Healthy relationship conflict involves understanding some basic neuroscience and employing effective communication strategies. When we get this right, we take the danger out of conflict and minimise the risk of escalation and rupture. Today, I’ll focus on the neuroscience side of things. Understanding how our nervous systems respond during stress allows us to minimise escalation through self-soothing and co-regulating behaviours.
Survival is primary
The most important thing to remember is that we are wired for survival first and relationships second. Our reptilian brain, which includes the amygdala and hippocampus, constantly scans and assesses the level of threat and danger in our environment. Research suggests that our amygdalae scan for danger around four times per second and that we can register a negative event within 1.5 seconds. In contrast, the brain takes up to 15 seconds to register a positive event.
Another part of the brain, the BSNT (bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, for those of you playing at home) or the extended amygdala, is responsible for anticipating threat scenarios and planning responses. Think of it like your brain’s war room, where the nervous system’s generals can wargame strategies and defences.
Part of wargaming involves filling in the blanks. Our brains are excellent at making things up. When we don’t have enough information, our brain makes up what’s missing—and it is guaranteed that 99.9% of the time, what it creates is a negative inference, especially in a heightened situation such as a relationship conflict. This makes sense: it’s better to prepare for the worst than to be taken by surprise.
Because humans are relational animals that evolved to live together, we also scan for relationship threats such as abandonment, rejection, or exile. The BSNT makes predictions based on what has happened in the past, so if there is a pattern of rupture or escalation, then we are primed to anticipate it and prepare for it.
Relationship therapist Stan Tatkin labels these survival parts of the brain as primitives. They have evolved to attend to survival, sex and safety first, and they do it well.
The prefrontal cortex houses the parts of the brain wired for relationships, which Tatkin labels ambassadors. Whereas the primitives are quick and energy-efficient, the ambassadors are slow and expensive. We want our survival parts to be quick to action, so this is a good thing. However, quick reflexes come at the cost of relationality.
In any conflict, we need time to de-escalate, calm our nervous systems, and allow space for our ambassadors to go online and resolve the situation. Otherwise, the war room will take control, reducing the likelihood that the situation will resolve amicably. Suffice it to say that our primitives are great at war and terrible at peace.
State affects memory and memory affects state
Memories are made in tandem with feelings. The stronger the feeling around an event, the more likely you will remember it. Recall a critical moment from your life and how you felt in that moment. Now, try remembering what you were doing and how you felt at the same time a day before that event. I’m guessing that you probably can’t.
The stronger the memory, the more likely it is to influence your feelings when you recall it.
Suppose relationship conflict repeatedly escalates and leads to ruptures. In that case, the memories of those ruptures will be hard coded into your brain along with whatever feelings were present in those moments. When the next fight starts, your nervous system activates with the memory and feelings of what’s previously happened, and you go into a fight with your nervous system pre-pumped for escalation and rupture. This will likely become a self-fulfilling prophecy, reinforcing those already existing memories and feelings.
Action stations
At the first indication of danger, the amygdalae send signals to your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) to go to battle stations. Adrenaline and cortisol are released into the body, and glucose diverts from the brain to the muscles for extra energy in case fight or flight are required. The cost of this is that our brains are somewhat impaired and make shortcuts to conserve energy.
However, because our survival systems are activated, the BSND is wargaming scenarios at high speed but in a sub-optimal state for doing so. It becomes more error-prone in its inferences, and the higher the chance of error, the higher the chance of escalation.
Furthermore, if a relationship has a pattern of conflict or if one or both partners experience chronic stress, trauma or anything else that leaves them easily heightened, then cortisol levels are probably already elevated, so the body is predisposed to go into war mode.
A comedy of errors
Let’s summarise what we now know about how our neurobiology influences us during relationship conflict: a nervous system wired to detect threats activates at the beginning of any argument. The brain loses glucose, so it functions below par and starts taking shortcuts while creating scenarios based on what’s happened in the past and filling in any blanks with its own negative inferences.
Staying relational
Knowing all of this, here are some general principles to help stop your primitives from taking over during relationship fights:
Pause and breathe
Your primitives are quick and dirty and want to react fast. Your upper, relational brain needs longer to process the situation. Every time you take a breath, you allow more time for your parasympathetic (relational, rest, and digest) nervous system and for your ambassadors to come online.
Pause after your partner speaks and before you respond to buy time. Lengthen your exhale for parasympathetic activation. Take regular timeouts to regulate your breathing.
Pausing and taking a breath also slows down the fight, which will lead to fewer communication errors.
Signal is everything
In the film Doctor Strangelove (if you haven’t seen it, add it to the list now!), much of the humour derives from the mixed communication signals in the American defence systems that lead it to go to war with Russia. It’s the same with the brain: many conflicts result from confused or mixed communication signals.
Minimising the margin for error is a priority.
Knowing that our brains fill in the blanks when there are information gaps means that being over the top in our communication signalling is essential. By signal, I mean things like body language, prosody or vocal tone, facial expression, and choice of words. Most couples under-signal each other, believing that their partner can read their intentions but where there is room for interpretation, as we are aware by now, that interpretation will not be favourable.
When you argue, do so front-on because movement at our peripheries during heightened moments indicates danger. Over-emphasise your words and expressions and overstate your meaning like a ham actor. The aim is to give your partner enough cues to prevent miscommunication or misinterpretation.
Try to smile as you speak. Frowning and anger narrow the eyes and tighten the jaw, which are signs of a threat to the receiver. Smiling signals that you are not a danger. For similar reasons, using pet names such as darling, honey, etc., can be helpful, as the overt familiarity reinforces the connection and makes your partner feel safer.
Under no circumstances ever fight via text or phone. When you can’t see your partner’s face, the margin for error increases. If something is worth arguing over, it’s worth waiting until you can see each other in person. Mutually agree that if anything gets heated by text or phone, it can wait until you are face-to-face.
A short fight is a good fight
I have seen couples who have skirmishes that last days without meaningful repair. Lingering and unresolved arguments are a sure way to build a legacy of resentment and avoidance and ensure that the brain consolidates long-term memories of relationship conflict and rupture.
Set a timer and agree to have a break when 10 minutes are up. Having a time-out word or signal can be helpful here. When one partner calls the time out, you agree to break it off for a predetermined period. You might even like to put on a song you both enjoy and dance to; the dancing will help the body disperse any cortisol that has built up.
Reflect and go slow
I often get partners to reflect on what the other has said back at them. There is a two-fold reason for doing this: reflection helps speakers feel heard, which is likely to de-escalate heightened states because feeling understood is synonymous with feeling connected.
The other reason reflection and validation help is that it slows down the back and forth of the argument. Slower speeds allow for more processing times and reduce the likelihood of mistakes. Think of it like driving your car down a narrow street: at high speed, there is more chance of losing control and clipping another vehicle. A slow and steady pace of interactions allows for more accurate predictions and engages the ambassadors, meaning there is less likely to be miscommunication.
If you implement even just one or two of these in your arguments you would be well on your way to de-escalating conflicts.
Reach out to learn more about couples therapy and how we can help you and your partner use grounded psychological and neurobiological strategies to resolve conflicts.