Marriage can be difficult to maneuver when conflict arrises. With 40 to 50% of couples in America in 2018 ending in divorce, it’s important to understand how to navigate issues when they come up. We here at the Center for Effective Living are here to help. We offer couples counseling in Westside Cleveland, so please schedule an appointment with us today!
According to an article in Psychology Today:
All partners in intimate relationships are bound, at times, to say and act in ways that distress and disappoint the others, especially when they are in the middle of conflicts.
The most dangerous of those argumentative interactions is the use of double standards to win an argument. In the four decades I’ve been helping couples to resolve their differences, I truly believe that ending that kind of manipulative behavior has had the most positive effect on helping couples resolve their grievances.
This is how it works. Partner A, feeling as if he or she is feeling cornered and losing ground, “flips” the interaction to get partner B to let go of the argument at hand because of the need to defend the new challenge.
The article goes on to say:
When double standards are regularly employed as intentional weapons, they are intentional, focused, and intended to dis-empower and destroy any reasonable argument on the other end of them.
In these kinds of relationships, the balance of power is typically in favor of only one partner, who sees him or herself as the only “the keeper of the truth.” The moment any disagreement begins heating up, that dominant partner rapidly uses whatever he or she can to get the other to feel self-doubt.
Those that maintain that dominant posture are often charismatic or narcissistic by nature. Sadly, they often attract partners who allow them to use double standards to control them.
To continue reading this article on Psychology Today, click here.
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