Modern Wisdom - #285 - The Freemans - How To Have Better Arguments With Your Partner

Episode Date: February 20, 2021

Aaron and Jocelyn Freeman are relationship coaches and authors. Success in relationships can be as much to do with dealing with disagreements as finding common ground, so arguing well might actually be an important skill we need to develop. Expect to learn what an argument hangover is, how you can make a disagreement with your partner better before it's even begun, how you can turn conflict into a good thing, why emotional triggers are a danger and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 3.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Buy The Argument Hangover - https://amzn.to/3qtnleE  Get Free Bonuses If You Preorder - https://theargumenthangover.com/  Follow The Freemans on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/meet_thefreemans  Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello beautiful people, welcome back. My guests today are Aaron and Jocelyn Freeman and we're talking about how to have better arguments with your partner. If you are in a relationship, I'm going to guess that the last year may have been slightly challenging from an argument perspective and certainly success in relationships seems to be as much to do with dealing with disagreements as actually finding common ground. So learning to argue well might actually be an important skill that we all need to develop. Today, expect to learn what an argument hangover is, how you can make a disagreement with your partner better before it even begun, how you can turn conflict into a good thing, why emotional triggers are a danger and much more.

But for now, it's time to learn how to argue better with the Freemans. What's talking about how to have better arguments today? What is the argument hangover? Love that actually. You know, when we say that to anybody, they kind of get the sense. People have had arguments. They've had arguments, yes, they've had hangovers too, whether food or alcohol. So the argument hangover specifically would be that period of time between having a disagreement. We talk about a romantic partner, but honestly this could be with a friend, a family member,

and then there's the things that you say and do, and then it's the period of time that you feel disconnected, you feel frustrated, you may feel guilty for the things that you said and what you did that has that relationship feel either stalled or just really disconnected and that can last for a day, two days, weeks, months, it can actually lead to relationships ending and that argument hangover finally ends when you get it resolved fully emotionally, which some people don't. That's relationship sobriety then. In a way, right? Well, it's in a way like, I mean, I know you'll ask some great questions about

this, but what my pattern used to be was if things weren't going well in a relationship and conflicts were coming up, sure, we would try and I would do all the yelling and the name calling and I let my emotions have it be a free for all. But then when it just got hard, I'd leave. And sometimes I think really the, I think across the world that there's a big conversation about relationships should be mostly good. And we don't see a lot of portrayals, especially in media, of like what is healthy conflict to look like and how to stay in a relationship even when things get challenging. So people, unfortunately, like you said, will just leave the relationship.

Well, how to leverage that conflict into an opportunity to grow and strengthen that understanding and that relationship. One of the things I was talking about toward the end of last year is unremarkable depression. So a lot of the time when we see people hit rock bottom, it's a big deal and there's almost bizarrely a bit of glory attached to it. Perhaps that's the archetypes that we see in media, but you know when someone has a full blown breakdown, perhaps they get sectioned, perhaps they need to go onto some anti-psychotics, but they know like from that bottom position there is nowhere else to go. You have to get better, that is where you go.

The concern that I had, this common malaise, this ambient anxiety that people have, where life vacillates from kind of crap to just about acceptable and then back down again. And you're right, the normal, the unremarkable arguments, I suppose, over time, will compound to chip away at confidence in a relationship to the point where death by a thousand cuts occurs divorce. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it can be the small things, but even some of the things that seem

like they're small and people would just try to brush under the rug, people miss out on the gold that's inside of that. Like even we say to people, you're not upset about the dishes. You're not upset about the socks. You're not even upset really about finances. It looks because sometimes couples argue about money. It's something underneath that that's getting triggered and perhaps it's coming from your past. And so like what you said, even though they're unremarkable, people still just don't even find the bigger lesson that's available to them. They don't see relationships as the place to transform. You were talking right before we started right about self-development and really self-actualization becoming the best you.

And relationships are the most rapid, intense way. You can access that. But people don't look at conflicts as really the place for that to ever get revealed. Is that because we presume that relationships should just be smooth sailing and if there's arguments, then that means problem. And if there's problem, then there's Tinder on my phone. And 3.5 billion other people of the gender that I'm attracted to out there, I'll just crack on.

Right, we don't like being disagreed with, right? So the moment that our partner threatens our ego and our ego gets triggered, you're disagreeing with me. You're not getting my perspective and also, you know, people do say things that are damaging in times of conflict. You read about parts of the book and we talk about emotional triggers. And that's really what we want to rewrite the script on, is conflict, especially healthy conflict, can be a good thing for your relationship. And if we can have couples embrace conflict in a new way, I really think breakups would decrease,

divorces would decrease, and overall, there'd be more happiness in relationships. I mean, we do live in a society with so much comfort, right? So there's a certain level of avoiding anything at all that seems uncomfortable because of the houses we live in, temperature control. We have food at our fingertips. We have Amazon Prime, they'll bring anything to our doors to be immediately. So we do live in a very, you know, comfortable society, of course, that quick hit of dopamine and so we don't really have the level of acceptance or allowance to go into the uncomfortable to find

what might be in there. I wonder whether there is thinking about me, I try and put myself into situations of discomfort sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily by accident, quite regularly, but I don't see discomfort in a relationship as an area for growth. That's a paradigm that I would need to step into. So hopefully today you can deliver that red pill. What are the outdated beliefs about conflict? Well, even the one you just touched on, exactly what you just touched on is even one that it's bad and that I should instead change the partner. So the moment things aren't going well, you talked about like

the uncomfortable and people lean away from that. Now, of course, if there's a line where a relationship just isn't aligned, right? But if there's alignment and the relationship, you have a shared vision, you have a shared, you know, values, you actually desire the same type of relationship. And that's a lot of times where people need to start. What kind of relationship do we even want to build towards? So if you align in that way, then one of the outdated beliefs is that conflict shouldn't be happening.

And that if we do argue and we get triggered, I mean, my triggers, if he judged me based on how I showed up when I was triggered and quote unquote, gave up on me, I wouldn't get to transform to be the person that I am now. And so I think just, yeah, one of the outdated beliefs being it shouldn't be happening. You know, or, you know, rocking the boat, you know, a similar one bringing up something more proactively because it is going to bring up a conflict. And the analogy here, really to your point, why does this seem to be the paradigm right now in romantic or any relationship, is because the way we see it

and the very first response, even within our own mind, our first thought and then our following actions are more like a boxing match. So it's like the bell rings and now you're going against that person. Now what we wanna invite, especially couples into, is that you can take your initial actions,

your initial thoughts and following actions to get yourself on the same side, more like a basketball team or a football team that faces an opponent, but they do it as a team. Now all of a sudden, as a team, you're looking at how do we overcome this challenge, how do we see this challenge as what it could provide for us to grow, to strengthen, to become a better team, to win the game, to win the championships. So if you can take the steps to first stay on the same team looking at the challenge,

rather than coming at it like a boxing match, you've changed the steps to first stay on the same team looking at the challenge rather than coming at it like a boxing match, you've changed the game. Absolutely. Team is the word that I had in my head, and it's one that I've been thinking about a lot recently as well. I was a bit of a bastard, I guess, through my 20s with girlfriends. I wasn't a particularly good boyfriend, like just classic young lad that was a dick. And there is something that's happened over the last five years and I really, really hope that all of the people that I care about that

listen to the show and everyone else as well that I don't care about, that they can have that same transformation because like I can't wait to settle down, wife, dogs, kids, because I know all of the work that I've done and the time that I've spent on myself, I want to make them better. But I don't think that I would have had that mindset five years ago. And I can also see another world in which I would have never moved from being that person to being the person that I am now, much more cognizant around my emotions, much more aware of the texture of my own mind, much more understanding

of other people and the vicissitudes that they're going to go through in life, right? How much of the development of a relationship is on the individual and how much is a combined effort between the partners? Oh my gosh. Well, I'd say it's 100 to 100. It's 100% both, right? And it has been, so I started self-development before Aaron, and I ended a previous relationship

that interestingly, he had all the things I'd check off from a superficial level. All the things we would put on a dating app. What kind of career, they're funny, they like to exercise. All the, oh, they like this kind of music. So from a superficial level, they met all those criteria. But there's a thing that needs to be added to dating apps.

Are you open to self-development? And that was the big thing that we didn't align on. He did blame me and project things onto me that were really things for him to look at. So okay, that relationship wasn't aligned. He wasn't even willing to really look at that. Now, I knew what I wanted. I wanted, yes, all the fun, superficial things, because we're human beings, and we like those things, but I wanted someone who was open to self-development. Now, did that mean the moment I met Aaron, he was like, yes, sign me up for every seminar you're attending. No, he was like, what's

self-development? What I went to college, is that what you mean? And it took some time, which would be another story. Or University. Yeah, University over there. But basically, we, within our relationship, look at everything as an op, like he mirrors things to me. So he is showing things that are within myself. And so we have created a relationship, and it took years to do this, where we see everything as something we can learn about ourselves.

And at the same time, something there's maybe just a dynamic that's not working. So we're playing off of each other. And what I do triggers this and back and forth. So then yes, we look internally, but we also, and this is what I think a lot of people don't even know is available, we learned relationship skills. And that's really what we teach. And so we aim to learn and practice relationship skills together so that we aren't constantly triggering each other and just being like, well, work on you. Like that's not what you want to do, right? How can you handle yourself and come back to me? How can you make sure that the partner you're about

to get into a relationship with has the capacity for growth in that way, either an interest, the ability to get over their own inertia, the ability to not be insulted. Like do you just say on your first date, do you just force them to read Carol Dwick? Like is that the solution? You just say, right, have you read Carol Dwick?

If you have them, we can go out together. If you haven't, then sorry, this isn't going to work. Yeah, I really wasn't maybe all that open or that all that far along, right? I have a point that had math equations in it. So to your point, I think, you know, when we get down to the point of what is life really about, it's about evolution of who you are as a person. And you might say, you're high as self, you're spirits, own evolution. So if that's the purpose, then everyone's on that path.

And it's just gonna be what step are you on? So I think just seeing that a partner is open to realizing that that is really the purpose and then taking whatever first for them. So Jocelyn invited me to do a personal development seminar, which I was open to, right? I wasn't yet open to reading like, let's say Wayne Dyer or a Neville Goddard about consciousness yet. I am today.

So I think to your point, you can't judge someone's path from the beginning or how fast they'll go. And they might start off slow and go faster in some point in the middle and in relationships, you know, your partner might be in a different speed, but you know, you get on the boat together. So I think it's just that initial willingness to maybe say to a partner, where do you see you would like to grow? And I think just getting on that path of progress and evolution in whatever area is important to them, I think that always evolves to either spirituality, maybe into professional,

and I think just being on the path of progression is really what you're looking for. So if I can share a story that we'll just add on to that because I couldn't take him from 0 to 100. I couldn't be like, you need to read these 10 books and come to these three seminars. So I really looked for to your question. I looked in him, is he open to the conversations? And so I remember this distinct dinner date. It was probably like even our fourth date. And at the time, he went to bars and clubs a lot and drank a lot. Like there was no self development on the weekends for him. It was bars. And we were at the dinner and he's like, oh, do you want to go? My friends, we have a table and all these things.

And I just went, no. And he's like, what do you mean no? And I said, well, that's not what I desire to do on my Friday night. And so then he really got curious about, well, maybe I don't really like to go that much. Why am I going? And it started this whole conversation about how he was doing it

because that's what his friends do. And he just thinks that that's what he's keeping his promise by going. And so then we had this conversation about integrity and I kind of shared with him things I had learned and he was open to it. And that's what I was looking for was that he was open to those kind of conversations.

Yeah, I don't know what it's like. I've spent a lot of time around a variety of different types of people. Not everyone's growth minded, some people are more into it than others. But it would be a scary situation for me to get five years into a relationship with someone and find out that they don't have that growth mindset

because it's going to make everything so much harder. And yeah, those are the ones. I'm really big into revisiting traditions at the moment. I think that we've cast off a lot of wisdom that we've accrued over the last sort of 2000 to 5000 years as a civilization. And I'm not, I want people to try and make it work. I don't want people to divorce. I want them to stick together. I want the family to work and all this sort

of stuff. But yeah, there are some challenges that are unget viable, sadly. What are emotional triggers? Let's talk about them. You mentioned it a couple of times already. Well, even to that point, right? Relationships are going to reveal your triggers. Whether you're with the perfect partner who matches all the things you want, there will be things that happen within the relationship that trigger you, which we would describe as like somebody poking a sensitive spot. Now most people just have their triggered reaction, right? And like, they're angry, they're sad, they're, you shouldn't have done that. I wouldn't feel this way if you didn't do that.

And so they make it about the other person. When people have awareness about emotional triggers, it's really poking something inside that wants to be looked at. Okay, wow, where did that come from? Why did that trigger something in me? And if people instead of going outside all about you and looked inwards, there'd be something really powerful that could be shown. Anything more you'd add?

Yeah, and the steps of what it looks like is there is a triggered event. And this can happen again in any relationship. There is, in this case, with my partner, expression on the face, a specific word, maybe swearing, bringing up the past, some action, even a tone. And that in and of itself, as you probably shared lots of times with your audience, doesn't inherently have any meaning. But it's a trigger because that event elicits some emotion within you. And that maybe it reminds you of some memory that your mom or dad said to you or in that moment

you make it mean something. So there's some emotion that gets elicited. And then the main problem is that emotion creates an amygdala hijack. Essentially you're unaware of the action that you then take. And that's really sort of the problem with the argument hangovers because you do more damage and you extend the argument hangover because you're unconscious of the then triggered behavior that you take automatically. Don't have to even think about it. I had Donald Robertson who's a CBT trained stoic philosopher. So this guy's got the new age and the old age all combined together. And he was talking about how much our judgment is impaired when we're angry. And he said that anger is one of the

worst impacts that we can have on our judgment. And I'm going to guess that one of the most common emotions that people find when they get emotionally triggered is anger. Oh, it's intoxicating. It releases chemicals in your body and you're not really thinking anger. Oh, it's intoxicating. It releases chemicals in your body and you're not really thinking straight. However, people can train themselves to interrupt it. So it is possible to not do the damage that's normally caused by the triggered behaviors. And it takes practice just like everything that you teach.

You can't just learn something in a book and then be like, oh, I tried it one day and it didn't work. Right? It's practice, months, and years, and to your point, right? Like if a couple really is aligned and they even think they're perfect for each other and they both do self-development, we work with a lot of couples who've done years of self-development and they're like, my partner still triggers me.

So are they not the right person then? No. The partner still triggers me. So are they not the right person then? No, that means it's pointing to something within you to look at and go, where is this in the past? And that's really where, I mean, we just really have transformed. Mm-hmm. It's powerful in any relationship then. We were talking earlier about either approach as a boxing match or being a football team, right, approaching a game or a match.

So in those moments, if someone, your friend, a family member, comes to you and they're triggered, rather than getting so defensive and trying to stop their pattern of behavior, don't speak to me that way. If you could just pause and say, hey, it seems like you're triggered. That's how you start to make that shift from a boxing match to being on the same team, you know, in a match together. It's, hey, it seems like you're triggered. Is that right?

What emotion is there for you? So you've already stopped the pattern for them, and now you're helping them be introspective of what is the emotion, ideally, if you can get to what the event was. And then not just apologize. I'm so sorry I did that to make you feel that way the self-realization then says What meaning did I give to that event that caused that within me not trying to get your partner to now stop doing all of the triggering events so that you don't get triggered?

If you seen Chris Fossies work have you read much of that stuff? Yeah, I love them. I love them amazing Have you seen Chris Fossil's work? Have you read much of that stuff? Yeah. We're in a mastermind with him. Amazing. Yeah, he's amazing. He came on the show a couple of months ago, and obviously he's got that, it seems like there's something on your mind. It seems like there's something on your mind.

It feels like there's something that you need to talk about. Like that. And you don't realize until you speak to someone like him, who's obviously an absolute elite of communication, you don't realize just how disarming. That sentences. It's amazing. It seems like there's something on your mind and you just realize like it's not judgmental. It's not even what's wrong.

Like what's wrong has everyone's had that asked by a partner and there is a fair bit of baggage that kind of comes along with that. Like it seems like there's something on your mind. And you just go like, and you just seem to open up. It's such a softening sentence. It really is. It's powerful that you bring it up too because one thing we talk about in our book

and you talk about archetypes. Well, we have four communication personality types of UN your partner, which then leads to 10 different dynamics. But often, an assertive partner would be with a more reserve partner. So maybe one that's not speaking up as much. And so this conversation can be, well, that's great, but my partner doesn't share. So to your point, Chris Voss has a technique called mirroring. And so for the reserve partners, if you mirror, and then for those of you that haven't read the book, if you just repeat the last one to three words that your partner says,

then for instance, maybe they come to you and say, I can't believe you did that. Did that? And you raise the inflection of your voice, that person is going to basically automatically take it deeper. So it's a powerful place for those that are assertive and reserved to use this mirroring to help your partner go a little bit deeper with it. Well, and to that point, because I love that Chris Voss, we have so much aligned with him, is communication because I'm sure so many people in relationships identify communication is the biggest challenge.

I mean, we've done over 44 couples workshops and the number one reason couples attend is communication, communication. But here's what's interesting and I'm sure you might run into this or already have in your dating experiences. Even if you meet someone who's doing self-development and they're like, yeah, I'm really working on my communication, they get frustrated like, I don't think you're that's really working on my communication. They get frustrated. Like, I don't think that's really working on your communication. Like the way you're doing it is not right. And so then they can kind of judge the way they're communicating. So we say communication is not one size fits all.

And that's why we created the four communication personality types because different approaches are needed for different types, different tempos, different how much time each person needs to process. So I'd say for those who are similar to you who are wanting to attract that great partner is to realize that they still might be working on being a great communicator. It might not just look exactly like you. What are the different types and how should people utilize them? Yeah, so there it's in a four quadrant, basically, like a normal two by two grid, right? And you fall into one of the four. So there's assertive inflexible, assertive flexible, reserved inflexible, and reserved flexible. So assertiveness to

reserve, some people go, oh, I'm assertive because I talk a lot. That's not true assertiveness in the sense that we mean assertiveness is the openness and willingness to share your thoughts, needs, emotions proactively. So not in a reactive manner once you're already upset. It's asserting yourself ahead of time before it's even become a challenge. More reserve people, it doesn't mean that they never will open up. It's more so that they usually take more time to process their thoughts and emotions. They need to be asked in a different way. They need it to even not be just sitting kind of with all the attention on them. So that's

the assertive to reserve scale and then flexibility to inflexibility measures how open and willing you are to adjust your perspective, your behaviors within the relationship based on what's needed in that moment, like different seasons, different seasons of a relationship, kind of in a way call for different perspectives and behaviors. And so that's flexibility to inflexibility. And what does that mean for people, how should they utilize those with regards to their communication? Well, let's do our example of our two types. Well, so Jocelyn. Jocelyn is, and when we talk about like assertive inflexible,

you could probably fall into a different type in a work setting or a family and friends, and even different aspects of your romantic relationship. So we have people look at when you are triggered, when you have a motion come up, what do you sort of default to? So Jocelyn's really is a sort of inflexible where mine is reserved, inflexible, to where if Jocelyn immediately shares something that, and I get defensive, I'm going to more so shut down, I'm going to more so shut down.

I'm going to pretty much like stop talking. If we're driving in the car, I might look out the window. And though I felt like that was better, then reacting back, raising my voice, saying whatever came to my mind, I initially thought that was better. But here comes to find out Jocelyn feels pushed away. She feels isolated and it disconnects us. It separates us. So what I learned for me being a reserve type is I don't have to become assertive, but I want to at least engage into the conversation by saying something that Jocelyn like, hey, Jocelyn, I'm realizing I'm triggered. into the conversation by saying something to Jocelyn like, hey Jocelyn, I'm realizing I'm triggered. And I'd like a few minutes to process my emotions, you know, can we come back to this in five minutes? So I'm not feeling pressured by Jocelyn to stay in the conversation, say what I'm

feeling, talk before I'm ready, but I need to start to share where I'm at so that we can stay engaged into a conversation and come back to it at a time that's going to be more suited for reserved. And then on the assertive partner, one of the mistakes I used to make being with a reserved partner was, if I want to talk about it, I'm going to bring it up right now. And that would blindside him. And because he needs more time to process his thoughts and emotions, he would shut down, which would then frustrate me so that I'd overcompensate even more. And it would then become this power,

struggle, and turn into a disagreement. So now what I do, this is just one of the ways it's impactful is I give him a heads up if there's something we're gonna talk about that's actually important. I mean, and I know it seems like it's so simple, but it makes all the difference if we're gonna talk about having kids

instead of me blindsiding him on a hike, hey, I'd like to talk about starting a family, and I know you like to think about things ahead of time, would you feel up for discussing it on our hike this weekend? Anything, it could be finances, it could be your intimacy. Even if I want to talk about our relationship, I don't say, hey, we need to talk right now about something that happened. I give him a heads up about it and it hasn't made a difference. Totally, yeah, I don't feel blindsided. When I feel blindsided, what else is there for me to do except be defensive? So we're already again in the boxing match rather than being on the same team.

Which type do you think you fall into? The assertive inflexible, assertive flexible, reserved inflexible, or reserved flexible? I'd say probably assertive inflexible. Okay. Although, if any of my exes are watching, then just comment below and let me know that will be interesting. I think they're not going to be watching. One of the things that I've been interested in is how much individuals should share in the context of couple dialogue?

So I understand that becoming emotionally triggered with things and opening up about the way that you feel and also warning someone that something's going to come up and all the rest of it, there has to be a glass ceiling on how much you can break the fourth wall around the inner workings of your own mind. And speaking from personal experience, when I feel like I have nothing left to find out about the person that there's nothing new and nothing spontaneous occurring,

and also the fact that a lot of what goes on within our heads, we may say here's a thing that I'm feeling, but 10 minutes later or 15 minutes later, it'd be like,'s a thing that I'm feeling, but 10 minutes later or 15 minutes later, it'd be like, yeah, actually, that just dissipated. I probably shouldn't have brought that up. Is the, how can people know when they're oversharing essentially? You know, they might think, right, relationship skills, brilliant Justin and Aaron have said, I'm going to develop my relationship skills. How do they not overshare? Hmm. So what I'm hearing in that is in a way like, do I need to share every thought and emotion

that I have? It's an interesting question. What we would really do, because we have practices where even though we are so open in our communication, every single morning we have time just with ourselves. So we meditate, we journal, after this is after exercise, and we process a lot of what's there. Now, do we share every single thought? No, I don't think so. I think if it's actually important,

did we actually have a series of questions that you may have seen that have you kind of clarify, is this something actually important to me versus is this a blip? You know, we would call it, is it just a blip moment? So there's some great questions to kind of be able to reflect. So if it isn't a blip, meaning it really isn't that significant, it was just a blip moment. So there's some great questions to kind of be able to reflect. So if it isn't a blip, meaning it really isn't that significant, it was just a momentary thing. And it's actually important, we will share it. But we definitely reflect before we share a lot with each other. Like we really have worked to not just reactively bring

something up in the heat of a moment. What would you say? Well, thanks so far in this conversation talking about emotional triggers. It can seem like we're talking about things from the past, you know, healing and evolving from there. But now we're missing basically the point of being in a relationship is to create, to imagine the future that isn't yet, that we are stepping into and creating by being in a relationship. So I think to your point, do I need to share every emotion and feeling? At some point, you really cleared it up the past. So now you're free to create anything you want.

You know, the nature of consciousness, the nature of being alive, it's infinite. So when we talk about a space of infinite possibilities, you can get excitement. You can be high anticipation. We want to travel, kind of experiences that we want to have. Do we want to be influential? Do we want to start a business, start a family? Now you're into the imagination of the whole purpose of why you're together. And looking at consciousness, our outer world is actually a reflection of our inner world, of what we are imagining, what we are already feeling as already being done, that's a really powerful, exciting conversation to be imagining with your partner, which, once you clear up the past,

that's where we want people to live all the time. Absolutely. I mean, very much our thoughts shape the world around us. We don't exist in the world. We exist in the mental model that our brain has constructed of the world. And the more baggage and extra bits that you don't need, the more drag is on that mental model. The more cognitive biases you have, the less rationality, the less balance, all that sort of stuff. So I mean, that sounds like a wonderful situation to be in,

but I imagine that you both need to work through an awful lot before you get there, and inevitably that's going to involve going through conflict. So how can you turn that conflict into a good thing? Mm-hmm. Well, I love that, because we didn't come to each other as you heard like all shiny and you're, ready made.

I, I transformed everything, right? And maybe you will show up for a partner that way, but I would bet you that there'd be new things that come up for you. I'm perfect don't worry about that. I know you've already worked through it all so conflict yes we see that as something that really is showing something inside of us and we also so we have this whole five-hour process to truly reconcile after a conflict, because just saying I'm sorry is not enough. It doesn't truly repair things afterwards. And one of the five hours that I think is important to your question is the fifth hour, which is to reconcile the conflict as an opportunity together. So we actually just had a session with a couple right before this, and there was something that came up between them the last couple of weeks and how she remembered it was

that was a bummer, that was frustrating, it got us off course, slowed our momentum, we were doing so well before and there was a lot of discouraged feeling in that. And so we said, okay, let's change the way you remember it. Let's reconcile the situation as an opportunity. And I'm telling you, it's totally different. After our disagreements, we always go, great, what did we learn about ourselves as individuals? What did we learn about our relationship and what our relationship needs?

Because you may or may not have heard this before, but we see our relationship as a separate entity from who we are. So after that conflict, what did we now learn our relationship needs? And then also how are we better? How are we stronger? And when we changed the way we remember it, we actually saw the possibility that was available, conflicts aren't a problem, they really create a whole new possibility. That's interesting. And also ties in with a lot of what I believe around the way that we act as humans. Like the fact is that nothing is really good or bad, it's all just learning experience. And if you lean into the discomfort as a feature of life, not a bug, you are going to encounter things that are going to go wrong. You're going to encounter catastrophe, both chosen and unchosen, both by your doings and by other people's doings. And the only

way that you really can go through that is to think, okay, what I learned from that. And it's one of the beauties of trying to cultivate curiosity that if you're interested in what's coming next, you're very rarely scared about what's going to happen. You're just constantly thinking, oh, how interesting, isn't this? Like even the level of equanimity that I think we all should aspire to get toward,

is that when you sense an emotion, you don't attach yourself to the emotion, but you question, wow, how interesting that I'm feeling this. Why? Isn't that cool? That isn't the sensation of nervousness. I've got this sensation in my stomach and I can feel myself getting hot up towards my

cheeks and all of the different things that you feel. But it takes an awful lot of work to get there, as you say. I also think as well, the reconciliation thing ties in with the peak end rule. Are you familiar with this from psychology? So Ben Hardy is a mutual a mutual friend of ours. He he talks about this. So the peak end effect is a Daniel Carneman study and what they realized was that the two biggest retainers in terms of memory from any event are the most emotionally intense and the end. So they put people through endoscopies, which are

quite uncomfortable where you get a camera inside of you. And they put people through endoscopies, which are quite uncomfortable where you get a camera inside of you, and they were able to give people a little roller where they could rate out of 10 how much pain they were in, and then they asked them to retrospectively look at how much pain they had been in after the event. So during the event, they're moving this camera around, and basically the more movement equates to more discomfort. So they have two things, two controls that they can work out fairly easily. Like, look, this is movement which should equal pain. In one of them, the pain went to a higher peak, but lasted for longer and then dipped down at the end. And in the other one, it was fairly flat

and peaked and then tailed off and finished as soon as it was done. What they found was that in the version, the iteration of the study, where people had had the procedure elongated, but the elongation was at a much lower level, they retrospectively classified it as being lower pain, even though they've been under a higher peak and a longer amount of time. And one of the weird things that they talk about from this is that if you have a child who's going in for an operation, one of the most compassionate things that you can do, especially something like the dentist, there's going to be perhaps uncomfortable, one of

the most compassionate things that you can do is to try and extend the procedure out so that the end of the peak end rule has this low discomfort because that sort of thing is what can impact children growing up into adulthood being having a fear of the dentist for the rest of their lives and when you think about okay retrospectively, I'm going to look back on this argument What is the last thing that I'm going to remember from this argument? Is it doors slamming in me walking out of the house? That perhaps might even be the peak as well. Or is it going to be us going, look, this is something that we need to work together on, that tug, that's blah, blah, blah, candles and a bath and whatever it might be?

And it might, I love that. And that was such a great depiction of that principle and correlating it to arguments. And would I say for some people, because I don't want people to think, oh, wow, it's going to take us a while to get to the point where we're reconciling this within the conflict itself. Sometimes it's a separate moment. Like sometimes there might be, especially for the peak, maybe you both get triggered. And you're saying and doing things that aren't constructive. So you're like, okay, let's call a timeout. Then you take a break. And what we'd say is don't let the break be too too long though.

Sometimes people will let it be days before they've really come back together and they're kind of giving each other the one word answers and they're just getting by. And so the reconciliation might be an hour later. Like there's nothing wrong with sometimes people go, no, let's solve this right now. We are not stopping this conversation until this is complete. And that might push someone, especially a reserved partner. They need to scale back and go on their own. They silently process assertive people can

usually talk it out and process their thoughts by being heard, but a reserve partner mostly needs a moment to reflect and what am I feeling? And so that can push a partner if you're trying to be like, no, we need to solve it right now. But to your point, yes, and it just might be a conversation like an hour later. Remember as well, just how much our judgment is skewed by being angry. Now, even just allowing yourself to dial down from the peak of that anger would probably be a pretty good idea.

So what about, let's talk about before conflict. Obviously, the best thing to do presumably would be to not have arguments or to try and limit the conflict that we do have. But if it's going to happen, what can we do before we have a conflict? Well, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, to that point, it's not necessarily the conflict, right? It's again, and how we see it,

we would say the goal would be to shorten the argument, hangover, and keep it from escalating to the levels of either doing more damage, or just pitting you against each other. So just again going to the sports analogy, it's like, well, maybe we'll be better if we have less conflicts, meaning we have less tough matches, but that's just not the case. The tougher matches you have with an opponent, the better that you get. So I wouldn't necessarily say it's about reducing the conflict as much as those things that I had just

mentioned. And ways you can do that, it's so simple, but just having agreements. So we'll link back to the emotional triggers. Again, with any relationship, it could be a son or daughter, it could be a friend, another family member, a co-worker, and then spouse. If there's something you notice in that relationship, you often get triggered by what you want to do is come to them and say, Hey, you know what I realize I often get triggered by you saying X. Now, I know I'm giving that meaning, but it would really help me if we could create an agreement that you wouldn't bring that up when we have an argument. And then just pick like four of these, because I think four is reasonable,

it's not too many to remember. And then when that argument happens, you can remind each other of the agreements that you had. This will keep it from escalating, doing more damage or pitting you against each other, which would ultimately lengthen that argument hangover, and it will make it easier for you to reconcile the conflict into the opportunity for strength, for understanding, you know, going back to Chris Voss and empathy. It's all a game of empathy.

The more we can understand one another, just the better connections we have with life. What are some of the examples of things that people might say they don't want to be brought up? Well, so the agreements can really be based on what your triggered behaviors are. So I had a tendency of yelling and wanting to bring up the past a lot. Oh, this is exactly like this. And I need to connect all the dots. So we have an agreement of no raising our voice.

So actually the moment that we start to raise our voice, we remind each other, hey, that's not constructive here. And then also no bringing up the past as one. We also cannot do any name calling and also. Yeah, so for the reserve. Such a good one. The reserve, I noticed that to really benefit both of us, I'm going to agree not to shut down and like say nothing, you know, remove my attention or energy from that conversation. Leaving the ground. And in with that would be also like turning my back

and just leaving more and more obvious one. But for me me it's really speaking up and just saying either I'm triggered or I'm feeling something and making some sort of request. So simply put the agreement for me as not to shut down. What about arguments? We're in the argument, how can we have better arguments? Yeah, so now you're already in the during, which again you're human beings, so no matter how much conscious work you do, your partner might trigger you. So what I would do besides what we talked about with the agreements, if you're already in that disagreement, is to learn how to be a better listener. And what unfortunately people do is when their partner is triggered, they're really just listening to the superficial answers that their partner is giving. The literal words, and you may have seen in our book, we have three columns, what it looks like to not be listening at all,

what it is to just hear, and then what is truly listening. So not hearing all would be that he shares an emotion. So we're in an argument and he says, make up a statement here. I can't believe you just said that. Well, I didn't just say that you're totally misunderstanding. That's even an agreement. I can't believe you just say that. Well, I didn't just say that you're totally misunderstanding. That's even an agreement. I can't believe you just broke it agreement. So I wasn't listening.

I basically wasn't listening at all, right? I dismissed. So not listening at all is being dismissive, invalidating. That's not correct. You're just pretty much listening to that voice in your head of what you agree with, what you don't agree with, what you're can justify evidence that you have. So then if I were to take that same statement that he said, and actually, or only here,

I'd be like, no, that's not what I said. So I didn't react as much, but I'm like saying, no, that's not true. So I only listened to the words. If I was truly listening, I could say back, oh, did something I say hurt you. So listening is about how can I empathize? I'm not just listening to the literal words my partner is saying, I'm listening for the emotion they're trying to communicate.

Because our partner will often say things that seem like they're just logical, but there's some emotion that's trying to be communicated right underneath it. But we aren't trained to be good listeners. We're aren't trained to be good listeners. We're really only trained to be here. And this is what really I think I worked on a lot was realizing that listening is not a passive activity. You're not just automatically listening to your partner. Even in times of conflict, you likely are hearing things, but it's going through your filter. And it's going through the, and it's going through the do I agree do I disagree do I need to defend myself that whole filter

Truly listening takes so much attention so much don't even practice that. Like how can I listen so purposefully right now that I'm actually hearing the emotion that's being created? Well, you know, further that you empathy, or like Chris Vals would say, empathy is feeling, well, technically sympathy is feeling with them. Empathy is actually feeling in them, which hold a conversation,

but you're actually feeling what they're feeling, saying, wow, it really sounds like you're upset. It sounds like you're really angry. Tell me more about that. It's really kind of like getting to the black swan, as Chris would say. What about people who are passive aggressive? This is me speaking from personal experience, not as the passive aggressive one, at least I don't think I am, but that triggers in me,

passive aggressiveness, triggers in me, something from the seventh circle of Dante's hell, and also seems to be a little bit of a catch-all for stopping productive conversation, because it's both dismissive, but aggressive, it's not engaging, but it's also kind of leaving. It's like curling a turd out in the middle of the room and then leaving it there and being like, no, this is just what I'm going to leave you with. Have you got any strategies for how people can deal with a passive aggressive partner? Well, one quick thing before you go, it's just great to identify that's most likely from a reserved type of partner.

So, just even categorizing yourself into the archetype reserves, probably inflexibles, those that have not been sharing, you got something built up, it's wanting to get expressed, but because you're more reserved, it's going to be like, I'm just going to leave it on the floor, and then you deal with that. So, of course, there's the partner that is passive aggressive and then in a calm state, bringing it up to them and being like, hey, I noticed there's this pattern that happens, is that something you're open to looking at, right? So that person would ideally be open to looking at where that being passive aggressive comes from. Then there's to what you said, if you're the one

that's with the passive aggressive partner, then what you could say is, hey, it sounds like there's actually something else you want to communicate. And you didn't say what you really would like to share. I'd love to know that. So we can, especially if our partner is trying to change a pattern, and that's the big thing. I get messages all the time from people. Like, my partner's really trying to change the pattern. How can I continue to be patient? How can I continue? And that's what it takes, right?

If they're actively working on changing the pattern, we want to hold space for them. We want to have the patience for them. So it's like, hey, that pattern thing is coming up again, but I do want to know what you truly mean. So please share with me. And hopefully that change in reaction will kind of snap them into like, whoa, I wasn't even aware I did that because

it's so unconscious. It's a protection mechanism. Maybe they grew up in a household where it wasn't safe for them to share their emotions. Maybe that's all they saw their mom or dad do. And so I'm sure they're not sitting there going, I want to be passive aggressive right now. Right? That's not really a conscious choice a lot of times. So you want to even share to them in a loving way that you observed it. And then if you change your reaction to them, it can change the whole pattern between the two of you.

I imagine the, it seems like from Chris would be another great way to try and elicit a response. Yeah, yeah, it seems like there's something else that you'd like to say right now. I'd love to know what that is. That's the master key. That's the cheat code for people who are passive aggressive for anyone that's listening. What about afterwards? How can we make that after an argument, the hangover period actually be reduced once it's happened? Yeah, so in the post-conflict stage, we do have the five R's which would take more time

to go through all five of them, and I did tell you the reconcil one. I would say, because it's really the first two steps are on your own so that you can reflect and really see where you played a partner, but to your question, I think the one I want to focus on is actually the third R, which is to reconnect. And this is what's, no, the third one. The fourth. Okay. Fourth one.

Oh, good one. Oh, for our own book. So. Oh, no, you're right. Oh, four. Oh, four, yeah. Fourth, we've just seen it play out in front of us here. I was actually going to let it go, though.

Did you notice where I didn't fight for it? I just was like, it's not that important. It's OK. I know he's wrong, anyway. So I didn't have my ego to play up. No need for me to hold this. I know him, right? The ego was tame doesn't know.

So the third art being reconnect. What's challenging about this one is that especially if there was more damage done during the disagreement, our ego does want to stay distant. It wants to protect itself and you need to come to me and it will tolerate distance, physical and emotional for days. I mean, we've talked to couples that are married with kids and they're tolerating weeks of distance. They're letting that simmer in their house.

And so the third are being reconnected is to reconnect faster. Don't let it drag on. And you might not be full blown ready to be intimate physically and sexually, but tell them, you know, a pad on the back, hey, I do want to reconnect. I care about you, I love you. We're going to resolve this. I'm still reflecting, and I maybe still need some more time,

but I'm letting him know I'm still on the team, and I'm making the physical touch, which reminds him that I love him. And so that reconnect stage is challenging, but so important. I was thinking about how challenging that may be for people with regards to getting over the Ronego. I don't want to be the first one to make the move. Should it be a case of you being cognizant when the other partner does that? Should it be a tit for tat? Like heant when the other partner does that? Should it be a tip for tap?

Like, he did it last time, it's my turn now. I know that comes up, you know, and that is actually what gets you into the conversation is to share where you saw responsibility. And I, again, to your point, often, at least I can speak for a man, it's like, And to your point, often, at least I can speak for a man, it's like, hey, I can really be past this. All you have to do is admit where you were at home. And I'm ready to move past this, right? But to really have strong relationships and to really resolve conflicts emotionally, just

step up to be the leader. Don't look at if you had responsibility, just look for where you can take responsibility. That person was obviously in a conversation with you. So there is something, some reaction, some tone, or something you forgot to do that kept this conflict going longer or escalated the way that it did. And so going to your point with Ben Hardy, there is that sort of reciprocity, right?

There's also mirror neurons. So either one of those ones that you want to use, when you come to your partner and you lead first by saying, here's where I see I'm taking responsibility, often the other partner is going to say, you know what, where I see responsibility for myself is this. So if you can just try going first,

I think you will often see that the other partner will meet you there too. It seems to me like so many of the challenges that relationships come up against are these self fulfilling spirals of resentment and passive aggressiveness and argument and clanging and unresolved problems and more tension and more tension and more and more and more and more and it just winds up as opposed to the other side of this which is when

you can start to break that cycle. So I'm going to guess that one of the keys is to try and set the tone early in a relationship as well as you can. Obviously, you can't go back and restart the relationship. So you need to start from where you are, but upon beginning a relationship, trying to make this the modus operandi for how people go about things, I'm going to guess it a good way. Also, I have a buddy, Savan Matoseon, do you know who that is? I don't know that name. So he is the ex-head of CrossFit Media, but he's made a name for himself raising his three kids.

So him and his wife have a boy who's six and two twin boys who are three, and he has a very progressive way that he brings them up there, remembering the names of Capitol cities whilst balancing on a balancing board. His kids just done 140 days of skateboarding in a row. He's a grey belt in Brazilian jujitsu and all of these sorts of things. And one of the tools that he has with his partner is when whenever they argue, they always make up in front of the kids, even if they didn't up in front of the kids, even if they didn't argue in front of the kids. That we say the same thing.

I think that's a really cool he risks someone without kids, but it just seems like a really good way to show your children, look, this is how things happen. Because as a kid, your emotional intelligence isn't sufficiently developed to understand that I might have overheard Mom and Dad having an argument happen because as a kid your emotional intelligence isn't sufficiently developed to understand that I might have overheard mom and dad having an argument earlier on but I never actually knew if they made up. They might have made up in the car on the way to work or other text message or in a phone call or when I went to bed and you're just left thinking well

maybe I'm going to be that's it like off to the orphanage I go. Yes, it's holy. You want to let them see you repair it. Any parting thoughts, then, any things that you think that we haven't covered so far, any tips that people should take away, that they can enact this straight away? I think just really focus on the way to improve the relationship is by learning relationship skills. And there's nothing wrong with you,

with your partner, with your relationship. Like, if you genuinely feel an alignment between the two of you, then focus on learning those skills. And of course, we'd love to be a part of that, whether you read our book or just follow us on social media, we want to support you in gaining those relationship skills. Why should people go to check out your stuff? Well, since we're in book promotion mode for the argument hangover, as we've referenced, we have several $200 worth of preorder bonuses that are definitely worth grabbing a copy even before it hits shelves.

And that's at theargumenthangover.com. And then we're on social media, we're meet underscore the Freemans, and we're super engaged on there. Yeah, those are the two bit. Then that, of course, Instagram just links you to everything else that we have. Perfect. Guys, thank you very much for today. Hopefully we'll have saved some relationships or at least reduce the volume of some arguments.

Yes. You've had some great questions. Absolutely. Thank you so much for today. Thank you Chris. Perfect. Yeah. Perfect.

Perfect. you