Two weekends ago, my husband and I got into an argument in our kitchen. It kept escalating, so I stormed upstairs to reorganize my closet — my version of a rock star destroying a hotel room.
When I returned to the kitchen to snag some paper towels, my husband pointed out our window as if nothing had happened. “Look at that!” he said. “I think it’s a Carolina wren.”
He does this a lot. I find it frustrating but endearing: He desperately wants to move on.
But Tom’s bird-watching is an avoidance tactic, said Antonio Quirindongo Jr., a psychotherapist in New Jersey who specializes in L.G.B.T.Q. relationships. What it conveys, he said, is “‘I feel discomfort, I want out, and so there’s a bird.’”
When you argue with your partner, the emotional hangover can leave you rattled, resentful and unsure how to reconnect. But experts say there are clear steps you can take to move forward.
Take a break.
A spat with a partner “changes the chemistry in our brains and bodies,” said Galena Rhoades, a psychologist at the University of Denver and co-author of “Fighting for Your Marriage.”
Your fight-or-flight response is activated, she said, increasing your heart rate and releasing stress hormones like cortisol. This so-called emotional flooding makes it hard to think or communicate logically.
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