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Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
Not their part. Yours. Owning your step in the pattern is what starts to change it.
Adam and his wife said, our Lord, we have wronged ourselves (Qur'an 7:23). Owning your own part is where every repair begins.
الأعراف
قَالَا رَبَّنَا ظَلَمۡنَآ أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمۡ تَغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَتَرۡحَمۡنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلۡخَٰسِرِينَ
They replied, ‘Our Lord, we have wronged our souls: if You do not forgive us and have mercy, we shall be lost.’
Qur’an 7:23read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
When Johnson slows a couple's argument down, each partner names their own step, the chasing or the going quiet, rather than the other's. Owning your move is the part of the pattern you can actually change, and it lowers your spouse's guard at the same time.
Susan M. Johnson (2008). Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Little, Brown
Conversation 3, Revisiting a Rocky Moment. Johnson has the couple slow one incident down and trace their own moves in the dance, on the principle that a cycle can only be interrupted at a point both partners can see.
Strength of evidence: seen more than once. Replicated observational or longitudinal work, not tested against a control.
Seeing one's own role in the cycle is the first step to shifting it.
Where this sits: EFT, Hold Me Tight Conversation 3: Revisiting a Rocky Moment, naming your own move in the dance.