How To Have Better Arguments With Your Partner - The Freemans | Modern Wisdom Podcast 285

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   With any relationship, a…

   1. JFJocelyn Freeman0:00

      With any relationship, a son or daughter, could be a friend, family member, coworker, and then spouse, if there's something you notice in that relationship that you often get triggered by, what you wanna do is come to them and say, "Hey, you know what? I realize I often get triggered by-"

   2. AFAaron Freeman0:15

      You saying-

   3. JFJocelyn Freeman0:16

      "... you saying X. Now, I know I'm giving that meaning, but it would really help me if we could create an agreement that you wouldn't bring that up when (laughs) we have an argument."

   4. CWChris Williamson0:28

      We're talking about how to have better arguments today. What is the argument hangover?

   5. JFJocelyn Freeman0:33

      Love that actually. You know, when, when we say that to anybody, they kinda get the sense.

   6. AFAaron Freeman0:38

      What it feels like.

   7. JFJocelyn Freeman0:38

      People have had argument, or they've had arguments, yes, they've had hangovers too, whether food or alcohol. So the argument hangover specifically would be that period of time between having a disagreement, we talk about a romantic partner, but honestly this could be with a friend, a family member, and then there's the things that you say and do, and then it's the period of time that you feel disconnected, you feel frustrated. You may feel guilty for the things that you said and what you did-

   8. AFAaron Freeman1:08

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JFJocelyn Freeman1:08

      ... that has that relationship feel either stalled or just really disconnected.

   10. AFAaron Freeman1:12

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JFJocelyn Freeman1:13

       And that can last for a day, two days, weeks, months. It can actually lead to relationships ending.

   12. AFAaron Freeman1:18

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JFJocelyn Freeman1:18

       And that argument hangover finally ends when you get it resolved fully emotionally, which some people don't.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:28

       That's relationship sobriety then. (laughs)

   15. AFAaron Freeman1:32

       (laughs) In a way, right. Well, it's in a way like, I mean, I know you'll ask some great questions about this, but what my pattern used to be was if things weren't going well in a relationship and conflicts were coming up, sure, we would try and I would do all the yelling and the name-calling and I let my emotions have it be a free-for-all, but then when it just got hard, I'd leave. And sometimes I think really the s- I think across the world that there's a big conversation about relationships should be mostly good. And we don't see a lot of portrayals, especially in media, of like what does healthy conflict look like and how to stay in a relationship even when things get challenging. So people unfortunately, like you said, will just leave the relationship.

   16. JFJocelyn Freeman2:12

       Or how to leverage that conflict into an opportunity-

   17. AFAaron Freeman2:16

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JFJocelyn Freeman2:16

       ... to grow and strengthen that understanding and that relationship.

   19. CWChris Williamson2:20

       One of the things I was talking about toward the end of last year is unremarkable depression.

   20. AFAaron Freeman2:25

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson2:25

       So a lot of the time when we see people hit rock bottom, it's a big deal and there's almost bizarrely a bit of glory attached to it. Perhaps that's the archetypes that we see in media. But you know, when someone has a full-blown breakdown, perhaps they get sectioned, perhaps they need to go onto some antipsychotics, but they know, like from that bottom position, there is nowhere else to go. Like, you have to get better. That is where you go. The concern that I had, this common malaise, this ambient anxiety that people have-

   22. AFAaron Freeman2:53

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson2:53

       ... where life, it vacillates from kind of crap to just about acceptable and then back down again. And you're right, it, that, the, the normal, the unremarkable arguments, I suppose over time will compound to chip away at confidence in a relationship to the point where death by a thousand cuts occurs.

   24. AFAaron Freeman3:12

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson3:12

       Divorce.

   26. JFJocelyn Freeman3:13

       Mm-hmm.

   27. AFAaron Freeman3:14

       Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it can be the small things, but even some of the things that seem like they're small and people would just try to brush under the rug, people miss out on the gold that's inside of that. Like even we say to people, "You're not upset about the dishes, you're not upset about the socks. You're not even upset really about finances." Because sometimes couples argue about money, it's something underneath that that's getting triggered and perhaps it's coming from your past. And so like what you said, even though they're unremarkable, people still just don't even find the bigger lesson that's available to them. They don't see relationships as the place to transform. You were talking right before we started, right, about self-development and really self-actualization, becoming the best you, and-

   28. CWChris Williamson3:57

       Mm-hmm.

   29. AFAaron Freeman3:57

       ... relationships are the most rapid intense way you can access that. But people don't look at conflicts-

   30. CWChris Williamson4:05

       Mm-hmm.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Hm. …

   1. CWChris Williamson15:01

      and I'm not, uh, I want people to try and make it work. I don't want people to divorce, I want them to stick together, I want the family to work and all this sort of stuff. But yeah, there are some challenges that are unget-by-able, sadly. Uh, what are emotional triggers?

   2. JFJocelyn Freeman15:16

      Hm.

   3. CWChris Williamson15:16

      Let's talk about them. You've mentioned it a couple of times already.

   4. AFAaron Freeman15:18

      Well, even to that point, right, like relationships are going to reveal your triggers. Whether you're with the perfect partner who me- matches all the things you want, there will be things that happen within the relationship that trigger you, which we would describe as like somebody poking a sensitive spot. Now most people just have their triggered reaction, right? And like they're angry, they're sad, they're, "You shouldn't have done that. I wouldn't feel this way if you didn't do that." And so they make it about the other person. When people have awareness about emotional triggers, it's really poking something inside that wants to be looked at. Okay, wow, where'd that come from? Why did that trigger something in me? And if people, instead of going o- outside, all about you, and looked inwards, there'd be something really powerful that could be shown.

   5. CWChris Williamson16:06

      Hm.

   6. AFAaron Freeman16:06

      Anything more to add, Dad?

   7. JFJocelyn Freeman16:08

      Yeah, and the steps of what it looks like is there's a triggered event. And this can happen, again, in any relationship. There's, in this case with my partner, a expression on the face, a specific word, maybe swearing, bringing up the past, some action, even a tone.

   8. AFAaron Freeman16:26

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JFJocelyn Freeman16:27

      And that, in and of itself, as you probably shared lots of times with your audience, doesn't inherently have any meaning, but it's a trigger because that event elicits some emotion within you. And that, maybe it reminds you of some memory that your mom or dad said to you, or in that moment you make it mean something. So there's some emotion that gets elicited, and then the main problem is that emotion creates an amygdala hijack. Essentially you're unaware of the action that you then take. And that's really sort of the problem with the argument hangover is because you do more damage and you extend the argument hangover because you're unconscious of the then triggered behavior-

   10. AFAaron Freeman17:11

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JFJocelyn Freeman17:12

       ... that you take automatically, don't have to even think about it.

   12. CWChris Williamson17:15

       I had Donald Robertson who's a CBT-trained stoic philosopher, so this guy's got the new age and the old age all combined together. And he was talking about how much our judgment is impaired when we're angry.

   13. JFJocelyn Freeman17:29

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson17:30

       Um, and he said that anger is one of the worst, uh, impacts that we can have on our judgment, and I'm going to guess that one of the most common emotions that people find when they get emotionally triggered is anger.

   15. AFAaron Freeman17:42

       Oh, it's intoxicating. It releases chemicals in your body and you're not really thinking straight. However, people can train themselves to interrupt it. So it is possible to not do the damage that's normally caused by the triggered behaviors. And it takes practice, just like everything that you teach. You can't just learn something in a book and then be like, "Oh, I tried it one day and it didn't work." Right? It's practice, months and years. And to your point, right, like if, if a couple really is aligned and they even think they're perfect for each other and they both do self-development... We work with a lot of couples who've done years of self-development and they're like, "My partner still triggers me, so are they not the right person then?" No, that's means it's pointing to something within you to look at.... and go at where is this in the past. And, and that's really where, I mean, we're, we just really have transformed.

   16. JFJocelyn Freeman18:35

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's powerful in any relationship then, we were talking earlier about you either approach it as a boxing match or, or being a football team, right? Approaching a game or a match. So in those moments, if someone, your friend, a family member comes to you and, and they're-

   17. AFAaron Freeman18:50

       Yeah.

   18. JFJocelyn Freeman18:50

       ... triggered, rather than getting so defensive and trying to, to stop their pattern or behavior, "Don't speak to me that way," if you could just pause and say, "Hey, you know, it seem, seems like you're triggered," that's how you start to make that shift from a boxing match to being on the same team-

   19. AFAaron Freeman19:08

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JFJocelyn Freeman19:08

       ... you know, in a, in a match together is, "Hey, seems like you're triggered. Is that right?"

   21. AFAaron Freeman19:12

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JFJocelyn Freeman19:12

       "What emotion is there for you?" So you've already stopped the pattern for them, and now you're helping them be introspective of what is the emotion, ideally if you can get to what the event was, and then not just apologize, "I'm so sorry I did that to make you feel that way." The self-realization then says, "What meaning did I give to that event that caused that within me?" Not trying to get your partner to now stop doing all of the triggering events so that you don't get triggered.

   23. CWChris Williamson19:39

       Have you seen Chris Voss's work? Have you read much of that stuff? Yeah. So-

   24. AFAaron Freeman19:43

       We're in a mastermind with him.

   25. JFJocelyn Freeman19:44

       Love him. Love him. Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson19:45

       Amazing. So-

   27. AFAaron Freeman19:46

       Yeah. He's amazing.

   28. CWChris Williamson19:47

       ... he came on the show, uh, a couple of months ago, and obviously-

   29. AFAaron Freeman19:50

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson19:50

       ... he's got that, um, "It seems like there's something on your mind."
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Absolutely. I mean, very…

   1. JFJocelyn Freeman30:00

      of infinite possibilities, you can get excitement, you can be... have high anticipation. Do we wanna travel? What kind of experiences do we wanna have? Do we wanna be influential? Do we wanna start a business, start a family? You know, now you're into the imagination of the whole purpose of why you're together. And, you know, looking at consciousness, our outer world is actually a reflection of our inner world, of what we are imagining, what we are already feeling as already being done. That's a really powerful, exciting conversation to be imagining with your partner, which once you clear up the past, that's where we want people to live all the time.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:39

      Absolutely. I mean, very much our sh- our thoughts shape the world around us. We don't exist in the world. We exist in the mental model that our brain has constructed of the world.

   3. AFAaron Freeman30:48

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:49

      And the more baggage and extra bits that you don't need, the more drag is on that mental model. The more cognitive biases you have, the less rationality, the less balance, all that sort of stuff. Um, so I mean, that, that sounds like a wonderful situation to be in, but I imagine that...... you both need to work through an awful lot before you get there. And inevitably, that's going to involve going through conflict. So, how can you turn that conflict into a good thing?

   5. AFAaron Freeman31:14

      Mm-hmm. Hmm. Well, I love that- Right? ... 'cause we, we didn't come to each other, as you heard, like all shiny-

   6. CWChris Williamson31:18

      Ready-made.

   7. AFAaron Freeman31:19

      ... and like, "I, I transformed everything!" Right?

   8. CWChris Williamson31:22

      (laughs)

   9. AFAaron Freeman31:22

      And maybe you will show up for a partner that way, but I would bet you that there would be new things that come up for you.

   10. CWChris Williamson31:28

       Jocelyn, I'm perfect. Don't worry about that. That wouldn't

   11. NANarrator31:30

       (laughs)

   12. AFAaron Freeman31:30

       (laughs) I know, you've already worked through it all. So, conflict, yes, we see that as something that really is showing something inside of us. And we also, so we have this whole five-hour process to truly reconcile after a conflict. Be- because just saying, "I'm sorry," is not enough. It doesn't truly repair things afterwards. And one of the five Rs that I think is important to your question is the fifth R, which is to reconcile the conflict as an opportunity together. So, we actually just had a session with a couple right before this, and there was something that came up between them the last couple of weeks. And how she remembered it was, "That was a bummer, that was frustrating, it got us off course-"

   13. CWChris Williamson32:13

       Mm-hmm.

   14. AFAaron Freeman32:13

       "... slowed our momentum. We were doing so well before." And there was a lot of discouraged feeling in that. And so we said, "Okay, let's change the way you remember it. Let, let's reconcile the situation as an opportunity." And I'm telling you, it's, it's totally different. After our disagreements, we always go, "Great, what did we learn about ourselves as individuals? What did we learn about our relationship and what our relationship needs?" Because you may or may not have heard this before, but we see our relationship as a separate entity from who we are. So, after that conflict, what did we now learn our relationship needs? And then also, how are we better, how are we stronger? And when we change the way we remember it, we actually saw the possibility that was available. Conflicts aren't a problem, they really create a whole new possibility.

   15. CWChris Williamson33:06

       Hmm. That's interesting, and also ties in with a lot of what I believe around the way that we act as humans. Like, the fact is that nothing is really good or bad, it's all just a learning experience.

   16. AFAaron Freeman33:20

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson33:20

       And if you lean into the discomfort as a feature of life, not a bug, you are going to encounter things that are going to go wrong. You're going-

   18. AFAaron Freeman33:26

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson33:26

       ... to encounter catastrophe, both chosen and unchosen, both by your, uh, doings and by other people's doings. Um, and the only way that you really can go through that is to think, "Okay, what did I learn from that?" And it's one of the beauties of trying to cultivate curiosity, that if you're-

   20. AFAaron Freeman33:42

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson33:43

       ... if you're interested in what's coming next, you're very rarely scared about what's going to happen. You're just constantly thinking, "Oh, how interesting. Isn't this..." Like even the level of equanimity that I think we all should aspire to get toward is that when you sense an emotion, you don't attach yourself to the emotion, but you question, "Wow, how interesting that I'm feeling this. Why?"

   22. AFAaron Freeman34:03

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson34:03

       "Isn't that cool?" Like, isn't, the, the sensation of nervousness, "I've got this sensation in my stomach and I can feel myself getting hot up towards my cheeks," and, you know, all of the different things that you feel. Um, but it takes an awful lot of work to get there, as you say. Um, I also think as well, the reconciliation thing ties in with the peak-end rule. Are you familiar with this from psychology?

   24. AFAaron Freeman34:23

       Mm. I do.

   25. CWChris Williamson34:23

       So, Ben Hardy, who's a mutual, a mutual friend of ours-

   26. AFAaron Freeman34:26

       Yep. Mm-hmm.

   27. CWChris Williamson34:26

       ... um, he, he talks about this. So, the peak-end effect is a Daniel Kahneman study. And what they realized was that the two biggest retainers in terms of memory from any event are the most emotionally intense and the end.

   28. AFAaron Freeman34:41

       (laughs) Hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson34:41

       So-

   30. AFAaron Freeman34:41

       Hmm.
4. 45:00 – 55:07

   Yeah. …

   1. CWChris Williamson45:00

   2. AFAaron Freeman45:00

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson45:01

      Because it's- it's both dismissive, but aggressive. It's not engaging, but it's also kind of leaving... It's like curling a turd up in the middle of the room and then leaving it there and being like, "This is just what I'm gonna leave you with."

   4. AFAaron Freeman45:13

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson45:13

      Have you got any strategies for how people can deal with a passive-aggressive partner?

   6. JFJocelyn Freeman45:18

      Well, one quick thing before you go. It's just great to identify that's most likely from a reserve type of partner. So just even categorizing yourself into the archetype, reserves, probably inflexibles, those that have not been sharing, you got something built up, it's wanting to get expressed, but because you're more reserved, it's gonna be like-

   7. AFAaron Freeman45:40

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JFJocelyn Freeman45:41

      ... "I'm just gonna leave it on the floor."

   9. AFAaron Freeman45:42

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JFJocelyn Freeman45:42

       And then you deal with it.

   11. AFAaron Freeman45:43

       So of course there is the partner that is passive-aggressive and them in a calm state bringing it up to them and being like, "Hey, I noticed there's this pattern that happens. Is that something you're open to looking at?" Right? So that person would ideally be open to looking at where that being passive-aggressive comes from. Then there's to what you said, if you're the one that's with the passive-aggressive partner, then what you could say is, "Hey, it sounds like there's actually something else you want to communicate-"

   12. JFJocelyn Freeman46:11

       Mm.

   13. AFAaron Freeman46:12

       "... and you didn't say what you really would like to share. I'd love to know that." So we can, especially if our partner is trying to change a pattern, and that's the big thing. I get messages all the time from people, like, "My partner's really trying to change the pattern. How can I continue to be patient? How can I continue?" But... And that's what it takes, right? If they're actively working on changing the pattern, we wanna hold space for them. We wanna have the patience for them. So it's like, "Hey, that pattern thing, you know, is coming up again, but I do want to know what you truly mean. So please share with me." And hopefully that change in reaction will kind of snap them into like, "Whoa, I wasn't even aware I did that."

   14. JFJocelyn Freeman46:52

       Mm.

   15. AFAaron Freeman46:52

       'Cause it's so unconscious. It's a protection mechanism. Maybe they grew up in a household where it wasn't safe for them to share their emotions. M- maybe that's all they saw their mom or dad do. And so I'm sure they're not sitting there going, "I wanna be passive-aggressive right now." Right? That's not really a conscious choice a lot of times. So you wanna even share to them in a loving way that you observed it.

   16. JFJocelyn Freeman47:16

       Mm.

   17. AFAaron Freeman47:16

       And then if you change your reaction to them, it can change the whole pattern between the two of you.

   18. CWChris Williamson47:21

       I imagine the, "It seems like," from Chris, would be another-

   19. AFAaron Freeman47:25

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson47:25

       ... sort of great way to try and elicit a response.

   21. AFAaron Freeman47:28

       Yeah. Yeah. "It seems like there's something else that you'd-"

   22. CWChris Williamson47:30

       Mm.

   23. AFAaron Freeman47:30

       "... like to say right now. I'd love to know what that is."

   24. CWChris Williamson47:33

       That's the master key. That's the, that's the cheat code for people who are passive-aggressive, for anyone that's listening. What about afterwards?

   25. AFAaron Freeman47:38

       (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson47:38

       How, how can we, how can we make the after an argument, the hangover period actually be reduced once it's in- uh, happened?

   27. AFAaron Freeman47:47

       Yeah. So in the post-conflict stage, we do have the five Rs, which would take more time to go through all five of them. And I did tell you the reconcile one. I would say, 'cause it's really the first two steps are on your own so that you can reflect and really see where you played a part in it. But to your question, I think the one I wanna focus on is actually the third R, which is to reconnect. And this is, this is what's ch-

   28. JFJocelyn Freeman48:10

       The fourth?

   29. AFAaron Freeman48:10

       Um, no, the third one.

   30. JFJocelyn Freeman48:12

       The fourth.

Episode duration: 55:07