By Michelle Cortez.
TL;DR. Conflict is a normal part of every relationship, and most couples will never solve every disagreement. What matters is how you handle it. Three steps help: notice whether you are trying to win or trying to understand, validate your partner's feelings before you problem-solve, and then work on the problem together as a team. When a fight gets too heated, take a break of at least 20 minutes and come back to it.
People have different ideas about what a healthy relationship looks like. You might hear "we never fight" held up as the goal, or "if you're really happy, you shouldn't argue." Many of us also didn't grow up with good examples of handling conflict. Maybe one parent shut down and went silent, or someone exploded and yelled, and those patterns left years of resentment behind them.
So when tension shows up in your own relationship, it is easy to start asking hard questions. "I'm not like my parents, so why can't we get through this?" "Are we just not compatible?" "Is this fixable?"
Conflict shows up with partners, family, friends, and coworkers, and it doesn't mean your relationship is failing. Handled well, it teaches a couple how to solve problems together. The shift I help couples make is from "me vs. you" to "us vs. the problem." That frame is part of both the Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), the two couples approaches our team draws on most.
Most conflict doesn't get solved, and that's okay
According to the Gottman Institute, 69% of relationship conflict is about perpetual problems. These are ongoing differences in personality, needs, or preferences, like one partner needing more time together and the other more time alone, or different comfort levels with spending money.
Perpetual problems don't mean you picked the wrong person. Every couple has them, and the goal is to keep talking about them with curiosity and humor instead of reaching a final verdict. That takes pressure off every argument, because the question shifts from "who is right?" to "how do we live well with this difference?"
Step 1: Are you trying to win or trying to understand?
When conflict starts, most of us take a position without realizing it. We are either trying to win the argument or trying to understand our partner, and the two lead to very different conversations.
The win mindset works like a lawyer preparing an opening argument: gathering evidence for your side and building a case against theirs. It is a natural reaction, especially if you think your partner messed up more than you did, but it feeds defensiveness, one of the Four Horsemen that Gottman's research links to relationships breaking down.
For example, if your partner says, "You never listen," a winning response sounds like, "It's not my fault, you don't explain yourself well." An understanding response sounds like, "I hear that you feel unheard. I want to understand what I'm missing."
How you start matters too. Gottman's research found that couples whose arguments usually start gently are far more likely to have stable, happy relationships. Compare these two openings:
- "So it's my fault now? If you had just listened, this wouldn't have happened."
- "I feel frustrated when it seems like I'm being overlooked. Can we slow down and figure out how to hear each other?"
The second one names a feeling and a need instead of a verdict, which gives your partner something to respond to other than their own defense. A useful question to ask yourself in the moment is, "Am I listening to understand, or listening to disagree?"
Step 2: Validate before you problem-solve
Validating your partner means acknowledging that their feelings make sense from where they stand, even when you see things differently, which is different from agreeing with them or excusing their behavior.
If someone tells you, "I'm really upset," validating them sounds like, "I can see that you're upset, and I want to understand why." You can validate the feeling without signing off on their version of events.
Once your partner feels heard, they usually have less need to keep pressing their point, and you can both get curious about what happened. For example: "I didn't realize that when I didn't answer your calls, you felt like you didn't matter to me. I was overwhelmed and silenced my phone to clear my head. What would help next time?"
In my EFT-informed work with couples, this is often where things start to move. Under most complaints sits a more vulnerable feeling, like being unimportant or alone, and validation makes it safer for that feeling to come out.
Step 3: Make it us vs. the problem
Once you both feel understood, you can work on the problem together. Compromise might be part of it, or you might simply brainstorm options. The difference is that you are now on the same side, looking at the problem instead of at each other.
A few habits help:
- Use "we" language. "How do we want to handle this?" invites teamwork in a way "you need to fix this" doesn't.
- Let some things stay open. Not every conflict resolves in one conversation. It is fine to put a pin in it and agree on when you will come back to it.
- Take a break when you need one. If you are too upset to be productive, say so: "I'm too upset to have this conversation well right now. Can we pick it back up after dinner?" The Gottman Institute recommends breaks of at least 20 minutes, because that is about how long the body needs to calm down. Our post on stonewalling explains what happens when one partner gets flooded.
- Come back. A break only helps if you return to the conversation. Hold yourself to the time you agreed on.
When you do come back to a fight that left a mark, our Aftermath of a Fight handout walks you through talking about it once you have both cooled down, so it stops lingering between you.
When the same fight keeps coming back
Sometimes conflict stops looking like a disagreement about a topic and starts looking like a loop: one partner pushes for a response, the other pulls away, and every argument follows the same path no matter what started it. In EFT, this loop is called the pursue-withdraw cycle, and our Pursuer/Withdrawer Cycle handout lays out what each partner is protecting. Our post on why couples keep having the same fight goes further into how couples step out of it.
Getting support
These steps take practice, and old habits come back under stress. If you keep landing in the same arguments, or conflict has started to feel unsafe or hopeless, couples therapy (sometimes called marriage counseling) can help you slow the pattern down and practice new responses with someone guiding the conversation.
My couples work is EFT-informed and draws on Gottman tools like softened start-up, repair, and self-soothing. Our team sees couples online anywhere in California, and a free 15-minute consult with our intake coordinator is a low-pressure way to talk about what is going on and find the right fit.
Further reading: The Gottman Institute, Managing Conflict: Solvable vs. Perpetual Problems · The Gottman Institute, Six Tips for Conflict Management
Related from My Mental Climb: Why your partner doesn't listen to you · What is stonewalling? · Gottman's Four Horsemen · Why you keep having the same fight · Couples therapy · Free 15-minute consult
Common questions
- Is conflict a sign of a bad relationship?
- No, conflict happens in every relationship, and how a couple handles disagreements says more about the relationship than how often they argue. Couples who can disagree, repair, and come back to the problem as a team tend to grow closer through conflict rather than further apart.
- How do you resolve conflict in a relationship?
- Start by trying to understand your partner instead of trying to win, show them you get how they feel even when you disagree, and then work on the problem together. Raising the issue gently and taking a break when either of you gets flooded keeps the conversation workable.
- What does it mean to validate your partner?
- Validating your partner means acknowledging that their feelings make sense from where they stand, even if you see the situation differently. Validation is not agreement or approval of their behavior; it sounds like "I can see why that hurt," and it lowers defensiveness so the two of you can get to the problem.
- What should you do when an argument gets too heated?
- Take a break of at least 20 minutes and agree on when you will come back to the conversation. The Gottman Institute recommends at least 20 minutes because that is about how long the body needs to calm down after being flooded, and the break only helps if you return to finish the conversation.
- Can every relationship conflict be solved?
- No, and that is normal. According to the Gottman Institute, 69% of relationship conflict is about perpetual problems, ongoing differences in personality or needs that couples learn to manage through dialogue and compromise instead of solving once.
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Last clinically reviewed: by Christina Mathieson, LMFT.
