Tit-for-Tat Sh!t

This week, we talked about the all-too-familiar vicious cycle of reprisal; the dysfunction of retribution and vengence: tit-for-tat. We talked about tons of skills that you can use to break this cycle and liberate your relationship. I loved the helpful reminders: that you are not responsible for how your partner acted out, focusing on working on yourself, engaging in self-talk to give yourself grace, validating your negative emotions in response to what your partner is doing, pausing to ensure you respond (rather than reacting), and focusing on acceptance.

Marko and I find ourselves in this pattern and have for most of our relationship. I’d say we have learned quite a bit on this and are doing better than we had before; however, we still have a long, long way to go. We just aren’t listening to each other, which makes our behaviors look the same and the transcripts for the fight are nothing more than two-way monologues. We have got to do better. I know that I’ll take a few things from this article and apply them to my retrospection for the week.