Let's agree to disagree.
Certainly, you've heard the phrase before, perhaps so often that it's ceased to have much meaning to you. But the fact is that in a long-term, committed relationship, when circumstances oblige you to confront significant differences with your partner, nothing could be more crucial than agreeing to disagree.
Most of the time it can be extremely challenging—for most couples, reaching the point where they're able to comfortably agree to disagree can take years, if their relationship ever achieves that state at all.
Why?
Well, if you operate the way most people do, when your partner takes exception to your viewpoint—or introduces one sharply contrasting with yours—you may find it almost impossible not to experience them as invalidating you, personally attacking you, or striving to defeat you. And if this is how you perceive them in the moment—not as your lifetime companion but as your component—then you're compelled to strike back, defend yourself, or even exit the situation entirely, whether mentally, emotionally, or physically.
After all, in that instant of disagreement, their words have managed to morph them into your enemy.
This, of course, is when you're most likely to summon all your mental energy to prove them wrong. For it may feel as though it's absolutely critical to defend your position. In that moment of perceived threat, you may feel (without really understanding why) as if your viewpoint represents something intimately connected to your essence, so that making any compromise would be to sacrifice the innermost core of your being.
When your partner takes exception to what you're saying, it can feel like a total withdrawal of their loyalty and support—all the more so if you're dependent on their approval.
You can feel completely out of harmony with them—frustrated, demeaned, disregarded, disconnected, alienated, and/or betrayed.
At least that's what the child part of you may be experiencing.
Not that we adults don't have emotions, but our emotions come from our younger selves—and so can easily be governed by issues unresolved from the past.
At times when your spouse's disagreement causes you to emotionally react (or overreact), it's crucial that you access that scared, lonely, vulnerable part of yourself.
As long as the adult in you hasn't left the scene entirely at the moment your partner pushed your buttons—and virtually all your buttons go back to childhood- you can appreciate that it's okay (i.e., non-threatening) for your spouse not to want what you do, think like you do, or feel like you do all the time.
The trick is learning how to settle yourself down when your feathers begin to get ruffled.
It can hardly be overemphasized that your harmony isn't necessarily at risk simply because the two of you have differences. In fact, confiding in your mate about such discrepancies might even be good for you—and, ultimately, the relationship.
Unquestionably, this is the way toward greater intimacy’s . For what, after all, is intimacy if not the closeness engendered by feeling the freedom to share yourself fully with another human being?
A strong relational bond hardly requires unanimity in all things.
And (assuming you've grown beyond your adolescent insecurities), you won't need your partner to validate you, because you're perfectly capable of doing it yourself.
Obviously, if you haven't yet learned to be self-validating, very little of what I've said is going to seem to stick. If during disagreements you routinely argue your point of view, to convince your partner of its superior merits, then what I've described here will probably seem remote at best.
All perspectives are subjective and imbued with personal bias.
Think about it: There's simply no way your partner could be genetically identical to you, or have been exposed to precisely the same experiences, or, for that matter, attribute the same meaning to these experiences.
That inevitable human variability is exactly what you need to keep in mind when you experience conflict. From their point of view—every bit as authentic and genuinely felt as your own—they're always right. And so are you. Once you view your differences in this way, you'll cease to feel invalidated by your partner. Once you come into your own adult authority to validate yourself, they'll no longer possess the power to "de-certify" you.
I'm hardly recommending that you become complacent, self-righteous, or smug. Of course, there will be times when you—and your partner—will be wrong, or at least wrong-headed. Still, at any given moment, what you say and how you feel will have internal validity.
Note: Agreeing to disagree may be essential in evolving your relationship. But generally, it's not enough. You also need to know how to work out effective compromises when your preferences differ.
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