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Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
Not you never listen. I feel small when I am not heard. The softer truth de-escalates.
Speak a word that is clear and true (Qur'an 33:70). The soft truth beneath the anger is the truer word.
الأحزاب
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَقُولُواْ قَوۡلࣰ ا سَدِيدࣰ ا
Believers, be mindful of God, speak in a direct fashion and to good purpose
Qur’an 33:70read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Emotionally focused therapy separates the reactive feeling you show, usually anger, from the softer one underneath, usually hurt or fear. Saying I feel small when I am not heard rather than you never listen is what de-escalates, because your spouse can move towards a soft feeling and can only defend against a sharp one.
Susan M. Johnson (2019). Attachment Theory in Practice: EFT with Individuals, Couples, and Families. Guilford
Accessing underlying emotion, Stage 1 Step 3. Johnson distinguishes the reactive secondary emotion, usually anger or numbness, from the primary attachment emotion beneath it, usually fear or grief, and holds that only the primary emotion pulls a partner closer.
Strength of evidence: seen more than once. Replicated observational or longitudinal work, not tested against a control.
Expressing the vulnerable emotion beneath anger calms the cycle.
Where this sits: EFT, Stage 1 Step 3: speaking the primary emotion under the secondary one.