The Archives

How to Fight Smarter: Soften Your Start-Up

Ellie Lisitsa

Softening the start-up of your arguments and complaints is crucial to resolving relationship conflicts.

Homework Assignment: How Marital Conflict Affects Children

Ellie Lisitsa

Learn what conflict does to kids and how you can show empathy by being the emotion coach your child needs.

Physiological Self-Soothing

Ellie Lisitsa

Try something that may feel totally foreign in the heights of your distress: breathe.

Create Shared Meaning: Rituals for the Family

Ellie Lisitsa

Creating shared meaning by establishing rituals of connection is not just for couples. Traditions can bring your whole family together.

Create Shared Meaning: Examining Your Rituals

Ellie Lisitsa

What rituals of connection to you and your partner have together? Here's how to look at what you've got that connects you.

Manage Conflict: Moving Forward

Ellie Lisitsa

The real predictor of a relationship’s failure is a couple’s inability to manage conflict in a healthy manner and to move forward.

Manage Conflict: Identifying Your Triggers

Ellie Lisitsa

Working on understanding each other’s triggers is one of the most important things that you can do to avoid hurting one another.

Manage Conflict: The Aftermath of a Fight

Ellie Lisitsa

When you make repair attempts early, you can salvage the point of the conversation and create a more productive and positive outcome.

Homework Assignment: Compromise

Ellie Lisitsa

Many couples fail to compromise on issues because they go about trying to compromise in the wrong way.

Manage Conflict: The Art of Compromise

Ellie Lisitsa

We’ve all been in the middle of an argument that we know we cannot win, understanding that our frustration has overwhelmed all sense of perspective.

Homework Assignment: Repair Attempts

Ellie Lisitsa

Make repair attempts a priority with your partner and the way you communicate and manage conflict will change for the good.

Manage Conflict: Repair and De-Escalate

Ellie Lisitsa

Here are a few examples of phrases that you can use to help repair and de-escalate when conversations get tense.

A Happier Relationship Starts Today

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