{"id":22,"date":"2010-04-14T09:45:09","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T16:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shaublaw.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/the-marital-dance-of-conflict\/"},"modified":"2010-08-14T17:40:04","modified_gmt":"2010-08-15T00:40:04","slug":"the-marital-dance-of-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/the-marital-dance-of-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"The Marital Dance of Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Our fights sometimes have the feel of a couple of siblings in the back of the car on an endless road trip. \u201cJohnny, Susie, stop fighting!\u201d The inevitable response is something like: Susie \u2013 \u201cHe hit me first!\u201d Johnnie \u2013 \u201cI did not! She kicked me.\u201d Susie – \u201cThat\u2019s because he took my pencil.\u201d Johnny \u2013 \u201cDid not!\u201d Susie \u2013 \u201cDid too!\u201d Etc. Now this is not to say that the hurt and anger we feel when we are locked in painful conflict with our partner is child-like or immature. Quite the contrary \u2013 it seems to go to the core of who we are sometimes. That\u2019s not the point here. If you look at the above scene, you\u2019ll see a circular argument in which each person believes the other person started it\u2026that the other person is the cause of the distress. Of course, the other person thinks that it started with you. In law, partners who are locked into this conflict will go and hire lawyers, who in turn will try to convince a judge that their side is right and the cause of the problem is the other person. I promise you, that in every case that a judge says one person is the cause of the problem, that decision will never, ever, ever convince the other disputant. He or she will just feel screwed \u2013 unheard \u2013 misunderstood. For good reason, too, because our ongoing conflicts are ultimately circular in causation. We ultimately react to the other person who ultimately reacts to us. By the time the circle is joined, the conflict has a life of its own and the start is about as obscure as trying to find the missing link in the fog of antiquity. The key isn\u2019t who is right. Rather the key is, how can we disengage from this cycle and stop hurting each other and get back on track. Helping with this often difficult task is, by the way, one of the great services a skilled marital therapist can provide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our fights sometimes have the feel of a couple of siblings in the back of the car on an endless road trip. \u201cJohnny, Susie, stop fighting!\u201d The inevitable response is something like: Susie \u2013 \u201cHe hit me first!\u201d Johnnie \u2013 \u201cI did not! She kicked me.\u201d Susie – \u201cThat\u2019s because he took my pencil.\u201d Johnny Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,4],"tags":[20,21],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}