Mastering Conflict Resolution: Tips for Couples

Introduction

Let’s be real: Most conflict advice out there is regurgitated garbage:

“I statements.”

“Don’t say always or never.”

“Focus on the issue, not the person.”

That’s like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

The truth?

The first step toward conflict "resolution" is conflict "de-escalation".

Once you understand how to de-escalate conflict, you can apply those skills to repair unresolved emotional wounds that are actually at the root of “poor communication” in the first place.

This post is about what actually works.

These are conflict resolution tips for couples that I use to help couples heal extreme hurt & resentment (even infidelity & abuse) after decades of disconnection in less than 3 to 6 hours (without years of therapy).

Click here to check out my course on it! (Couples who work with me get it free).

With these tips, you won't just understand each other, you'll resolve root issues forever.

Conflict is an inevitable part of any relationship. But when handled with deep understanding of what’s actually going on, conflict can actually be used to grow closer and deepen trust.

In this blog, I’ll explore practical tips and proven strategies to navigate conflicts effectively, ensuring that disagreements and triggers strengthen rather than weaken your relationship.

1. Stop the Parallel Monologue

Conflict escalation is a feedback loop. You hurt me → I react → that reaction hurts you → you react back. Repeat.

Most couples talk at each other, not with each other.

Two people end up both saying:

“If you could just see it from my perspective, you wouldn’t be so upset.”

But guess what?

Explaining your point of view in the heat of conflict invalidates your partner’s pain.

Because it says: “If you saw things my way, you wouldn’t feel what you’re feeling.”

That’s not empathy. That’s erasure.

You're just escalating out of control because neither of you has chosen to be the listener. The Parallel Monologue has two speakers and no listener.

You’re not fighting about the issue — you’re actually fighting to exist.

You’re reactive and defensive listening, trying to “fix it”, not actually listening to understand your partner’s pain with empathy.

So, what’s the antidote?

2. Take Turns: Listener and Speaker Roles

The first simplest step is, you have to take turns being the Speaker and the Listener.

This is communication 101, but everyone doesn’t do it because as soon as you get triggered, you flip out of the Listener role into Speaker.

The Listening role is the supportive position; it’s harder.

Conflict is: You had 2 different experiences of the same event. So you disagree about what happened. Now you’re stuck arguing over objectively “what happened”.

As soon as you get triggered, you need to change the format of the conversation.

Normal back and forth doesn't work. This is crisis mode. So you must designate a speaker and a listener.

Then stay in your roles until the Speaker feels completely understood!

The listener’s job is to put aside their own point of view—temporarily—and join their partner’s subjective world.

As the Listener, you’re heading into landmine territory. You must be extremely intentional. You're in a supportive role and it’s going to be extremely hard to empathize with the person who hurt you.”

The speaker’s job is to slow down and share what actually hurt, not just vent, accuse or defend. You have to help the listener get on your "train of thought" and travel all the way to your destination. If you want to be understood, you’ve got to make it as easy for them to receive you as possible.  

Understanding is a team sport. You’re both co-responsible for making it easier on each other to understand and be understood.

3. Validation: The Game-Changer

Validation is not saying, “I understand", it's demonstrating that you understand.

Validation is showing your partner that their perspective makes complete sense from inside their subjective world.

You know that cartoon with the two people facing each other with the number 6 between them? To one of them it looks like a 6 and to the other it looks like a 9.

Empathy is walking around to their side and going,

“Ohhhhh… from here, it’s totally a 9. And that must feel awful.”

This isn’t, “I kind of see your view, BUT here’s mine.”

That’s not empathy.

Empathy is perspective-taking, which means literally "taking-on" their perspective (which means exiting yours!)

You have your House of Understanding and yoru partner has their House of Understanding on the other side of the street. Something happened in the middle and you both saw the same event from two different angles.

Empathy is fully entering their house of understanding, taking the tour and walk around in it.

Validation is explaining from their point of view how it makes complete sense to think the wa they think and feel the way they feel.

If you’re not able to do that, get curious and check our assumptions until you understand their subjective experience well enough to explain it back to them without ever saying, “I understand.”

Saying “I understand” does not help someone feel understood.

4. Share one drop of “What hurts” at a time.

As the speaker, don’t get lost in who said what, when. Those are the objective details that you’ll argue over.

Hone in on the emotions:

• What hurt?

• Why did it hurt?

• What was so challenging or particularly painful for you?

When you’ve been hurt - when there’s emotional pain - it’s like you’re holding acid. It’s burning, it’s corrosive, and it needs to be released.

You’re partner is also holding their own pain.

In chemistry it’s like you’re holding an 5000 litres of acid and their holding 5000 litres of a base. When you both try to be understood at the same time, it’s like pouring those two liquids together. The result is an explosion.

But if you take a dropper and drop one into the other a little at a time, you can dissolve the entire solution.

That’s what repair is like.

We slowly, intentionally share one drop of pain (honing in the what actually hurts rather than getting lost in the details of the story), and validate one drop of pain at a time.

5. Listen for Emotionally Weighted Words

As the Listener stepping out of your shoes and into your partner’s world, your ability to validate depends on what you were listening for in the first place.

Listen for emotionally weighted words. Listen with your whole body.

We usually listen at the level of, “Do I agree or disagree?” And as soon as you disagree you stop listening and react.

Instead, you’re listening for,

• “What hurt?”

• “What was particularly hard about that for them?”

• “What was the inner conflict or tension points for them?”

  
  

“If this happened to someone else, they’d experience it differently. What was particularly challenging for your partner given their history?”

You’re attempting to paint a rich nuanced tapestry of their inner experience.

If they say they were scared. What quality of scared was it?

• Frozen?

• Ashamed?

• Invisible?

• Trapped?

You’re not just validating the facts — you’re validating the felt emotional experience. Find words that match their experience of reality, then be able to describe what it’s like to be them better than they can themselves.

6. You’re in a Canoe Impacting Each Other

Relationships are systems. That means you’re simultaneously affecting and being affected.

Picture yourself in a canoe with your partner. One of you moves and the other feels it. That’s what relationships are like. You’re giving each other live feedback about what it’s like to be in the same boat together.

Even with good intentions, you affect your partner in negative ways. Then they react and it feels like they’re accusing you, which triggers defensiveness in you.

So you must be able to differentiate between fault vs impact or cause vs contribution.

In other words, don’t let the driving question of your relationship be, “Who’s fault is it?”

You must be able to acknowledge how you’re impacting each other. You must be able to connect your partner’s pain to your actions without making yourself bad or wrong.

You hurt them, and it’s not your fault. You impacted them negatively and you’re not a bad person.

You rocked the boat and they fell in the water. You didn’t mean to. You’re not to blame, and yet, as a function of you being in the same relation-“ship”, they’re in the water.

You must be able to give and receive feedback with empathy and compassion for yourselves and each other about how you hurt / upset / bothered each other without making someone “the bad guy”.

Therefore, I can acknowledge how, “For you, it felt insensitive, but that doesn’t mean I objectively was insensitive. That made you feel insecure, but that doesn’t mean I was bad for making you feel that way.”

You must be able to separate your identity from the impact you have on your partner. When you do, you capacity to empathize with them opens up and you can give and receive feedback without triggering defensiveness.

7. What "Repair" Really Is

Here’s my definition of repair:

Repair is the healing of emotional wounds, such that their charge dissolves completely, so the pain that was in the way of the natural flow of energy between you is resolved and a felt-sense of connection is restored.

You don’t get that by throwing a half-assed insincere apology at the wall and hoping it sticks. Repair is not 30 seconds of empathy.

Serious repair that lasts is a one-way street that takes time. You have to empathize and validate one person’s experience or 30 to 60 or even 90 mins depending on how serious the hurt was.

You get there by going layer by layer - like adding base to acid, drop by drop - until the charge dissolves completely.

8. Aim for the “Oh My God, Yes” Experience

You know you’ve really repaired something when your partner says:

“Yes. Exactly! That’s it. You get it! Thank Gawd!”

Their entire body and nervous system relaxes because you joined them completely in their world (your left your own).

Repair is different than general understanding. It’s not, “I guess that kind of makes sense.”

The OMG Yes! Experience is 10-out-of-10 nervous system relaxation. It’s a visceral response that you will know when you get there.

It’s where you feel completely seen. Completely understood. No longer alone in your pain to the extent you say, "I'm done. I feel complete. There's nothing else to say. You clearly get it."

That’s how you know you’ve made it to the top of the mountain and actually "resolved" conflict.

9. Connect 1st, Problem-Solve / Fix 2nd

Most couples try to “fix” the issue before they feel understood. In other words, they try to problem solve and figure out, “How do we avoid this next time?” while they don't feel connected or on the same team.

This never works.

You can’t fix a problem when you don’t viscerally feel on the same team.

Understand each other completely first – one at a time through taking turns – then problem solve. You must feel connected and on the same team before you even have the capacity to problem-solve.

When you don’t feel deeply understood, everything becomes a bigger problem than it actually is.

10. Speak "as Them"

This is the deepest level of empathy — and the hardest.

You should be able to explain your partner’s perspective better than they can themselves.

You should be able to take the mic and say,

“If I were you, here’s how I would feel… and why.”

Not just repeat back their words.

Not just say, “I understand.”

It’s not about agreement.

It’s not about proving you’re a good partner.

But actually inhabiting their experience.

This kind of listening requires real humility.

You take off your shoes.

Put on theirs.

As one of my favourite quotes says:

“I believe the deepest way you can love someone is to fully go on their ride — to listen to them so deeply that through your listening, they gain deeper insight into their own experience.”

- Guy Sengstock

Conclusion

You don’t need more communication tools.

You need real repair.

You need a new emotionally corrective experiences — not just new skills.

That’s what this entire process is about.

When couples learn the kind of repair I'm talking about, I've seen even decades of profound hurt, rage and resentment dissolve.

I’ve seen couples heal betrayal, infidelity, shutdown, resentment, and rage in less than 3–6 hours using this approach.

If you want to learn exactly how to do this at home, check out my couples course, Repair Anything. It breaks down the entire process step-by-step — with the metaphors, structure, and examples that make this feel doable in real life.

And if you’re not sure where to start?

Book a free 20-minute video consult with me. No pressure, just a chance to see if this is the kind of support your relationship has been needing.

You deserve a relationship where conflict brings you closer — not further apart.

Let’s build that together.