Health & Science

Even the strongest relationships will be marred by arguments — but such is not how often a couple argues but how they argue. e way that you either run from or confront and resolve misunderstandings can have a ripple e ect on your feelings for each other and the relationship. When we avoid saying what we feel, we end up resentful and angry.

Keeping everything in or denying your feelings also sends the signal to a partner that you don’t trust them or your relationship enough to be open and vulnerable, which puts the relationship on shaky ground. Arguing, on the ip side, is an indication that both people care enough.

1. Avoid ‘kitchen-sinking’

e argument you’re having is about a particular offence; it is not about every issue to ever arise in your partnership. And even if you can draw connections between the current topic at hand and previous o ences, dredging up all sorts of old stu is not a fair or helpful tactic, says Tracy Ross, a psych holist who specialises in couples’ therapy. is will just put your partner instantly on the defensive, looking for ways to demonstrate that they did or didn’t actually do this or that anyway.

It’s essential to avoid saying that a partner “always” or “never” does the behaviour in question. is will just lead them to search for examples that prove you wrong, rather than to explore the nature of their behaviour and how it’s making you feel.

2. Steer clear of criticism and contempt

Critical and contemptuous language are both strong predictors of divorce (and the two tend to go hand-inhand). e rst looks like “telling your partner all the things they do wrong and calling out their character aws,” says Ross. In this way, it’s a full attack on their character, as opposed to critique or feedback, which addresses a particular behaviour or situation.

And the second is basically pure meanness coming from an “I’m better than you” mindset: ings like name-calling, insults, and labeling (eg. “You’re rude,” or “You’re depressed”) fall into this category.

Going for any of these low blows is certainly not a productive ghting tactic. Not only does this totally knock down your partner—which is antithetical to being in a relationship with them in the rst place—but also, it puts them in the unfair position of having to defend their entire existence or character, which, again, takes you further from resolution.

3. Speak from personal experience and own your actions

In reality, you only can speak to how you acted and how you feel in any scenario, and as soon as you start speaking on behalf of your partner’s actions or feelings, you’ll stray into unfair territory. “One of the keys to ghting fairly is to stay in your own lane,” says Ross. “Discuss why you feel angry or upset or any other type of distress without telling your partner who they are, what they are, or why they did or said what they did.”

In fact, ‘you’ statements, in general (eg. “You did this,” or “You did that”), are best to avoid saying during an argument because they tend to come o accusatory, even if you’re just trying to state the facts of the case. And they’re particularly unhelpful when they’re used in a “scorekeeping capacity”.

And be sure to avoid falling into the trap of attributing your own behaviours or actions to your partner’s, as in, “If you hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have done that.” Your behaviour is not their fault, as we are all responsible for our own behaviours.

When couples argue 5 key points

4. Be curious and open-minded about your partner

It might seem obvious, but if you go into an argument with your mind already made up, you’re leaving no room for resolution with a partner. “ e goal of a ght should be to feel heard and understood, not to be ‘right,’” says Ross. In fact, she suggests entering an argument with the intention of listening like you’re wrong, so together with your partner. “ is solution should not be one you’ve already that you’re actually fully open-minded to developing a resolution to the problem conceived of because it needs to come from both of you,” she says.

5. Validate the feeling, even if you disagree with where it came from

It’s very easy to disagree with how someone else feels in response to a particular situation and get stuck on opposite sides of a chasm.

What usually happens is, one partner shares something that upsets them, but it’s not something that would have upset the other partner, so it’s hard for the second person to nd compassion, patience, or empathy for what the rst person is experiencing,

For example, your partner might feel humiliated that they messed up a presentation at work, but you don’t have a job where you make presentations and you nd speaking in front of people easy, so you might feel like you can’t empathise. But that’s because you’re focusing on the situation and not the feeling.

Instead of just trying to put yourself in their situational shoes (which will lead you to the same dead end of, “But I wouldn’t have felt that way”), focus on the feeling itself — in this case, humiliation — and think of a time when you did have that feeling. Recall the painful feeling, not a similar event, and then you can ask yourself, ‘When have I felt something like what they’re empathise and support your partner through a tough experience.

“Even if you don’t agree or see the situation the same way, you can hear your partner’s response to it and validate the way that they’re feeling,” says Ross at same idea extends to situations where your partner may be feeling angry or upset in response to something you did, but if the roles were reversed, you wouldn’t .

“Even if you don’t agree or see the situation the same way, you can hear your be feeling the same way. Again, the situation doesn’t matter so much as the feeling: partner’s response to it and validate the way that they’re feeling as a means to strengthen your relationship,” says Ross.

By contrast, just digging in and justifying your actions— for example, by saying, “I wouldn’t have been upset by this, so you shouldn’t be either” — will only take you down a rabbit hole.

How fibre intake is so important for us all

A healthy diet is important at all stages of life, there are some nutrients that play a greater role as we get older. Protein is a prime example. Another such nutrient is bre. Sure, you’ll want to make sure that you’re getting enough bre whether you’re 17 or 71, but you may be surprised to learn how your body —and in particular, your digestive system— evolves in ways that make getting an adequate bre intake ever more critical.

A 2016 benchmark population-based study examined a cohort of more than 1,600 adults over the age of 49, and found that those who consumed the most bre had a nearly 80% greater chance of living a long and healthy life. Folks who followed brerich diets were less likely than their counterparts to su er from hypertension, type 2 diabetes, dementia, depression, and functional disability. Why is that the case?

Fibre is a type of carbohydrate in plant foods that resists digestion. It’s found in fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, and can help to form the soft, bulky type of stool that moves through your digestive system smoothly and passes easily.

Fibre has plenty of other science-backed bene ts, like helping to feed your gut microbes, so you maintain a diverse and healthy microbiome. Your body’s microbiome is closely linked to your immune system and mood- regulating functions, which means that the health of your microbiome plays a substantial role in your overall wellbeing. e average adult needs between 21 and 38 grams of bre each day, but most folks consume less than 15 grams of bre a day. As such, people of all ages could stand to signi cantly increase their uptake of bre.

Given the many nutritional bene ts of re — and our apparent chronic underconsumption of the nutrient —it’s worth highlighting the many bre-rich ingredients that you likely have sitting in your kitchen already. e goal is to eat a variety of whole, plant foods every day. An ideal eating pattern is to include half a plate of veggies or fruits — or a mix of the two — at meals, and then a quarter of the plate as a starchy veggie or whole grain. e remaining quarter should be protein, at said, this is meant more as a directional suggestion than a hard-and-fast rule.