling back, giving her a hug, making
warm eye contact). They could have gone on to enjoy their evening
together fully.
PRACTICE
1. Practice just noticing your own experience, without judgment. You
can do this in the shower (just notice and describe how the water,
soap, and shampoo feel) or by simply noticing what it feels like to
breathe (the experience of the air entering through your nose, its
temperature, how it feels in your nose and throat, the experience of
your lungs expanding and contracting, how the air feels as you
exhale). If you are tired, notice and describe the sensations. If you
are happy, notice where in your body the sensations are different,
how happiness manifests in your body, face, and muscles. Don’t try
to change your experience: just notice it, describe it, experience it.
2. Practice identifying judgments and sorting out judgments from

description. For example, when you think, “That’s a beautiful paint-
ing,” you can try to practice (beautiful is a judgment): describe the
qualities of the painting (subject, colors, texture, pattern) and notice
your reactions (warm feeling, makes you smile, reminds you of
something of value to you, enjoyment). Notice how your reactions
make sense, given what you are paying attention to. Try this with
both pleasant and unpleasant things and emotions.
3. When you notice a judgment or notice anger, try to describe the

situation and your reaction without judging. Start with easy situations
that have nothing to do with your mate, and then gradually practice
with negative judgments and anger (again, not involving your part-
ner). Finally, when you are alone, try this practice on something your
partner did about which you are angry. Notice how your arousal
comes down when you describe.
Mindfulness of Your Partner

When you pay attention to your partner, you may similarly notice and
describe—that is, you are mindful of him or her—or you may evaluate
and judge. Judging is easy, and our culture supports it wholeheartedly. It’s
easier to say somebody is a wonderful person, or an awful person, than
to describe their actions and your reactions. In reality, this shorthand
communication works fairly well, if we recognize that it is, indeed, short-
hand and not literally true. When your partner does something you like,
she or he is not a wonderful partner. When your partner does something
you don’t like, he or she is not an awful partner.
The judgments we make take us away from our actual experience:

“wonderful” is a concept, an appraisal, and it may interfere (at least a
little) with simply feeling close and noticing your reactions to something
your partner did that you liked. Similarly, the judgmental label “awful”
creates anger, which gets in the way of genuinely noticing your feelings
(disappointment that your partner didn’t do what you wanted). Disap-
pointment is generally not pleasant to experience and is not culturally
sanctioned as much as anger, which is embraced and supported by our
culture and society. Yet, anger is toxic to our close relationships, whereas
disappointment is not only authentic but also can be part of a healing
process. Thus, being able to be mindful of your partner requires that, on
occasion, you be willing to simply feel disappointed. Of course, at other
times, there will be many positive emotions and experiences.
Notice and Describe

When you are mindful of your partner, noticing and describing
(without judgment) is the core of the activity (Linehan 1993b; Nhât
Hanh 1975). When you notice the expression on his face (which muscles
are tight or relaxed, the position of his eyebrows and the corners of his
mouth), the way he walks, the tone of his voice (its pitch, cadence), and
simply describe these things, you are being really mindful of him. When
you notice and describe how she holds your hand (which fingers touch,
how strong the grip is), the pattern of her breathing while she sleeps
(deep or shallow), or the way she looks up over her eyeglasses to answer
a question, you are being mindful of her.
Noticing and describing often are open and lead to curiosity, want-
ing to understand more, whereas judgments and appraisals are closed, not
open to further information (judgment has been rendered). When you
assume what his feelings are, interpret or evaluate her response, question
his motivation, or focus on how illogical she is being, you have stopped
paying attention to your partner, lack awareness, and are not being mind-
ful of him or her. Mindfulness of your partner is the gateway to listening
and understanding, and eventually to collaboration, support, conflict
resolution, and closeness.
Again, this is often difficult to do because we are primed for
conflict: arousal rises quickly, and judgments may have become almost
automatic. Consequently, we have to practice long and hard to unlearn
destructive patterns (judgments and rapid negative arousal). You can
start by slowing down, and reorienting your attention, using skills from
the earlier mindfulness practices. Be aware of your long-term goals and
notice your own experience. Continue to describe and allow your expe-
rience (sensations, emotions), without judgment, until you are more or
less at your emotional equilibrium point. Then, turn your attention to
your partner: describe his or her facial expression (where her eyebrows
are, how open his eyes are, how much tension you see in her cheeks,
whether his lips are open or closed); posture (position, direction she is
leaning, whether his shoulders appear tense or relaxed); hair (how long
it is, its color, where it sits or falls); attention (what she is paying atten-
tion to, how intensely involved he is). When you are simply noticing
and describing, you are also communicating that you accept and love
your partner.
Similarly, you can be mindful of what your partner is saying. This is
often more complicated, because our logical minds immediately respond
to another person’s words and we begin to interpret, evaluate and/or
judge. However, you can practice noticing what the other person is
saying, how he or she is saying it, and really try to describe what your
partner is communicating (what she thinks, what he feels, what she
wants, what he was doing).
Being mindful of another person while she or he is talking (active
listening with openness) can be a potent way to validate someone, which
will be discussed more in chapters 7 and 8. For now, it makes sense to
focus your practice of mindful listening to nonconflict situations. Subse-
quent chapters will cover how to use these skills in conflict situations.
PRACTICE
1. Notice and describe your partner when she or he is doing something

near you but in which you are not involved (reading the newspaper,
playing with your child, folding laundry, sleeping, walking by). Stick
with descriptions, and try not to get stuck in evaluations, judgments
(good or bad, right or wrong), or your own reactions. Notice your
reactions, but bring your attention back to your partner quickly.
2. When your partner is talking to someone else, notice and describe

what he or she is saying, thinking, wanting, and feeling, and base your
observation only on what he or she is saying (no interpretations).
3. When you and your partner are discussing something that is positive
or neutral to both of you (not a conflict situation), practice mindful
listening: do not think about what you are going to say next; instead
listen for understanding. If your partner is not saying what he is feel-
ing, thinking, and wanting, ask. Focus all your energy on describing
what she or he wants or feels or thinks and on understanding these
things about your partner.
Chapter 3
How to Stop Making

Things Worse
The previous chapter provided some important building blocks for

turning around the negativity and reactivity that sometimes overwhelm
your relationship. Before you can make things a lot better, however, you
have to stop making things worse. This chapter will focus on generating
the motivation to stop making things worse, how to interrupt your own
negative responses, and how to inhibit your urges to do things that you
later realize are destructive to the relationship, or at least how to ride
those destructive urges out without acting on them.
Get Committed to Being Effective

The first step toward self-control is commitment. By definition, when
you are out of control (throwing the proverbial fuel on the fire), you are
not using logic (or any other helpful process) enough. Commitment
means practicing alternative reactions ahead of time until they become
automatic. Then, as you start to become out of control, this new auto-
matic behavior appears. In a way, commitment gives you self-control.
If you wanted to run a marathon, but you had never run more than
three kilometers, you couldn’t do it. No matter how much you wanted to
keep running, you would be unable to merely will your body to perform
in that situation. You would have to really want to run the marathon,
which would get you out of bed early every day for months to work out,
to practice. With enough commitment, you would engage in enough
practice so that when your body started to fade, you could keep on
running effectively (despite the pain).
But, even if you have the capacity to do a particular behavior that is
effective, you might still lack the motivation. Perhaps the old problem
reaction is there, too, competing with the new one. You might react
either way. In situations of high negative emotion, when it is harder to do
the new behavior, you are likely to think, “I don’t really care about that.”
In this emotional state, you fail to see the consequences of your actions.
So, getting to a balanced place in your mind, one in which you are
broadly aware of your real relationship goals and not just your painful
emotion, is important. Practicing now, so you can get there in situations
of duress, is essential.
If you learned to drive on the right-hand side of the street, and you
took a vacation in a country where they drive on the left, you would
know, on the one hand, that it is very dangerous to drive on the right
there. On the other hand, you probably would have strong urges to pull
to the right. How would you get yourself to drive safely? Through
commitment (remembering it really is safe, and practicing even though it
is difficult), plus mindfully observing your urges instead of giving in to
them or believing them (even when they scream at you), and you would
coach yourself through it.
Self-Righteousness Is Not “Right”

Let’s start with your commitment not to make things worse in your
relationship. Do you really see how being nasty, invalidating, or critical
toward your partner, no matter what she or he just did, will only make your
relationship worse? Or, do you think that when he or she does these
kinds of things to you that you have a “right” to respond with similar
behavior (that she or he “deserves it”)? Most of us know it is not
effective to be nasty. But there are times when we get judgmental and
How to Stop Making Things Worse 31
self-righteous. The trouble here is that so much of our language and

culture supports us in escalating when someone has “violated our rights.”
It is no surprise that we then describe things in terms of right and wrong,
even with our loved ones.
However, if you truly adopt a mindful stance toward your partner,
you will see that you are both doing the same thing. She or he thinks you
deserve it, and you think your partner deserves it. How could this possi-
bly be resolved unless one (and eventually both) of you steps back
mindfully and see that, as Gandhi said, “an eye for an eye leaves the
whole world blind”? Do you really want to hurt your partner? You know
how much she or he hurt you. Do you really want to cause that much
pain to your beloved?
So, use the mindfulness skills from the last chapter. Recognize that,
in your heart and soul, you love this person and want to get along better,
not worse; that hurting him or her is hurting yourself and continuing the
unending agony of reciprocal retribution. You can stop it.
PRACTICE
1. Focus on the consequences of continuing to fight. Notice the conse-
quences of attacking back. Of course, it is painful when your partner
verbally attacks you. Recognize that by responding in kind, you are
almost guaranteeing more volleys in your direction, the negative
cycle will continue, and you will find no peace.
2. Think about a specific thing you did in a recent argument to make

things worse. Really notice how what you did, however reasonable in
a right-wrong sense (ordinary conversation), made things worse and
got you less of what you really want (peace, less conflict, more love).
Practice this several times, each time recognizing the folly of think-
ing that you had a “right” to act that way.
Stepping Out Is Not Surrender

Maybe you now are thinking, “It’s surrender to be attacked, and
not to attack back!” Well, refusing to continue to fight to the death (of
your relationship) is hardly surrendering. Rather, if defeating your partner

is also self-defeating, then stopping the fight is both showing the courage
to do what is needed to survive and the courage to engage in self-
preservation without harming your partner. You can get out of “win-
lose” thinking (which really means “lose-lose”) and into recognizing
that not attacking is a win-win-win situation: you preserve your self-
respect and your relationship and your partner emerges less trampled.
Nobody loses.
If you think that stopping is surrender, you will likely feel ashamed,
for we are typically taught to “stand up for what is right.” But, if you
realize that stopping requires courage, conviction, and skills, and will lead
to a better life for everyone involved, you will see that shame is not
justified. Rather, feeling proud seems more in order. Notice how proud
you can be about your self-control and about your commitment to
self-control.
PRACTICE
Practice imagining yourself stepping back when your partner is verbally
attacking you. Notice how you are acting according to your values, in a
way that is much more likely to result in you getting what you want and
your partner getting what she or he wants (love, closeness, understand-
ing). Try to feel a bit proud of your courageous act.
Anticipate Your Impulsiveness

Even if you are highly committed to stop making things worse in conflict
situations, you still need to practice a host of skills needed to stop. When
we are in the middle of enduring a verbal attack from someone else, our
own reaction feels impulsive, like an unpredictable and overbearing urge.
However, realistically, a lot of these situations are quite predictable. How
many times have you had that fight? How many times has your partner
said that particular hurtful and provocative thing? Look descriptively at
previous problems: what did your partner do that resulted in your
emotions going through the roof to the point where you had urges to
retaliate? We will call those things triggers because they trigger your
response.
Rehearse a New Emotional Response

Once you have identified typical triggers, you can anticipate that
your partner will say them again. The more aware you are of the triggers,
the less potent they will be. In a way, every time you imagine your
partner saying that trigger and imagine that you respond in a kind way
(or, at least, not in kind), you are reconditioning the trigger because you
are changing the cycle. So, identify as many triggers as you can.
The idea is not that these triggers cause your response, but rather
that the cycle is now automatic (she says X, you say Y; he says A, you say
B). It’s a learned habit, much like reciting the alphabet. If someone liter-
ally says “A, B, C, D, E, F” and then suddenly stops, years of practice
may cause you to say “G” in response. But imagine that you find out that
saying “G” now causes an explosion! You need to stop saying “G” and
do something else. What else? The effective thing to do is anything that
brings your arousal down and helps you respond differently, of course.
There are many strategies for tolerating distress in dialectical behav-
ior therapy (DBT) that might be helpful in these situations (Linehan
1993b). For example, you can distract yourself away from the argument
by doing something else (take a walk, read, engage in other activities that
are physically active ones or relaxing ones), look for spiritual soothing
(say a little prayer, remember your values), do something soothing to
your senses (listen to quiet music, eat comfort food, read a pleasant story
or poem), or do something social (call a friend, send an e-mail). Some of
these things you can do quickly, in many situations. Others you will
simply have to plan to do after successfully ending the interaction
without responding negatively. Just knowing that you will have a few
minutes to focus on feeling a bit better may help you respond more
constructively.
Once you have identified the typical triggers and also identified
more helpful alternatives, you can put them together. Imagine a trigger,
imagine remembering your goal (not to make things worse, that you love
this person, that responding in a negative way just keeps the negative
cycle going), and imagine responding in a self-respecting and respectful
way.
PRACTICE
1. Identify as many triggers as you can for your impulsive reactions.
Write them down.
2. Come up with a list of things that you can do immediately, while
under verbal attack, to tolerate it without attacking back. What can
you say to yourself? What can you focus on? What would be dis-
tracting (from your urge to retaliate) or soothing (of your fraying
emotions)?
3. Now, practice putting these things together. Imagine the trigger and
then imagine that you provide the alternative, less hostile, and more
constructive response. Keep practicing.
Rehearse Ending the Conflict Gracefully

One of the biggest problems with being upset or overwhelmed is
that we can’t think well. We often cannot find useful words that would
make the situation better, so we end up on autopilot, spewing out the
same destructive responses that have not worked in the past. Chapter 9
will discuss some of the finer points of this issue. But for now it is prob-
ably sufficient to actually memorize a line or two that will help you end
the conflict gracefully.
Some possibilities to consider include the following:
+ Observing that you are fighting and disclosing that you
don’t want to
+ Disclosing that you are sad or feel some other primary
emotion
+ Disclosing that you love him or her and don’t want to
continue down this negative path
+ Disclosing that you care a lot about your partner and want
to understand, but are overwhelmed right now
+ Suggesting that you take a break and come back to the
conversation later
Of course, whatever you say needs to be in your own words, but

the essence of an effective response is staying reasonably calm and
describing something about your genuine goals and feelings rather than
telling the other person what she or he is doing wrong.
Edgar and Selena fought in such a nasty way that it took days for
them to recover to the point where they could even look at each other.
Each one had acquired the ignoble skill of knowing just how to hurt the
other, which buttons to push to create the most suffering and biggest
reaction. Of course, hurting the other was not their goal. In reality, they
longed to return to the earlier form of their relationship when they were
each other’s best friends, could count on each other for soothing and
support, and had a lot of fun together.
Edgar knew his triggers were exactly the things he could expect
Selena to say. He was committed to changing his response, but he would
become tongue-tied when he was really hurt, sad, and angry. After
another broadside, he would inevitably respond in the same old negative
way, and things would just deteriorate. But, since he knew in advance
more or less what Selena would say that would act as a trigger, he
decided to plan what he would say in response. He wanted an effective
way to stop the argument. He decided to say, “Selena, I miss you. This
fighting is so hard on me. I just don’t want to do it anymore. Can we
take a break and come back later when we’re both calmed down and can
be nicer?” He rehearsed it over and over. But when the time came, he
was surprised at how hard it was to resist the urge to yell back at her.
Having practiced, he managed to ride out the urge, remembering their
good times together and his commitment to turn their conflict around.
When he finally got the words out, he was a bit surprised and very
relieved that Selena agreed. They interrupted what was sure to be another
three days in hell and instead started down a very different path toward
understanding each other and being with each other.
Manage Destructive Urges

Commitment and practicing alternative responses are very helpful in
achieving self-control. But there are other skills you can use when urges
to do harm are running high.
Did you ever have the urge to eat more dessert and not do it? Did
you ever have the urge to stay in bed rather than go to work, the gym, or
school, but you managed to get up and go anyway? How about urges to
buy things you could not afford, run away rather than face a difficult task,
cheat on your taxes, steal something, lie about something to avoid some-
one’s anger or disappointment, or drive a car while intoxicated? What
other irresponsible or destructive urges have you had? Have you always
given in to these urges, or have you managed them and done what was
needed in those situations (at least sometimes) to make your life work?
Whatever you did to resist those kinds of urges are important skills
to use when resisting the urge to treat your partner badly and continue
the destructive conflict cycles you sometimes get in. Below are three
common strategies to help you respond without making things worse in a
difficult situation. You may have others that work as well.
Visualize the Negative Consequences of Giving

In to Your Destructive Urges
If the alarm clock goes off and you are tired, comfortable and
snuggling with your sweetie, you may have the urge to turn it off and go
back to sleep. But, you remember that your boss is not too pleased when
you simply fail to show up for work. You realize that you will be swamped
for the next several days trying to catch up on what you don’t do today if
you stay home. You remember that your performance appraisal hinted at
the possibility that you do not put a lot of effort into your job, and you
remember that you have $17 left in your checking account. Within a
minute or two, you are in the shower and have forgotten about that cozy
and relaxing bed that is still being kept warm by your spouse or partner.
What happened? You remembered the negative consequences of following
your urge instead of doing the wise thing. Or, to put it another way, you
wisely balanced the short-term benefits of behavior (cozy bed and partner
for a few minutes) with the shorter plus longer-term costs of that behavior
(angry boss, risks of losing your job or not getting a raise, financial peril,
personal shame). This method can be very effective at motivating us to act
in ways that are responsible to our own longer-term goals.
Step Out and Observe the Urge

Alternatively, after the alarm clock goes off, you could observe your
own behavior. You might notice that you often feel strong urges to stay
in bed, especially when it is dark out and your sweetie is still there. You
might then notice that by not immediately taking the urge to stay in bed
too seriously (observing it rather than going with it), the urge is already
subsiding.
Interestingly, when we observe urges, they often lose their potency.
Perhaps you have noticed that sometimes an advertisement on the TV or
radio just screams at you, and you feel an urge to do what it’s saying
(“you must watch our show tonight at ten o’clock” or “you are not being
a good parent if you don’t buy our product”). However, as soon as you
notice (observe, remember) that the advertisement was developed to get
you to spend your money on a product, the immediacy of the urge falls
away. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. You can decide rather than
react. Observing behaviors is a very powerful way to let some of the
emotionality out of our reactions, and urges are nothing if not reactions.
Visualize the Positive Consequences of Riding

Out the Urge
Once more, go back to the example in which you have urges to stay
in bed when the alarm clock goes off. At that point, you may be able to
get yourself to think about your day ahead. If you do, you might realize
that you have an enjoyable project to work on and that you are saving
money for a down payment on your first house. You might remember
that several people at work are counting on you, that you really like being
part of a team, and that you like several of your coworkers. Again, in a
minute or two, you will be in the shower and on your way.
The difference between this example and visualizing the negative
consequences of giving in is that the former uses your motivation to
avoid negative consequences, whereas this one uses your motivation to
achieve positive ones. Both can work rather well in the moment. To
which do you respond better?
In nasty, negative situations with your partner, use whatever strat-
egies work for you. Maybe remembering that you will cause your partner
and yourself a lot of suffering if you respond in that automatic, nasty way
will help. Or, perhaps thinking about how lovely it is when things are
going well will help you stop your “madness.” Or, maybe observing your-
self in the middle of this scene will give you the motivation to change the
dialogue from what you previously recited, and redo the ending.
PRACTICE
1. Practice visualizing the positive and negative consequences of both
your old, automatic negative response to your partner’s triggers and
your new, more neutral or constructive responses.
2. Practice observing your urges in a variety of daily situations. How do
you ride them out? Identify what typically works for you and figure
out how to use that strategy when in a high-conflict situation with
your partner.
Chapter 4
Being “Together” When

You Are Together
When couples have a lot of conflict, closeness wanes and partners begin
to avoid doing things together. And, even when they do things together
physically, they often are not “together” emotionally, but rather are on
red alert for signs of impending conflict, hypervigilant to anything the
other does that might signal dislike, disapproval, or further distance. Or,
they simply ignore each other, turn inwards, and engage the world alone,
even if their partner is sitting across the table or lying next to them in
bed. In this chapter, the focus will be on finding ways to bring your
attention to these moments when you are physically together, letting go
of negative emotions and negative thinking, letting your guard down, and
being together when you are together.
Getting Yourself Oriented to Being Together

Sometimes you may find that there has been so much conflict between
the two of you, so little positive interaction, and so little affection, that
you both show up to situations defensively, or ready to fight, even before
anything happens. This means that certain situations themselves have
become conditioned to lead to escalating negative arousal, regardless of
what you or your partner does in those situations. For example, if you
have had regular arguments about household chores, parenting, sex,
money, how to spend time together, and so on, just being in a situation
in which any of these topics is present may be enough to result in condi-
tioned anger, apprehension, and lots of negative judgments about your
partner (“he’s going to unfairly demand …” or “she’s going to wrongly
do …” or “she’s not going to do what I want” or “he’s going to criticize
me”) or yourself (“I’m going to mess this up”). In these situations, it may
be effective to work on reconditioning difficult situations before you enter
them. Fortunately, this is a relatively easy thing to do.
Conditioning and Reconditioning

Emotions are either natural reactions to situations, and thereby nor-
mative and predictable, or conditioned reactions, and therefore not normative
in those situations and not predictable to those unfamiliar with your
relationship. For example, talking about who is going to pick the kids up
from school when they only have a half day is often stressful for busy
parents who are both employed. So, it is normative and predictable that
one or both partners would be stressed when the topic comes up.
However, anger and resentment might be the emotion that one or both
partners express. This likely means that in previous similar situations the
discussion turned into an argument that was not resolved well, and hurt
feelings, disappointment, and frustration were felt. Being judgmental
probably turned those feelings into hurt and anger, over time if not right
away. Now, in this or related situations, anger is immediate, before any
negotiation takes place, even before anyone speaks.
In order to proceed effectively, it is important to bring more bal-
ance to this situation. One way to do this is to recondition the situation
so that it triggers a more normative emotional reaction and intensity. This
can be approached in a number of ways, but perhaps the most efficient is
Being “Together” When You Are Together 41
either to have a consistent place (physical location) or a specific, tangible

stimulus that evokes opposite emotions.
Conditioning a Place to Recharge and Get Balanced

Find a place in your house that is comfortable. It should evoke no
negative feelings and should be a place where you have not had argu-
ments or retreated to when upset. Rather, it should evoke calm, comfort,
and peace. It might be a room, but it could simply be a favorite chair or
even a particular pillow or cushion you put in a sunny spot on the floor,
or near a window or heating or cooling vent. If you go there every day
for a few minutes and think about your partner mindfully, think about
how important he or she is to you, how much you love him or her, after
not too many days, this place will become associated with warm and
loving feelings toward your partner. This is your relationship spot. The
idea is to actively condition this location to be your place to recharge
your energy about your partner, your relationship, and your marriage. It is
better to go somewhere else when you are upset to comfort yourself
when you need to. This spot should be for one thing and one thing only:
thinking about and experiencing your partner in a loving way.
Like any “charging” station, you can only take away as much energy
as you put in. If you regularly use this spot to contemplate your partner
in a loving and mindful way, you can return to this spot when you want
to recharge just prior to entering into a difficult situation. Just by going
there you will be telling yourself, reminding yourself, of the many good
and important things about your partner and relationship that you know
and feel in your heart, but that easily can be overshadowed in difficult
situations. This location is like shining a bright light on what is in your
heart but hidden in the shadow of your anger. Your love and commit-
ment are really there; you just have to illuminate them and look in that
direction to find them, to be reminded of their presence and importance.
Conditioning a Relationship Box, Album, or Book

An alternative to creating a relationship charging station in a partic-
ular location is to create something tangible that evokes similar emotions
and thoughts. This might be a scrapbook, photo album, or box, a kind of
holding area for things that remind you of the wonderful characteristics
of your partner and the genuine meaning of your relationship to you.
Into this scrapbook or box, you can put potent reminders of your
partner, your love for each other, and of shared experiences you have
enjoyed. These might be photos from fun activities, your wedding or
honeymoon, or photos of your partner with one or more of your
children. Or, it might include ticket stubs from fun events you attended
together, stubs from boarding passes from an airplane, train, or boat trip,
a lock of your partner’s hair, a picture of him or her as a child, a piece of
jewelry that he or she gave you (for example, your wedding ring), a
fortune from a fortune cookie that you shared, a box top from her or his
favorite cereal, a birthday card from your partner, a letter, e-mail, or
post-it note in which your partner told you that she/he loved you (or
why), or anything else that evokes love and the commitment to making
that feeling paramount instead of fear, hurt, and anger.
Just as with the relationship spot described above, this relationship
reminder scrapbook or box needs practice and attention. Remember that
it only has one purpose, to help orient you toward balance and effective-
ness. If you spend a few minutes regularly, even daily, practicing being
mindful of your partner while looking through it, the relationship
reminder will become even more potent at evoking warm and loving
feelings and the commitment to staying mindful, in the moment, and not
escalating negatively. Over time, this set of relationship-oriented keep-
sakes will become effective at helping you get to your heart, your true
self, about your partner and what you want in your relationship.
Showing Up Ready to Play, Not to Win

Once you have conditioned a place or a set of tangibles, you have a
very real aid to counterbalance the negative conditioning that has taken
place in the past months or years. You can use these aids in a number of
ways.
First, you can simply use them daily to help stay mindful, balanced,
and to provide genuine loving balance to the conditioned negativity that
has become frequent. If you spend a few minutes in your special spot or
with your reminders, then your love for and commitment to your part-
ner, as well as your partner’s love for and commitment to you, will be
more salient, more palpable. Difficult situations will be less likely to over-
whelm you and cast a shadow over your genuine wants and desires about
your relationship and your partner. Consequently, you will enter difficult
situations with your partner with less apprehension, less reactivity, less
conditioned negativity.
Alternatively, you could use your aid quite purposely for a few
minutes just prior to going into a difficult situation. If you know that you
have to discuss who will pick the kids up at noon on a workday, and you
have had many arguments and lots of negative emotion about this topic
before, you might go to your spot or find your reminder and use it to
shine the light of mindful awareness on your commitment to working
things out, your feelings of love for your partner, and the knowledge that
even in conflict, your partner loves you. Then, with balanced emotion,
you can have the conversation you need to have, starting from a balanced
place and not overwhelmed by prior negative conditioning.
PRACTICE
1. Create a relationship scrapbook, box, or album (or related aid) as
described above, and spend focused time with it daily.
2. Alternatively, pick a “recharging” spot for relationship mindfulness,
as described above, and practice daily.
Different Ways to Be Together

Despite being lonely, when partners are distressed, they often turn away
from each other. They do this physically, emotionally, verbally, cog-
nitively, and biologically (with drugs and alcohol) across all the domains
of their relationship. Yet, this distancing easily can be missed because so
much of it occurs inside people and is simply a function of their atten-
tion. Thus, increasing being together may mean spending more time
together, but more importantly, it means being cognitively and emo-
tionally together when already physically together (and even when not
physically together), whether you are doing things together or not.
Get Into Your Own Life

The essence of being together is using your attention and your
nonjudgmental awareness as a way to focus on what you have that is
enjoyable, pleasant, or satisfying. However, not paying much attention

has its rewards: you can avoid (sometimes, for a short while) noticing
things that you don’t like. But avoidance carries with it a huge cost: like
an intense drug habit, we have to feed it more and more and work
harder and harder to avoid. Soon, the things we do to avoid unpleasant-
ness may create more problems than we had initially: the avoidance
“solution” is often far worse than the problem (feeling bad). So, we
need bigger distractions, more noise, faster games, more intense experi-
ences, louder TV commercials, more, more, more to buffer us from
whatever pain we might have (or be afraid to have). Peace and quiet may
be rare. The more we distract with things that are not truly important to
us, the worse our lives become because we are spending less time doing
and experiencing the things we have and can do that are truly meaningful
and important to us.
What things get in the way of your ability to focus your attention
on the things that really matter to you? It may be useful to take a look at
them. How do you escape and what are the costs? If you do want to be
together with your partner, you might consider turning off the TV (for an
evening, or maybe for a week or longer) or unplugging yourself from
other electronic devices. You could stop drinking alcohol or using other
substances that interfere with your ability to be in your own life, or at
least stop long enough to see what difference it might make. The point is
not that all of these things are wrong. Of course not. But, even activities
and diversions that are relaxing, enjoyable, and harmless in some situa-
tions could become bad habits in other situations, and you may end up
living your life in diversions. Then, what you are diverted from is your
life, which includes yourself and your loved ones.
PRACTICE
1. Make a list of the things that you do to relax, to escape the pressures
of your day. Evaluate the list critically. Are you using these diver-
sions successfully or abusing them? Are they helping you to fully
experience your life, or distracting you away from your life? For any
that are interfering in your ability to be aware and present in your
life, commit to reducing your use of those activities or habits. Try to
be more mindful and use diversions to enhance your life, not escape
from it.
2. The next time you are eating a meal with your partner, take a few
seconds every few minutes to notice that your partner is there,
eating, sitting, being together with you.
3. If you fall asleep after your partner or wake up before he or she
does, take a few seconds to notice that you are in bed together,
sharing the same bed, same blankets, and each other’s heat. Just
notice how it feels to be lying and sleeping together (even if you are
not touching each other in any way) rather than sleeping alone in the
same bed.
4. When you both are doing things around the house (doing chores,
getting ready for your day in the morning, getting ready for bed,
reading the newspaper), take a few seconds to be aware of your
partner; notice what she or he is doing and that you are together in
your life.
5. Think of another opportunity to practice being more mindful of
your partner. When do you typically fail to notice your partner?
Practice this exercise (being aware of or describing your partner)
during these moments.
Being Together Passively Vs. Actively

Even partners who are unhappy in their relationship and engage in
a lot of conflict typically spend a lot of time in each other’s presence, phys-
ically being in the same house or the same room, quietly sitting at the same
table or on the same sofa, or sleeping in the same bed. Yet, during these
times, they may not interact with each other and, more importantly, may
not focus any neutral or positive attention on each other. This can be
considered being passively together. In fact, even when doing things that seem
together, like taking a walk or watching the same television show, or
eating dinner at the same time at the same table, partners may be thinking
about other things, not noticing or paying attention to the other person.
This is a passive way to be together. Although being together passively
does not itself promote difficulties, each of these situations is a lost
opportunity to practice being together in ways that soothe loneliness,
reduce negative reactivity, and foster closeness and togetherness.
In addition, being together passively can be risky: partners may

begin to focus a lot of negative attention on each other inside their own
heads, running a list of negative past deeds or anticipated negative future
reactions through their minds, privately judging or criticizing the other,
becoming upset and eventually going on “red alert,” waiting for the other
to do something and then snapping at him or her verbally. This can easily
become constant, and then becomes a state of hypervigilance, which is
exhausting.
Alternatively, you can be aware of each other’s presence, notice
what each other is doing, and feel a lot more collaborative and a lot
closer emotionally whenever you are in close physical proximity (same
house or room), whether you are doing something cooperatively or sep-
arately. This alternative practice reduces stress and can improve the
ambient emotional climate, and it entails very few risks.
The idea is to use the relational mindfulness skills from chapter 2,
such as increasing awareness of the other and letting go of judgments
(increasing nonjudgmental awareness) in any situation in which your part-
ner is physically present, whether in the same room or even the same
building. The idea is not to think, not to interpret, not to judge the other,
and not to spend time and energy noticing what your partner is not doing
(that you might prefer). Rather, the idea is to simply notice your partner’s
presence and to notice what he or she is doing that is observable and
describable.
For example, your partner might be in the shower while you are
getting dressed in the morning. You can simply notice that she or he is
there, in the same or next room, getting ready for the day. The only
words in your head that are needed are descriptive: “I am getting dressed
and he/she is in the shower.” Just notice that you are here together in
your day and in your life. Or, maybe she or he is reading the newspaper
while you are watching television, reading a book, or playing with one of
your children. Again you can notice and describe: “He/she is sitting over
there, watching a show and smiling (or attentive, or looks bored).”
Perhaps one of you is cleaning up after dinner while the other is washing
dishes, playing with the kids, doing some chore, or just relaxing. Rather
than simply focusing on your own activity, or being critical and judg-
mental about what your partner is doing (or how he or she is doing it),
you can simply notice that you are together in the same room or house,
and notice and describe what he or she is doing. If you find yourself
thinking, your mind wandering into the litany of complaints you have
about your partner (or worrying or resenting the complaints you imagine
your partner has about you), just catch yourself and redirect your atten-
tion back to noticing what is actually present, what he or she literally is
doing. Just notice and describe. Just this enhanced awareness, along with
not being critical or judgmental, is wonderful practice and brings you
closer to being actively together.
Being actively together means occupying the same emotional space,
letting your judgments and criticisms go (at least temporarily), and allow-
ing yourself to appreciate or enjoy each other’s company. There is no
need to put pressure on yourself or each other to do or say anything.
You simply do whatever you are doing but simultaneously make sure that
some of what you are aware of is your partner being there with you,
living his or her life with you, at least physically.
Of course, if your partner is willing to practice this skill too, there
may be times when each of you is quietly aware of the other: you will be
secretly appreciating your partner while your partner secretly appreciates
you. Imagine how lovely this could be, even if you were not even to
acknowledge it out loud. Being together when you are together reduces
loneliness and soothes our emotions, leaving us less negative and less
reactive when somebody decides to talk!
Being Together While Interacting

Partners face myriad situations when they literally must do things
together, such as doing household chores, managing children (ordinary
interactions or misbehavior), visiting friends or family, engaging in sexual
activities, or generally coordinating family life. Of course, most of these
situations also involve negotiating and talking, which can be anxiety
provoking if you have a history of conflict. Some of these times are
generally positive, but in high-conflict relationships, they may still be
affected by negativity and may not be experienced as positively or as fully
as they could be.
Conflict Situations
In conflict situations, the default mode of operating leaves us ready
to fight, ready for the other person to misstep, ready to criticize or be
criticized, or, occasionally, even ready to give up and disregard what we
want in order to avoid conflict (but then hang on to lingering resentment
that the other person got her or his way). This is not being together.
For example, Keisha and Warren had regular disagreements about

who should do what around the house. When arguing, each perceived the
other as begging out of his or her responsibilities, unfairly leaving more
for the other partner to do. Often, these disagreements escalated into
very angry exchanges, sometimes in front of the kids. These arguments
became so chronic, so hostile, that Keisha and Warren often avoided
each other out of fear of further conflict. Or, one would do a chore but
resent it the whole time, thinking “I shouldn’t have to do this. She/he
should be doing this.” Of course, each noticed only the chores that he or
she completed, not those that the other did. Keisha would clean the
bathroom, thinking “I’m always the one who has to clean this disgusting
mess around the toilet. Warren never does it. It’s not fair.” Warren would
clean the refrigerator, thinking “I’m always the one who has to clean this
disgusting mess that drips all over the shelves. Keisha never does it. It’s
not fair.” Needless to say, neither one noticed the hard work the other was
doing and certainly never verbally acknowledged, much less appreciated or
thanked, the other for his or her efforts and accomplishments. So, when
it was time to clean up after having friends over for dinner, each would
think the other “owed” him or her some work and would hang back a lit-
tle rather than make an effort. This, of course, proved to each partner that
the other was lazy. Consequently, cleaning up often ended up in another
argument that devolved into name-calling (“you’re lazy” and “you’re
irresponsible” were common epithets), and the hurt feelings and negative
emotions would then carry over into other activities.
The alternative to reacting, allowing your emotions from and
judgments about past situations to dictate your reactions, is difficult, but
it is essential in creating more harmony and dissipating fear and resent-
ment. It involves finding a way to be together in the present, even when
negotiation is required and conflict likely. The first step has to do with
thinking about and experiencing yourself as partners, as part of a partner-
ship, as a team, not as opponents or adversaries. This involves moving
toward a regular experience of yourselves as “we” as opposed to “you
and me.”
In any conflict situation, the first step is to become purposeful,
aware of what you each are doing and what the situation is. Start by
describing the situation, then notice and describe your own experience
(thoughts, comfort, emotions, sensations). Then notice and describe your
partner. What is he or she doing physically (standing, sitting, and so on)?
What is his or her facial expression? Notice that you are doing something
together. If it is a situation in which you have had conflict in the past,
notice that you bring apprehension to the situation, which your partner
can probably feel or see (even if he or she is not fully aware of or does
not acknowledge this). Take a deep breath and recognize that the sit-
uation will go better if it is allowed to be unfettered from the previous
conflict. Let your worries go. The worst thing that can happen is that you
will have another argument (not pleasant, but not uncommon), and
chances of this are decreased, not increased, by letting go of your appre-
hension and just being in this moment, here and now.
Warren and Keisha just had another dinner party, but now each has
read this chapter. As Warren starts to clear the table and bring dirty
dishes into the kitchen, he is flooded with apprehension and with
thoughts that Keisha “probably will leave most of the work for me. It’s
not fair.” But, he catches himself, realizing that Keisha is actually clearing
the table, too. He decides to try to be present and let the past go for
now. He notices that Keisha looks tired. Yet she is scooping up dishes
and cups and taking them to the kitchen. He remembers that she made
most of the dinner while he was pouring drinks and hanging out with
their friends as they arrived. He appreciates the lovely dinner Keisha
prepared. He appreciates that even though she is tired, she is cleaning up.
Even though he may be cleaning up more quickly, he realizes she is
probably more tired than he is. He notices how nice she looks, that in
fact he finds her very attractive. He is able to smile at her as she comes
back into the dining room for more dirty dishes. He notices that she
smiles back and seems relaxed and glad to be with him.
After their friends left, Keisha had an urge to go to the bathroom
for a while to avoid trying to clean up together. It was not that she
minded cleaning up. No, the issue was that they frequently have had
arguments in these situations, and she was tired and wanted to avoid
having another argument. She started thinking, “I always have to do
these chores, and I resent it. I made dinner while Warren did nothing but
have fun, so I should be able to sit and relax now.” But then she remem-
bered that they both had pledged to work on noticing each other, slow-
ing down, and “being together” when they are together. So she decided
to try to just notice Warren and work on the chore together. Then she
remembered that, in fact, he had vacuumed the living room at the last
minute before their friends arrived (it looked so nice) and had served
drinks and hors d’oeuvres while she was making dinner. She noticed that
he was cleaning up and at first seemed a little grumpy or maybe on edge.
But she kept noticing that he was energetically moving back and forth
between the kitchen and dining room, efficiently carrying lots of dirty
dishes into the kitchen, putting them in hot soapy water, and then com-
ing back for more. After a few trips, he seemed more relaxed. She kept
working, too, and felt closer to him as she noticed they were working as a
team. Neither of them said anything. But, she just melted inside when he
smiled at her as she left the kitchen and returned to the dining room, and
she beamed back at him, feeling much less apprehensive and, in fact,
much closer to him than she had all evening.
As you begin to engage in an activity together, keep your attention
in the present. What are you doing? What is your partner doing? Stay
descriptive, immediately letting go of judgments, analysis, or other think-
ing. Stay focused: Keep your attention on the task itself or on noticing
each other engaging in the task, without any evaluation of yourself or
your partner. Notice any warm feelings. If you do notice negative feelings
or find yourself drifting into judgments and criticisms or worry thoughts,
simply bring your attention back to noticing and describing yourself,
noticing and describing your partner, and noticing and describing the
activity in which you are both involved. Repeat as necessary!
This exercise is extremely difficult, but it allows you to engage in a
joint activity with less escalation, less chance of acrimony, and a greater
chance of being together in your interaction. This is also a skill that you
can practice in your imagination. Rehearse noticing and describing in
your mind before the activity, so you are primed when you actually start.
Of course, you can combine this skill with the relationship mindfulness
aids discussed earlier (relationship spot or relationship reminder). Later
chapters will discuss applying these principles to conversations and more
extensive interactions and negotiations.
PRACTICE
1. Think of a difficult situation that you had recently that resulted in a

fight. In your mind, reconstruct the situation and go through it
again, only this time practice being more skillful. Stay descriptive,
stay in the present (let go of judgments, thoughts about previous
conflicts), and notice your partner and describe what he or she is
doing. Notice you are doing something together. Keep rehearsing
your new skill in your mind until you can get through the difficult
situation reasonably easily.
2. Now practice being together in a real situation in which you feel a

little bit apprehensive. Stay mindful: notice and describe with no
judgments. Keep practicing.
3. Finally, practice “being together” in a more difficult situation, using

the same skills. If you drift toward judgment, criticism, anger, fear,
and negativity, just notice that you have drifted, take a breath, and
start again.
Enjoyable, Nonconflict Situations

The last aspect of being together when together has nothing to do
with conflict but instead focuses on situations that are still enjoyable or
could be enjoyable if you approached them a bit differently. It may be
that because other things in your relationship are troublesome and there
has been a lot of negativity, you find that you hold back a little bit even
in pleasant, enjoyable, or even intensely exciting situations. These are
situations in which it may be desirable to be even more together when
you are together.
The same principles and skills pertain to these situations, but
surprisingly it may be more difficult to remember to use them, even
though this situation is not toxic or conflictual. However, fully engaging
in fun things together is more fun, more enjoyable, and has more lasting
rewards, so it is worth the effort. These situations include doing fun
recreational activities but also might include doing things with your chil-
dren, parents, or other family members, playing games together, cooking
or doing other activities that are fun to do together, holding hands,
kissing, hugging, making love, talking about fun topics, planning activi-
ties, or anything else that is enjoyable. All of these activities are more
enjoyable when you are experiencing them together and are fully present
(your attention and awareness are focused on the given activity).
Again, the skill is to bring your awareness fully to the present
situation. Notice and release any worry thoughts, any withholding of
enthusiasm, any judgments of yourself or your partner. Really bring your
attention to the activity, paying close attention to how you are feeling and
how your partner is reacting, and finally, to how the two of you are inter-
acting. Allow yourself to be awash in the good feelings; don’t truncate
them or suppress them, and don’t think about them. Just feel them, enjoy
them, notice them, and participate in the feelings and the activity. Repeat
as often as you can! We will revisit this issue again in chapter 5 when we
look at reinvigorating your relationship, and again in chapter 11 when we
focus on closeness and intimacy, but now is the time to get started
practicing this “being together” skill.
Being Together Even When Physically Apart

Finally, it is important to keep your partner in your awareness and
your heart even when you are not together. Thus, it is important to think
about your partner during the day or night when you are not together.
However, rather than letting certain negative situations or stimuli dictate
what you feel, it is important to be proactive and purposefully set aside a
minute or two several times a day to focus your attention on things about
your partner that you love, appreciate, respect, make you feel close, or
value about him or her. Simply think about your partner doing one of
these things (playing with your child, smiling at you, touching you lovingly
on the shoulder, working hard at his or her job), and notice your feelings.
After thirty seconds or a minute, just go back to what you were doing.
PRACTICE
1. Monitor your positive feelings during the course of the day. Start
with all of the positive feelings you might have, in any situation, not
just those that have something to do with your partner. Try to notice
your experience, and in particular notice if you are holding back
from fully experiencing any positive feelings. If you are holding
back, try to let go and just feel what you feel more fully. Allow
yourself just to “be” in the experience, neither trying to hold on to it
nor trying to push it down or minimize it.
2. Now focus on monitoring your positive feelings toward your partner
over the course of the day, even when you are not together. Again,
simply notice warm or positive feelings when they occur and try to
allow them to develop fully, neither intentionally trying to make
them bigger than they actually are nor trying to minimize them.
3. Over the course of the day, while you are not with your partner, try
to recall something that you love or value about your partner, and
let yourself feel lovingly toward him or her. Be mindful of your

partner and your feelings about him or her. Practice this several
times each day.
4. In a situation in which you are actually with your partner and notice
positive feelings (warmth, love, affection, appreciation, desire), really
focus your attention on those feelings. Then focus back on your
partner and go back to your feelings. Keep going back and forth,
and notice what happens.
5. Try to initiate small situations in which you can be together emotion-
ally. Pick several things you can do that do not require extra time or
preparation, things that you might do in the course of your day, like
holding hands, rubbing noses, standing or sitting together to watch
your child do something across the room or through a window. Just
notice and enjoy being together. What could be better than mindful
conversation, mindful parenting, mindful hand-holding, mindful sex,
or mindful sunset watching with the person you love?
Chapter 5
Reactivating Your
Relationship
Early in your relationship, chances are that you did things together that
were really enjoyable. These may have been activities that you would have
enjoyed doing with anybody, or maybe they were things you did that
were special because you did them together. However, as conflict grew
and tension mounted, you may have stopped doing these fun activities;
indeed, maybe you have stopped or curtailed many activities together.
The pleasant, fun, close times that resulted from shared activities became
fewer and farther between, and you have lost some energy and enthu-
siasm for each other. Maybe it has even seemed like your relationship is
withering away. The purpose of this chapter is to help you start to reac-
tivate and reinvigorate your relationship, doing more things and spending
more time together, helping your relationship to thrive again. This chapter
also will focus on how to better appreciate the time you spend apart by
sharing your independent experiences with each other. And, it will focus
on how to reactivate your relationship by doing more loving, caring, and
considerate things for your partner, without any strings attached.
Enjoying More Time Together

Now that you are more aware of physical proximity and emotional close-
ness, more able to be aware of your partner and your interactions
together without these moments escalating into blame and criticism, and
more able to enjoy time you do have with each other, it is time to engage
the world more, together as a couple.
There are several different domains that many couples find impor-
tant to their life together. Not everyone finds each domain equally
important, and it is not necessary to share activities across all areas for
couples to be satisfied and healthy. What follows are some different types
of activities that many couples enjoy sharing. It is likely that you have
enjoyed time together doing some of these things in the past, although it
may have been some time ago. Within each type of activity, consider
both what you might have done in the past that was satisfying (with or
without your partner), as well as what could become satisfying in the near
future. Remember, the more varied your set of activities, the better.
Novel situations and activities keep our minds stimulated and our lives
interesting. You can start by making a list of what you’d like to do, and
maybe your partner can also make a list (see the practice exercises below),
and then you can start to do more things together. Keep an open mind,
and be adventurous!
Increase Social and Family Time with Others

Identifying yourself as half of a couple or marital union is an impor-
tant thing to do. But this identity must be based on real, shared time
together doing things as a couple. Some of those kinds of activities
involve socializing as a couple with friends and extended family. Of
course, there is nothing wrong with socializing as a brother or sister with
your siblings, or as a son or daughter with your parents, or alone (without
your partner) with your friends, coworkers, neighbors, and so on. How-
ever, it is also important to do things as a couple, in which you identify
yourselves as a couple, and those with whom you are spending time also
see you as a couple.
It is healthy to have a part of your identity tied to your partner as
part of your union together. The only way to create or strengthen this
“coupleness” identity is to practice. You can go out on a double date
with another couple, visit family as a couple, hold a BBQ as a couple, go
Reactivating Your Relationship 57
to a wine or chocolate tasting together (or host one), and so on.

However, while you are doing these social activities, it is important to
notice and enjoy that you are doing them together as a couple, to be
mindful of the activity as a joint activity, or as an opportunity to be in the
world together rather than as two separate individuals.
Engage in Recreational or Fun Activities Together

Life can be hectic, and we can easily spend time doing things that
we “should” do and, over time, do fewer and fewer fun things that invig-
orate us individually or as a couple. When time together also brings
opportunities to fight with each other, it is even easier to hole up at
home, do things alone or with friends instead of your mate, and let
couple recreation fall by the wayside. If you have children, it can be
complicated and/or time consuming to find a sitter, and hiring a sitter
means that doing anything alone as a couple is expensive. Thus there are
additional barriers to enjoying recreational activities together as a couple.
However, doing fun things together regularly is an essential part of
identifying as a couple. It gives you time to let down your guard and
rekindle the experience of sharing life experiences together that are not
just chores and “have to” activities. Paradoxically, this gives you more
energy, both individually and as a couple.
Start a List and Keep Adding Ideas to It

You may know what kinds of things would be fun to do together,
or you might not be able to think about anything right now. What is
important is to start to make a long list of possibilities. You can brain-
storm together or each make a list and put them together. You can solicit
ideas from your friends or others, and be very creative. It is important
not to focus on big things like vacations right now. Sure, vacations can
be great, if you agree on where and when to go and how to spend the
time, and if you have very compatible ideas and plenty of money and
vacation time to do it. However, the idea here is to generate a lot of
different ideas for activities that you can do regularly, perhaps daily, but
at least weekly. They should not strain your budget, and you should not
include items on your final list of recreational activities if the enjoyment
of doing them would be outweighed by the work involved in arranging to
do them.
If you have children, certainly you can include them in some of

these activities, more as family than couple recreation. But it will be
especially helpful if you can also identify many activities that you can do
without the children, if only for a few minutes daily or for a longer
period once every week or two. If you have trouble paying for a sitter,
consider trading child care with a friend, sibling, or neighbor. Also, you
can prioritize activities that you can do after the kids are in bed, or before
they get up, or while they are with friends on a weekend afternoon.
Don’t give up. Your life together is too important not to figure out how
to enjoy time together.
Some Ideas to Get You Started

When you brainstorm a list of possible activities, consider things
that you used to do together that were fun and resulted in feeling close,
gave you stories to tell others, or were just enjoyable times together. It is
especially helpful if at least half of the list consists of things that cost very
little or no money (or are easily within your budget). Inexpensive things
to do might include going for a walk or hike. Go Rollerblading or
ice-skating together, go window shopping, go to a public venue where
there might be a free or inexpensive concert, exhibit, fair, or show, or
read something together (a short story, poems, old letters, information
about a mutual interest, the daily newspaper, or a favorite magazine).
Search for information about a topic on the Internet, put old photos in
an album, sing or play instruments together, or go to the library and
check out music to listen to together. Consider opening up the free activ-
ities section of your local newspaper, then close your eyes and point at
something at random, and go do it. Go out for coffee or breakfast, meet
for lunch, go out for ice cream or popcorn, go to a movie, or go look at
holiday decorations around town. You also can exercise, work out, or
play a sport together. Include some things on your list that require no
preparation or advance planning, so you can be spontaneous sometimes.
Be adventurous and creative and include things that you might never
have done, or never did before together, and especially include things
that might be out of the ordinary, challenging, or whimsical. Take a risk,
but remember: it’s not really very risky if you do it together.
It is also possible to choose activities around your house or yard if
both of you agree they seem like fun things to do. For example, you
might repaint a room or wash the car together, but only if it would be
fun and not a chore—and especially if you might end up spraying water
at each other playfully. However, don’t choose anything that either of

you feels is work, any activity that either of you really doesn’t like to
do—or, at least, does not want to do right now. You can leave these on
the list, but skip over them for now.
You can also choose some things that require preparation, planning,
or cost some money. For example, there might be a favorite concert or
sporting event coming up next week or next month that likely will sell out,
so you would need to get tickets in advance (or save some money for it).
Or, maybe you need a reservation for a corner table at what used to be
your favorite restaurant to go to together. If you want to go canoeing or
camping or skiing, it might require some planning and preparations, and
joining a gym, racket club, or sports facility together might require budget
planning. These are all wonderful opportunities to have fun together.
The idea of the activity list is to keep it fresh. Add things to the list
regularly, and cross things off that turn out to be impossible to do or just
are not fun when you do them. Some activities do require planning, so
start well in advance of the desired date for the activity, leaving plenty of
time to switch plans should your first ideas not work out. And, of course,
share the preparations and advance work.
PRACTICE
1. Make your activity list. Generate a lot of ideas together, or, each of
you can come up with a list and then put them together. Keep the
list fresh.
2. Get active! Pick something from the list and do it together in the
next few days. Stay mindful and enjoy your time together. Do some-
thing fun together at least every week, and consider getting your
relationship moving even more often. Write down times to do things
together on your calendar, either specific things you know you will
do together or blocks of time that you will use (you can be sponta-
neous on those days).
3. Plan now for a slightly bigger activity (not necessarily costing a lot of
money but one that requires some advance planning). Do the plan-
ning and preparations today or tomorrow.
Share Intellect, Interests, and Ideas

Everyone has a rich life in their heads. We all have interests, ideas
about the world around us, and things we are very knowledgeable about.
This world inside ourselves goes a long way toward defining who we are
as individuals. Some people may think about art, popular bands, philoso-
phy, their jobs, or relationships while others may be concerned about
global warming, their aging parents, the latest technology, or shoe fash-
ions. Unfortunately, when we keep these thoughts to ourselves over long
periods, our partners can lose touch with who we really are and what we
think about and care about: what makes us tick. Interestingly, the fact
that we initially were attracted to each other and liked each other (and
still do) means that we probably either shared some of these interests and
ideas or at least found the other person likable and desirable in part
because of these individual interests, knowledge, and abilities. But it is
difficult to be attracted to someone you don’t know too well anymore,
and you may feel vulnerable opening up now if you retreated a long time
ago or felt criticized or invalidated for sharing these thoughts in the past.
So, now it is time to open up again, to let your partner into the
world inside your head, and to foray into your partner’s world too.
Chances are pretty good that it will seem at least strangely familiar, and
you will enjoy both journeys.
The most important thing here is to balance your mutual interest
and curiosity with a recognition of each other’s vulnerabilities. So, start
slow. Set aside a few minutes only, and take turns talking about an idea
you had or your partner had, or an interest one of you has. The other
person just has to listen. Keep it short, so there is no misunderstanding,
and so there is no time burden. At first, it is better to end prematurely,
wanting more, than to keep talking and perhaps heighten expectations for
more rather than simply gaining a new understanding about what’s going
on inside the other person. Maybe you read something in the newspaper
that moved you (excited, saddened, created hope or despair), or you have
been doing something with a hobby or pastime that the other person
knows nothing about. Maybe your partner heard a new or old song by a
favorite singer and really liked it. The idea is to exchange these kinds of
things, just to learn a little about each other’s private worlds. No big
response is required; a simple “um-hmm” or “I didn’t know that” or
“that’s interesting” is sufficient. You can like hip-hop or country or
classical, and your partner can like rock or salsa or jazz. You don’t have
to have the same interests to be interested.
As you both come out of your shell, you can, of course, discuss
these things. But before you engage in much discussion, make sure that
you are feeling open, curious, and supportive of the other’s point of
view, even if you have a different interest or point of view.
PRACTICE
1. Agree to be more open with your partner about what you think
about, what goes on in your head, and agree to be interested in what
your partner thinks about.
2. Practice telling your partner about your thoughts and your life in
your head, just one or two ideas at a time.
3. Encourage your partner to share these kinds of things with you, and
simply listen and show interest.
Share Spiritual Experiences and Values

Everyone has a spiritual side. Sometimes that spirituality has to do
with religious values, and at other times it concerns social, moral, or
personal values and preferences that are unrelated to religious beliefs or
practices. Regardless of the form of our spirituality, for most of us, our
values and beliefs and morals are centrally important to defining who we
are. Sharing these kinds of core values is essential to sharing yourself and
essential to your partner (and others) really knowing who you are.
In this domain, relationship activation means spending time
together sharing your spiritual side with your partner. You can do this
around a current issue (something in the news might prompt such a
discussion), around child rearing (you might be faced with helping your
child develop values you agree with and care about), or around a specific
spiritual practice (such as praying, meditating, or doing something for
someone less fortunate). You could read religious or spiritual writings
together and discuss what they mean to you, talk about someone who is a
hero to you and explain why she or he inspires you, discuss why you
respect and appreciate, or don’t like or agree with, a particular activity or
behavior of a friend, coworker, or public person. Again, the important
thing is to activate your relationship simply by sharing your thoughts and

values from your spiritual side and listening to those that your partner
shares with you.
PRACTICE
1. Make an effort to share your values, your spiritual side, with your
partner.
2. Engage in some spiritual practice together (reading religious or spiri-

tual writings to each other and discussing them), and/or participate
in some other spiritual activity together (go to a religious event or
activity).
3. Listen with respect when your partner tells you about his or her
spirituality or values. For now, it is important not to disagree or
challenge those thoughts; just focus on knowing what she or he
thinks and feels and what his or her values are. There will be oppor-
tunities for further explanation, disagreement, and exchanges later.
Initiate, Receive, and Enjoy a Variety of Sexual

Activities More Often
A healthy relationship includes a healthy sex life. But, as relation-
ship quality erodes in the face of conflict and other factors, it is common
for sexual attraction and sexual activity to wane over time. Sexual desire
may be low or nonexistent for one or both partners. Perhaps one or both
of you got bored with sex, or maybe interest in sex diminished over time
due to nonrelationship factors (fatigue due to working hard with child
rearing, jobs, managing family life, managing the household, not getting
enough sleep, or working different shifts). Maybe differences between
you in sexual desire contribute to conflict. Regardless, an inert or signifi-
cantly dampened sex life can restrain other dimensions of your lives
together, and reinvigorating your sex life can contribute to significant
improvements in other areas of your relationship. If your sex life could
use reactiviting, the following tips may be of help.
Sex and Self-Respect

Reactivating your sex life can be tricky. For example, one of you
might have been pushing for more sexual activity regularly while the
other has been less interested and has resisted these advances, so the idea
of increasing sexual activity might feel like “giving in” to one of you. Or,
perhaps one or both of you still do not feel very close and trusting and
loving (or loved) enough to completely relax and engage in intense sexual
exchanges. While sex is an area in which it is important to engage
intensely, you should only do things that feel right to you and your part-
ner. If you feel inhibited, you should take that seriously. Figure out
whether your inhibition is important to you and part of your sense of
self-respect or if it is just a function of sexual disuse, habit, and/or past
discomfort. If it’s not about self-respect, it may be worth pushing
yourself to do a little, focus on enjoying it, and try to let go of your
inhibitions from there. On the other hand, you should not do anything
that is not self-respecting.
There is also the complicated issue of sexual fidelity and infidelity. If
infidelity has been an issue for either of you in your relationship, you may
want to consider going to a therapist together to get some help rebuilding
trust and recommitment. If trust is intact or you have successfully restored
a high level of trust, sexual reactivation may be an important step toward
healing the leftover hurts and moving forward. However, if trust is still
tenuous and the repair is incomplete, it may be important to reestablish
more trust before working on sexual reactivation.
Sexual Dysfunction
Many couples have problems with sexual dysfunction. Some
women have vaginal pain during penetration (vaginismus) or have trouble
achieving an orgasm (orgasmic dysfunction), and some men have trouble
either getting or maintaining an erection (erectile dysfunction) or may
regularly ejaculate upon penetration or too quickly thereafter for inter-
course to be satisfying for one or both partners (premature ejaculation).
Addressing these kinds of problems is beyond the scope of this book.
But, fortunately, effective treatments are available for them. If you expe-
rience any of these problems, you should see your physician or an expert
in sexual dysfunction (such as a psychologist, certified sex therapist, or
marital/couples therapist) for a thorough evaluation and to learn about
treatment options.
Yes, There Is More to Sex Than Intercourse

For our purposes, it is important to define sexual activity as any-
thing that increases sexual attraction or sexual arousal in the moment.
Sexual activity, therefore, includes sexual intercourse and any genital
touching (orally, manually, etc.), but also could include kissing, sensual
hand-holding, any bodily caressing that has a sexual element to it, cud-
dling in a sexual way, or even talking about sexual activities together.
Thus, sexual reactivation means doing more of these things but not
necessarily all of these things.
It is important to start by noticing your emotional attraction and
allowing yourself to be romantically or physically/sexually attracted to
your partner. Don’t inhibit this attraction. Just notice it. Enjoy the fact
that you have these feelings. Remember that you do not have to act on
every thought, every urge, or every desire that you experience. You can
simply enjoy feeling that attraction and those sensations. You also can act
on those urges rather slowly. Consider passionately holding hands, really
paying attention to how it feels to hold your partner’s hands (while he or
she does the same). This is likely to be very enjoyable and might be
enough for now. Or, you could go from rather intense and passionate
hand-holding to caressing your partner’s neck, arms, legs, or feet. Enjoy
the feelings, allow the sensations, and don’t inhibit your passion or your
desire. You might stop there, or you might go on to kissing each other
on the lips, kissing other parts of each other’s face, neck, body, or move
toward genital touching.
You can, of course, go on to oral-genital contact, intercourse, or
any number of related sexual activities. Whatever you do, go slowly (if
passionately and intensely), keep your attention focused on the activity
and on enjoying the sensations, and on noticing how your partner is
enjoying the activity. It is important to focus your attention on enjoying
receiving the sexual attention that your partner focuses on you. Notice
how much attraction he or she feels toward you, how nice it feels to be
desired by your partner, loved, caressed, kissed, held, or cuddled. Don’t
be afraid to talk about what you like more and like less, and always be
respectful of each other’s likes and dislikes.
Good Sex Requires Good Instruction, Lots of Practice

Some couples are really good at sex. They are naturally compati-
ble, relatively uninhibited, creative, and able to be mindful of their own
experience while simultaneously mindful of their partner. But, sex is

also a skill much like any other. Some people aren’t so naturally good at
it, they aren’t as creative or skillful at pleasing their partner, or they get
very inhibited. Of course, in many parts of our culture, it is difficult to
talk about sex, so bad habits are easy to start and difficult to break. As
with any skill, you have to practice and get good feedback to get better
at sex, but if knowledge is limited and communication about sex is
poor, it is difficult to become an expert. Fortunately, there are many
good guides and manuals designed to help partners enjoy the sexual
parts of their relationship more. Look through the relationship or
self-help section of your local bookstore for more information. And
start talking about sex today.
PRACTICE
1. Think about sex with your partner more.
2. Talk about sexual desires you have about your partner with your
partner.
3. Set time aside to be sexual. You can plan what you are going to do
or not do, or be spontaneous. But allow yourself to engage in what-
ever sexual activity you choose in an intense and mindful way, enjoy-
ing it fully, not distracted by worries or evaluation: stay in the
activity, in the sensation, in the moment.
4. Initiate more sexual activities of any kind. You can plan this in
advance (set time aside or create a desirable mood) or do this spon-
taneously. Notice your attraction, your desire, the sensations, and
stay mindful of them. Notice your partner and his or her reactions,
how he or she responds to your initiation.
5. Enjoy receiving sexual advances and participate in sexual activ ities

initiated by your partner. Have fun! You may or may not want to
do more, but enjoy what you have. Keep your attention focused on
your sexual interaction. Let thoughts or worries about anything else
go.
Enjoying Time Apart and Sharing

Your Experiences
Okay, after this steamy last section, it’s time to return to the more
mundane, but no less important, area of what you do with your inde-
pendent time apart from each other and how to use these independent
activities to become closer to each other, instead of more distant.
Getting active in your life in a variety of activities is good for you.
Activating your own behavior improves your own mood and level of
energy (Addis and Martell 2004; Jacobson et al. 1996). And, paradoxi-
cally, activating yourself independently from your partner also can
strengthen your relationship, in at least three ways:
1. Having an energized, content partner means that he or she is
more fun to be around and has more energy to give to you and
the relationship.
2. Partners who have interests and activities apart from each other
can bring their experiences back to their relationship and share
them with each other, enriching each person’s understanding
and appreciation of the other.
3. If you have a partner who has other friends, other activities,

other things to do, you are less likely to feel pressure to restrict
your own activities and interests and instead are more likely to
support your versatile interests.
There are three key things you must do, however, to make this
work. The first is to stay balanced. That is, although it is important to
become and stay active and interested in a variety of activities, it is also
important to give at least as much attention to shared activities. So
engage in a lot of independent activities and a lot of relationship activities.
Don’t neglect one and favor the other. Balance means doing enough of
each to be satisfying (not neglecting yourself, not neglecting your partner,
and not exhausting yourself in the process).
The second thing you must do is support each other in these
independent activities. Don’t feel threatened or left out but realize that
having a wide variety of interests and activities is healthy (Campbell and
Fruzzetti 2006). Supporting each other means you are contributing
broadly to each other’s well-being, and if you also are doing lots of things
together, it will be easier to support each other’s separate activities.
The final thing you need to do is talk about what you do apart from
each other. Doing so builds trust and minimizes the chances that either
of you will feel left out. Second, talking about these activities provides
opportunities to support each other’s activities. And, perhaps most
importantly, talking about what you do and what you like and don’t like
about it, sharing your enthusiasm, and describing the things you notice
and experience actually allows doing things apart to bring you closer. You
learn more about what your partner likes and what motivates him or her,
and you can be stimulated by your partner’s growth, interests, and
engagement in things that you might not be interested in for yourself or
maybe don’t have time to do.
PRACTICE
1. You and your partner each make a list of independent activities that
you might like to do that would likely be enjoyable (alone or with
friends) and share the lists with each other.
2. Discuss the idea of balance, and slowly add one or two independent
activities to your weekly schedule. Engage in these activities fully,
and enjoy them!
3. Be sure to discuss your experiences afterwards with each other.
During these discussions (which can be brief), be sure to disclose a
lot about what made the activity enjoyable or why it was important
to you, and be sure to support your partner’s activities.
Doing Things for Each Other

Without Strings Attached
In relationships, we need to remember to provide clear expressions of
affection and to make caring and considerate gestures, without keeping
score. This is one important area of relationship functioning that often
diminishes over time and certainly is neglected in high-conflict relation-
ships. Yet, you know how nice it is to get a phone message in which your
mate simply says, “I was just thinking about you and wanted you to
know,” or to be sitting reading and have your partner ask if you would
like a hot or cold drink and then bring it to you.
These kinds of small, considerate, and affectionate gestures build
goodwill and often inspire reciprocal kinds of thoughtful actions. The
idea, however, is to do something small and nice just because you want to,
not because you will receive something nice in return. Thus, there should
be no strings attached, and you most definitely should not keep score. If
you don’t feel like doing something nice, that’s okay. But, consider being
considerate.
You can do this formally by making a list of things and doing
something from the list each day, or informally, by simply pushing your-
self (and remembering) to do something thoughtful or considerate more
spontaneously. The reward includes knowing that you are working on
being a good partner, and you can be sure that your partner will feel the
effects of your efforts, whether it seems like he or she notices or not.
What can you do? Consider anything that expresses affection,
shows appreciation toward your partner, or anything that is considerate
and contributes toward improving a moment in your partner’s day. Smile.
Give a back or foot rub. Make your partner toast in the morning while
you are making some for yourself. Leave a note on the kitchen counter
that says “looking forward to seeing you tonight,” or do a chore that the
other usually does (or nobody usually does). There is no need to buy
anything or do anything out of the ordinary. These are simply small,
considerate, caring expressions.
Of course, if you notice your partner doing considerate things for
you, be sure to be mindful of this. You might want to say “thank you,”
but more importantly, be sure to take a moment and enjoy the consider-
ation, the affection. Taking a moment to experience and enjoy your part-
ner’s efforts to be close to you will loop back and make a difference to
him or her. In the same way, putting the effort out to express love and
caring and consideration for your partner will have an important effect
on him or her.
PRACTICE
1. Think of (and maybe write down) at least a dozen small, caring, or

considerate things that you could do for your partner that you have
not done lately.
2. Commit to doing at least one of these things every day, and practice
it in your mind at first. Imagine doing these things even if you are
unhappy with your partner at that moment. To help motivate you,
focus on your affection for your partner.
3. Do one thing each day and do it from your heart, from a place of
caring, not because you are supposed to. Appreciate your own
skillfulness in doing this.
Chapter 6
Accurate Expression
The previous chapters focused first on reducing the reactivity and

negativity in your interactions, and then dealt with cleaning up the mess
created by a lot of destructive conflict: how to slow down, become mind-
ful of your genuine wants and goals, mindful of your partner, and how to
get reacquainted and reactivated. Now it is time to talk to each other,
slowly and deliberately at first.
The Couple Two-Step

Effective communication includes two steps: one person expresses him- or
herself accurately, and the other person listens, understands, and validates.
This two-step dance continues, with one partner leading (expressing or
disclosing) while the other follows (listens and validates). Of course, at
various times partners switch who leads and who follows. The two-step
provides the building blocks for all effective verbal communication.
The central points are, first, when expression is accurate, the other
person can more easily understand, and thus validation (communication
of that understanding) is easier to provide; and, second, when the

response you get from your partner is validating, this helps keep your
emotional arousal in check, which in turn makes it easier to express your-
self accurately. And this cycle continues, as shown in figure 3.
Lower Emotional Arousal
Accurate and Effective

Expression
Easier to Understand
and Easier to Validate
Figure 3
This chapter will focus on the first step in the couple two-step,
accurate expression, and chapters 7 and 8 will focus on the second step,
validation. These two steps will be expanded in later chapters into more
elaborate forms designed to satisfy you and your partner in a variety of
ways.
What You Bring to the Interaction:

Before You Open Your Mouth
Partners sometimes know what the other person is feeling or wanting, or
know what kind of mood or disposition the other is in even before
Accurate Expression 73
anyone actually says anything. And, sometimes we think we know but it

turns out that we are mistaken. The fact is, communication is not only
verbal (words) but includes a number of other factors. For example, your
facial expression communicates a great deal; it includes the tension in
your facial muscles, curling of your lips, how open your eyelids are, the
position or angles or furrowing of your eyebrows, the direction and
intensity of your gaze, and the flare of your nostrils, among other factors.
Body language includes muscle tension (which ones are tense versus
which are relaxed), body position (leaning forward versus away), arm and
leg position (folded/closed or open), movement (jumpy versus still),
breathing (relaxed versus labored, sighing), and other behaviors that com-
municate underlying emotion quality and arousal intensity.
Any of these small behaviors can belie our emotions and expose
even subtle criticism, judgments, or hostility when they are present. Even
more problematic, however, is how easily even subtle facial expressions
or body postures or movements can be misinterpreted. For example, if
Bob feels worried about bringing up a difficult subject but tries instead to
mask that worry (perhaps he even tries to bring it up differently to be
more effective), Sue could easily detect the fact that he is “hiding” some-
thing, and quickly become upset about that, and criticize Bob for being
“dishonest.” In reality, Bob is not expressing himself accurately, even
before he opens his mouth to speak. But, of course, Sue is invalidating
Bob’s worry and his good intentions. And, as figure 4 shows, Sue’s invali-
dation of Bob only increases his arousal and decreases the chances of
him accurately expressing what his primary emotions and genuine wants
and goals are. Further miscommunication and conflict follow easily.
The road toward effective, accurate expression, therefore, begins
with mindfulness. Become mindful of your own emotion (primary emo-
tion, of course), let go of judgments (and negative assumptions), stay in
the moment, and stay mindful of your partner. Stay aware of your long-
term goals: this is the person you love and who loves you. No matter
how difficult the task, the outcome will be better if you stay skillful.
If your arousal is very high, take a break and work to bring it down
before you initiate the conversation. If your head is flooded with judg-
ments (“she is too logical” or “he is too emotional” or “she/he is wrong”
or “I just can’t believe she/he is so stupid/insensitive/ridiculous/…”), or
if your thoughts include a cascade of “shoulds” (“she should know
better” or “he should not think that” or “I shouldn’t have to do this”), it
is time to work on being skillful. Reorient yourself to your genuine goals,
describe your feelings and desires, and wait until you are in a more
balanced place before initiating the conversation. It is far more effective

to bring your arousal down and experience your genuine primary
emotion, and have your face and body reflect that, than to try to mask
high negative arousal. This is true whether that high negative arousal is
directed toward your partner in a hostile or judgmental way or it is simply
a reflection of your genuine (but very high level) anxiety or sadness. You
will be glad you took the extra few minutes to self-regulate and get
balanced before moving ahead.
Heightened Emotional
Arousal
Inaccurate Expression
Misunderstanding
and Invalidation
Figure 4
Take a Bathroom Break

Practicing slowing down, reflecting on your goals, noticing your
arousal, and noticing what you are expressing nonverbally, can take a few
minutes. Often, partners or children interrupt these few moments,
making it a real challenge to practice, and this slows down your ability to
acquire this skill. However, everyone needs to go to the bathroom for a
few minutes on a regular basis, and thus the bathroom affords a perfect
place to practice (whether you need to use the toilet or not). Most friends
and family members support your need to go to the bathroom for a
couple of minutes, and they don’t typically ask why. Thus, a bathroom
break usually affords a few minutes, without interruption, to practice
being skillful (working on mindfulness and relationship mindfulness,
regulating emotion) and to get yourself ready to engage your partner
constructively. Plus, bathrooms have mirrors, so they are a perfect place
to notice your facial expression and tension in your face and body and to
get direct feedback from your own reflection.
You can also use your ordinary bathroom breaks proactively, as
opportunities to check in with yourself, noticing your arousal, your
emotions, what you are doing, whether you are being effective, and
whether you need to do something different at that moment to regain
balance: start by simply breathing mindfully: get into the present, let go
of judgments.
PRACTICE
1. Practice noticing what you bring to your interactions. Try to notice
whether your facial expression and body posture reflect your real,
primary emotions.
2. Try using some of the conditioning skills you practiced in chapter 4.

Use your relationship reminders or visit your relationship spot to
help you bring down your arousal before you initiate a conversa-
tion—even about reasonably noncontroversial topics. Notice how
your partner responds differently when you are more regulated and
less negatively aroused, less on alert for conflict.
3. Practice allowing your facial expression and body posture to relax

and reflect your genuine feelings and desires. Use a large mirror to
see the difference in what you communicate nonverbally when you
have low or moderate arousal and again when you are very upset.
Don’t judge yourself, just notice.
4. Practice interrupting negative arousal, taking a short break (maybe to

the bathroom to practice), and using skills to experience, identify,
and reflect your genuine primary emotions before initiating ordinary
conversations.
5. Repeat the previous step, but do so in preparation for discussing

touchy or sensitive subjects.
6. Practice mindfulness every time you use the bathroom for a few
days. What do you notice? Consider committing to doing this
regularly.
Know What You Want and Feel,

or That You Don’t Know
Once your arousal is reduced, it is easier to ask yourself the questions
“what do I really want?” and “how do I really feel?” and trust the
answers. These are key questions to ask even though the answers may
not always be clear.
In order to be really effective, we have to know what we genuinely
think, feel, or want. It can be very useful to breathe a few deep breaths,
look around, notice that there is no imminent danger or harm (hope-
fully!), that you love your spouse or partner, and that he or she loves you.
It’s usually important to remind yourself of the core of what you want: a
caring, loving, supportive relationship. Even when scared, sad, frustrated,
embarrassed, unhappy, and so on, these things are still true (at least if you
have read this far in the book). Then, from this context (recognizing that
you are physically safe, and remembering the big-picture desires of mak-
ing the relationship better), you can ask these questions. When you are
mindful of your true self, what is in your heart, you likely will know at
least some of the answers. And, even if you don’t know exactly what you
are wanting or feeling, at least you will know that you are not sure, maybe
are confused, or need more time to figure it out. Then, you can think
about communicating what you notice: how you feel, what you want, or
that you’re not sure yet.
The next section will help you sort out further the wheat from the
chaff, accurately identifying what your emotions and desires are generally,
and avoiding common pitfalls, the things that lead us to misidentify
and/or communicate inaccurately our true feelings and wants.
What Is “Inaccurate” Expression?

There are two general ways to express yourself that we might consider inac-
curate. Both occur when emotional arousal and/or judgments are running
high (Fruzzetti, Shenk, and Hoffman 2005). The first kind of inaccurate
expression includes communication that really is inaccurate. For example, it
might come out of cascading negative emotion in which you fail to com-
municate your genuine feelings but instead communicate reactions to those
feelings (or to judgments). Or, you may be indirect or fail to reflect accu-
rately the importance of the topic (overvaluing or undervaluing). The
second type includes any number of things you might say that could be
technically accurate but in reality interfere with your genuine goals and
preclude you from saying other at least equally accurate and less hurtful
things; hence, these expressions are considered inaccurate because they
thwart, rather than facilitate, achieving your genuine objectives.
Expressing Secondary Emotion Instead of

Primary Emotion
There are times when high emotional arousal or being judgmental
transforms a primary emotion into a secondary one. When we express a
secondary emotion, it is not genuinely accurate, even when it is actually
what we are feeling in that moment. For example, if Tiffany misses Mark
a lot and really just longs for time with him but starts judging Mark for
working late, she can quickly become angry. The anger can obscure her
longing, and if she simply expresses the anger (verbally and nonverbally),
Mark might never realize that Tiffany just adores him and wants to be
with him. He could easily become defensive in response to her anger.
Instead, if Tiffany lets go of her judgments, she will quickly realize that
she misses Mark and wants to be with him. If she assails him, she very
likely will not get the closeness that she longs for. Instead, she will get
conflict and distance. Accurate expression for Tiffany requires her to let
go of judgments and notice and describe her primary emotions. Then,
when she says, “Mark, I’m so glad you are home. I really missed you
while you were working late!” it will come across as genuine. Mark will
feel loved and be happy to be home (and may even want to come home
earlier in the future). Furthermore, if Tiffany really wants Mark to make
an effort to work late less often, she can bring this up in a way that he
can hear, in a way that is accurate. She is asking because she misses him
and wants more closeness, not because she is angry or because he is
doing something “wrong.” The possibilities for negotiation (see chapter
10) are improved greatly.
There are many situations in which we quickly react to our initial
emotion or our initial desire, and we end up stuck in secondary emotions,
forgetting our primary, genuine emotions and desires. All kinds of
thoughts trigger emotions, but we often then think the emotions are in
response to the situation rather than to our interpretation or thoughts
about the situation. For example, Ruth was often preoccupied with the
kids and with work. She was frequently quite stressed about having a lot
of responsibilities. Richard was less preoccupied with those things, and
just longed for a bit more closeness with Ruth. They used to spend more
time together; Ruth used to have more energy and seemed to show more
enthusiasm for Richard. Ruth was still very committed to Richard and
also wanted to be close to him; she just didn’t show it as much.
Richard’s longing, his desire for more time together, more affection,
and so on, really was his primary emotion. But, he sometimes had the
thought that Ruth was losing interest in him, getting bored, or no longer
loved him as much. With these thoughts, of course, fear crept in.
Although his fear was not really justified by the reality of the situation, it
was still quite painful, and was associated with a lot of painful negative
arousal. Richard then started, in his mind, to criticize or judge Ruth about
any little thing, which led to anger. For example, if Ruth spent time with
one of the kids in the evening, Richard might think “she’d rather avoid
spending time with me” and then nitpick her activities, telling himself
that “she’s just coddling that kid, she should know better” or that “she
should have more patience with the kids” or other judgments. Of course,
these judgments led to further anger and distance. Then Richard would
verbally attack Ruth. Making an angry face, he would say “you need to
spend more time with the kids and have more patience” or, on another
occasion, “you spend too much time with them; you coddle them too
much.” Of course, Ruth would quickly become defensive, recognizing

that she was “damned if I do, and damned if I don’t spend more time
with the kids.” Then they would fight about parenting and eventually
fight about everything. In reality, of course, both were competent and
loving parents, and their fights could never lead to any resolution.
This situation is very common. Richard never communicated what
he really wanted: more closeness with Ruth. In fact, paradoxically, he got
less and less closeness. Through doing exercises like those in this book,
Richard learned to see his anger as a red flag: he was reacting to some-
thing, and his angry reaction (secondary emotion) was obscuring things
that were much more important and more genuine. His primary emotions
were longing for closeness with Ruth and disappointment about their
distance from each other. He learned through regular practice not to run
with his anger, but to see it as a signal. When he noticed himself getting
angry, he took a break and asked himself, “What might I be missing? Is
there something I want that I’m not getting (longing, disappointment)? Is
there something happening or about to happen that I really don’t want
(fear, frustration, or dislike)? Am I fueling my anger with judgments
(‘right/wrong,’ ‘should/shouldn’t’)?” Richard quickly found out that he
really did want more closeness with Ruth, but that he also often judged
himself. He noticed himself saying, “I’m not independent enough” or “I
shouldn’t be jealous of Ruth spending time with the kids.” He found that
if he simply accepted that he felt what he felt and wanted what he wanted
(accepted the reality of his feelings and desires), he could act in much
more constructive ways. So, if he noticed a little longing to be with Ruth
when she was off playing with the kids, he could go play with them too.
Or, he could smile, give her a hug, and say something like, “Ruth, honey,
can we sit together after the kids are in bed?” Ruth, when faced with this
accurate communication, would usually be very responsive. It was easy
for her, actually, because she often was longing for more time with
Richard, too.
Making Judgments Instead of Describing What

You Want or Feel
As the example of Richard and Ruth illustrates, the problem of hav-
ing secondary emotional reactions is integrally connected to the problem
of being judgmental. What seems to happen is each of these problems
feeds the other. That is, in any situation, if you become judgmental of
your partner, you will usually fuel dislike and anger. Similarly, if you feel
angry, the thoughts that your brain produces under that kind of emo-
tional arousal will often be judgmental. See for yourself: Think about
something a friend or family member did that really wasn’t a big deal.
Now, be judgmental about what the person did (notice how it was kind
of stupid, that she or he should have known better, that it was wrong to
do that, and so on). What do you notice? You probably started to get
angry, especially if you bought in to the judgments. The reverse is also
true. The next time you find yourself feeling angry, notice what kind of
thoughts you are having. Are they laced with judgments? If so, try using
the technique covered in chapter 2 of describing the situation and your sen-
sations and primary emotional responses. What happens to your anger?
Just as importantly, think about how it feels when someone else is
judgmental toward you. How do you feel? How do you react? Being
judgmental about someone you love is very hurtful to them and corrosive
to your relationship.
The issue here is not that you should never be judgmental or angry.
Instead, the issue is the extent to which being judgmental interferes with
your genuine reactions, interferes with getting what you genuinely want,
and interferes with your relationship with your spouse or partner.
Fortunately, the antidote to being judgmental and to relationship
and individual suffering is being descriptive. The good news is that this
same skill, being descriptive, is also the way to express yourself accu-
rately. Review chapter 2 if you want more practice developing this skill.
PRACTICE
1. Try to notice when you are getting angry. Is anger really justified in
this situation? Is it really the only emotion you have? What other
emotion might you be missing (sadness, disappointment, anxiety)?
2. If you are angry, notice if you have been judgmental in your mind or
just said something judgmental. If so, try to let go of the judgments
and notice what other emotions you might be feeling. Notice the
situation and describe your reaction (of course, it is legitimate to be
upset or not like something; the idea is to let go of the toxicity of the
judgments).
3. If anger really is justified, try to describe it without actually using the

word “angry.” For example, say something like “I really don’t like
this” or “it really bothers me that is doing that.”
4. Practice noticing anger and using it as a signal that you are having a
big reaction, and try to identify your alternative, perhaps more pri-
mary emotion. Recognize the legitimacy of that emotion, and focus
your attention on it.
Using Indirect Communication

Communicating indirectly is also a common way to fail to express
accurately what you want or feel. There are a couple of different ways
that we regularly communicate indirectly. One is we tell the wrong per-
son what we are wanting or feeling. The other is we describe a related
phenomenon rather than the thing we really care about, and we assume
that the other person knows what we’re meaning or wanting.
Everyone knows that direct communication is more accurate and
clear. However, lots of things get in the way. For example, we might feel
apprehensive that if we tell the person directly, we’ll have a fight. So, for
couples who fight a lot, being indirect might seem to have some benefits.
Of course, being indirect might lessen the chances of an immediate
conflict, but it also decreases the chances that your sweetie will under-
stand you or respond to you in the way that you want. So, telling your
sister-in-law that you really want to spend more time with your mate (her
brother), if communicated at all, likely will not be communicated
effectively and could make things worse.
In addition, communicating about one piece of a larger set of
thoughts and feelings rarely communicates the most important ones. For
example, in the example above, Richard wants more time and more
closeness with Ruth. Perhaps one Saturday afternoon, she asks Richard
to take care of the kids, so she can do something with her sister. If he is
thinking, “Gee, I was hoping to do stuff together today because we
haven’t spent much time together lately,” but instead, he simply says, “I’d
rather you stay home,” his communication is indirect and murky. Ruth
could interpret his denial of her request in any number of ways, many
quite negatively. Richard could instead communicate directly, and even
negotiate. For example, he might say, “Sure, honey. But I was really also
hoping to spend some time together. So, if you go out with your sister
for the afternoon, when could we have some time together?” Ruth, now
understanding Richard’s true goals and desires, is much more likely to try
to accommodate him.
Undervaluing Your Wants

Sometimes we become judgmental toward ourselves, which results
in feeling vulnerable, humiliated, or ashamed of what we feel or what we
want. This is a different kind of unnecessary suffering, because of course
we are just who we are, and we want whatever we want and we feel what-
ever we feel. There are no wrong desires or feelings. It might be inconve-
nient or troublesome at times (because we can’t have what we want, or
because what we genuinely feel is painful), but at least it’s real. Judging
ourselves, saying we should not want what we want or feel what we feel
(our primary emotion, that is), is really just denying reality. It’s like saying,
on a very rainy day when we hoped to do something outdoors, that it just
shouldn’t be raining or that it is wrong for the clouds to rain. The reality
is descriptive, of course: we prefer that it be sunny, we are disappointed
that our plans can’t be carried out, or maybe we are even demoralized
because it rained the last time we made similar plans.
When we want something from our partner but then judge our-
selves negatively for wanting it, we really undervalue our own wants and,
in effect, undervalue ourselves. Maybe you want your partner to like
something (some activity) or someone (a friend) as much as you do, but
then you think you are being silly or even ridiculous for wanting that. Or,
maybe you just had a lovely long weekend together and miss him or her
when you are at work on Monday. But then you think, “How stupid,
since we just spent seventy-two straight hours together. I shouldn’t miss
him/her. Maybe I’m too dependent.” Then you feel embarrassed or
ashamed and fail to express your love and longing accurately.
It is important to recognize that your wants are justified: there
simply is no correct amount of time you should spend together, no
amount of love that should be enough (or too much), no amount of
attention that is correct and healthy to get from your mate. These are all
things that vary from person to person, that vary over time, and must be
negotiated from honesty and an acceptance of what you each actually like
and want. But this honesty requires a willingness to feel disappointed: as

they say, “you can’t always get what you want.”
Overvaluing Your Wants

There is another phenomenon that interferes with accurate expres-
sion: overstating or overvaluing the importance of something (you want
or feel), often because you fear that the other person won’t take your
desires or feelings seriously if you were to state them accurately. This is
another example of the long-term cost being significantly greater than the
short-term gain. That is, if something is important, it’s important for the
other person to be able to tell it’s important. If everything is really impor-
tant (you communicate them all equally strongly), the other person can’t
tell which ones are relatively more or less important. And your partner
can’t respond to everything as though it were life or death. So, in the
long run, he or she will simply respond less to everything, making you
more frustrated and disappointed. Consequently, it is really more effec-
tive to sort out how important something is and express yourself accu-
rately. Again, you also need to be ready for occasional disappointment,
not always getting the response you want. At other times, when it’s really
important, your partner will have the energy to respond in a big way and
will be able to tell that this situation is different from most others. In
those moments, you will get what you want and be satisfied.
PRACTICE
1. Practice rating how important something is to you before you ask
your partner to do it. Maybe use a 0 to 100 scale, in which 0 is not
important at all and 100 is the most important thing to come up in
the past year.
2. Notice how you express your wants and desires. Can your partner
tell from your expression that what you want is low in importance?
High?
3. Practice matching the intensity of your expression with the impor-

tance of your goals.
Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face

Finally, there are times that we say things that are clearly the
opposite of what we mean or what we want, purely out of bitterness.
Maybe you really are tired and are thinking about going to bed early. But
you are stewing in judgments and anger, bitter about something that
happened earlier. So, when your partner says, in a caring voice, “Honey,
you look tired. Maybe you should go to bed early,” you respond by
saying, “No. I’m not tired. I’m fine.” Or, your partner is trying to be nice,
maybe following a fight, and offers to do something to help you that
would really be nice, and clearly you would like him or her to do it. But
you reply, “No thanks. I’m okay.”
The problem with these scenarios is not that they create problems
in themselves. Rather, the problem is that the opportunity for a repair,
for your partner to be able to move closer or do something that you
would like, is lost. And, moreover, you are inadvertently telling your
partner that she or he cannot read you properly: You seem tired and are
tired, but you say you are not. You look like you would like help, and in
fact, you want help, but you say you don’t. This set of confusing
messages could lead a well-intentioned partner, on another occasion, to
second-guess what he or she sees: Maybe you really don’t need help or
really are not tired, even though it seems that way. Consequently, in the
future he or she may not bother to offer emotional support or meaning-
ful help in this kind of situation.
Match Your Strategy to Your Goals

Sometimes we know what we want or feel, but we communicate in
such a way that our partner cannot respond effectively. For example,
Carla had a hectic and frustrating day at work. She came home quite
upset and said, “I really hate my job.” José, having heard this many times
and worrying about Carla, responded in a caring way, telling Carla that
they have enough money to get by for a while on José’s income, so
maybe Carla “should quit her job and look for another, less stressful
job.” Carla, however, really just wanted José to understand that she’d had
a bad day, to be willing to listen to some of the details, to validate her
feelings, and to provide some support and soothing. By problem solving,
José failed to deliver what Carla really wanted. But, how could José have
known this, based on Carla’s statement, “I really hate my job”? Carla,
already upset, felt misunderstood by José, her emotional arousal peaked,

and she quickly started making judgments about José and about herself.
This led to a flood of intense, negative secondary emotions. She then
started blaming José, “You have no confidence in my abilities. You’re
always undermining me. This is the best job I’ve ever had. Just because I
had a bad day isn’t an excuse to throw it all away. Why can’t you just be
supportive of me? Does my success threaten you or something?” José, of
course, attacked back, and their evening went right down the toilet.
The interaction between Carla and José probably would have gone a
lot better if Carla had recognized that she had an emotional goal. Then, she
could have communicated in a way that would set up José to respond to
what she really wanted. Generally, if we have emotional goals, it makes
sense to use a strategy that communicates them. Other goals might be
practical, or relational.
Emotional Goals
When we want to feel better, want our partner to understand us,
want to receive support, validation, or soothing, we have primarily
emotional goals. A great deal of communication in couple relationships
actually is intended to achieve something emotional. However, it is very
common, especially in distressed relationships, not to express these
goals clearly. In relationships that have a lot of conflict, partners often
feel vulnerable when they really want soothing or support. The prospect
of failing to get desired support only increases those feelings of vulner-
ability, which makes it hard to ask clearly. Unfortunately, not expressing
your goal clearly means it is very unlikely that you will get what you
want.
There are two main strategies you can use to get emotional goals
met. One is directly clarifying what you want out of the interaction.
Above, Carla could have said, “I want to talk about my day, and all I
really want is for you to listen and be supportive.” The other is describ-
ing the situation, focusing on your feelings (Carla also could have said,
“When Judy gave Alice the credit for my work, I really felt demoralized
and hurt”). Although it may feel awkward or more vulnerable to tell your
partner what you want in that moment, it really just makes good sense.
When we go to a restaurant, we don’t say to the waiter, “I’m hungry.”
We have to say what we want, or we can’t expect to get it very often by
chance.
Practical Goals
Sometimes we want something to change, or we want help solving
a problem. In these cases, simply being told “I know you are unhappy” is
not enough. Perhaps, after months or years of job frustration in which
Carla had tried everything to improve her situation on her job, she might
conclude that she really wanted to quit and find another job. At that
point, if José only validated her feelings, saying, “It makes sense that you
are so frustrated, given what you have to deal with every day,” it would
not be enough. Carla, wanting to get a new job but worried about money
and her career, might want help problem solving. What salary does she
need to bring in so as not to have a big negative effect on their family?
Are there adjustments that José and Carla can make in their budget to
make it easier for her to quit?
If we want help solving problems, the clearest, most effective thing
to do is ask for it. Carla could say, “As you know, I’ve been doing every-
thing I can to make things better at my job for more than a year. I no
longer want to work on tolerating it or trying to make it better. I want to
get a new job. But I’m worried about money, how this will affect us. Can
we talk about this? I’d really like your help figuring out what to do, how
to make this work.” This clearly orients José both to what Carla is feeling
(he can respond to that, too) and to what she primarily wants from him:
help solving the problem. Chapter 10 will address how to go about
solving bigger problems, negotiating solutions constructively, and so on.
Relational Goals
Having relational goals, or a desire to improve the relationship, is a
bit more complicated. Often, we have a nagging sense of distance from
our partner, wanting something more from him or her but not really
being able to put our finger on it. Most often, what we really are wanting
is more closeness, in one form or another. We might want the other per-
son to understand something, maybe stop doing something or do more
of something else in the relationship. But it may not be the “something”
that is central but rather an increased sense of understanding, support, or
closeness that really is the goal. Both emotional goals and practical goals
achieve more closeness in the long run, but relational goals often require
a slightly different approach, one that actually combines some of the
strategies already discussed.
First, it is important to notice whether a lack of closeness is part of

the picture. If it is, then part of the strategy should be to communicate
the goal of being closer, getting along better, sharing more, liking each
other more, and so on. It’s not as likely to be helpful to say why you think
you are not as close as you would like or have not been getting along,
unless you are willing to put the focus on change on yourself. If, in
reality, you are thinking or assuming that your partner is implicated in
why things are not as you would like, and you try to explain that, it just
sounds like you are blaming your partner for it, even if you don’t mean
to be blaming him or her and truly are not feeling judgmental.
Instead, the strategy should include three parts. It should include a
description of your feelings: “Sweetie, I’ve really been missing having
quiet, loving time together, and I’m sad we haven’t had much of this for
a while. I am not complaining, not at all critical of you: just missing you.”
It should include a clarification of your goal: “I would really like to be
closer, get back to supporting each other more and doing things together,
really enjoying each other.” Finally, it should include a clear statement
asking to work on finding solutions together: “I’d really like us to try
some new things, both of us trying to be closer. Can we work on this for
a few minutes now and maybe continue later in the week?” Then, you
can proceed to collaborate on a solution or at least have a conversation
that increases understanding and provides the opportunity for validation.
Clearly, when you have a relational goal, it is essential to use a real
relational strategy.
PRACTICE
1. For a few days or longer, try to notice what you really want from
your partner before you say anything to him or her. Sort out whether
you have an emotional goal, a practical goal, or a relational goal.
2. Pick a strategy for expressing yourself that makes it clear to your
mate what you are looking for from him or her. Notice if it works
and if your increased clarity makes it more likely for your partner to
be responsive to your requests.
3. Practice following the steps outlined above, matching your strategy
to the type of goal you have.
Effective Expression:
The Technical Details
This chapter has covered most of the pieces of the puzzle of how to
identify accurately what you want, feel, and so on, and how to set up the
situation to communicate these things clearly and effectively. Now, you
simply need to put it all together and remember a few nuts-and-bolts
issues.
Match Words with Voice Tone, Body Language,

and Facial Expression
We communicate a lot with our voice tone, our facial expression,
and our body. The more relaxed you are, the more you are able to let go
of judgments and blame, the more you are able to find your genuine
primary emotions, and the more you are able to let go of anger, the more
effortless will be the match between what you say and how you say it.
And, the more your words, tone, face, and body are saying the same
thing, the more accurate and clear is your communication. The more
accurate and clear your communication, the more easily your partner can
hear you, can understand you, and can be responsive to what you really
feel, think, and want.
Pick a Good Time

Everybody knows that important issues require attention. When
you have put all the work into identifying what you want and feel, know-
ing what your goals are, getting yourself mindful and in a nonblaming,
more loving and balanced state or perspective, you really want and
deserve your partner’s attention. So, it is important not to waste all that
effort by picking a time to disclose and express yourself when your
partner is not or cannot really pay attention, or when you might have
difficulty sustaining your own attention. What are the factors to be aware
of? Anything that will likely negatively affect your ability to stay mindful
or your partner’s ability to become and stay mindful of you.
Have Few or No Distractions

Important conversations cannot work well if kids or other adults
are present, someone else wants your attention, the television is on, or
one or both people are partially involved in another task (reading the
newspaper, on the computer, driving in traffic, in the middle of a busy
day at work, cooking dinner, paying bills, or doing chores). Similarly, if
one person is about to go somewhere, or someone will likely interrupt
you soon, you’ll feel a lot of pressure and this increased arousal sets
things up to go badly.
Attend to Your Physical Well-Being

Things like being hungry or tired or sick have a big impact on our
emotions (especially our reactivity) and our ability to maintain attention.
So, it makes sense to practice getting in the habit of saving important
conversations (anything involving your feelings or your relationship) for a
quiet time when you are both well-fed and not exhausted, and neither of
you is in a rush to go somewhere else or do something else. Turn off the
television. Put down reading materials. Find a comfortable spot, sit
down, take a deep breath, and smile at each other before proceeding.
Jump-Start the Conversation in a Constructive Way

Finally, it is important to remember that this kind of communica-
tion is not easy. Your partner may have a flood of emotions, especially
fear and anxiety, when you say you want to talk about something, espe-
cially if it has to do with your relationship. You may not have had a lot of
success engaging in these kinds of conversations in the past. Thus, you
wanting to talk not only requires your own skills (all these strategies
addressed in this chapter), but also your partner needs a lot of courage
and skills. You can make this easier on your partner, and thereby increase
the chances of the conversation going well and you getting what you
want (understanding, closeness, less conflict and friction, more peace,
changes in your interactions, and so on), if you set the tone, or jump-start
the conversation in the direction you want it to go.
One way to do this is to clearly communicate that you like your
partner. This sounds simple, but it’s often as difficult to do as it is effec-
tive. Remember that when you are unhappy, in a lot of pain, or want
your partner to do something differently, this will be upsetting to your

partner. His or her emotions might stay focused on simply caring about
you, but easily could become quite negative, reacting to worry thoughts
or assumptions, such as “she is mad at me again” or “he doesn’t really
love me as much as he used to” or “here we go again, another fight,
another ruined evening.” If you can communicate early that, regardless of
what you are going to say, you still love and adore your mate, are still
committed to him or her—and even though this is an important thing to
talk about it really is not a life-or-death issue—he or she can relax more
easily. When arousal comes down (or doesn’t go up), your partner is
more able to pay attention to you, be less defensive, and more
responsive.
For example, Heather and John had fought a lot and were really
unhappy in their relationship. So they committed to trying to learn and
use the skills in this book. But change is difficult and takes time, and
there was a lot of pain still lingering from prior conflict for both of them.
Heather did a terrific job preparing to talk with John about her loneli-
ness, how she was really missing him and wanting to spend more time
together. She identified her genuine feelings (sadness, loneliness, fear)
and what she really wanted (more quiet time together, more conversation
about “real” things and not just managing the house and kids, more
closeness and intimacy). She let go of blaming John (which had been her
previous strategy), and she knew she wanted to find balance in valuing
her emotions and desires with valuing John’s emotions and desires. She
picked a good time to talk and had rehearsed her strategy nicely. But
when the time came to ask John to talk, she was overwhelmed with fear
(“uh-oh, this isn’t going to go well … I’m just going to make it worse …
but I have to try” played in her head). Rather than take a few seconds to
notice her very reasonable apprehension in this situation, she just kind of
grimaced and blurted out, “John, can we talk?” Despite all of Heather’s
efforts, John simply heard Heather being frustrated with him and antic-
ipated another conversation in which Heather would blame him for a
variety of transgressions. He quickly became defensive, did not want to
have that kind of interaction, and said, “No, I really don’t want to talk
now,” and went upstairs to their bedroom and closed the door. Heather,
already on her way toward high arousal, was further triggered by his
response, became furious, followed him upstairs, and yelled at him for
being “insensitive and not caring” and “not willing to try to save our
marriage.” You can imagine how it went from there.
However, after more practice, a couple of weeks later, Heather tried

it again. She anticipated feeling nervous when it was time to invite John
into a conversation and had practiced touching her wedding ring and
thinking about how much she loved him. She had taken a few minutes to
really notice what she was feeling (missing John) and wanting (more
closeness), and had successfully let go of blame, judgments, and anger.
So, when she felt that rush of apprehension as she was about to open her
mouth, she was able to smile, and her negative emotion did not spike.
Her tone was soft, and she was smiling at John when she said, “Honey, I
so love our time together. Could we talk for a few minutes about doing a
little more of this?” John caught her smile and could not misread her
tone. He felt loved rather than anticipating anxiously that he was about to
be attacked. He was able to listen, use his own skills, and quite naturally
and skillfully responded.
PRACTICE
1. Over the course of many conversations, notice how well your voice
tone, intensity, body posture, and facial expression match your
words (and the importance of your goals).
2. Think through the situation before you initiate a conversation: “Is
this a good time for me, and for my partner? Are there likely to be
few distractions? Are we physically ready (not too hungry, tired,
wired)?” Proceed only if the timing is right.
3. When you do initiate a conversation, practice starting out in a con-
structive way, being sure that you communicate that you like your
partner before you go on to the substance of what you want to talk
about.
Chapter 7
Validating Responses:
What to Validate and Why
“Validation” is a word that gets used a lot and has been used by couples
therapists and researchers in a variety of ways. This is probably because
there are a lot of different ways to validate what someone is doing,
saying, thinking, feeling, or wanting. Here, validation is one of two key
components of effective communication (along with accurate expression,
described in chapter 6). Validating responses have a very different effect
than invalidating ones; in close relationships it is clear that we thrive on
validation from our spouses and partners while we can barely tolerate
being invalidated. Distressed relationships are full of invalidation and low
in validation, while happy and successful relationships include heavy
doses of validation and little invalidation (Fruzzetti et al. 2006). More-
over, high levels of invalidation and/or low levels of validation by one
partner are associated with higher levels of distress and depression in the
other partner (Iverson and Fruzzetti 2006). Being pervasively invalidated
is believed to contribute significantly to the development of serious
psychological disorders (Fruzzetti, Shenk, and Hoffman 2005; Linehan

1993a). This chapter will explore validation in all its glory: what validation
is, and what to validate. Chapter 8 explores different ways to validate and
when each is more effective. Chapter 9 will show you how to get yourself
to validate things even when you have an urge to be invalidating.
Back to the Couple Two-Step

Chapter 6 focused on the first step in the couple two-step, how you and
your partner can express yourselves accurately and clearly. The second
step involves responding to that expression in a validating way. Obvi-
ously, there are a lot of other options, like ignoring or invalidating each
other, but these do not work very well. Validating what your partner is
doing, saying, feeling, and wanting is the key to effective communication
and is essential to a healthy relationship.
What Is Validation?
Although the term validation has been used in a variety of ways, it
means something quite specific here. For the purposes of this book,
validation between partners is the communication of understanding and accep-
tance (Fruzzetti and Iverson 2004; Linehan 1997). When we respond in
a validating way, we communicate that we understand a person’s experi-
ence (emotions, desires, pain, thoughts) or actions and accept them (at
least in that moment, in that situation). Thus, validation has something
in common with empathy (understanding the other person’s experi-
ence), but it also requires clear communication of that understanding.
In addition, a validating response can reflect either an emotional or a
more cognitive understanding of your partner’s experience (or both).
Sometimes, this can be as simple as paying attention and making good
eye contact and nodding, or saying “uh-huh” or “right” or “okay.” At
other times, validating requires a more thorough acknowledgment of
the experience, such as “I know you are really disappointed” or “you
look really sad.”
Perhaps even more important, when we communicate that we
understand and accept, we are also implying that the person’s experiences
or actions make sense, are legitimate, or that they may even be quite
normative. Of course we can also directly legitimize by validating in a
Validating Responses: What to Validate and Why 95
particular way: “Certainly you feel/think/want X in that situation. Any-

one would.” It is also possible to communicate that a person’s experience
is valid, even if we don’t yet completely understand it. In these situations,
we must gently ask questions, clarifying what we do and do not under-
stand, showing that we are really trying to fully understand and that we
assume his or her experience is understandable and legitimate: “Gee, you
look tired, like you had a hard day. What happened?”
So, validating communicates understanding of your partner’s experi-
ence (emotions, wants, goals, opinions) and acceptance of the legitimacy
of those experiences. This includes accepting the “facts” about that per-
son’s experiences, including accepting his or her descriptions as accurate.
Hence, the two-step communication dance, which generally allows a
couple to navigate the dance floor of their relationship without too many
injuries or stepped-on toes.
What Validation Is Not

Validation is often confused with agreement. Although we certainly
can validate by agreeing, it is not necessary. For example, if Henry wants
to go out with friends on Saturday night, and Wendy would rather go out
alone as a couple, they clearly do not agree. Nevertheless, validating what
the other wants is important: Henry can say, “I know you really want us
to go out and have a quiet evening alone, that we don’t do that as often
as you would like.” Having validated what Wendy is experiencing, Henry
can agree: “So, let’s go out together. Maybe next weekend we can go out
with Ted and Alice.” Or he can disagree: “But, I would really like to see
Ted and Alice. We haven’t seen them in a long time.” Although this latter
response might still be conflictual and require further negotiation (or a
coin flip), it is off to a more constructive start than if Henry had failed to
validate the legitimacy of what Wendy wanted to do, or actually had
invalidated her: “You should be satisfied with our alone time. We just
went out alone a couple of weeks ago.”
In addition, you need to do more than simply repeat back what the
other person says, like a parrot. When you do that, you really are failing
to understand the other’s experience. Understanding is the linchpin.
Finally (and oddly), it is not validating to legitimize something that
is not legitimate. For example, if someone holds a mistaken (factually
incorrect) belief, it is validating to communicate that you understand that
he or she holds that belief, but it would not be validating to agree with or
legitimize the mistaken belief itself. And, of course, it is most effective to

offer the facts in a nonjudgmental way: “I know you were thinking that
the kid’s holiday party is Friday after school, but it actually is today.”
Why Validation Is Important

Responding with validation to the expression of emotions, wants,
opinions, and skillful actions has many important consequences. Validation
is a core component of effective communication, soothes frayed emotions,
slows negative reactivity (including anger and judgments), facilitates negoti-
ation, builds trust and closeness, and often also enhances self-respect.
Validation Enhances Communication

Responding to your partner’s disclosures (accurate expression) with
validation completes the communication cycle: one person accurately
expresses something, the other listens, understands, and communicates
understanding. Or, one person expresses something, the other listens, does
not understand, and communicates not understanding, which leads to clarifi-
cation. Without validation, the person who is expressing might as well be
talking to the wall.
In addition, because of the soothing properties of validation, being
validated reduces negative emotional arousal, which makes it much easier
to express private experiences accurately (figure 5). Thus, validation is a
core element in communication. Validation communicates that you are:
paying attention; interested in your partner’s experience (wants, emotions,
thoughts); understanding his or her experience (or at least genuinely
trying to understand it); and that you understand (or assume) that his or
her experience is legitimate. Validation also communicates that you are
not: interested primarily in arguing; interested primarily in being right (and
in your partner being wrong); responding in a defensive way; responding
in an offensive way, trying to be hurtful. It helps the other person
express himself or herself accurately, which in turn facilitates your further
understanding (and makes future validation that much easier).
When you communicate that you understand and accept your part-
ner’s feelings, desires, and so on, most of the time your understanding will
be correct, and your partner will feel understood and you can continue
communicating. But sometimes, what you understand will not be entirely
correct. By also communicating the desire to understand and a willingness
Validating Your
Partner’s Experience
His or Her Negative

Emotion Decreases
He or She Accurately
Expresses or Discloses More
He or She Is Easier
to Understand
Figure 5
to accept the legitimacy of your partner’s experience, she or he can simply

reexplain any misunderstood parts so that you can complete the two-step
successfully, even joyfully (by validating), rather than continuing to talk
despite misunderstanding (and dancing into a wall or off a cliff).
Validation Soothes Emotions

There is something very basic about being understood and
accepted. When someone we love, in particular, communicates that she
or he understands and accepts what we are thinking, how we are feeling,
what we are wanting, we feel relieved, comforted, and soothed. In con-
trast, when someone we love fails to understand us or fails to accept us,
it is frustrating and disappointing. When that failure to understand and
accept us turns into invalidation, and she or he tells us that we are wrong,
should not feel or want what we want, and so on, it is very, very painful
(Iverson and Fruzzetti 2006; Shenk and Fruzzetti 2006).
It is not clear why validation is such a potent interpersonal behav-
ior. Perhaps, soon after the origins of language in early humans, vali-
dation predicted physical safety: “I understand you are hungry; I’ll give
you food” or “I see you are frightened; let’s go somewhere safer.” Today,
validation predicts emotional “safety” and continues to have significant
soothing properties. Just imagine a fairly simple situation, one in which
you are feeling cold. Somebody else is comfortable and tells you that you
shouldn’t feel cold, that it is plenty warm in the room. What happens to
your emotions? You will immediately become emotionally activated. The
same thing happens if you are feeling tired, sad, happy, worried, or want
or don’t want something. When your partner invalidates your experience,
you get upset (defensive, attacking, or self-critical). But when your part-
ner understands your experience and accepts you in the moment, you feel
soothed and can relax.
Validation Slows (or Turns Around) Negative Reactivity

Because of the soothing properties of validation, it is particularly
important to use when a conversation concerns a touchy subject or your
emotional arousal already is escalating. If your partner is becoming upset,
validating his or her feelings, wants, goals, or opinions will slow down
your partner’s reactivity, may stop its escalation altogether, or may even
transform that arousal into something positive. Of course, when your
partner stops escalating negatively, it becomes easier for him or her to
validate your feelings, wants, goals, or opinions. Thus, validation by one
partner leads to the other validating back, a kind of validation cycle, as
shown in figure 6.
Validation Builds Trust and Closeness

Couples who have had a lot of disagreements and regularly have
invalidated each other typically develop a virtually instant alert, a kind of
hair-trigger sensitivity to even the possibility of the other partner invali-
dating them. This clearly communicates mistrust that your disclosures
and expressions will be valued and understood, that your experience or
desires will be accepted. The good news is that with validation, mistrust
evaporates and trust builds. In addition, when partners feel understood,
valued, and accepted, they naturally feel close to each other. It comforts
A expresses an
emotion (accurately).
B validates
partner A.
A’s arousal decreases.
A is more attentive,
better able to listen to
and validate partner B.
Figure 6
your partner to know that you know what he or she is experiencing and
that you are accepting of him or her. This brings down barriers to close-
ness and builds those moments of understanding, comfort, and mutuality
that are the essence of intimacy.
Validation Establishes You as a Safe

and Respectful Partner
When you validate, you are clearly responding to what your partner
just expressed to you. However, you also are initiating the next round of
communication. When you validate, you are inviting your partner to
express more, in effect saying, “If you express yourself, if you disclose
something that makes you feel vulnerable, I will listen. I will try hard to
understand and appreciate what it means to you and to let you know what
I understand and that I accept you. It is safe to tell me these things. Your
heart is safe in my hands.” When your response is typically validating, your
partner can feel vulnerable and simultaneously recognize that he or she
really is not vulnerable, at least not to you. He or she will know that you
are going to respond (most often) in a safe and respectful manner, which
will help him or her talk to you in an accurate and effective way.
Validating Your Partner Enhances Your Self-Respect

So far, this chapter has focused on the direct benefits of validation
for the person being validated (feeling soothed, increasing his or her
ability to express him- or herself accurately) along with some indirect
benefits for the person doing the validation (validation reciprocity means
that the person validating now will be more likely to be validated in the
future). But there is another important benefit associated with validating
your partner: doing so increases your own self-respect.
In the middle of an argument, or even when your partner is
expressing something that you don’t like or don’t quite understand, your
own negative emotional arousal goes up. As noted, this makes it easy to
become judgmental and then to say invalidating things. Then, when your
arousal comes back down, you realize that what you said or did was really
hurtful, and you regret it. And you likely feel bad about yourself for that
behavior: disappointed, guilty, and embarrassed. But, imagine instead of
flying off the handle and invalidating the person you love, that you
slowed down, let go of judgments, took a minute to bring down your
emotional arousal, and tried to be mindful of your partner and your
genuine goals. Then you validated your partner.
First, this alternative scenario likely would result in your partner
responding very differently, and the whole interaction would probably go
better. But, even if it did not improve the outcome of the conversation,
imagine how much more self-respect you would have afterwards. Inval-
idating your partner is really succumbing to being out of control. Alter-
natively, validating your partner, the person you love, exhibits your skills
and your commitment and willingness to do the hard things needed to be
a loving partner, which results in considerably more self-respect.
Finding a Valid Target: What Is Valid

and How Is It Valid?
Hopefully it is clear how important it is to respond to your partner in a
validating way. But what is valid? If we do not necessarily agree with
something our partner says, what do we validate? And how? This section
explores the different ways that our experiences and behaviors can be
valid. Before we can validate anything, we have to find a target that is
valid and be able to communicate in what way it is valid.
How Something Can Be Valid

It turns out that there are many different ways that a person’s expe-
rience or behavior can be valid (Fruzzetti and Iverson 2004; Fruzzetti,
Shenk, and Hoffman 2005; Linehan 1997). The main ways are described
in the following sections.
It Exists, It Is Real
Although it may seem trivial to say that validating can be as simple
as acknowledging that a person’s experience is actually real, in fact, this is
a very powerful way to validate. And it is a particularly important way to
validate when you don’t agree with what your partner is saying.
For example, David and Anita argued about a lot of things. If
David said he was frustrated or sad, Anita would tell him he shouldn’t
be, because she had done nothing wrong to cause those negative feelings.
Then David would tell Anita that she was wrong to criticize his feelings,
and the cycle would continue. In reality, when David said he was sad or
frustrated, he was. Or at least he was upset. This was simply true;
whether he had misunderstood or overreacted to Anita was irrelevant.
Anita felt attacked and blamed, whether David meant to blame her or
not, and she believed she had acted fairly, whether David thought so or
not. David’s communication could benefit from more complete and
accurate description, such as “I am really sad we keep disagreeing and
fighting. I know this is a problem that we have, not just you. I’m not
blaming you. I really want us to get better at this.” Similarly, Anita’s
descriptive response could both cool the flames of her escalating
defensiveness and make it easier for David to stay nonblaming of her.

She might say, “Okay, I can see that our fighting upsets you, makes you
sad. It makes me sad, too. I also want us to work this out in a better way.
Yeah, there must be things we both can do to make it better.” Notice
that both partners would simply describe what they hear directly from the
other or what they feel themselves.
Being able to simply describe reality (relationship mindfulness) is a
really important cornerstone of validation. A flat tire is inconvenient
whether it occurs by accident (driving over a nail on the street that fell
off a garbage truck), neglect (somebody forgot to sweep the driveway
after building something there), or design (someone put a nail under your
tire so that it would give you a flat after backing out of your parking
space). Of course, the cause of the flat tire (how the nail got there)
affects what other emotions you have and what steps, if any, you take to
avoid flats in the future. However, it is still inconvenient, and it makes
sense that someone would not enjoy the experience.
It is common to hear people (especially counselors or therapists)
say things like “feelings are always valid.” What this usually means is that
if a person feels a certain way, he or she feels that way for a reason. The
feelings may be in reaction to faulty data, but the fact is that the person
feels what she or he feels, wants what she or he wants, thinks what she
or he thinks. It just is what it is.
It Is Reasonable or Legitimate Under

Particular Circumstances
Sometimes we can understand how someone feels a certain way,
even if that particular reaction is unusual or even not really valid in other
ways. For example, some partners have had negative experiences in previ-
ous relationships that leave them overreacting or underreacting to their
current partners. In these situations, your partner’s feelings may be valid
(make sense, be legitimate) because of their prior experiences, even though
they might not be as legitimate purely in response to the current situation.
Liz was involved with a very aggressive and violent partner, Aaron,
for several years. Over this time, she learned to be acutely aware of
Aaron’s moods. She knew when she was in danger of being verbally
attacked or physically assaulted. Eventually, she was able to get out of
that abusive relationship, and about a year later, she met Sean, who never
had been abusive toward anyone and really was a sweet and mild-
mannered guy. When Sean did become upset, however, even about
things that had nothing to do with her, Liz immediately felt fearful and
would withdraw. Sean was confused and would ask Liz why she was
upset with him; he would point out that he had done nothing negative
toward her. But this only made Liz more fearful, so Sean simply backed
off, accepted Liz’s reaction (even though he did not understand it), and
tried to reassure Liz of his warm feelings toward her when she later was
willing to talk. Over time, Liz realized that she was hypervigilant because
of her abusive experiences with Aaron, and that initially when Sean had
reminded Liz that he was not upset with her, it had triggered a lot of
learned fear from her previous relationship. Aaron had regularly told Liz
that she was crazy, that he was not mean or abusive to her. Of course,
understanding this helped Sean not take Liz’s fear personally, which helped
him be validating toward her: “I know you’re feeling a little anxious about
talking. I’d be happy to talk later or now. Whatever you want.”
It’s Normative: Anyone Would Think/Feel/

Want/Do That
Sometimes the things we think or feel or want or do just make a lot
of sense: anyone would do the same. For example, if your partner is late
and you don’t know where she is, you worry about her. Anyone would. If
you love your partner and have not seen him for a few days (maybe he’s
working out of town), you miss him. Anyone would. If you are unhappy
with your job, you might want to get a new job. Who wouldn’t? If you
applied for a job that would be just perfect, but you didn’t get it, you
would be disappointed. Anyone would.
People tend to worry that their feelings or desires or actions are not
normal. But mostly they are. It is very powerful for you to validate just
how normal your partner’s feelings are when his or her reactions really
are normative.
What to Validate
We have focused a lot on validating emotions—and for good rea-
son. Understanding each other’s emotions—and soothing those emotions
when they are negative—is an essential part of any close relationship.
However, there are a lot of other experiences and behaviors that are valid
and that we can validate. This section will cover not only emotions but
many other experiences and behaviors that are important to all of us and
for which awareness (mindfulness), acceptance (being nonjudgmental, not
rejecting your partner’s experience as invalid), and validation (communi-
cating your understanding about the legitimacy of his or her experience)
are essential responses in a close relationship.
Emotions
When you understand your partner’s emotions, you can respond
in a variety of validating ways. This is true whether those emotions are
incidental or intense, enjoyable or painful. Validating painful emotions
soothes them, and validating enjoyable emotions enhances your
partner’s pleasure. In both cases, you are jumping in and sharing the
experience a little bit. This enhances your understanding and acceptance
of your partner’s experience, thus bringing you closer, and it cements
your bond with each other so that your partner is better able and more
willing to understand and accept you. Emotions are an important part
of who we are. Validating emotions allows you to share your lives with
each other.
Wants or Desires
Everyone goes through life with things we would prefer to do or to
happen. Some of these are quite important, others more incidental.
Regardless, knowing your partner’s wants in life (big and small) helps you
to know him or her in important ways. What would she do if money
were not an issue? What would he do if he had more free time? What are
your partner’s real goals: What does he or she want from life? How about
from next weekend? If you validate your partner’s wants or goals, you
will likely find that your partner will tell you more. If you fail to validate
or invalidate them, you may find yourself shut out from these important
pieces of your partner’s life.
Knowing his or her desires also allows you to respond in ways
that are validating: you can facilitate your partner getting what she or he
wants (a special kind of validation), or soothe your partner when you
realize that she or he did not get what was desired. Validating your
partner’s wants also helps him or her decide whether to keep putting
energy into trying to get something or to let it go and start taking steps
to move on.
Beliefs and Opinions

Everyone has opinions, and many of these are very tightly held
beliefs. To some extent, our beliefs are part of who we are, just like our
emotions and our desires. When someone understands us, accepts our
thoughts or beliefs, we can relax in the world. In some ways, that is why
we join clubs or organizations and enjoy hanging around with people
who like the same things we do. However, opinions and beliefs can be
controversial, and often the more controversial ones are those that we
feel most defensive about. That is why it is important to validate what
your mate thinks, what his or her opinions are, even if you have different
ones. By being validating, you communicate that the other person has a
right to her or his opinions, that they are legitimate. Then, even if you
disagree, you do so from a position of respect, obviating any need for
your partner to become defensive.
Actions
It is important to validate what your partner actually does. This
might include noticing his or her efforts at work, with chores, or actions
and activities with children. It also includes doing nice things for your
partner without strings attached (see chapter 5). In addition, it is impor-
tant that you notice, appreciate, and acknowledge any activities or actions
that are important to your mate. Inquiries like “I noticed you cheering for
the Red Sox. Who won the game?” or “Was that your mom on the
phone? How are things?” communicate your interest in your partner,
appreciation of his or her interest in something, and acceptance (you are
content with what he or she is doing, not trying to change it). In other
situations, when you offer a thank you in response to your partner’s
behavior, you are acknowledging your partner’s actions and simulta-
neously disclosing your appreciation. Everyone enjoys being noticed and
appreciated by loved ones.
Suffering
The world is full of suffering of all types, and all of us suffer at
times. Having someone close to us during times of suffering acts as a
balm. Validating suffering communicates caring, understanding, accep-
tance, and a willingness to share a little of that suffering. Nothing is more
soothing than to have your partner with you, accepting your pain, under-
standing your experience, and sharing it with you.
PRACTICE
1. Think about what your mate was feeling the last time you had a
conversation. Did it make sense? In what ways were his or her
feelings legitimate?
2. Recall the last time you were upset with your partner. Try to let your
judgments go and see if you can find a way to understand what he
or she was wanting or feeling. Clearly, your partner is not crazy, so
whatever she or he felt was legitimate in some way or other. How?
3. Practice noticing what your partner is wanting, thinking, feeling, and

doing (including being happy or feeling a lot of suffering). Try to
assume that his or her experience or behavior is legitimate in some
way (it is). Can you notice how his or her experience is legitimate?
You don’t need to say anything yet; just practice noticing.
4. Try to understand something about your partner’s expression or

behavior in a previous situation (weeks or months ago) that you had
a hard time understanding at the time. Can you now find ways in
which those experiences or behaviors were valid or made sense?
5. When you are upset with your partner, notice how your own strong
emotions or your own judgments get in the way of seeing the valid-
ity in your partner’s experiences or behaviors. Try some of the
earlier skills in the book to reduce your emotional arousal and to let
go of judgments. Is it easier to understand your partner’s feelings/
desires/thoughts/actions?
Chapter 8
Validating Responses: How

to Validate Your Partner
Now that we have discussed why it is important to respond to your part-

ner with validation, and you know what to validate (targets), it is time to
spell out how to do it. This chapter will explain a whole variety of ways
to validate whatever your partner is feeling, wanting, doing, etc., both
verbally and with your actions (Fruzzetti 1995, 1997; Fruzzetti and
Iverson 2004, 2006; Linehan 1997).
We will begin by identifying several different ways to validate
verbally. In addition, however, there are many ways to validate without
words. This turns out to be a good thing when you can’t think of what to
say, of course, but it is also important in other ways.
Verbal Validation
Chapter 7 identified some basic ways that anyone’s experiences or behav-
iors can be valid. This section will discuss what to say or do to commu-
nicate verbally or in conversation that you understand and accept what
your partner is experiencing or doing. Although they are discussed sepa-
rately, sometimes a validating response will include elements of several of
these ways to validate at one time.
Show That You Are Paying Attention and

Listening Actively
When you are mindful of your mate, you are open to what she or
he is experiencing, less defensive, more able to simply notice it. When
you are communicating that you are paying attention, listening actively
and openly, you are validating in an important way. This counts as verbal
validation, since it occurs during dialogue, even though this particular
way of validating does not require you to say anything. This kind of
validation demonstrates that your partner is important to you and that
you are open to understanding. There really are two parts here: becoming
mindful of your partner, really paying attention, not becoming judgmental
or defensive, and staying open to what she or he expresses; and commu-
nicating gently that you are interested, attentive, and listening actively
with an open mind, accepting of what she or he is saying or doing.
The simplest ways to show this nonjudgmental active listening are
to drop your other activities (put down reading, turn off the TV or
stereo); relax your body and facial muscles; look at your partner, includ-
ing good eye contact, which communicates that you are willing to listen
with your full attention; respond naturally in small ways that show her or
him that you are following (nodding your head, giving ordinary conver-
sational cues that show you are tracking and understanding, such as
“um-hmm” or “right”).
Sometimes, this first kind of validation is sufficient: you demon-
strate your interest and openness, and your partner feels heard and
understood, and that’s all that’s needed. However, at other times more
may be required. Even if more words are required to respond in a vali-
dating way, this first level is virtually always an essential component of
validation.
Validating Responses: How to Validate Your Partner 109
PRACTICE
1. Practice this type of validation with anyone. Notice your posture,
muscle tension, and whether you are feeling open to what your
partner has to say and that you are also showing that openness
clearly. Make good eye contact and be sure that the other person can
tell that you are interested and that she or he has your undivided and
nonjudgmental attention.
2. Practice this with your partner. After a while, check in to see if she
or he feels that you are genuinely interested and paying attention.
Make adjustments to how you communicate your attention in
response to whatever your partner tells you. Continue practicing.
Acknowledge Your Partner’s Experience

Sometimes it is important just to acknowledge what the other
person is doing, saying, feeling, thinking, or wanting. As noted in chapter
7, this is particularly important when you are not entirely in agreement.
For example, if David feels lonely and is thinking this is because he and
Anita have not been getting along well, he might simply say, “You know,
Anita, I’ve been feeling lonely.” Under these circumstances, it might be
easy for Anita to simply say, “Yeah, you seem sad,” which communicates
to David that she understands and accepts his feelings. But maybe David
feels that the reason they have not been getting along well is Anita’s fault,
and he blames her, saying “I’m really feeling alone. You’re always criticiz-
ing me, and I’m tired of it.” Anita might be tempted to say, “Hey, it takes
two to tango,” but that would fail to validate the completely valid part of
David’s expression, and instead would likely lead to escalating conflict
and more negative emotion and distance. Anita could simply say, “Yeah,
you seem sad,” just as in the first example. By acknowledging the incon-
trovertibly legitimate part of what David is saying, Anita communicates at
least a partial acceptance of his feelings and further communicates her
openness to listening and understanding. It does not mean that she
agrees that it is her fault; that discussion may not be fruitful at all. Rather,
she communicates that she sees David’s sadness, his loneliness, and is
willing to accept it and be with him at that moment. Chances are good
that this will slow David’s reaction down, and he may even be able to let
his judgments go and become more descriptive, perhaps responding to
Anita, “Hmm. You seem sad, too. I guess not getting along is crappy for
you, too.”
Acknowledging the reality of what your partner is experiencing is
potent. Not only are you understanding and accepting, and communi-
cating that understanding and acceptance, but you are not providing the
typical, problematic response of high-conflict couples: you are not inval-
idating or criticizing and hence not escalating the conflict. In fact, you are
deescalating it.
Sometimes you can simply acknowledge what your partner is saying,
but sometimes your partner expresses things nonverbally or behaviorally.
You can acknowledge what he or she is expressing in these ways, too. If
she has a sad expression, you can say, “You seem sad.” If he keeps trying
to find a store that has a particular present for your child or other family
member, you can say, “You really want to get that for her, don’t you!”
The reality is that, like all forms of validation, this is easy to do
when you are content and not emotionally negatively aroused but very
difficult to do when you get angry and judgmental, or have a lot of fear
or a lot of pain. Therefore it is important to practice this skill a lot,
including rehearsing it in your mind, so that the simple words come to
you automatically when you need them.
PRACTICE
1. Practice this type of validation with anyone, starting in situations in

which you are not upset. Notice the natural ways that you do this,
and write down three or four typical things you might say and the
way you say them.
2. Practice this validation skill with your partner, whenever it seems

appropriate and you can get yourself to do it. Notice how she or he
responds.
3. Recall recent conflict situations with your partner or spouse. See if

any of the kinds of validating statements you came up with in step 1
might have been effective in stopping the conflict from getting
worse. In your head, practice saying them over and over in those
situations.
4. Identify what you could do to bring your emotion down enough to

be able to actually provide these kinds of validating statements in
difficult situations. Consider the skills from earlier chapters and
build them into a plan for how to be more validating of your partner
in tough situations.
5. Implement your plan! Even in difficult situations, try to validate
what your partner is feeling or wanting, saying something like “I
know you feel ” or “I can tell that you
want ,” but of course use your own
words and your best soft, genuine, loving (mindful) style.
Ask Questions to Clarify Your Understanding

Sometimes we think we understand what our partner is experienc-
ing, but we’re not sure, or the way we understand something seems a
little different from what our partner says. When these situations occur,
asking questions to clarify (as opposed to prove your partner wrong) can
be a very helpful part of validation.
In the simplest situations, just notice that you don’t understand
something about what your partner is expressing. In a gentle way,
describe what you do and do not understand, and ask for clarification.
Remember that when a couple has a long pattern of conflict, questions
can easily come across as challenges, so be very careful not to question
the legitimacy of what the person is saying or experiencing. Rather,
communicate that you are interested and accepting but that you just don’t
completely understand and really do want to understand.
Miranda seemed really upset after getting off the phone, so Alex
asked her what had happened. Miranda told him that she was upset that
her parents had decided not to visit the following month as planned.
Alex was confused, for he knew that Miranda had wanted to postpone
her parent’s visit until later because of all the other activities and com-
mitments they already had for that week. So, he said to her gently
(standing close, relaxed, looking directly at her), “Miranda, you seem
really upset and disappointed. But I’m confused because I thought you
wanted your parents to visit later. So, I’m not understanding something.
Why are you disappointed?” With this acknowledgment and clarifying
question, Miranda then was able to respond, “Well, you’re right, I did
want them to postpone. But they were really hurt by my asking them to
change the dates, and they didn’t understand that it was only that week
that was a problem, that I really do want them to come. And now they
say they’ll just wait until Thanksgiving to visit. That’s not what I wanted
to happen!” Now, Alex understood and was able to validate completely
Miranda’s feelings, provide support and encouragement, and later even
help think of ways to get her parents to change their minds.
In other situations, confusion may arise because a person is feel-
ing more than one thing, and so expression of those feelings needs to
be disentangled. Alternatively, something seems missing, not expressed,
which one partner really thinks the other is experiencing. For example,
when Eric came home, he slammed the door and stomped around the
house. Hannah said to him, “Eric, you seem upset. What’s wrong?”
Eric then told her that the project he had been working on for weeks,
the one thing at his job that he was really excited about, had been
cancelled. He said, “I can’t believe it. Why did they let me put so much
work into it if they were just going to can it now? It really pisses me
off.” Hannah could see that Eric was, indeed, angry. But she also knew
from many previous conversations that Eric was really excited about
the project and had hoped that he would get to play an important role
in it. Knowing Eric’s prior feelings about this made her wonder if
maybe he was also really disappointed, not just angry. She soothed him
physically by rubbing his shoulder and sitting close to him, and then
validated him in a variety of ways, including asking him about disap-
pointment. “Oh, Honey, this is terrible news! Of course you’re upset,
who wouldn’t be? Given how much you were hoping this project would
work out, I’d imagine you would be really disappointed, too. Are you
disappointed?” Eric felt a little bit of comfort from Hannah, even
though he was still upset about the project. Hannah’s touch, gentle
voice tone, reassurance, and openness to validating and supporting him
made him feel a little better. As his arousal came down, he realized that
he was, in fact, very disappointed. He had missed noticing his disap-
pointment in the midst of his frustration, and it got further lost when
he became judgmental about his boss. Although feeling disappointed
was hard, the feeling was genuine, and identifying that emotion and
talking about it a little bit helped.
Notice how Hannah was able to identify Eric’s disappointment
even before he did. This is common in couples because partners know
each other well and because our own emotional response to something
that happens to our partner is smaller than our partner’s own response.
With fewer judgments and less emotional arousal, we can see more
clearly. Notice also that even though Hannah was fairly sure she knew
what Eric was feeling (and she turned out to be correct), she did not tell
Eric what he was feeling. That would have been invalidating, because
first, his disappointment was “hidden” behind his high arousal and judg-
ments, so he was not actually quite experiencing it yet, and second, if she
had been wrong, Eric would have felt terribly misunderstood and distant
from Hannah. It was really important for her to support him at this time,
not to create distance.
PRACTICE
1. Practice asking clarifying questions any time you are not sure you
understand what your partner is saying, wanting, or feeling. Be sure
to do this in a nonthreatening way that communicates clearly that
you want to understand. Notice your tension, position, facial expres-
sion, and voice tone. Be sure to take a moment to be mindful of
your partner before you say anything.
2. Talk with each other about the best ways to ask each other for
clarification. Try to do what your partner tells you is most reassur-
ing, does not trigger defensiveness, and most helps him or her know
how to clarify.
Understand Partner Problems or “Mistakes”

in a Larger Context
When one of you has made a mess of something, made a major
mistake or blunder, or done something harmful or dysfunctional, emo-
tions on everyone’s part are likely to run high. Consequently, validation
in this situation can be as difficult as it is important.
First, remember to validate your partner’s feelings, wants, and so
on even if those experiences have led in some way to problematic
behaviors or follow from problematic behaviors. For example, feeling
miserable makes sense in a lot of situations, but even extreme misery

doesn’t mean that harmful behaviors (toward yourself or toward others)
are a legitimate way to handle those situations. So, maybe one of you
has done something impulsive and/or dangerous or irresponsible and
caused harm (drove the car after drinking, smashed something, over-
dosed on medication, failed to go to work and didn’t call in sick). The
idea is that the problematic or dysfunctional behavior may not be some-
thing to validate (except to acknowledge that it happened) but that the
things that led up to the behavior can certainly be understood, as can
the consequences.
The idea here is to keep the big picture in mind even when you or
your partner does something very problematic. We are not only our most
recent gaffe, not only our worst behavior; we have other, more positive
and successful behaviors in our repertoires and are complete human
beings. So, the first step is to remember this larger context. This is the
person you love. He or she has many qualities that are likable and
lovable. The next step is to understand that we do even dysfunctional
things for reasons. This is not to excuse dysfunctional or hurtful things,
but being nonjudgmental can lead us to accept the reality of the situation
and move on.
Even in these situations, it may be important to validate what is
valid about your partner’s experience. Typically, this means validating
feelings and desires. Perhaps your partner has been miserable at work
and impulsively quit today, and this plunges the family into financial peril.
You can understand how miserable a person must be to quit a job this
way. That does not mean you have to agree with the action or like it.
And, of course, it is important to express accurately (and nonjudg-
mentally) your reactions to the situation.
Thus, when your partner is doing something problematic or even
dysfunctional, it is important to validate what is valid about it, but it is
also important not to validate what is invalid about it. For example, if
your partner has had a really difficult day, he or she might be quite tired,
overwhelmed, have a lot of feelings, and be in a lot of emotional pain.
These experiences make sense, and validating them likely would help. She
or he might have urges to drink or use drugs to cut off or escape from
the negative emotions. Although it might make sense (be valid) to have
these urges, drinking or drug use would not be “valid” ways to manage
negative emotions.
Wendy longed to spend more time with Henry and often asked him
to be more attentive to her. But Henry was invalidating of Wendy: “You
shouldn’t want to spend so much time together. You’re just too clingy
and needy.” Wendy became flooded with negative emotion. She felt
ashamed and added to it by self-invalidating: “Maybe Henry’s right, I’m
too needy; I must be an awful wife for him, and he deserves better.” This
led her to hopelessness and even thoughts of suicide. It would be impor-
tant for Henry (and anyone interacting with Wendy) to validate her
feelings (that she is, in fact, feeling fearful, disappointed, overwhelmed,
hopeless, and/or shame) and to acknowledge that those feelings make a
lot of sense: Henry rarely spent as much time with her as she would like,
so it made sense to feel one-down. Similarly, when someone (in this case
her partner, Henry) is that critical and invalidating, it is pretty normal to
feel bad about yourself and ashamed. In addition, it is important to
recognize and to validate the fact that she had suicidal thoughts or urges
(“I know you are having suicidal thoughts”). But it would be important
not to validate suicide (or drinking, drug use, aggression, or violence) as
legitimate options. Thus, feelings can be valid given certain situations or
problems. However, some “solutions” to those problems may not be
really valid; that is, they may actually make the person’s life, situations, or
relationship worse in the long run.
Finally, it is not validating to legitimize a person’s judgments,
whether the judgments are about themselves or others, or any behavior
that degrades someone or treats someone as incompetent or unworthy.
This can be complicated. For example, sometimes one partner will
express a lot of criticism or even contempt for herself or himself (“I’m
such a screwup”). If the other partner is angry and likely judgmental, it
may be easy to agree with the first partner, but this just further invali-
dates him or her. It would be more accurate and validating at the same
time to respond by describing your own nonjudgmental thoughts about
the specific situation (“well, I wish you hadn’t done that, it does make the
situation harder to solve”).
Alternatively, sometimes one partner might be very judgmental of
another person (like a boss or neighbor). It might be tempting to jump
on the judgmental bandwagon and pile on further judgments. However,
it is far more validating in the long run to find an accurate experience
(emotion, desire) to validate (“it makes sense that you’re upset with her”
or “of course, you’d really rather not have to work with her again tomor-
row”) than to agree with the judgmental partner (“yeah, she’s a real piece
of work”). Ultimately, using good sense and keeping your values in mind
will help you know what, and how, to validate.
PRACTICE
1. Think about something problematic or dysfunctional that you have
done (recently, or even a long time ago). What led up to your behav-
ior? Were your feelings valid? How were they valid? What were your
feelings afterwards? What would have been helpful for a loving
partner to say to you, without suggesting that the problem behavior
was okay?
2. Talk with your partner about how to handle such situations for each
of you. What would be constructive? How can you validate the valid
parts without supporting the problematic or dysfunctional parts?
3. Pick a situation from a while back, one that is no longer fresh and
does not immediately get your emotions up. Try to talk through the
episode, validating the valid parts, keeping the big picture of your
partner in mind.
4. When your partner is self-critical, try to validate the underlying emo-
tion and ignore the judgment. Try the same thing when your partner
is judgmental about someone else. Remember that you will both feel
better, more consistent with your values, if you stay descriptive; stick
to what the person did, how you reacted, what you like and don’t
like, want and don’t want.
Understand Historical Reasons for Current Experiences

It’s important to focus on how your partner’s reactions (whether
they are problematic or not) make sense, given his or her previous expe-
rience. There was an example of this in chapter 7, where Liz reacted with
fear toward her partner Sean even though he was not doing anything
threatening and had never done anything like that. She reacted this way
because of her experience with a previous abusive partner. Her fear made
sense because of her earlier experience.
Many of our reactions are learned. For example, if people around us
are consistent, decent, and honest, we generally learn to trust people. If
instead, people around us are frequently dishonest, inconsistent, or will-
ing to take advantage of us, we learn to be more cautious. The trouble is
that it is often extremely difficult to pinpoint how a person learned to

respond a particular way. Usually, validating means assuming the best and
giving our partner the benefit of the doubt. If she is reacting in a way
that doesn’t make sense, assume that if you understood enough about her
previous experiences, her reactions would make sense. If his behavior is
enigmatic, there probably are understandable reasons for it that you just
don’t know.
When a relationship is going well, it can be helpful to learn about
what your partner’s life was like before, both in his or her family of
origin and in previous romantic relationships. The idea is not to be a
voyeur, but rather to understand a bit more about your partner. Doing so
will hopefully help you give your partner the benefit of the doubt when
you are confused about his or her reaction.
However, knowing that there are valid explanations for a person’s
actions and reactions does not mean ignoring the current circumstances.
You should always ask clarifying questions to find any current factors
that may have influenced your partner’s response.
PRACTICE
1. Talk with your partner. Each of you can pick one thing from your
early family life or from a previous romantic relationship that you
think has had a big influence on your reactions to your partner.
Discuss these. As you talk, be sure to validate in terms of previous
experiences: “It makes sense that you worry that I might react that
way now that I know how she/he reacted.”
2. After validating, you can also clarify your own reactions via accurate
disclosure and expression: “But I hope you can notice as we are
talking that I don’t feel that way at all.”
Find the “Of Course” in His or Her Experience

In many, many situations, our reactions just make sense. They are
quite typical. Almost anybody would react similarly. When this is the
case, validating that our partner’s feelings or desires or actions are
normative is just what is needed. In situations of loss, or when we don’t

get what we want, people feel sad or disappointed. When we don’t spend
much time with our partner, we miss him or her. When bad things
happen that are beyond our control, we feel frustrated. When we get
what we want, we feel happy or satisfied.
Finding the “of course” means that you see that, of course, your
partner would feel that way or want that or do that. Just about anybody
would. It makes perfect sense! The trick is to be able to stand back and
look at the situation from a normative perspective. If the situation does
not involve you, this usually is easier. If your mother-in-law has a life-
threatening illness, of course your partner is both sad and worried about
her. If your partner gets a much-desired promotion, of course he or she
is excited and happy. However, what about when you are arguing and
you say something mean? Well, in the abstract, it is easy to see how, of
course, he or she is hurt. But in the heat of the moment, you may be full
of judgments and actually blame your partner: “If she/he didn’t criticize
me, then I wouldn’t have said that.”
Imagine what would happen if, instead, you validated the hurt.
What if you simply said, “You know, of course you feel hurt. What I said
was really mean.” Interestingly, this often will bring about the end of the
escalation. There is still a repair to be made but you must stop the
destructive interaction before any repair is possible. We will discuss the
tough situations in which this kind of validation is required more in
chapter 9. However, you can now practice this kind of validation in less
charged situations.
PRACTICE
1. Notice that your partner actually responds to a lot of things in ways

that most people would respond. Become aware of this by practicing
a quick analysis several times each day: “She feels .
Is that how the average person might feel in this situation?” Or, “He
wants . Would most people want that right now?”
Just notice and be aware.
2. In situations that don’t involve you, practice validating in this way.

Simply say, “Of course, you feel/want/did that. Anybody would do
the same.” Or, use your own words that convey how completely
normative and reasonable her or his reaction or action was.
3. Now try validating even when your partner’s reaction concerns you.
Start by choosing something that happened a few days or weeks ago,
something about which you are not still raw. Practice what you are
going to say ahead of time, so you don’t have to come up with
words in the moment (if your emotions go up, it might be hard to
find the right words), and then validate your partner’s experience or
behavior.
4. Now, try validating this way in current situations, as they unfold.

Step back, notice if his or her reaction really is what most people
would do. If so, say so. Notice how this validation affects the course
of your interactions.
Allow Yourself to Be as Vulnerable as

Your Partner: “Me, Too”
Imagine that when you were starting to date your partner, at the
end of the first date, she or he had told you, “I had a really good time. I
hope we can get together again next weekend.” What if you had
responded, “I can see you had a good time” or “I am confused. What
made it enjoyable for you?” or “I know. Everybody has a good time with
me on a date like this.” That would have been the end of the relation-
ship. The ways of validating that we have discussed so far just don’t fit
the situation. The reason in this example is that the person has made
herself or himself vulnerable to you, leaving herself or himself hanging
out on a limb. What is required is that you show similar or reciprocal
vulnerability. In this situation, if you wanted to be validating (and wanted
another date), you would say something like, “I had a good time, too” or
“I’d like to get together again, too.” Or, you would simply say, “me, too.”
When everything’s going well, it’s easy to validate with “me, too.”
But, sometimes one partner will be quite emotionally vulnerable to the
other, even though things have not been going well and negative emo-
tions are all around. For example, Jasmine and Jared had been alternating
between fighting with each other and avoiding each other, not really able
to get unstuck for some time. Each was on hair-trigger alert and reacted
defensively at any perceived signs of criticism or invalidation. However,
Jared practiced his mindfulness skills and realized that he missed Jasmine
and really wanted to try to be closer, to try to let some of the past go.
After dinner one night, he said to Jasmine, “I have been thinking about
how long it has been since we were really close, and I’ve been feeling
really sad about it. I miss you so much. I want to do better. I want us to
do better. I want to be close to you; I love you so much.”
In a situation like this, in which one partner is open and vulnerable,
it is simply not validating to acknowledge that vulnerability (“I can tell
you are sad”) or even to say how “anybody would feel that way.” Instead,
to be validating, you have to be vulnerable also. Jasmine had started out
by feeling a lot fear and becoming tense in her shoulders and back. As
she listened to Jared, she tried to relax her muscles, to just notice him
and be in that moment, observing and ignoring the flood of thoughts and
judgments that started to cascade through her mind. As she listened
actively and nonjudgmentally, she noticed that she felt a huge rush of
sadness, and she felt her affection for Jared, which had been blocked out
by the fog of mistrust and anger that had permeated their relationship
lately. She responded, “I miss you so much, too.” Jared relaxed further,
and they were able to hold each other and start the process of recon-
necting, letting blame and judgments fall away and replacing them with
mindful awareness of their own commitment and love for each other.
In its essence, this reciprocal vulnerability can be summarized by
two words: “me, too.” That is, “I am just as invested in you as you are in
me, just as much devoted to you as you are to me, want things to go well
as much as you do, am disappointed in our problems just as you are,”
and so on. Simply saying, “me too” is often all that is required in these
situations. In fact, when we are genuinely and lovingly aware of our
partner’s vulnerabilities, we often feel a lot of emotions (usually love,
connection, compassion), so it may be hard to say much more. Fortu-
nately, this is all that is required in most situations, at least to start down
a constructive path.
PRACTICE
1. Practice noticing when your partner is vulnerable to you. It might be

with words, but it could also be with other forms of communication,
like taking your hand, touching you sweetly, or making warm eye
contact. Be mindful of his or her vulnerability, and try to relax and
notice whether you, in fact, want some of the same things (a good
relationship, less arguing, more closeness).
2. Rehearse in your mind getting yourself willing to be vulnerable too.

Just imagine being able to say “me, too” in some of these situations.
Does it feel genuine? What do you need to do, what skills do you
need to practice, to be able to actually be vulnerable in those
moments with your partner? Whatever is needed, practice that.
3. Now, let down your guard and reciprocate: match his or her tone,
actions, and vulnerability, and say (in words or actions), “me too.”
Respond with Your Actions in

a Validating Way
Finally, there are times when you can respond in a validating way without
using words. Some situations don’t require a lot of talking but instead
require taking action. For example, if you notice that your partner is
taking a nap on the sofa and seems cold (maybe she is shivering a little),
you wouldn’t wake her up to say, “Oh, honey, I can see that you are
cold,” just as you wouldn’t say, “It is only 62 degrees in here! Anybody
would be cold.” Of course, these would be most unhelpful (and quite
silly). Instead, put a blanket on her or turn up the heat or snuggle next to
her and share your body warmth. These responses convey your under-
standing and acceptance of her experience in a far more important way
than talking about how legitimate it is to be cold.
Just as with other types of validating responses, it is easier to take
validating action when negative emotions are not high. But, in high-
conflict couples, partners can get in the habit of a kind of knee-jerk
disagreement, which must be overcome. For example, your spouse or
partner might come home, looking exhausted, and tell you what a diffi-
cult day it has been. Maybe it was his turn to make dinner. The obvious
thing to do is to consider leftovers, a quick and easy meal, or take-out.
But, if there has been a lot of conflict, you might start making it compli-
cated: “It’s not fair that he should get out of making dinner. He wouldn’t
support me if the situation were reversed.” These are judgments that

interfere with responding in a decent and validating way.
In order to respond with action in a validating way, you need to do
three things: stick with the facts (notice what she or he really needs right
now, what would work); stay mindful (nonjudgmental) and don’t fall into
the cesspool of judgments and righteousness; and find a way to respond
that does not compromise your self-respect but does meet his or her
present need.
Just the Facts

Identifying facts is easy when you are objective, hard when you are
highly emotional. What are the facts? Be descriptive. If she says she is
tired, believe her. If he says he is hungry, believe him. If she says she
wants to go out to dinner, believe her. If he says he hates his job, believe
him. But note that the facts do not dictate how you must respond.
Identify What Is Needed

If your partner is tired, are there ways to relieve her burden? Can
you respond in some way that helps (regardless of whether she specifi-
cally asks for you to respond)? What would help? If he is hungry, you
could feed him or let him know where the food is. Both show (if you are
sincere) your caring and acceptance. If she wants to go out to dinner, is
that okay? Can you afford it? Do you have the time? Energy? If so, go.
But if not, you are not necessarily invalidating her experience. You can
say, “I know you want to go, but I am worried about our finances,” and
negotiate from there.
Respond Effectively, Maintaining Your Self-Respect

The bottom line is, if you can respond to what your partner is
expressing (whether it is a verbal request or simply an expression of a
feeling or a desire), and doing so does no harm to you, then do it. But if
you feel genuinely uncomfortable with a particular response, either find
another active way to respond or stick with verbal validation.
For example, Sara was really tired after a long day. She and Matt
had an agreement that when one person cooked dinner the other person
did the dishes. Matt cooked dinner, so it was Sara’s turn for dish duty.
She was obviously tired and said, “I really am exhausted and don’t feel
like doing the dishes.” In this situation, Matt immediately believed that
Sara was tired. He wondered, though, if she was trying to get him to do
the dishes. After letting his judgments go (“she shouldn’t try to slough
this off on me”) he realized that he (or anybody else), when really tired,
might try to get somebody else to do one of his chores for him. Then he
considered doing the dishes. Clearly, Sara would appreciate it, and Matt
was not particularly tired. Volunteering to do the dishes would be very
validating of her exhaustion. In most situations, doing the dishes would
be a very validating thing to do.
But, it is not required. That is, if Matt noticed that this situation
comes up a lot and honestly thinks Sara is unfair (he does her chores a
lot, she rarely does his), maybe he should stick with verbal validation:
“Yes, Sara, you look really tired. What happened to make you so
exhausted?” Then, he could listen to her talk about her day, perhaps even
while she does the dishes. This kind of verbal validation would be useful,
even if doing the dishes for her might also be helpful in a different way.
This can become even more complicated when one partner asks the
other to do something. Clearly, it is validating to do what is asked. When-
ever it is possible and it would be constructive (without sacrificing self-
respect), go ahead and do what’s asked. But, the only fact is that she or he
wants you to do something. If you cannot do the task, obviously you will
not. If you do not want to do it, that’s okay if your reasons are nonjudg-
mental (not full of “shoulds” or “shouldn’ts”). Either way, if you don’t
do what is asked, it will still be very helpful to validate what is valid: your
partner wants validation from you and will be disappointed if you don’t
give it. Just because you don’t want to or cannot do something does not
mean that your partner should not want you to.
For example, Ginger really loved to dance, but Fred did not usually
want to go. Fred sometimes thought that, because he wasn’t much of a
dancer, Ginger should not ask him to go dancing, maybe should stop
even wanting to go. It turned out that when Fred validated Ginger’s
desires and enjoyment of dancing (“honey, I know you would love to go,
but I just have two left feet, so it’s not much fun for me”), Ginger felt
okay about not going. Fred could further validate Ginger’s disappoint-
ment, even though she might not have clearly expressed it (“and I’m
guessing this is disappointing, because I almost never want to go”). And,
he could be responsive also by suggesting alternatives: “Maybe we can do
something else together that’s active and fun.”
Finally, it is often important to communicate your nonjudgmental

reasons for not doing what is asked of you. Otherwise, it will be easy for
your partner to simply see you as unwilling, unhelpful, or critical. Use
your mindfulness skills and describe your thoughts and feelings accu-
rately, ideally in a steady and loving tone (neither defensive nor critical),
and be sure to validate your partner’s disappointment.
PRACTICE
1. Practice being responsive to your partner in nonconflict situations. If
she or he is frustrated, offer to help. If distressed, provide some
comfort. Share the burden; share the joys.
2. Evaluate some recent situations in which you might have been more
actively responsive to your partner. What got in the way? Did you
make a balanced decision or a reactive one? If it was unbalanced,
figure out which skills you need (mindfulness, letting go of judg-
ments, awareness of your partner) to be more balanced next time.
Practice those skills.
3. When you choose not to be responsive, practice verbal validation,
making sure to validate your partner’s disappointment.
4. Practice being actively responsive whenever you can.
Chapter 9
Recovering from
Invalidation
This chapter will highlight some ways to get yourself motivated to vali-
date your partner even when it seems very difficult indeed. It’s especially
important to be able to recover after your partner actually has been
critical of you or responded to you in an invalidating way. Perhaps
surprisingly, part of your motivation to validate what your partner is
experiencing, wanting, or doing will come from validating your own
experiences and desires. This chapter will also discuss how to get yourself
to repair some of the damage after you have invalidated your partner.
Ultimately, similar skills are required to proceed, whether you were the
one being invalidated or the one who invalidated the other.
How to Validate Yourself

Self-validation is a very useful skill and strategy across a variety of sit-
uations (Fruzzetti 1997, 2002; Fruzzetti and Iverson 2006; Linehan
1993a). Not surprisingly, you can use the ways that you validate others
to validate yourself. To some extent, this is just an extension of mind-
fulness and awareness of yourself from chapter 2. You can simply pay
attention to your experiences and behaviors, your emotions, sensations,
wants, thoughts, and actions. You can then consider how to accept
these things and use this self-acceptance and self-validation to achieve
balance, which will in turn allow you to be more accurate in your
expression and disclosure and therefore more validating toward your
partner.
Be Aware of, Accept, and Describe Your

Own Experience
At a very fundamental level, validating yourself is much the same
as validating someone else. You must find a target to validate (some-
thing valid such as your emotions, desires, sensations) and respond to
your own experience in a way that accepts and legitimizes it. With self-
validation, it is just as important to stay away from judgments. Self-
validating does not mean saying you are right instead of wrong or that
anything you do is okay. Self-validation involves description: what are
the facts? And self-validation, by letting judgments go, allows you to
simply be in your own skin in the world. You exist. You are here. You
know what you feel, want, or think (or that you aren’t sure; “confusion”
would then be the accurate word to describe your mental state). These
are facts.
Whenever in doubt, turn to description. Describe what you feel,
your sensations, what you want. Remember that these are facts: you feel
whatever you feel, want whatever you want, think whatever you think,
regardless of whether others might feel, want, or think the same way.
Acting on those feelings, desires, or thoughts might be effective or prob-
lematic, however. The point is that by separating facts from judgments,
you can then exercise greater self-control and act in ways that lead you to
feel proud of, and not embarrassed about, yourself.
For example, you might want to spend more time or less time with
your partner than she or he wants to spend with you. It is common in
couples for there to be a difference in how much time they desire to be
together, or how much intensity or closeness they share, and even small
differences can be the trigger for a lot of pain and disagreement. Talking
with friends can often make the situation worse, because in their quest to
Recovering from Invalidation 127
be supportive, they may fan the flame of judgments about your partner
(“he’s wrong” or “she’s being unreasonable”), contributing to further
polarization between you and your loved one.
The facts may be that you want what you want and that your
partner wants something different. The difference could be large or
small. There is no right or wrong to this. So self-validation would mean
simply noticing what you feel and what you want, describing it to your-
self (or to others), and accepting or acknowledging it as the fact that it is.
Notice how accurate expression is, in reality, actually self-validating! This
happy coincidence means that when you are working to be effective in
communicating with your spouse or partner, you are also supporting and
validating yourself.
PRACTICE
1. Practice noticing and describing your experience. What are your
sensations? What are you feeling? What do you prefer to happen?
These are facts, so state them as facts. No judgments!
2. Identify certain feelings or desires that you have related to conflict
with your spouse or partner. Separate the facts (descriptions of
your feelings and desires) from your interpretations or judgments.
Practice just acknowledging that you feel what you feel and want
what you want. If it is helpful, you can return to some of the skills
in earlier chapters (see the discussion in chapters 2 and 3 on toler-
ating disappointment or allowing your emotion) and practice them
some more.
Show Compassion Toward Yourself

If what you notice is that you are suffering, it may be self-validating
first to describe your experience to yourself and then show tolerance and
acceptance. We often judge ourselves, blame ourselves, and criticize our-
selves. This can be a constant chatter of invalidation in our heads that
creates a lot of negative emotional reactions and a lot of unnecessary
suffering. Remember that when you are judgmental of yourself, you will
feel embarrassed, guilty, or ashamed. Perhaps you have done something
that did not work out well. Maybe you even did it out of mean-spirited-
ness. You can describe this with compassion toward yourself, especially if
you are willing to work to repair the damage or work toward more self-
control in the future.
Paradoxically, the more we judge ourselves for our behaviors, the
more likely we are to behave in ways that are against our goals and
values. The reason is that our self-invalidation creates heightened nega-
tive emotion (typically shame), which then interferes with our thinking
and problem solving and makes us more reactive to negative (or even
ambiguous) cues from our partner. So, if you beat yourself up (“I’m such
an awful spouse. I should never have said that to her!”), you then feel
awful (humiliated). And when your partner says something to you, such
as “you were really mean and unreasonable,” you already have all this
negative emotion and maybe just can’t stand more shame. So you quickly
lash out at the “stimulus” for this increased pain: the very person you
hurt in the first place. This, of course, makes you feel worse (more
ashamed) later on, which again increases your angry response in the next
argument, and so on, ad nauseam.
Strangely, self-understanding and compassion are the keys to break-
ing this cycle. Showing more compassion toward yourself will increase
your ability to act with more compassion toward your mate. Under-
standing what you feel, want, and so forth, how you got there, and that
you are not wrong to have these feelings or desires soothes your emo-
tional arousal. You are not crazy. When your emotional arousal comes
down, you can then work on acting in ways that are more effective and
consistent with your goals and values, which will further reduce your
humiliation (or other negative emotion).
You can also notice the ways in which your experiences and actions
are valid. As discussed in chapters 7 and 8, there are many ways that what
we feel or want or do can be valid. Our reactions may be normative, they
may be learned through prior experiences, or we may not know how or
why we feel or act the way that we do, but we can assume it would make
sense if we had enough time and resources to figure it out. In which ways
are your feelings valid? Just because others may feel differently does not
mean you should. The fact is you don’t. Or maybe anybody would feel
the way you do or want what you want. Use description and compassion
to sort out what you feel and what you want, and accept these for what
they are: your valid feelings and your valid desires.
PRACTICE
1. Notice what kinds of things you tend to be self-critical about. Are
these criticisms helpful? If they are nonjudgmental and help you
organize your behaviors and act in ways that you feel good about,
great. If the criticisms are not helpful, let go of the judgments and be
descriptive.
2. Practice finding compassion for your feelings, even if they are feel-
ings that make you uncomfortable. Accept your wants and emotions
as they are in this moment.
3. Notice the ways in which your uncomfortable feelings or problem-

atic behaviors are valid. The idea is not to use self-validation as an
excuse not to change, but to be able to be clear about why your
action made sense and why it is nevertheless a problem. Both parts
are true.
4. Use your commitment to yourself and to your partner as motivation

to practice whatever skills you need to handle your interactions more
effectively.
Getting Yourself to Validate When

You Don’t Feel Like It
Now it should be clear that self-validation actually increases your ability
to validate others. And validating others increases your ability to validate
yourself. You can use this observation to motivate yourself to validate
your partner, even when it is difficult, even when you have an urge to
attack and invalidate. But first, consider what it means to be invalidating,
because being invalidated by your partner (or yourself) is one of the most
important barriers to validating him or her.
What Is Invalidation?
Responding in an invalidating way means that we communicate that
what the other person is feeling, thinking, wanting, or doing is wrong or
faulty or illegitimate or is just not worthy of our respect or attention. We

convey this by not paying attention, minimizing feelings, criticizing in a
judgmental way, telling another how he or she “should” feel or what he
or she “should” want, showing disrespect toward the person in general
(using a patronizing tone or response, acting superior, thinking or
showing that you are “better” than another), being judgmental, showing
mean-spiritedness or contempt for the person, or treating him or her as
an incompetent human being.
There are hundreds or more ways to invalidate the very valid
experiences people have. When we invalidate, we trigger defensiveness,
disappointment, anger, self-doubt, shame, self-invalidation, and other
negative experiences in the recipient. When we invalidate a loved one, we
corrode our relationship and help the other person be miserable, which
of course swings right back at us, because we also increase the chances
that the other person will invalidate us in due course. So, invalidating
someone you love is indirectly a great way to make yourself miserable.
Why Do We Invalidate the People We Love?

What we want from others is openness, understanding, and accep-
tance. When our expectations are far away from reality, it is especially
hurtful. Nowhere is this more true than with a spouse or partner. This is
supposed to be the person who will treat us the best in the world (that is,
we want our partner to be this way). But, once our partner shows his or
her imperfections, we feel mightily disappointed. The bigger the gap
between what we want and what we get in that moment, the more
emotion there is, and the more it hurts. Our culture does not support
descriptive language about our disappointment in these situations, even
though it would be very helpful. Instead, our culture models criticism and
anger. And anger leads to judgments, and judgments … well, judgments
are invalidating. Then the cycle begins: one person is critical, judgmental,
angry, and invalidating, missing completely the disappointment that really
is her or his primary emotion so often. Notice that the first step can actu-
ally involve self-invalidation (not recognizing your own true emotion).
This inaccurate expression is received as an attack (which it is, in a way,
of course), which triggers similar emotions and reactions in your partner.
Thus, invalidation begets invalidation.
So, there really are only two things to do: minimize the first steps of
self-invalidation, anger, judgments, and so on, or stop the cycle and
respond to invalidation with compassion, acceptance, and validation

instead of reciprocating invalidation.
Breaking the Invalidation Cycle

We all know, more or less, when we are invalidated. Our arousal
goes up and we feel that uneasiness, that mixture of hurt, fear, and
dislike associated with not knowing whether to run and hide or to
attack. The urge to run probably comes from the hurt and the fear of
further infliction of hurt. The urge to attack probably comes either
from anger, which can result simply from a lot of pain, or from intense
dislike mixed with judgments, or from fear, because anger can be a
conditioned response to fear (we learn to attack instead of running to
“safety”). In close relationships, this response may be heightened
because we are caught off guard. Your partner is, after all, the one you
love and who loves you, creating even in distressed relationships a kind
of hope for good outcomes that is demolished during invalidation. The
fall from grace can be particularly jarring. When the urge to run is
bigger than the urge to attack, you may withdraw, and this may help
reduce your reactivity. Still, you need to reengage your partner some-
time, and the question is, will you do so constructively or on the attack?
If the initial urge to attack is bigger than the urge to run, you need an
immediate alternative strategy if you are going to break the cycle and
restore peace to your relationship.
Thus, the signs that you are in the invalidation cycle are that your
arousal is going up fast and that you have an urge to attack. There are
several strategies that you can use, either very quickly or over time, to
break out of the cycle: self-validation; self-soothing; mindfulness (non-
judgmental awareness of your partner); remembering your genuine goals
and values; empathy; accepting reality as it is (that is, the situation is not
how you want it to be); and generating hopefulness.
Validate Yourself First

Okay, so you are in the middle of an argument, and you desperately
want your partner to understand you, agree with you, support you, love
you, and validate you. But he or she is just as upset (hurt, fearful, dis-
appointed, angry) as you are, and he or she is not showing any signs of
validating you. So, if you don’t validate yourself, who will? Validate your
feelings by identifying your primary emotions. Look for disappointment

and fear; consider hurt, frustration, loneliness, and shame. Remind your-
self that it does make sense to feel those feelings when you are in conflict
with your spouse or partner, when she or he is failing to understand or
support you or, worse, when she or he is invalidating your emotions or
your wants or actions.
Notice your urges to attack. Ride the urge out, like a wave: it may
come back, but you don’t have to dive into it. Allow it: don’t buy into it,
but don’t pretend it isn’t there or try to suppress it. Remember, the urge
comes out of your high emotional arousal, so if you try to push it down,
it will just push back, maybe even bigger. So just allow it to run its
natural course. Then, validate how hard it is not to react in a big, negative,
destructive way when you feel attacked by your partner. As you withhold
your attack, notice your composure, validate your hard work, feel good
about your effort.
Hopefully, after doing some of these things, you will notice that
your emotions are receding a little bit and, with them, your urge to attack.
At this point, perhaps you can notice what you really want in the big
picture: to get along a lot better with this person with whom you are
fighting. Remind yourself that this is the person you love, and that,
indeed, she or he loves you. Hopefully, you will know this, even though
she or he is not making it abundantly clear at that moment. Remember,
neither are you—at least not yet! This is a way to validate that this hard
work and pain is in the service of something important to you.
Soothe Yourself
You also can soothe yourself by showing self-respect and treating
yourself like an acceptable human being. If you feel sad, imagine what
you might do if a friend were feeling sad. Do the same for your hurt,
fear, and so on. Does reassuring yourself help? Try it. Try something
physical, like stretching out tense muscles or finding a more comfortable
position to sit (standing is not optimal for relaxing). Take your shoes off,
put on a comfortable sweater or cover yourself with a blanket, or take off
a layer of clothing if you are too warm. Rub your eyes or temples or your
feet gently. Get a cold drink (nonalcoholic) or a hot one. Imagine a
happier time to come, after you can get unstuck from this invalidation
cycle. Find something you can do that is soothing, that directly brings
your arousal down.
Remember Your Genuine

(Long-Term) Goals
Why do we get into close relationships? We certainly do not have
intimate relationships to win arguments or to grind our partners into
dust. Yet, sometimes we take that posture. It is important to regularly
remind yourself of what you want: a loving relationship, a partner who
loves and supports you and whom you love and support. Despite the
many flaws in any relationship, this is the person you love. If you have
read this far in the book, it is clear that you really do want your relation-
ship to be better.
If you remember that this is the person you love and that you want
desperately for your relationship to be better, ask yourself how attacking
your partner is going to get you this. You know the answer: clearly, it will
not. Only loving-kindness is likely to result in reciprocated loving-
kindness. If you want to be treated in a loving way, rule out a counter-
attack. Stop, and consider more effective strategies, like finding a way to
validate your partner and reverse the cycle.
Use Relational Mindfulness to Develop Empathy

and Validation Potential
Notice how awful you feel. Notice how difficult it is to not attack,
to find that loving person inside you who has been hiding. Now, notice
that your partner is probably feeling exactly the same way. In many situa-
tions, you have both done hurtful things, even if one of you does not
realize it or understand it. Perhaps your hurtful behavior was uninten-
tional but resulted in your partner suffering anyway (like patting someone
on the back who has a sunburn).
Ask yourself, “What is she/he experiencing right now? How badly
is this person, my love, suffering?” This is simply being mindful of your
partner, noticing what she or he is doing or feeling. Remember that his
or her anger and attack urges come from the same place as yours: hurt,
fear, disappointment, and suffering. Remember that, intentionally or not,
you have contributed to your partner’s suffering, and that you can, right
now, help alleviate it by breaking the cycle. Instead of attacking and
invalidating, you can become interested, nonthreatening, open to hearing
his or her experiences, validating, and loving. Remember that you have
the skills and ability to reduce your partner’s suffering.
Accept Things as They Really Are

(Not Necessarily How You Want Them to Be)
Finally, when we are really incensed, enraged, judgmental, angry,
and attacking, we actually are acting in a world of our imagination, not
the real world. That is, we are acting as though the world should be
different from the way it really is. One nonrelationship example of this is
when you are thirsty and put money in a soda machine, but the machine
doesn’t give you a drink and will not give you your money back. Perhaps
you put in more money. It takes your money again and still fails to give
you what you want (now, two drinks). The reality is that the machine is
broken. It makes sense that you don’t like it and that you wish it would
work. But if you become enraged, kick the machine or pound on it, you
are not accepting the reality. The more you try to defy reality, the more
thirsty you will become, and the more likely you are to cause collateral
damage (breaking a toe or hand, embarrassing yourself if someone sees
you acting this way, or having trouble getting back to work or whatever
you were doing because you are so upset and preoccupied—and still
thirsty).
Relationships are the same, in principle. We have certain expecta-
tions of our partners. When we are disappointed, we can accept the real-
ity of the situation (his or her imperfections, our own disappointments),
or we can become enraged and attack. Unlike the soda machine, how-
ever, humans have memory and feelings and learn to attack back or even
to attack preemptively. So, there is even more collateral damage in rela-
tionships when we go on the attack, when we fail to accept reality as it is.
The solution is to accept the reality of the situation, at least in this
moment. At this moment, your partner is not doing what you want. Then
you can validate both your wants and your disappointment that you are
not getting what you want. If you keep trying to use extreme force to get
a gentle response, you will continue to live in a dreamworld, one that is
full of dissatisfaction and lacking in fulfillment. Accepting the reality of
this moment, that things are not as you would like, is the most fruitful
path toward improving the situation and getting more of what you want
later on.
Finding Hope: The Validation Rule of Three

Clearly, being invalidated is painful, and breaking the invalidation
cycle is difficult. However, there is hope. Research has shown that when
couples are fairly happy, they are able to retaliate less often when
criticized or invalidated. Validation holds a lot of promise as a way out.
Not only does validation work, but it works rather quickly. You can
think of it as the validation rule of three. That is, if you can find the
willingness, the courage, to validate three consecutive times in the face of
invalidation, the other person almost always will stop the attack and his
or her own negative reaction (invalidating responses) to you will begin to
subside. Even if you know this, however, continuing to validate in
response to a withering attack is not easy.
Veronica and Paul fought like cats and dogs. Despite clearly loving
each other, they were highly sensitized to each other’s judgments, criti-
cisms, inattention, and other forms of invalidation. Having learned how
to self-manage their emotions and how to validate each other, they
practiced. When things were not too hot, they could slow down, express
themselves clearly and accurately, and each was able to validate the other.
This led to times of closeness that they fully enjoyed, much like earlier
days in their relationship. However, if one of them became nasty or
overtly critical in a big way, the other threw his or her skills down the
toilet and jumped right in and matched the first one in negativity and
invalidation. They would limp away from these arguments hurt, dazed,
confused, and humiliated, both having behaved badly.
After discussing the validation rule of three, Paul decided to try it.
He practiced it first in his head and rehearsed all of the things that
motivated him to endure Veronica’s attack and to respond in a more
loving and validating way. It didn’t take long for him to have his oppor-
tunity to try it out. They got into one of their usual rows, with Veronica
criticizing Paul for being aloof and uncaring and Paul criticizing Veronica
for being too sensitive and too critical. After a few turns in which each
upped the ante, Paul remembered his commitment to do this differently.
He took a deep breath, sat down, and tried to soothe himself. He
self-validated: “Boy, this is harder than I thought. I’m really hurt and
angry. But, now that I think of it, I’m also embarrassed that I was not
very attentive to Veronica even after she told me she’d had a hard day
and wanted my attention and support.” He also remembered how lovely
things had been the past couple of days, how much he really wanted their
life to be more like that, less like this present argument. And he noticed
how hurt Veronica was, how despairing she seemed, and realized how
much pain she must be in to be so defensive, so attacking, so unlike her
core nature, which Paul knew to be kind and loving.
He decided to try validating: “Veronica, I can see that you are

really miserable doing this, and so am I” (this acknowledged her
feelings and vulnerability, and reciprocated her vulnerability). She
responded angrily, “Well, I’m glad you’re as miserable as I am.” But she
noticed that something was different: maybe he wasn’t attacking back?
Paul continued, “I know you were really disappointed that I wasn’t
paying much attention, especially since you told me you had a crappy
day at work.” Veronica sensed the shift in Paul, but her emotions were
still running a little high. She replied, somewhat bitterly, “Why didn’t
you say this twenty minutes ago? You’re a little late, aren’t you?” Then
Paul said to himself, “Okay, one more try. I think I can do it.” He said
to Veronica, “I wish I had. I know you don’t want to fight any more
than I do. But I’m listening now, and I really want to hear what
happened today.” Veronica’s anger and defensive diminished and, over-
whelmed with sadness, she started to cry. She asked Paul to hold her.
He did, and after a few minutes, her emotions came down, and she told
Paul about her day. He listened, validated her, and she validated back
how loved she felt that he had done what he did, how hard it must have
been, but how important it was to her.
PRACTICE
1. Practice each of the six strategies described above. For each one,
think of a recent situation in which you were at least a little bit inval-
idating. Try to find a way to use each strategy to help you break the
invalidation cycle in a situation like this recent one.
2. Make a plan. Just as Paul did, identify what is important to you,

identify effective ways to self-validate and self-soothe, practice being
mindful of your partner even when your partner is at his or her
worst. Practice developing empathy for your partner in a situation in
which she or he is verbally attacking and invalidating you. Work on
accepting the reality of the situation: your partner sometimes does
exactly the opposite of what you would like, but attacking or invali-
dating her or him will only make it worse. Practice being able to
come back at least three times with a validating response even if
your partner stays in the attack mode.
3. Implement your plan! Give it a try. Evaluate how it goes. If it turns

things around, great. If not, what could you do better next time? Do
you need more self-soothing? More self-validation? More rehearsal
in your mind? Keep trying it. And don’t get stuck on whether you
should have to do all this. Remember to accept reality.
Repairing After Invalidation

Sometimes we do invalidate our spouse or partner. When we do, some
kind of repair is required. Of course, we often feel that she or he inval-
idated first, which may be true. And, she or he often feels that we
escalated and invalidated first, which may be true. There really isn’t much
utility in arguing about this. The reality is, if you were invalidating, you
did some damage, and a repair is required.
Find the Motivation to Repair

To generate motivation, you need the very same skills that you
would use to break the invalidation cycle: self-validation; self-soothing;
mindfulness (nonjudgmental awareness of your partner); remembering
your genuine goals and values; empathy; accepting reality as it is (that is,
the situation is not how you want it to be); and generating hopefulness.
So, the first steps are to reduce your arousal, find balance, and stay aware
of your goals, while not succumbing to hopelessness. These prepare you
to validate. But there may be three additional reasons to repair, whether
immediately or some time later: it’s the right thing to do, it will help
jump-start your next interaction in a different, more constructive
direction, and it will build your self-respect.
How and When to Repair

The earlier sections of this chapter focused on breaking out of the
invalidation cycle while it is in full gear. That is critically important to do.
And, to a great extent, when you validate in those situations, you are
providing a repair for whatever invalidating responses you have recently

thrown toward your partner. But the cycle can also be broken in other
ways which typically begin by trying to bring your emotions back down
to a moderate level and then by starting to repair prior damage.
Repair can be accomplished after an argument (or before the next
one). Repair may be easier after an argument than during one because
you have time to self-regulate your emotional arousal, to go through the
steps above carefully, and to rehearse what you are going to say and how
you will say it. Pick the most effective time and situation, just like you
would for any effective expression (see chapter 6).
The repair itself can take many forms, but it will be most effective
when it includes the following components: genuineness (find the part
of you that wants to repair, that is, not doing it only because you are
supposed to); mindful awareness of the impact of your invalidating
behavior on your partner (notice how it must have felt, what the reper-
cussions likely are, what suffering was involved); willingness to allow y
our partner to feel bad (don’t expect your repair to undo the damage
but, rather, to facilitate moving on); accurate expression and description
of what you did and what you understand the impact to have been for
your partner.
Also, to really repair the situation you need to commit to do what-
ever is necessary to have better self-control next time (that is, make a
plan for improving your skills and self-control, and practice it). This will
substantially reduce the chances of you invalidating your partner in the
same way again. And, finally, you need to be ready and willing to validate
your partner regardless of how he or she responds to your repair. That is,
even if he or she is angry, blaming, or unresponsive, it is important to
remember your goals and that he or she is still hurt from whatever you
did that was critical or invalidating.
For example, Cameron and Charlie struggled with how much close-
ness they wanted in their relationship. One day, they had another big
argument, and each was quite nasty to the other. Despite practicing the
skills above and intending to stop invalidating, as well as hoping to break
the cycle by validating, Charlie found herself escalating more, really
saying awful things to Cameron. She was out of control and could not
stop herself. Of course, afterwards, she felt terrible: sad, fearful, embar-
rassed, and ashamed. She decided to make a repair because it was the
right thing to do (Cameron did not deserve to be treated that way), to try
to improve the relationship (this might help both of them calm down and
be more skillful next time), and to enhance her own self-respect (she had
transgressed her own values, been mean and nasty).
Charlie waited until Cameron seemed settled and somewhat
relaxed after dinner. She said, “Sweetie, I want to talk about our fight
on Monday night. I just feel awful about it. I don’t want to complain
about you or try to talk about the issue. I just want to tell you how
bad I feel about the things I said. Is this okay with you right now?”
Cameron agreed, so Charlie continued, “I imagine that when I say
really nasty things to you that it hurts you a lot. It would hurt me. It
would hurt anyone. I imagine that you also feel kind of scared of talk-
ing more, maybe wanting to avoid me for a while. That’s understand-
able, even though I really want to be closer to you, not farther away.”
At this point Cameron was softening up a bit, felt better, but did
indeed feel inhibited and did not say anything. Charlie went on to say,
“So, I just don’t want to treat you this way. What I’m going to do is
take a little time out the next time we are having that kind of fight.
Maybe I’ll just take a couple of minutes in the bathroom and practice
noticing you, noticing how much I love you. I think that will help
keep me from getting so scared and keep me from lashing out at you.
After a couple of minutes, we can talk more, if you want. What do you
think? What else can I do to repair this?” Thus, Charlie started the
process of repair and took it quite a few steps. Cameron proceeded to
talk about the episode, and Charlie was open, warm, and validating.
Cameron also noticed that Charlie followed through and did take
occasional breaks during argu ments, and he really respected and
appreciated her for that. It helped Cameron’s motivation to be more
validating, in turn.
PRACTICE
1. Think about a moderately or significantly invalidating thing you have
done recently. Go through the steps noted in this chapter to build
motivation to validate and repair and to reduce your negative emo-
tion. Plan what your repair will look like. Rehearse the repair in your
mind, anticipating how your partner might respond (including a
negative response) and how you will continue with the repair.
2. Pick a good time and situation and implement your plan. Evaluate it
and make adjustments as needed for the future. Follow through with
whatever you need to do to increase your self-control and your

skillfulness. Stay focused on your actions, what you need to do to
make things go better in the future. And take a moment to notice
your skillfulness and your commitment and to be content with your
efforts and their results.
Chapter 10
Managing Problems and

Negotiating Solutions
This chapter switches gears. Now that you are able to communicate fairly
well, it may be useful to try to solve some of the problems that come up
in your relationship. Most couples have a fairly good idea of how to do
this, especially when they are getting along well. However, it may be use-
ful to have a road map for managing problems and negotiating solutions
to keep you on track. After discussing the concept of problem manage-
ment (as opposed to problem solving), this chapter will lay out a set of
steps that you can take to get clarity on your goals, solve whatever parts
of the situation or problem you can, and manage whatever can’t be
solved so that it does no further damage to your relationship.
Problem Management Vs. Problem Solving

When you solve a problem, presumably the situation is changed funda-
mentally, such that the problem no longer exists (or at least it recedes for
a long time). If the problem is that the roof leaks, you get it fixed, or you
fix it yourself. You know the problem is solved, at least for a long while,
and you don’t have to pay attention to it anymore. If the first repair
doesn’t work, you may implement a more expensive or more comprehen-
sive solution (maybe a new roof). After one or two tries, there is no
longer a leak.
Most relationship problems are far more complicated than getting a
leaky roof fixed, however. In those situations that can easily be solved
(“Okay, I’ll pick the kids up after school”), one or both partners do what
is needed, and you move on. But most problems have a chronicity to
them: you think you have solved the problem, but there it is again the
next week. Relationship problems often take many, many attempts before
they are solved (or resolved). Or, they can’t be solved in any permanent
or semipermanent sense but must regularly be addressed. A better
approach might be to manage these problems, in the same way that you
manage your finances: things are always changing; sometimes they are
predictable, sometimes not. You know that even if you have enough
money now, you may not next month or next year, depending on what
happens (bills, income, job changes, unexpected expenses).
In addition, sometimes partners disagree about what the problem
actually is. For example, one person might say the problem is “deciding
who does the dishes” while the other says it is “fairness” in household
chores. Clearly, these issues are related, but each might require a different
solution. Sometimes you need to agree about the problem definition in
order to solve it, but at other times it’s sufficient to find a solution that
simply satisfies both definitions.
At other times, it turns out that the problem really was one part-
ner’s emotion about the problem or situation, such as feeling misun-
derstood or that his or her desires aren’t valued by the other. In these
situations, the solution is accurate expression and validation, not neces-
sarily making changes. For example, you might say the problem is that
the distribution of chores around the house is unfair. But, after talking
about it for a while, it may turn out that you really just felt unappreciated.
Knowing that your partner is aware of all that you do and is really
appreciative of it may render the problem moot.
For all of these reasons, it may be more useful to talk about negoti-
ating solutions to problems when solutions are possible and desirable and
about accepting problems (and validating each other’s feelings about
them) when solutions are not forthcoming. In other words, it might be
more accurate to call this set of tasks managing problems.
Managing Problems and Negotiating Solutions 143
Problem Definition
Most relationship problems involve one partner’s desire for the other one
to change. This, of course, is a solution, not a definition of the problem.
For example, Kevin hates doing the laundry, so he thinks the problem is
that he has to do the laundry sometimes. Alicia thinks the problem is that
she does most of the household chores. Consequently, they fight about
who does what quite often. What is the problem here? Or are there two
separate (but related) problems?
It is impossible to know the answers to these questions until Alicia
and Kevin sit down to discuss their feelings and their desires and are
prepared to listen and validate each other’s feelings and desires. Okay, so
Kevin doesn’t like doing the laundry. Alicia might be confused: “Why
not?” She could be judgmental: “What’s the big deal?” Or she could be
validating: “You do seem really to dislike doing it. Why? What about it is
so difficult or unpleasant?” It turns out that Kevin is a mechanic, so he
has his hands in engines all day. They get very dirty and he uses very
strong soap to get them clean, and his hands are always chapped and
sore. Doing the laundry actually makes his fingers more chapped, and
they sometimes split open and bleed, which interferes with his work,
besides being painful. Alicia never knew this. She is very accepting and
validating: “I wish I had known this. You poor thing!”
Alicia might respond in one of several ways. In scenario one, Alicia
accepts the situation, agrees to do the laundry, and does not resent it
because she understands that it really is hard on Kevin. Notice that this
actually would give Alicia more chores, and her complaint was that she
already did too many! But, this might be okay with her because she
understands Kevin’s objections to the laundry now, and Kevin is happy
because he no longer has to do laundry.
Alternatively, in scenario two, Alicia might want Kevin to do some-
thing else, a kind of trade: “I’ll do the laundry—how about you do the vac-
uuming and clean the bathroom?” From here, they move to negotiation.
Alicia’s willingness to take on the laundry chores helps Kevin be willing to
take on other chores in exchange. Both leave the situation feeling okay.
In scenario three, Alicia is very sympathetic to Kevin’s skin prob-
lem. She suggests that he see a dermatologist, get some medicine to help
his chapped fingers, and use more hand lotion. If she starts out the
conversation with soothing and validating, then Kevin might be open to
continuing to do the laundry, assuming that his hands improve. She could
say, “Oh, honey, that’s terrible! We need to get you some medicine. I’ll
call my sister—she has been really happy with her dermatologist, and
maybe you can get an appointment there.” However, if Alicia jumps right
into problem-solving mode and stays focused on the laundry as her first
priority, it probably won’t go so well. Imagine Kevin’s response if she
said, “Well, if you take better care of your hands, maybe see a dermatolo-
gist and use more hand cream, doing the laundry shouldn’t be such a
problem for you.” Kevin would likely not feel soothed or cared about,
and his motivation to see the dermatologist would probably be no higher
than his motivation to do the laundry. Kevin and Alicia will likely be
arguing about this again next week.
These scenarios point to the importance of seeing problems not as
static, easily solvable situations, but as ongoing and ever changing, and as
requiring a lot of communication, clarification, self-awareness, awareness
of your partner, and flexibility over time. It’s great to try to define a
problem. But don’t be surprised if you do not agree about what the
problem is. Try to talk about it openly, gently, and in a validating way.
Using your communication skills will make it possible to proceed with
increasing understanding, which will in turn make solutions more likely.
PRACTICE
1. Pick what you think is a small problem that has come up lately. Sit
down with your partner and try to define what the problem is. Stay
open-minded, and validate your partner a lot.
2. Notice how your idea about what the problem is changes over time,
both in response to your conversation about it and with heightened
awareness of what is bothering you and what is bothering your
partner.
Problem Analysis
Once you have some idea about the dimensions of the problem, at least
from each person’s perspective, it makes sense to try to understand the
problem better. There are many ways to analyze a problem: talking about
the issue in general, speculating on why it is a problem, analyzing a
specific instance of the problem and so on. This method will emphasize
being very descriptive and specific, noticing both the details about the
context in which the problem occurs and the consequences of whatever
behavior (or lack of behavior) somebody wants to be different. Some-
times this is referred to as “behavioral analysis” or a “chain analysis”
because each step (or link) that leads to the problem can be identified
(e.g., Barlow 1981; Haynes 1978; Linehan 1993a). Modifying any one link
holds the potential for making an impact on the larger problem.
One way to do this is to pick a specific example of the problem’s
occurrence. Agree on a specific incident, a time and place, so you are
both talking about the same thing. It may be helpful to write down the
steps, perhaps on a sheet of lined paper. If you fold the paper into two
columns, you can put your name at the top of one column and your
partner’s at the top of the other. This way you can see both how the
problem unfolded for each of you individually and how you interacted
along the way.
You start by identifying what emotions you brought to the sit-
uation, especially the ones that really had nothing to do with the problem
at hand. Then, each partner notes his or her feelings, thoughts, reactions,
and so on in their column, starting at the top and going in sequence, and
synchronizing with each other. On the crease of the paper (middle), you
write down what was actually said or specific actions taken (such as eye
rolling, walking away, or gently picking up and caressing the other’s
hand). This makes public what was going on inside each partner
(thoughts, feelings, desires) and therefore allows both partners to see
how, and often why, each one reacts to the other.
For example, Janelle and Trey argued regularly about money: how
much to save, how much to spend, what to buy, and so on. Every time
they tried to talk about it, they reached an impasse, even when they were
skillful and respectful and mostly validating. So they decided to try to
analyze the problem.
They agreed to take a detailed look at their argument from the pre-
vious Saturday morning. Here is what their chain analysis looked like:
As they looked at the chain of events together, Janelle and Trey
were shocked to see how much of the problem was not about the money
but about how they talked and reacted to each other. They each were
able to acknowledge how the other might be hurt or might reasonably
react the way they did at each step of the argument. What emerged was
Janelle Trey
Tired, stressed Anxious, worried that

Janelle’s mad at him
J: “I’m going to the mall with my

sister in a few minutes. I’ll be
back before dinner.”
Remembers their credit card bill,

gets worried about money
T: “You know, we’re almost

broke. Maybe you shouldn’t be
going to the mall today.”
Thinks, “He’s got some nerve telling me

not to spend money, after he just went
out and bought himself a bunch of CDs
last week.” Feels hurt, angry.
J: “Well, you thought we had

enough money to buy CDs, so
I guess I think we have enough
money for me to go to the mall.”
Feels guilty, then gets judgmental,

thinking, “She’s being a real jerk
about this,” then angry
T: “You are so irresponsible about money!

I work my butt off and you couldn’t care
less. We’ll never get out of debt, and it’s
your fault. You leave it all up to me!”
Figure 7
Janelle Trey
Feels guilty, also thinks that Trey

is being unfair
J: “You are so unfair. You get to

spend what you want, but you
want to control me. Well, I won’t
let you.” Then Janelle storms off.
Feels overwhelmed with negative Feels worried, sad, angry.

feelings and is judgmental about Decides to go out before Janelle
herself and about Trey. gets home to avoid her.
Later, shopping helps her “feel Misses Janelle, but stays angry
better,” but only until she goes and judgmental.
home again.
They have another argument

when Trey gets home … and
the cycle continues.
Figure 7 -- Continued
the clear sense that both of them were worried about money and both
wanted to get their bills under control. However, Janelle did not want
Trey “dictating” the solution to her. Rather, she wanted to work out an
agreement that would affect them both. They came up with a budget that
allowed each of them the same amount of discretionary spending money
per week. Trey thought the problem was solved because this stopped the
negative flow of money; he felt that it was a fair solution and that Janelle
was taking the problem seriously. Janelle thought it was a good solution
because she did not have to “feel under a microscope” about money. She
knew what she could spend or save and that she had complete control
over that. She felt much more respected by Trey.
Another way to do the step-by-step analysis is to draw out a chain

of the steps, as shown in figure 7. Each person has his or her own
thoughts and emotions occurring, which are private. These lead to state-
ments and expressions that are public. In the figure, the private steps or
links are open or clear, and the public ones are shaded.
This way of illustrating the progress of the disagreement in a
graphic manner helps each person to see the things they could not see
when the conflict escalated in just a few seconds. Identifying each step or
link helps you to understand your partner better and your partner to
understand you better. Each link is an opportunity for validation.
Partner A’s prior

experiences, especially
with Partner B
Thoughts &
Statements &
Emotions
Expressions
Non-mindful/
Reactive/
Judgmental
Situation/
Trigger
Thoughts &
Emotions One Partner says or
Partner B’s prior does something hurtful
experiences, especially
with Partner A
Figure 8
PRACTICE
1. Pick a small disagreement you have had recently, and do a problem
or chain analysis of that disagreement. What happened? List or draw
your thoughts and emotions as well as what you said and did.
Discuss the chain and use each “link” as an opportunity to expand
your understanding of your partner. Validate your partner’s emotions
and desires and other reactions along the chain.
2. After you have successfully completed the first step (it may take
several tries), move on to a bigger problem, and follow the same
steps. Don’t worry about solving the problem yet. Just use this exer-
cise to enhance your understanding of the problem and the process
of your disagreement. Validate!
Acceptance as an Alternative to Change

So far, this chapter has examined problems that at least had initial
solutions. When solutions are possible, then negotiation and change are
effective steps to take. However, sometimes a couple can “solve” a
problem over and over, and yet it keeps coming back. In these situations,
it may be prudent to consider just accepting that you have the problem;
you may be able to fix it at some point but probably not right now.
Acceptance is hard. If neither partner were bothered, there would
be no need to work on a solution. So, acceptance means that one or both
of you will still be bothered. However, sometimes the solution can
become part of the problem. Maybe the budget that Janelle and Trey
agreed on was unrealistic or too hard to stay within, and they kept
fighting about money, with Trey nagging Janelle and Janelle getting
defensive in return. Sometimes problems develop a life of their own, and
even the idea that you don’t have to solve it right now can be freeing and
lead to relief and allow you to connect and enjoy other parts of your life
for a while. This issue will come up again in chapter 11, but for now it
may be useful just to consider the possibility, when facing an intractable
situation that is draining your energy and goodwill, that the problem is
not such a big deal and that maybe you could just tolerate things the way
they are for a while.
Change: Steps in Negotiating a Solution

As the example of Janelle and Trey demonstrates, two or more different
problems often emerge: usually at least one is the conflict topic (being
in debt or who gets to decide how much you spend), and the other
usually is the conflict process (how the couple ends up arguing about
money, how it becomes toxic). It is important to agree, and be clear,

about which part of the conflict you will focus on resolving or manag-
ing. Trey and Janelle were able to address their conflict content (money)
only after finding a much better, more constructive conflict process.
This is quite typical.
Focus on One Conflict Topic at a Time

After doing a problem or chain analysis, the next step is to list your
conflict topics. This might start out as only one topic, but could end up
encompassing a lot of things, particularly after you do a chain analysis
and gain some insight into the conflict process. Just keep a list, and make
sure you are focusing on only one topic at a time. This is your target. Stay
focused.
After starting to list your conflict topics, and before you try to
resolve any of them, you must find a healthy, effective process. Use the
chain analysis in two ways: identify your own reactions, judgments, and
other unmindful behaviors, and use your skills to prepare yourself to act
and react differently the next time; and go over the links or steps with
each other, using all the validation skills outlined earlier in this book
(from attentive listening to finding the “of course” in how he or she
reacted that way). When you understand your partner better, it is easier to
respond in a more loving, less reactive way. When you are able to talk
about the actual topics without escalating into a lot of negative emotions
and without either shutting down or invalidating the other, you are ready
to try to find and negotiate solutions.
Brainstorm Possible Solutions

For your first problem topic, start to imagine what you could do
to improve the situation or solve the problem (e.g., Jacobson and
Margolin 1979). It may be helpful to start the discussion by offering a
solution for which you would primarily be responsible. Although this
may not always be possible, when you do this, you are communicating
your commitment to solving the problem rather than your commitment
to getting the other person to change. Effective solutions will likely
involve changes for both partners.
It is common for one or both partners to have an idea about how

to solve the problem. However, remember that your solution is just one
possible solution: stay committed to solving the problem, not committed
to a particular solution.
It may be helpful to keep a list of possible solutions as you come
up with them, and you should also write down things you could do that
might facilitate solutions. Brainstorm many possible solutions. Stay open-
minded, be creative, and don’t be afraid to seek help from other sources
(friends or relatives, books, the Internet). Just be sure that whenever you
discuss the problem with someone else that you do not use the dis-
cussion as an opportunity to practice self-righteousness or to criticize
your partner. And make sure that your partner is comfortable with you
discussing this particular problem with other people. If not, keep it
between the two of you. Finally, remember that this may take time. Only
work on it as long as your attitude is constructive and your emotions are
moderate. It is okay to take a break for a few minutes or even for a few
days. The problem has been around a long time, so it may take a few tries
to find a good solution.
Chloe and Ethan argued routinely about child rearing and parenting
styles. Chloe thought that Ethan was too demanding and authoritarian
with their two children, and Ethan thought that Chloe was too lackadai-
sical and permissive. But they both agreed that their differences were
making things difficult for the kids, which helped motivate them to work
on this problem together. They followed the plan outlined above and
completed a chain analysis of a recent argument. They walked through it
together, both identifying what they could do to make the process more
constructive and validating each other. In this particular situation, their
six-year-old son Caleb was whining about not wanting to do his chores
(clearing his plate from the table and then putting his clean, folded
clothes in his drawer in his room). As usual, Chloe wanted to reassure
Caleb, gently nudge him to do his tasks, and reward him afterwards with
a clear display of appreciation: “Great job, you did it. I’m proud of you.”
Also as usual, Ethan wanted Caleb to stop whining and just do his job.
Caleb wanted both parents to ignore the whining and simply remind him
to get his chores done. And, if Caleb didn’t do his chores as directed
within a certain amount of time (fifteen minutes), Ethan would prefer to
take away a privilege, such as saying “no TV tonight.” Ethan and Chloe
decided to try to brainstorm some possible solutions to their conflict
about how to parent Caleb. Here is a partial list of solutions they came
up with:
1. Whoever assigned the chore would get to handle it the way she
or he wants.
2. They would take turns handling the situation.
3. They would go to a child therapist or parenting class and agree

to follow the expert’s advice.
4. They would flip a coin and try it the winner’s way for a month
and then reevaluate; if Caleb was more responsive, they would
keep that solution; if worse (or not better), they would try the
other’s.
5. They would get a point chart for Caleb, and every time he did
his chores without whining or complaining, he’d get a point;
these would be exchanged later for special playtime or fun
activities.
6. Regardless of the rest of the solution, if Caleb continued to

whine and not do his chores, he would not be able to watch
TV or do other privileged activities until his chores were
completed.
7. They would hire a nanny to handle these situations.
8. Either parent could offer some “cheerleading” to Caleb to help

him stay focused.
9. They would stop worrying about whose parenting was right

and focus on the fact that Caleb was a generally happy and
well-behaved little guy; maybe they only needed to stop fight-
ing about the details.
As you can see, this is a wide-ranging list. The real list included
quite a few additional suggestions. In reality, neither Chloe nor Ethan
were advocating positions very different from leading parenting experts.
The experts disagree, too! Of course, if one parent really was extreme to
the point of harm (extremely permissive or extremely authoritarian; cf.
Baumrind 1971), it might make sense to get a book or seek out an
expert’s advice. But, many of these kinds of arguments really are about
style and about our own upbringing, our own fears and vulnerabilities. By
generating a long list of possible ways to handle the problem, each was
able to hear more about the other parent’s concern and to validate.
For example, Chloe remembered being yelled at a lot by her father,
and she remembered feeling very bad about herself as a result. So, when
Ethan was firm with Caleb, even though objectively he was not being
mean or doing anything close to being abusive, Chloe felt uncomfortable;
she identified with Caleb and wanted Ethan to be gentler. She didn’t
want Caleb to respond to Ethan the fearful way she had to her father,
and she didn’t want to behave with Caleb the mean or critical way her
father had behaved with her. Ethan, on the other hand, was thinking
about his seventeen-year-old nephew with drug problems. Ethan had
always cringed because his sister and brother-in-law never seemed to set
any limits or enforce any rules with the young boy, even when he was
rude or obnoxious or doing things that made other kids not want to play
with him. He worried that Chloe might be “coddling” Caleb and that he
would learn no self-control, no discipline, and no self-respect, and subse-
quently have a lot of difficulties in his life. Fortunately, this discussion
between Chloe and Ethan was loaded with interest and validation. After-
wards, they felt a lot closer, a lot more like partners in parenting, even
before coming to any solutions. They understood each other better,
which resulted in increased trust and reduced worry.
Negotiate an Agreement
The next step is to negotiate. You can do this immediately after
generating possible solutions, or you may want to take a break before
moving on to this step. First, go over each possible solution on your
own. Which solutions do you like, and why? What are the pros and cons
(advantages and disadvantages) to each? Then, walk through each one
out loud, with each other, sharing the pros and cons of each that you
thought about. If there are solutions that you both agree have no
redeeming value, cross them off the list. Among those that are left, can
you piece together an agreement that includes useful parts from more
than one solution?
As with the other steps, negotiation requires patience and persever-
ance. Make a proposal to your partner and evaluate it together. Don’t be
afraid to do some horse trading: “If you would be willing to do X, then I
would be willing to go along with Y.” There is no right solution. There
are solutions that work, at least in some ways, and those that fail. Don’t
worry, if the solution you pick fails, you can come back to this step,
analyze what went wrong, and hammer out a new agreement.
If you cannot agree, it may be useful to change your goal. Perhaps
the problem you are trying to solve is too big, and you can carve out a
piece of it to work on. Or, perhaps you need to resolve another problem
before you can agree on a solution to this one. These are normal things to
go through. What is most important is that you stay committed to being
effective in your communication, with accurate, clear self-expression and
bountiful validation, and committed to a solution that both of you find
acceptable.
Commit to Your Agreement

At some point, you will find an agreement that is acceptable to both
of you. It really helps to write it down, because with so many possible
solutions flying around, you could think you are agreeing to one thing
while your partner thinks he or she is agreeing to something else. So,
write it down, clearly. Then, drop the discussion for at least twenty-four
hours. Let the agreement settle. Then, return to the table and review your
agreement. If it still seems acceptable to you both, you can move to
implementation. However, do not be surprised if the agreement looks a
little bit different after twenty-four hours. It might look better, or it
might no longer seem acceptable. Do not despair; this is quite common!
This means, of course, that you are back to negotiating (in good faith, of
course; no invalidation, please).
It is important to specify exactly what you expect from each other.
The point is not to evaluate each other but to be clear and be able to
make a fully informed agreement. Now it is time to implement the agree-
ment, so agree on a time frame: when does the agreement start?
Finally, set a time to take a look at whether the agreement is work-
ing out as planned. The idea is to set this far enough in the future so that
you can relax and not feel a ton of pressure to succeed, but soon enough
to be able to make adjustments to maximize the chances of it working.
Right now is the time to decide the following: “How will we know
whether the plan is working? What criteria will we use? What would tell
us that it is a complete success? A partial success? A complete failure?”
Agree on this now.
Evaluate Whether the Agreement Is Working and

Fine-Tune as Needed
When the time to evaluate comes, it is important once again to
bring your genuineness to the conversation. This is not a time for gloat-
ing over success or failure, nor is it a time for blame, “I told you so”
statements, or to feel embarrassed that your ideas did not work out as
you’d hoped. Rather, this is a time to experience the outcome together. It
was your plan as a couple, so you sink or swim together.
The reality is that many plans fail the first time and, often, the
second and third times. You are competent people. If the problem were
easy to solve, you would have solved it a long time ago. Rather, the
problem is sticky, complicated, and/or full of emotion triggers, so it is
hard to solve, and that means it may take several tries.
The most effective thing to do is to evaluate how well the plan
worked, based on the criteria you established when you made your agree-
ment. If it worked, pat each other on the back; you did a great job and
were lucky. If your agreement did not work out well, try to figure out
what went wrong. Maybe do a problem or chain analysis of what did not
work. Analyze the situation a bit more, go through the whole process
again (don’t worry, this time is usually faster), and negotiate a new agree-
ment that benefits from what you learned in the recent failed agreement.
Recommit, set a time (and criteria) for evaluating future success or
failure, and repeat as needed.
Negotiating solutions can take a long time. But, as is evident from
the steps in this chapter, there are many side benefits along the way: there
are many opportunities to understand each other better, to express your-
self clearly and accurately, to validate each other, and to act as a team
solving a problem together, rather than as two people fighting each other
as though the other person were the problem.
PRACTICE
1. Practice all the steps involved in negotiating solutions. Start with a
small problem, one that at least seems as though you can solve it.
Don’t worry if it turns out to be bigger than you thought. Take each
step in turn. And use mindfulness of yourself and your partner,
emotion self-management, accurate expression, and validation all
along the way.
2. Evaluate how you did as a couple solving the problem. Identify what
each of you can do to make it go more smoothly the next time.
3. Pick another small problem and do the same. Continue with small
problems until you are really able to work as a team.
4. Take on increasingly more complex or more emotion-laden prob-
lems, carefully following the steps and assiduously validating each
other at each step.
Chapter 11
Transforming Conflict
into Closeness
The end of this book is near. You have practiced the skills and proce-
dures described so far. Maybe you have practiced a lot, maximizing your
skills as a partner and a couple. Hopefully, you’ve experienced a big
difference in the quality of your interactions and the quality of your life.
However, it is likely that you still have problems. This is not your fault or
your partner’s fault. Life simply includes problems. The purpose of this
last chapter is to help identify ways to let go of the suffering that accom-
panies whatever problems you still have. By using the skills already
learned, but in a slightly more sophisticated way, you may be able to
transform leftover conflicts into closeness and use mindfulness and
acceptance skills to more fully engage your partner, your relationship, and
your life, finding peace in each other instead of frustration, and closeness
in every step you take together.
What Is Suffering? The Problem of

Nonacceptance/Nonchange
Every day includes a host of things that go the way we like and a bunch
of things that do not. Some of these are quite important to us, and we
become very attached to achieving certain outcomes. Caring about out-
comes gives us the motivation to work hard to get what we want.
Unfortunately, we may not have the skills to learn to want what we
actually get. This is a seemingly intractable problem in many close
relationships.
Many partners have ideas about how their relationship should be.
Some people want to be active, engage in adventures together, sharing
every step with each other. Others want their relationship to be a haven
to which they can escape at the end of the day from a sometimes cold
and painful world. There are many, many notions about what form a
good, healthy, close, and supportive relationship should take. So, we look
for a mate who seems to share our vision, and we are excited when we
find him or her.
However, first we forget that we have hundreds, perhaps thou-
sands, of ideas about how we want the world, our relationship, our child
rearing, as well as our cars, diet, budget, sex, laundry, and toothpaste
caps, to be: no two people are the same. Secondly, we forget that nothing
is constant except change: the world is constantly changing, as are we, so
even enormous similarities with your mate at one point in time do not
ensure that you will be so similar at a later time. In most situations, you
might call this growth and change. But when it involves things you are
attached to, it feels like loss, grief, sadness, and aloneness.
Thus, we have a fundamental choice. We can fight the changes
around us (especially in our partner) or accept them. Change requires a
lot of effort and often a lot of compromise, and therefore, it involves a
certain amount of pain (adjustment pain, sadness over loss and change,
and so on). That pain may be experienced first by your partner, who
changes in response to your desire. You are relieved (perhaps you get
what you want), but when you are mindful of him or her, you also
experience some of his or her pain of loss (she or he had to change, give
up a preferred way). Of course, change also can be quite invigorating and
fulfilling. But with every new excitement, by definition, something previ-
ously cherished is lost, at least in a way. In addition, there is a certain
amount of pain that results from acceptance: we recognize that
Transforming Conflict into Closeness 159
something we were formerly attached to is now different, transformed, or

lost, and we are sad. So, with acceptance or change, there is pain. This
pain is part of living life well.
Suffering, on the other hand, results when we are stuck and can-
not effectively change things to our liking, nor can we accept them as
they are. This position of nonacceptance/nonchange is one of suffering
not only because of the frustration of not getting what we want but also
because of the discomfort associated with nonacceptance; we still are
attached to the changes we desire. Moreover, this suffering can grow
like a black hole to suck in everything around it, warping time, so that
nothing in your relationship or your life seems okay and you stop living
in the present. Nothing seems peaceful. There are big gaps in closeness
with your spouse or partner. You suffer and your partner suffers with
you, and your relationship suffers. This suffering is mostly unnecessary.
The previous chapter addressed many ways to achieve the changes
you desire. If you can change or get your partner to change so that you
both get more of what you want, that’s worth the effort and the pain
associated with change. But what if you keep trying and can’t get the
situation, yourself, or your partner to change? What then? If you stay
attached to the idea of change, but cannot achieve change, you are stuck
in nonacceptance/nonchange. You will be tempted, because you are
still attached to the idea of change (it’s the right thing, you can’t
imagine living any other way), to continue to think that the solution is
bigger, better, more powerful change strategies. Well, good luck! The
issue is not that you should not continue trying to get what you want.
You have every right to do so. Rather, the issue is what the cost to your
life, to your relationship, is going to be if you continue to try to get
your partner to change. The following sections will consider the other
alternative: acceptance of what actually is, even though you may not like
it at first.
Finding Acceptance and Closeness

Sometimes you clearly want to focus on change. That’s fine, of course.
But, occasionally there is conflict; your partner does something that you
want him or her to stop (or does not do something that you want), that is
so consistently present and so resistant to change that you know in the
back of your mind that continuing to try to get your partner to change
has not worked and is not likely to work. But you really want your part-
ner to change! And change is not happening, is not likely to happen. This
nonacceptance/nonchange is driving you a little crazy.
What kinds of things fall into this category? In principle, anything
your partner does that you don’t like, as long as it is not contrary to your
true values, is ripe for either effective change efforts or genuine accep-
tance. Maybe it’s the way your partner parks the car in the garage, leaves
the toilet seat up (or down), wants to be alone for a few minutes when
she or he comes home (even though you are longing to talk about your
day and want to be held), gets easily disappointed or hurt when you want
some alone time, parents your children, is lackadaisical about something
you care deeply about, or leaves his or her dirty socks on the stairs. It
could be anything that you have tried and tried to get your partner to
change. But your efforts have been in vain and change has not occurred.
Pick one of these things and consider the following steps or exercises as an
alternative to the usual nagging, complaining, anger, frustration, or bitter-
ness you direct toward your partner about this particular behavior
(Fruzzetti and Iverson 2004). You can opt out and return to a change
focus at any time that you want to, without penalty.
Behavioral Tolerance
The very first step toward possible acceptance is to stop putting
energy into changing your partner (at least this one behavior). Although
this may sound simple, it’s not. There are two main reasons that it is
difficult to let go of your change focus or “change habit,” even for a few
days or a few weeks: first, tolerating a situation or behavior which you
want to be different is painful; and second, letting go of your “change
energy” means you initially will feel disappointed because you are facing
the reality that you are not getting what you want. You are experiencing a
loss.
The first step involves noticing all the ways that you try to get your
partner to change this particular behavior. Do you nag, complain, or
write scathing notes or e-mails about the “problem” behavior (or lack
thereof)? Spend a few days and monitor all the verbal and nonverbal
signals (including “looks that could kill”) you send to your partner about
this. Keep a written log, so you do not miss any of the many ways you
put effort into getting him or her to change.
Now, stop them all, at least for now. Pick a time period, for
example, three weeks, and commit to simply letting your change goals go
for that time. No nagging, no complaining, no carefully timed wincing,
eyes rolling, ugly quid pro quos, or other efforts to get him or her to do
what you want on this one behavior. It’s a cease-fire. You must do this
unilaterally: do not even tell your partner. This is for you, not for him or
her. Sure, she or he might feel relieved that you are off his or her back
about this, but you are not doing it to be nice to your partner. If you
choose to try this, you are doing it because you are stuck and willing to try
a different strategy. The old strategies have not worked, so perhaps this
path will lead someplace new and more peaceful.
However, in order to do this, to stop trying to get your partner to
change, you must be able to deal with the emotions that will likely follow
(intense disappointment) and the judgments and anger that likely will
grow out of your frustration over not getting what you want.
Manage Disappointment
Disappointment is in the same emotional class as sadness and grief
and so is quite similar. When you fail to get what you want, regardless of
the reasons, disappointment is at least one of the emotions you are likely
to feel. Disappointment can sting. It often brings with it fairly low energy
and an urge to shut down or withdraw, to give up (at least temporarily).
There are at least three important responses that help disappointment run
its natural course so that you do not get stuck in sadness and depression:
1. Validate the disappointment: it makes sense when you don’t get
what you want; you can validate the feeling yourself, or let
someone else do it.
2. Soothe the pain: treat yourself decently, do the kinds of things

you might do for someone else temporarily feeling a lot of
sadness, or get someone else to soothe you.
3. Get active: being active is a bona fide treatment for depres-

sion (Addis and Martell 2004), and likely an essential ingredi-
ent in preventing sadness from growing into depression.
Getting active includes engaging in physical, social, intellec-
tual/cognitive, and recreational pursuits, and pushing yourself
to do a little more than perhaps you feel like. Activation not
only distracts you away from negative emotional states, it also
creates positive ones: when you engage the world, you do

things that are enjoyable, the surest antidote to sadness and
disappointment.
As you go over your checklist of how not to nag or complain or put

energy into getting your partner to change, notice the disappointment,
self-validate, self-soothe, and get active, especially with your partner.
Let Go of Frustration and Anger

You may also notice a cascade of quite judgmental thoughts about
your partner as you go cold turkey and give up (at least temporarily) your
change habit. You might think things such as, “Why should I have to feel
this crappy? I wasn’t asking for very much here. She or he should just
change; it’s not a big deal.” Notice how these judgments and invalidating
statements make some sense. In a way, they are quite seductive, especially
when the alternative is tolerating your negative emotions. Similarly, when
you make these kinds of judgmental statements about your partner, you
will generate a lot of anger. And, when you’re angry, your thoughts will
tend to be judgmental. Try to observe this pattern: it is normal, makes
sense, and is quite destructive. You may have the urge to go back to your
old focus concerning change toward your partner when you feel this bad.
However, you have made a commitment to quit nagging and tolerate
what follows. The withdrawal symptoms you are experiencing will pass.
Annie and Seth used to fight a lot, but had worked hard and had
vastly improved their relationship. However, there still were certain
things that each of them did that drove the other crazy. Despite repeated
pleas for change, several complicated attempts to use the problem man-
agement and negotiation skills found in chapter 10, and clear expressions
of despair, each of them just couldn’t seem to do what the other wanted
in a few key areas. For example, Seth would often (a couple of times per
week) play with their two-year-old daughter, Kara, and get her really
excited just before bedtime. This made it hard for her to fall asleep and
resulted in her bouncing out of bed several times before settling down
and then being tired the next morning. Annie would become furious at
Seth when she heard him and their daughter roughhousing throughout
the house, but by then, it was too late. But she still scolded Seth and
pushed him over and over to play quietly at bedtime and save the
romping around for earlier in the day.
Annie, on the other hand, had a habit of misplacing things, such as

losing keys (hers or Seth’s), locking herself out of the house or car, or
leaving her wallet or purse in restaurants. Often, she needed Seth to
“rescue” her and the kids, which was disruptive for Seth (he might have
to leave work to let Annie and the kids into the car at the grocery store,
when she had locked her keys in the car, for example). He really resented
these episodes and pressed Annie hard to manage her keys and wallet
better.
It is obvious that neither Annie nor Seth is a bad person. Both are
quite responsible adults, good parents, and mostly loving partners. Yet,
each has some rather problematic behaviors in their repertoires. Their
foibles might drive a lot of people crazy. What should they do? They have
tried and tried to get the other person to change, over and over again,
without success. Each of these situations is perfect to try stopping the old
habit of nagging and complaining and resenting the other, and instead
tolerating the other’s behavior that has been driving him or her crazy.
Annie decided to stop nagging and criticizing Seth about his
exuberant play at bedtime with their daughter. She went cold turkey, and
kept a log on an index card of each situation in which she had an urge to
yell at Seth. It turned out there were many. She practiced noticing disap-
pointment and was surprised just how much sadness she felt when she
let go of her judgments and anger. She had many judgmental thoughts
run through her mind, however, such as “he’s an adult, he should know
better” and “he is so inconsiderate” and “he’s just acting like a two-
year-old himself.” But she persevered. She self-soothed: when she heard
them start to roughhouse, she sat in her favorite chair, put on her
favorite CD, and just relaxed and enjoyed a song or two. She self-
validated in a variety of ways: she noticed her sadness and noticed that it
made a lot of sense given that her ideas about how their parenting would
go were not working out, and she validated how hard it was not to
simply go with the urge to criticize Seth. And Annie stayed active, being
sure to do things with friends and to go out alone with Seth on dates and
enjoy those times together.
After a few weeks, she really had stopped nagging, complaining,
and criticizing Seth for his active play at bedtime with their daughter. She
was proud of the accomplishment, but every time he did it, she still felt a
lot of negative emotion and noticed really wanting him to just stop it. She
decided to move on to the next step.
While Annie was going through this process, Seth independently
decided to consider accepting Annie’s forgetfulness. He realized that
when Annie lost her keys, wallet, receipts, or whatever, that his very
negative and critical response did not actually help her become less
forgetful. He went through a recent example of needing to leave work to
come home to let Annie into the car so that she could take their son
Jacob to a doctor’s appointment. He noticed that his emotions included
not only frustration about interrupting work but also worry about what
others might think of him and disappointment that he would have to stay
a little late at work. To stop trying to get Annie to change would mean he
would face occasional, similar frustration.
Surprisingly, he also noticed that it was hard to see Annie and the
kids in the middle of the day for a couple of minutes and then have to
return to work. He missed them! He noticed that he had been quite sad
about that but that he’d missed it at the time because he was over-
whelmed with judgments (“she’s so selfish and incompetent”) and anger.
He practiced self-validating these emotions and decided to stop com-
plaining about Annie’s forgetfulness and to stop criticizing her for it.
After you have stopped focusing on change for a while (several
days, maybe several weeks), it will become easier. You will adjust. How-
ever, your partner’s behavior may still bother you a little (or a lot). If the
behavior that used to drive you crazy no longer bothers you, then you
have changed what had become a bad habit for you. Congratulations!
You are done and can move on (and maybe try to accept a different
“problem” behavior). However, if your partner’s behavior still bothers
you, it is time to go on to the next step and explore the consequences of
your change habit.
PRACTICE
1. Make a list of the things that you have tried, over and over, to get
your partner to do differently, but without success.
2. Pick one that you are willing to tolerate for a couple of weeks.
3. Stop criticizing, complaining, nagging, demanding, or doing anything

to try to get your partner to change.
4. Follow the steps suggested in this section to help you manage your
disappointment and let go of your judgments and anger.
5. If you no longer are bothered by the behavior, give yourself some

credit for effective habit reversal. And then go back to step two and
pick another thing off your list, and continue on. If you are still
bothered, move on to the next section.
Become Aware of Unnecessary Suffering

To accept your partner’s behavior fully, you will need a lot of
motivation. Acceptance is not intuitive, and the default is change, change,
change. In this step, you will pay close attention to the cost of your
agenda of change, becoming more aware of how much suffering your
nonacceptance/nonchange position causes.
You already have logged the situations in which you have had to
work in order to tolerate your partner’s behavior. Tolerating it has not
been enough. It still eats away at you sometimes. What are the costs of
leaning toward change, expecting change, wanting change?
In each situation in which you have to inhibit yourself from criticiz-
ing your partner or nagging or complaining, notice what happens. First,
for however long you are “tolerating” your partner’s behavior, you are
unhappy, not engaged in the rest of your life: you are stuck in time,
suffering. But it probably doesn’t end there. Chances are good that for
several more minutes (or hours), there are ripples of negativity that affect
you, alter your experience, change how you interact with and feel about
your partner (and others). The idea in this step is to formulate an accu-
rate appraisal of all the costs of wanting your partner to change. How
many minutes per day are you bothered? What are the consequences of
your negativity? Economists call these costs response costs—the costs of
responding in a particular way, in this case staying stuck on changing
your partner. Also, what might you have done instead with that energy?
These are opportunity costs—the things you weren’t able to do because
you were negative, sullen, angry, judgmental (lost opportunities for
peace, relaxation, closeness, and enjoying each other).
Start a new log. Each time you feel sad, disappointed, frustrated, or
angry, and you notice yourself being judgmental about this particular target,
write it down. What happened next? How long was it before you forgot
about it? And, after that, how long before your emotions came back to
equilibrium? What are the response costs? The opportunity costs?
The consequences of disappointment and anger might include the
following: being more vulnerable to conflict about something else (you
were “primed” for an argument); feeling more emotional distance from

your partner; missing (not noticing, not responding, not enjoying) other
things your partner might do; more misery for your partner, because he
or she might still pick up inexplicable negative signals from you, even
though you are not actively trying to get him or her to change; more
negative feelings and misery for you; and inhibition that you or your
partner feel toward each other. Add up the costs of these.
If the costs are low, you probably don’t want to go on to the next
step, for it is a particularly difficult step. It actually is more like a moun-
tain. What’s on the other side is wonderful, but if you are happy where
you are, you probably do not want to put all that work into accepting
your partner fully (it is hard to change ourselves). However, if the costs
are very high, you might feel motivated to try the next series of steps,
which involve actively putting your partner’s behavior in a new context to
create new meanings to attach to the behavior and new responses that
are not full of suffering.
Annie kept the log for three weeks. She realized that her attachment
to Seth doing what she wanted was pervasive. She thought about it many
times on most days, and each time it left her with heightened emotional
arousal. Consequently, she was a little less excited to see him when he
came home, a little annoyed whenever he played with their daughter
(regardless of when or how), and still just furious if their daughter had a
hard time settling down and going to sleep. She realized she was particu-
larly attached to the idea that her daughter should be in bed, asleep, by
the same exact time each night, and that any minutes she was awake after
that Annie implicitly experienced as an intrusion into her own downtime.
Of course, all this makes sense, but they are still costs. Annie realized the
costs were enormous and decided to try to let go of her change habit
concerning Seth’s bedtime playing style.
Seth looked back at the costs of his own intolerance. Looking back
at the day when he’d left work to let Annie into her car, he realized he
had been so judgmental and critical of Annie that she was distant and
hurt when he came home later on. Jacob and Karen were a bit out of
sorts as well. Seth recognized that he was getting less and less of what he
wanted (peace with Annie and a more loving home). As he kept his list,
Seth became more mindful of Annie and of his own disappointments. It
turned out that his criticisms of her had a much bigger and more long-
tanding impact than he had ever imagined. He decided to try to accept
Annie as she was, forgetfulness and all.
PRACTICE
1. Keep the log described above. Add up the costs of your focus on
change.
2. Decide if it is worth trying something new (and difficult). If so, go

on to the next section.
Let Go of Suffering: Find Peace and Engage

Your Life … Now!
For a long time you have been thinking (or assuming) that the cause
of all your suffering is your partner’s failure to change. An alternative
view that is equally valid (neither more nor less) is that the cause of all your
suffering is your attachment to an impossible agenda, your unwillingness to
accept reality (that change is neither easy nor forthcoming). Maybe the
behavior that drives you crazy has many possible meanings just ripe for
you to pick, but you have only seen it in one very negative way.
Recontextualize Your Partner’s Behavior

One way to start is to recontextualize your partner’s behavior. You
are used to thinking about it in a particular way, only noticing the
negative qualities associated with this particular trait or behavior she or
he has. Open your mind. See a bigger picture. What do you love about
your partner? What do you like about him or her? In what ways is this
behavior that has driven you crazy actually an integral part of your mate?
Maybe it is connected to what you like and love about your partner. The
idea here is to recondition the so-called problem behavior: using your
mindful awareness, intentionally put the behavior in a different context
so that different aspects of the experience—real aspects—become more
salient, and the problematic aspects become less salient. Or, to put it
differently, notice and pay more attention to the things you have been
missing that are important, and try to pay less attention to the things that
are problematic. Purposely and consistently use mindfulness to control
what you pay attention to; choose to pay attention to those aspects of the
situation that get you what you want (peace, closeness, joy, satisfaction).
Annie finally noticed that Seth adored their daughter and that he
loved playing with her, was very attentive to her, and was a great dad.
Annie loved the fact that he loved being a dad. Maybe Annie had been
attached to the idea that Seth should be a perfect dad, which, of course,
he was not, nor could he or anyone be. She also noticed that he loved
her, that she actually had a loving, devoted, monogamous spouse who
liked being home with her and their children. How great is that? He was
alive, he was home, he was not out drinking or carousing. These things
she no longer wanted to take for granted. By purposefully noticing these
very real and truly important aspects of the situation, after a while the
“disrupted” bedtime no longer seemed disruptive at all. Instead, it was
just a fun night with a happy and excited child who needed a little extra
help settling down. Annie began to wonder how she had been so stuck
on Seth’s behavior, why it had bothered her so much.
Seth also took the final steps and practiced seeing the rest of the
situation. Typically, Annie was very attentive to Jacob, to Kara, and to
him. She would often dissolve into the moment and become unaware of
other things around her: the flip side of her absentmindedness about
some things was her intense devotion to her family, her warmth and
affection. She also, despite occasional lapses with keys and so on, man-
aged to keep most of the day-to-day activities of the family in good
order. She paid the bills, was keenly in tune with Jacob’s and Kara’s
needs, and was very attentive to Seth and delighted to see him (especially
when he was not critical of her). Seth began to see that occasional lost
keys were a small part of a larger picture of a loving wife and mother
who adored her husband and their children.
Find Other Meanings in Your Partner’s Behavior

Another strategy involves looking deeply at your partner and his or
her life to find ways to understand his or her behavior. How does this
behavior make sense given his or her life experiences? Given your relation-
ship and your relationship problems? Given the things that are important
to your partner? This is quite similar to the task of finding ways to validate
discussed earlier in the book. How does this behavior make sense?
Annie knew that Seth grew up in a family in which there was a lot
of emotional distance, not a lot of fun, and hardly ever much play with
his parents. She also knew that Seth wanted desperately to provide a
different experience for his children. This was one of the things she really
loved about him, his commitment to their kids. Maybe the active play at
bedtime just “happened” because Seth was more focused on enjoying
their daughter than on ideas about how bedtime should go. Maybe he
was so mindful of playing with their daughter, of just being with her, that
other things were just not salient to him. Maybe playing, staying in the
moment, not worrying much about arbitrary rules of parent-child inter-
actions, was what Seth needed to do to be sure that he was different
from his own parents. All of these new meanings seemed quite legitimate
to Annie, and all of them helped her let go of her nonacceptance/
nonchange position and embrace acceptance. In acceptance, there was
peace and newfound closeness with Seth.
Similarly, Seth was able to let go of his criticisms of Annie’s forget-
fulness, finally leaving his prior position of nonacceptance/nonchange.
Through acceptance of his wife, he could see that many other qualities
were present in Annie. Paying attention to those other qualities brought
them much closer together and brought increased peace and happiness to
both of them.
By following similar steps, you may be able to take something that
has been a source of enormous suffering for a long time and alleviate
some of that suffering. With practice and commitment, you may be able
to transform that long-standing conflict into closeness.
PRACTICE
1. Practice recontextualizing the “problem” behavior in your relation
ship. What aspects of your partner’s behavior have you been miss-
ing? What things have you been taking for granted? Notice the
bigger picture, and let the parts that are truly most important to you
become more central, more salient. Let the less important parts
diminish.
2. Practice finding alternative meanings in your partner’s behavior.
How is his or her upbringing relevant? What is important to your
partner? How might the problem behavior actually be something
else, a reflection of lovable attributes (previously unnoticed)?
3. Embrace your partner as she is or he is. Enjoy what you have.
Engage in Your Life with Your Mate, Now!

In chapters 4 and 5, there were a lot of exercises designed to bring
comfort and joy back into your partnership. Now is the time to revisit
those activities, use the skills you have learned since, and enjoy the fact
that you (hopefully) have less conflict, so that you can really be with each
other in a more intimate, caring way.
Recall the various areas of your life that you can energize, and enjoy
these activities together:
+ Social and family time with other people
+ Recreational and other fun activities together
+ Sharing ideas and interests about whatever is important to you
+ Sharing spiritual experiences and values
+ Affectionate expression toward each other
+ Sexual activities
+ Sharing independent interests and supporting each other’s
autonomy
+ Ordinary, day-to-day activities (even chores) around the
house or yard, with kids, and so on
Mind the Gaps

Conflict is a result of many things, but in couples, it is mostly about
a combination of misunderstanding, being judgmental, and bad habits.
Each emotion, every thought, every reaction that your partner has that
you do not understand (or misunderstand) becomes a painful gap in your
relationship if you react negatively to that lack of understanding.
However, if you let go of judgments, you can be curious instead of
only angry, interested instead of vindictive, and loving instead of attack-
ing or running away. Instead of allowing negative habits to continue,
notice what you don’t know. Mind the gaps in your understanding of
your partner and don’t fill them up with negative assumptions, hopeless-
ness, or despair. Ask instead of assuming, and show love and kindness
instead of defensiveness or anger as your default mode. This is your part-
ner, your love. You can form new habits that bring you closer and meet
both of your needs for understanding, support, fun, and closeness.
Pay More Attention to What You Have Than

to What You Don’t Have
Life is finite, of course. If we truly recognize this, then we can ask
the question, “How do I want to spend my day today?” with a renewed
sense of importance. Do you want to spend your life noticing the
blemishes only? Do you want to be most expert in criticizing your loved
ones? Is that a desirable epitaph?
You do have a choice. You can notice mostly what is missing or
contrary to your preferences, and feel disappointed, judgmental (assigning
blame), and angry. Or you can more often notice what you have and
endeavor to enjoy it fully. Of course, it is important to notice and
self-validate when you don’t have what you want or don’t like what you
have. There are effective times to work on making changes yourself, or
together with your partner, to improve what you have. But, the vast
majority of the time we have available to us is a mixture of more desir-
able and less desirable elements. What we pay attention to and how we
pay attention will have a profound effect on our emotions and our satis-
faction and, in turn, on our relationship. And, paradoxically, the more we
accept and love what we actually have, the more it becomes what we
want and love, and the easier it is to change the parts that are less
desirable.
Remember, this is your partner, your love, your life. To be with him
or her fully means not to be alone. Be with your partner. Most of the
time, let go of your notions of how things should be and embrace what
you have. Enjoy each other. Let go of your focus on differences or on
loss (not having exactly what you want). Remember that the more you
show interest and attention toward your partner, the more present your
partner will be and the more interest and attention your partner will show
you. There will be less conflict, more peace. The more you understand
and validate, the more present she or he will be, and the more he or she
will understand and validate you. The more you express yourself
accurately and in a loving way, the more present and loving your partner
will be. The more you appreciate and enjoy your partner, the more your
partner will appreciate and enjoy you. There is tremendous peace in being
with someone who loves you, as well as being with someone you love.
Remember, this is your partner, your love, your life. Treat your partner as
though your life depends on it. In fact, it does.
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Alan E. Fruzzetti, Ph.D., is associate professor of psychology and
director of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Research Program at the
University of Nevada, Reno. He provides extensive training, supervision,
and consultation for DBT treatment programs and DBT research in the
United States and abroad.
Fruzzetti received his BA from Brown University and his Ph.D.
from the University of Washington in Seattle. His research focuses on
models of major psychopathology/severe behavior problems (e.g.,
borderline personality disorder, family violence, or chronic depression) in
the context of couples and families, and the development and evaluation
of effective treatments for these problems. In particular, he focuses on
the further development, evaluation, and training of dialectical behavior
therapy (DBT) with individuals, couples and families for chronic or
severe individual and/or family distress.
Fruzzetti is also research director and member of the board of
directors of the National Educational Alliance for Borderline Personality
Disorder and a codeveloper of the Family Connections Program. He has
provided extensive DBT training in the United States, Europe, and
Australia. He has authored or coauthored dozens of scholarly articles and
book chapters on this and related topics.
Foreword writer Marsha M. Linehan, Ph.D., is professor of psychol-
ogy and director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics (BRTC)
at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. She is author of Cognitive
Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder and Skills Training
Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder.

The High-Conflict Couple

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This is a long awaited book!

Fruzzetti is a master clinician who does rigorous science

Alan E. Fruzzetti, Ph.D.

New Harbinger Publications

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright © 2006 by Alan E. Fruzzetti

Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Catharine Sutker;

All Rights Reserved

PDF ISBN: 9781608820122

1: Understanding Emotion in Relationships 1

2: Accepting Yourself and Your Partner 15

3: How to Stop Making Things Worse 29

4: Being “Together” When You Are Together 39

5: Reactivating Your Relationship 55

7: Validating Responses: What to Validate and Why 93

8: Validating Responses: How to Validate Your Partner 107

9: Recovering from Invalidation 125

10: Managing Problems and Negotiating Solutions 141

11: Transforming Conflict into Closeness 157

No relationship has only smooth sailing. All relationships have conflict

individuals, with few studies including families. Thus, there is a real

Beverly Long, Elizabeth Malmquist, Richelle Moen-Moore, Alec Miller,

Understanding Emotions and High

How Emotions Work

Emotion Dysregulation and Out-of-Control Behavior

In reality, this kind of dysregulated or out-of-control behavior

Vulnerability to Negative Emotional Experiences

Time to Reach Equilibrium

How High Emotional Arousal Affects

High Arousal Leads to Inaccurate Expression

Inaccurate Expression Also Increases Arousal

Conflict Patterns in Relationships

Constructive Engagement Pattern

Mutual Avoidance Pattern

Destructive Engagement Pattern

How Negative Interactions

Using This Book

developed by many in the field of couples therapy, including the author

You Cannot Act Alone:

Don’t Soil Your Own Nest

3. When your level of negative emotional arousal is low, notice how

6. Before saying something to your partner, even in an easy,

Self-Awareness and Mindfulness of Self

States of Mind or Self

Emotional Self or Emotion Mind

Logical Self or Reasonable Mind

Wise or Balanced Self, or Wise Mind

Getting to a Balanced Self: Describing and Not Judging

The Problem of Judgments

are simply things we don’t like. We want them to stop or be different,

Secondary Emotional Reactions

truly dangerous situation, or contentment when things go our way. In

The Problem of Anger in Relationships

The Power of Description

conflict. If we can describe the situation, describe our reactions (sensa-

2. Practice identifying judgments and sorting out judgments from

3. When you notice a judgment or notice anger, try to describe the

Mindfulness of Your Partner

The judgments we make take us away from our actual experience:

Notice and Describe

1. Notice and describe your partner when she or he is doing something

2. When your partner is talking to someone else, notice and describe

How to Stop Making