Estimated Read Time: 6-7 Minutes
If we stay in a relationship long enough, we will eventually meet each other’s demons, and they will be dark. In those moments of conflict, the wisest move is to step back. Breathe. Sometimes the only thing that matters is staying anchored in our breath, maybe repeating the Serenity Prayer or a simple mantra. Leave the fight. Do not let your words poison the air. Do not let your thoughts spiral into shame or blame. Find your breath. Find your compassion. Find your love.
Now think back to a memory from your childhood, maybe one that still lingers. I can’t remember everything, but I do remember my mother exploding with rage. She would yell, hit, then vanish into silence, sulking or punishing in some subtle way. That was her way of coping. My father was quieter, trying to be logical, but his calm could also feel threatening. The air in our house was filled with anxiety.
We tend to recreate what we grew up with. Anxious parents, anxious homes. That is the default for wounded humans. We bury ourselves in the mud we know. How do we create peace if we never saw it modeled? Most people can't. When natural instinct is buried under trauma, our minds look for patterns, and those patterns replay our history. Add in money stress, childhood wounds, and nervous system overload, and we find ourselves back in the same emotional scene, just dressed up in new clothes.
But what happens when the problems are bigger than that? What if one or both people are dealing with untreated addiction, OCD, mood swings, or personality disorders? This is not self-help territory. That is clinical. That kind of conflict needs intervention, not just breathing and goodwill. It is still self-help to pick up the phone, to make the appointment, to show up and speak honestly. But for some conditions, therapy is not optional. It is necessary.
This is what makes self-help different than childhood. As kids, we needed total help from adults to regulate our emotions and move through meltdowns. Self-help means we hear or read something better than what we are doing, and we choose to change. We take a new idea and practice it. We try. But some people cannot do that. Some do not respond to insight. They hear the truth, they have the tools, but they do not act. Nothing changes.
This book is not for extremes. It is for those who are still reachable. For those who can reflect, who can make the shift, who are still in the game.
Most of us are like carpenters building the same house we grew up in, whether we realize it or not. We decorate it with the same emotional furniture, then replay the same fights. Until we wake up. Waking up means seeing what we are doing, not what our partner is doing to us. We might walk into the room already filled with anxiety. The noise, the mess, the tension. One glance triggers something old. We snap. We blame. We shut down.
But the conflict is not even real. It is memory. Residue. There is nothing new happening. The fight is a pattern, and it only ends when someone stops playing their role. That might mean saying something kind while the other person is in a storm. That might mean offering calm in the face of attack.
He says, “You don’t know how to do it.”
She says, “I love you. You are kind. You have a good heart.”
He says, “Stop trying to make peace.”
She says, “I can’t. I love you. That’s all I have.”
Maybe she steps into the bathroom to breathe. Her thoughts begin to spiral. He is crazy. I should leave. I will stay at my mom’s.
Stop.
Breathe.
Do nothing. Or do something peaceful. Fold laundry. Wash dishes. Write. Clean the floor. Sit and feel. Repeat the mantra. This too shall pass. Do not play the victim. Do not obsess. Do not react.
Yes, it is hard. But failure comes when we stop trying. We are not here to fail.
Try the opposite of what you usually do. You do not have to explain yourself when everyone is in survival mode. Wait. Pause. If there is violence, that is the line. If someone hits, grabs, chokes, threatens, or throws things, it is no longer a relationship. It is not safe. Not man to woman. Not woman to man. Not anyone to anyone. Violence ends the conversation. It cannot be tolerated or rationalized.
Emotional outbursts hurt too, but they are human. They are signs of struggle. A violent partner needs real help. If they refuse it, they are not ready. They have to do that work somewhere else.
When we are triggered, our inner child takes over. That child does not have language or insight. That child only knows fear. When my daughter was four, she would lose control. She scratched, kicked, spat, screamed. She became like a little animal. My job was to stay soft, to help her breathe, to try a song, to offer a story, to wait. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes she had to exhaust herself and fall asleep.
If we did not have parents who could do that for us, then those storms still live inside. They wait for the next relationship to come out.
This is why we need help. Help to name the feelings. Help to see the patterns. Help to slow the breath and calm the body. Help to heal the nervous system. Help to stop the cycles we keep repeating.
It is still self-help, even if someone helps us.
So try something new next time. Something kind. Something quiet. Stop the story. Don’t engage the old pattern. There is no argument. It is just emotion looking for release. Let it pass. Breathe. Practice. Choose something else.
That is the work. That is the mission. No matter what your partner is doing.