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Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
Give me twenty minutes, I am not leaving this. Then return, calmer, as promised.
The God-conscious restrain their anger and pardon people (Qur'an 3:134). Restraint that returns to make peace is the whole of it.
آل عمران
ٱلَّذِينَ يُنفِقُونَ فِي ٱلسَّرَّآءِ وَٱلضَّرَّآءِ وَٱلۡكَٰظِمِينَ ٱلۡغَيۡظَ وَٱلۡعَافِينَ عَنِ ٱلنَّاسِۗ وَٱللَّهُ يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ
who give, both in prosperity and adversity, who restrain their anger and pardon people- God loves those who do good
Qur’an 3:134read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Gottman's instruction for a break is to say when you will come back and then come back. Without that, a pause is felt as abandonment and the other partner pursues, which undoes the point of stepping away.
John M. Gottman; Nan Silver (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Crown
Principle 5, step 3, soothe yourself and each other. Once a partner is flooded, no productive conversation is possible. Gottman prescribes a break of at least twenty minutes spent genuinely distracted rather than rehearsing the grievance.
Levenson, R.; Gottman, J. (1983). Marital interaction: Physiological linkage and affective exchange.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology doi
Physiological linkage during conflict predicts declining satisfaction.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A break without a promised return reads as abandonment, not soothing.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Manage Conflict; self-soothing, the agreed break with a named return time.