Did they really need the camping gear? She has been looking through the checking account. The extra expenses will leave them tight again this month.
He reminds her of the weekend they have planned with another family. The children needed sleeping bags. Besides, are they supposed to stop having fun?
By the end of the discussion, she has a proposal: take out an agreed amount of cash at the beginning of the week. When it runs out, stop spending. A practical answer to a familiar problem. Problem solved. Check! How come the same conversation repeats next month? And the next?
Counterintuitively, they may need to postpone the very thing they came to do: reach an agreement. In Fight Right, John and Julie Gottman explain why couples often begin persuading before they really understand each other. Before making their own case, each partner can ask why the issue matters so much to the other.
But couples do not all approach persuasion in the same way. Some would rather skip it. Others can hardly wait to begin.
What Is Our Conflict Style?
Should a disagreement become a lively debate? Would it be better to accept the difference and move on?
Partners may have different answers without realizing it. Each brings expectations about how an argument should unfold, often learned long before the relationship began.
The Gottmans identify three main conflict styles, which fall along a spectrum:
- Conflict-avoiding: Partners prefer to “agree to disagree.” Some rarely discuss differences; others express their feelings but leave it there, without trying to change each other’s minds.
- Validating: Partners discuss issues collaboratively, consider each other’s reasoning and work toward compromise. They tend to keep arguments relatively calm.
- Volatile: Partners readily express strong emotions and engage in debate. Among happy couples with this style, humor and affection remain part of the exchange. Arguing can be a way to connect.
There are happy, stable couples with all three styles. A person may also recognize a blend of the three.
Partners differ most in how they approach persuasion—when, how and whether they try to bring each other around.
The Three Stages of a Fight
The couple from the opening—the parents discussing the camping expenses—take a validating approach. They explain their positions and look for a reasonable solution. Where do they begin trying to persuade each other?
1. Building an Agenda
She raises the extra expenses. He explains the sleeping bags. They keep saying they will save, she points out, but they are not putting money aside.
This is building an agenda: one or both partners express their concerns.
What needs attention? She is worried about their finances. He does not want saving to mean they can never enjoy themselves.
Now each wants the other to understand why.
2. Persuasion
He tells her about his uncle, who saved five million dollars and died soon after retiring. He had lived in a studio apartment and never traveled. What was the point of all that money if he never enjoyed it?
She remembers a different kind of deprivation. Her parents spent on things they did not need, then could not afford a car repair. There was never enough. She does not want to live that way. She wants to save, including for travel and adventure.
There is a great deal here for each to ask about. Instead, he challenges her: is she saving for the future or for travel? He does not want to spend his days worrying about money and pinching pennies.
She insists that they cannot keep spending as they are.
They are in persuasion, trying to bring each other over to their own side. He questions her reasoning; she presses him to acknowledge the spending problem. They want to reach a solution, but have spent little time exploring their feelings about security or what matters to each of them.
3. An Attempt at Compromise
She points to the credit card: they have charged more than they can pay off this month. He agrees to try a spending plan, provided it does not mean spending nothing.
Then comes her proposal: withdraw a weekly amount in cash and stop spending when it runs out.
They are now attempting a compromise. They have discussed the expenses and proposed a way to limit them. But have they understood enough about each other to make the arrangement work?
The Gottmans point out that these partners stay fairly calm while moving toward a solution. Because they have not explored the underlying issues, they may find themselves having the same conversation when the checking account is short again.
A Quick Guide to Conflict Styles and Persuasion
How might partners with another conflict style discuss the spending? Here is the distinction in Fight Right:
| Conflict style | Approach to persuasion |
|---|---|
| Conflict-avoiding | No attempt to persuade; partners “agree to disagree.” |
| Validating | Partners lay out the issues first—“building an agenda”—but may move too quickly to persuasion. |
| Volatile | Partners may begin with persuasion, wanting immediate engagement and debate. |
A conflict-avoiding couple might stop after raising the spending concern. They reassure each other: work is going well, they own their home, and the children are looking forward to camping.
Volatile partners might barely pause to establish the concern before debating the spending and their future.
Neither pair would approach the discussion quite like the validating partners trying to work methodically toward a solution.
Why Won’t My Partner Engage?
For a partner who welcomes debate, an immediate response can mean engagement. When the other person withdraws, it may feel like rejection.
For someone who prefers to avoid conflict, the pressure to respond can feel like an attack. Why keep pushing when the discussion is already upsetting?
Partners can misunderstand each other when they expect different things from persuasion. One wants an engaged response; the other wants to avoid an upsetting exchange.
The Gottmans use the concept meta-emotion to mean how people feel about feelings. Should difficult emotions be expressed and explored? Are some better kept to oneself? Partners with different beliefs about how emotions should be handled may have a meta-emotion mismatch.
A mismatch is not a dealbreaker. But it can be a recipe for misunderstanding. To help in conflict, partners can learn about each other’s styles and stretch toward each other. What did each learn about expressing difficult feelings? What happens when those expectations meet?
A Cheat Code for Understanding How We Fight
These questions from Fight Right give partners a place to begin.
The conflict culture I grew up with
“What was my formative conflict culture? What did I learn about conflict from my family of origin? What beliefs about conflict do I carry from that?”
My style—and how I feel about feelings
“Which of the three styles is my personal conflict style? What’s my ‘meta-emotion mode’—how do I feel about feelings? Are some feelings easier for me to express than others?”
How our styles interact
“How do our conflict styles interact? Do we have the same style, or different? How does this affect our conflict discussions?”
Partners do not have to agree about every feeling or remember an event identically. In Gottman’s research, partners in satisfying, lasting relationships postponed persuasion long enough to understand the concern being raised. The listener checked their understanding with the speaker before presenting their own position. Then they switched.
“At this stage the only goal is understanding,” the Gottmans write. “Persuasion comes afterwards.”
What Are We Really Fighting About?
Understanding our own conflict style and our partner’s builds empathy and compassion. A partner’s response becomes easier to understand when we know what they learned about conflict—and what they expect when difficult feelings arise.
As the Gottmans explain in Fight Right, awareness of these factors helps couples navigate future disagreements. Even a fight can become a safe enough space to explore their issues together and do something crucial: figure out what they are actually fighting about.
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Source: John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman, Fight Right.
