Episode 22: How Good Are You At Arguing?

Arguments within a relationship are not a bad thing.

The problem is where arguments remain unresolved, where things said in the heat of the moment are weaponised or where they linger on for weeks affecting the relationship.

However, if we can learn to argue well and not take things so personally, then, arguments are huge opportunities for personal and relationship growth.

In this episode, we talk about:

•  Two recent arguments we’ve had that would have left Richard giving me the coldshoulder for weeks a few years ago!
•  Creating arguments out of nowhere (some of the reasons why we do it)
•  The feminine need to prod and test the masculine (Are you really there? Do you really love me no matter what?)
•  Using arguments as an opportunity for deeper insight into yourself.

We want to hear your thoughts and questions, so if there's anything you would like us to cover on the show, please drop us a line on

 info@thebone-zone.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Bone Zone. I'm Sarah.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

And I'm Richard.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

And in this podcast, we excavate sex and relationship myths and uncover the truth of how it all really works. We bridge the esoteric and practical worlds to bring you grounded, sage, and tangible advice and tools, whether you're looking to attract a soulmate relationship or grow and expand within an existing one.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Oh, a normal hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Well, it's sort of normal anyway.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Good evening, good morning, good night, good afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Do you think it's interesting that you start with good evening?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Well, I don't know where anyone is in the world, so like.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Yeah, but wouldn't you start with where you are? I mean it's technically late afternoon, so So good late afternoon then.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Sounds stupid. Yeah. Hello, everyone. Hello. Okay, that pretty much covers it. Today, arguments. In particular, uh, one we had on holiday. Do you remember in the last episode when I wanted to throw my dear wife off the edge of the restaurant where we were having a beautiful romantic meal into the limpid pools of the Moldivian Indian Ocean. And this was preceded a week earlier, or ten days earlier, by another one. So here we kind of go into the details and how we resolved said arguments. And it wasn't by fighting. It wasn't by shouting. It wasn't by killing each other since we're starting. It was mainly you shouting. Well, I did charge a little bit. But on holiday I did not shout. I kept my call.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Yeah, that's only because we're in public.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Probably.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I don't give a shame like uh gonna argue. Well, I mean not like crazy volume loud. I was more loud whisper.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

A loud whisper, what does that mean? This normal voice. Okay. Okay, get on with it.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

So I don't know if this resonates with anyone out there. When I say don't know, I know it will. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Um well with some people, but I suspect it will resonate with pretty much everyone. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

So for me, and I'm talking about in recent years, there is not that much fundamentally wrong with our relationship at all, in that we communicate well, we enjoy spending time together, we still have sex, which after eleven years is apparently something worthy of patting yourself on the back for.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Sex which starts more than five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yes. So essentially when we argue now, it's something that starts with me. And whether it is now that I'm talking about, or in the past, when we were arguing, it always was something to do with me first because in the past I didn't feel a need was getting met, I didn't feel respected, etc. But it was something that I had failed to communicate and then suppressed and then it blew up. Nowadays, apart from small things here and there, I do communicate. So when I lose my shit, it's almost like something takes over me. And actually, yes, it is something taking over me. So in that moment where I am angry with Richard about whatever I'm angry with Richard about at that time, something comes over me where I want to say the most malicious, spiteful, horrible things that I could possibly say, guaranteed to cause maximum impact if I say them. So the kind of things that you think in your, let's say, darker moments, um, but it isn't really you, it's just a shadow part of you wanting to voice something in that moment. But that's what comes over me when we have quote unquote uh more explosive arguments nowadays, and um I managed to stop myself from saying the exact things calculated to cause maximum damage, but I will get as close to that line as humanly possible. Yes, and I will prod and I will prod and I will prod, and whatever Richard responds, I will come back with something aggressive because in that moment I am actually legitimately trying to escalate the argument.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Escalate the argument whilst sabotaging something else. It usually follows a period of oh, yesterday I had such a good day, we had great sex, everything went my way, and then the day after, hey-ho, the big upper limiting, there's something boiling in the background. I don't know quite what it is, but I'm going to go quote unquote, I'm going for the kill. That's exactly what she said.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, no, like I actually said to Richard, I think it was the time we were arguing that we we weren't on holiday. I said, I actually want to go in for the kill. I think I actually said you did say I want to cause maximum damage.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Um and I stood my ground. I we can't even remember what there was no um catalyst or anything, it was just I'm gonna go for Richard's jugular.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Well, you know, it's no, it's not quite as simple as that.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

No, how long have you got to explain the intricacies of all of this?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

There was something up, and the easiest way for me to get it out of my system is to project it onto ridges.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yes, because it's always the closest people. This is something that happens in relationships. You always go for the person, probably that you love the most, the person next to you, your rock, whatever. And there is also this other side. And in the past, I used to just look at her, go, fuck you, and just walk away and totally ignore her. Um, but uh oh my how things have changed. Otherwise known as stonewalling, otherwise known as stonewalling, and we talked about this in the last episode. This time I tried to take her in my arms. So, what's this all about? Because I knew I hadn't done anything to warrant this um this kind of action from her. I knew it was nothing to do with me, and nothing, I got resistance, I got resistance. I tried to be patient, we tried to talk, but anything I said, it just was used as ammo to escalate what she was gonna say back until at some one point I went right this was here, we were still in Lisbon, I went right into her face and I said, You fucking try me. Try me right now, and then that kind of calmed down the situation. No, it really didn't, but escalated it escalated, but it seemingly it seemed to me that it did for a little while because everything let me tell you what actually happened. Okay, I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

No, that really, really didn't. Okay, here's why it didn't.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

No, but it's I'm talking about my perception was I've managed to diffuse a little bit. Yeah, okay. How many times are you gonna repeat that?

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Until you stop talking, and let me explain. We're gonna have an argument right now. Um no, here is one thing that I'm testing when I'm doing that, and I would say it is the same for other women that show similar patterns of behavior with partners that are supportive, good men, etc. I'm not talking about you know the douchebag end of the male spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Well, people in manosphere.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah, that's a whole other story. Um, so I am testing emotional safety. I am testing if I'm at my absolute worst, if I'm the angry, raging bitch, are you gonna be able to cope with that? Are you gonna be able to hold that? Now, the only way that that becomes a tick for me is if you stand your ground but calmly, right? So if you become aggressive back, then that escalates things for me because in my head that becomes oh well, I'm not emotionally safe to be a crazy bitch right now. But what actually did de-escalate the argument, and I'm going to put this into a more tangible action steps after I've told the story, is to really go off and feel the emotion. So I could feel that something was off. I felt like something had taken over me and that I was acting out in a way that was really destructive, and so actually what happened was I went off for a walk by myself and felt all the rage and all the everything.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

I actually that's incorrect. I actually, and my bad, I was the one who just turned around and walked off that time.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, but that's fine because I didn't You've taken it to such a level that I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't follow you. I was like, okay, cool, I'm going for a walk by myself.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Um you were going to a Portuguese lesson as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

So I sent Richard a load of shissy messages as well to further to further to further escalate things. And then after I'd done that and I'd gone for a walk and felt all the rage and all the things, I was like, okay, cool, this is where I am right now. Now I'm gonna go to the to Portuguese lesson. Um, and actually, through that lesson, I fully calmed down because my brain was otherwise distracted with something else that I was learning. And after that, Richard and I were able to have a conversation about what was going on, and honestly, as I said, it was something to do with me. I can't remember exactly what it was in that argument, I can remember more clearly what it was in the second argument, but it it always does start with you acknowledging okay, what is it exactly that's got me really irritated? So even if your partner had done something wrong, let's say they haven't done the washing in like I don't know, two months, there's still behind that something deeper that you haven't acknowledged, such as I feel that this is a fundamental lack of respect. Lack of respect um makes me particularly upset because I saw X, Y, and Z when I was growing up. So, you know, even if your partner has done something quote unquote wrong, it still starts with you. But you can't even start to see that until you've allowed the emotion room to be expressed, and that's the problem. If you're trying to resolve an argument whilst also in the process of expressing the emotion, it's not going to be resolved unless you literally are expressing the emotion your partner is just sitting there and they are able to take you in their arms and be like, oh, what's wrong? But sometimes that's not possible if you're enraged.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Yeah, like this time, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

You don't want to be like hugged, you want to be like, fuck off, you know. Yeah, so the expression of the motion emotion differs depending on what exactly you're feeling. And as for the second time, what was going on, I'll preface this with saying, I feel like all of us are waiting for the shoe to drop in some area of life, or maybe multiple areas of life. What I mean by that is we're almost scared if things are going too well. We're like, oh shit, this won't last. What do I do to deserve this? Like, good thing, and you're waiting for something bad to happen. Now, if you get too hyper and too excited about things, something in inverted commas bad may happen to balance.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Something comes along to balance stuff out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

But if we're talking about living your life in the expectation that um something bad will happen because you're always waiting for something bad to happen, you're more likely to engage in self-destructive or sabotaging behaviour because you're like, well, why wait? I'll just cause the thing right now.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And you did a dinner.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

We did an episode on upper limiting. Yes, I think I can't remember what that was called.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

It was called Quick Quick, I've been happy for five minutes, let's ruin it, or something along those lines.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Okay, so um, anyway, we were having a lovely romantic dinner, and I started something. Richard, and this is actually again a test that Richard kind of failed. That's been you did, because again, you're you get pushed, and then at a point you're like um you react like quite strongly, like, oh, I want to throw you in the that's how I felt at the time. I want to throw you in the ocean right now.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

And yeah, I did momentarily feel that, but then I bout off. It's it's not so hang on a minute, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

I'm not saying men should be pussies and allow you to walk all over them all the time, but the the place to get to is to be able to separate this actually is not about me, therefore, I'm not going to take it personally, and I'm just going to allow the expression, the whirlwind right now without letting it affect me. And obviously, that's not easy to do, and it takes practice, and Richard isn't quite there yet, but he is much further along than he used to be.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Um, probably than most people, however, I will defend myself there. I did not tell you out of anger, I didn't raise my voice, I almost told you because I could see that this was another okay. I learned from the argument we had ten days prior to this, and I was almost telling you like a joke as a half-joke. I knew what was going on, and I was half joking and smiling when I said, I really want to throw you over the edge here.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yeah, just to try and just uh to to you definitely responded better that time than but it was kind of half a joke. No, I know that's why I'm saying you responded better 10 days ago.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

And then I asked you one question and then it dawned on you.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah, so basically, um what dawned on me um as to why I was engaging in that let's call it self-destructive behaviour, because you know, I was pretty balanced before that. I was like, okay, my I suppose my aim in life is to be chill, not super excited, not down, like to be as balanced as possible. Um but why I was causing that ruckus was because I was like, I haven't earned the right to be in this relationship, quote unquote, I don't deserve it.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

That's what I asked you that evening.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

What did you ask me?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

I that's exactly what I said. I said, Do you feel like you've earned the right to be happy in this relationship? That's exactly what I asked you.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Did you really?

SPEAKER_00 19:15

I feel like I came up with no, you did not stop taking all the fucking credit.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

No, no, genuinely, as my this is just uh case in point of memory. In my memory of this event, I came up with this completely independent.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Of course you did, darling. No, you did not.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

True story, that is my memory.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

You looked at me, and I'm gonna take over here, so please behave. Uh you looked at me and you went, Well, that look as if a penny had dropped. I will never forget it. I just completely disarmed you right there and then, and you went, you know what? You've got a point there. So don't take all the credit for that one.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

No, I'm just saying, like genuinely, my memory.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

This is how it this is how it, like I said, is how exactly how it happened because I was quite fucking proud of myself. Okay, I said I want to throw you over the edge. Well, that was half a joke. I listened to you, I did not raise my voice because I've I've also been known to raise my voice even at dinner, and people looking on going, who are these two crazy fuckers?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

No, I'm 100% saying to you, you did way better than 10 days before.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah, and so I will do better still. I try to think, and this is why I was thinking whilst you were laying into me, I was like, okay, what is this all about? Ah, and hence the question just popped into my mind as if uh intuitively to ask you that. Yeah, and it completely was like, then we had a massive discussion, uh, a lovely talk about it afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

I mean, this is something I'm dealing with in multiple areas of life, feeling like enough to deserve the things that I have. So, anyway, after I had that insight, I was like, oh shit, that makes sense, and then um I went to the kind of processes I tend to do when I have insights like that. So, for example, I can find lots of evidence of why I've earned the right to be in this relationship, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

But I mean, you always you've never you've always put your mind on to the the things you're not happy about yourself and never really thought about the things that make you a great person and who make you great that have absolutely only the rights.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

I would have, if someone had come up to me and said, Sarah, do you believe that you deserve to be uh with a person like Richard? And I'd be like, Yeah, of course, sure. But it comes out sometimes like a a drop, maybe you're 76% sure that you deserve. To be with, or I deserve to, or I'm 76% sure that I've deserved to be with someone like Richard, but I need to be at like 98% sure. So if you observe your behaviors, it will show you gaps in where you're engaging in this sabotaging behavior because when you're doing that, quite often it is an indication that you feel like you're lacking or undeserving or unworthy, and you're basically causing problems for yourself. And it shows up in uh generally when you have these kind of overarching belief systems, it will show up in multiple areas of life. So it's probably not just restricted to where it shows up, and it will um it will niggle its way into other areas. So for example, if you if I believe that I don't deserve uh the relationship that I have, the likelihood is another another side of that is I don't deserve to have the business that I have. I don't deserve to have money to charge the money that I charge I and fill in the blank. And you might think, okay, well, actually this is only in one area, like you know, sometimes you wake up thinking, what did I do to deserve this wonderful person? Um but it has an insidious creep effect.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

It does, but this is why the work is never done, because the more you uncover, the more there is to learn, the more there is to uncover, and it kind of like snowballs a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

It's a rabbit hole, but because everything is interconnected, you can deal with a lot of that within the container of a relationship. So one of my all-time favorite sex coaches out there, Kimonami, who yeah, she she is out there. Um, love and respect that about her, but she is totally out there. According to her philosophy, everything can be resolved in the bedroom, like all trauma, like anything that you feel is off or wrong in your life can be solved through being uh well-fucked, is her is is being a well-fucked woman, actually, is what the way that she said and in it's not a hundred percent correct, but there is for sure a lot in that because it brings in the idea of interconnectedness. You bring up one area of life, other areas start to follow. You deal with trauma stored in the yoni, it has an overall effect on the body. You deal with trauma in one area of life, it has an impact on other areas of life, and that's why she tends to have stories of clients that are like, oh my god, I started having G-spot orgasms, and then suddenly my career took off and my money came in, etc.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

As I said, it's not as simple as that, and it's not a hundred percent correct, but it's just to say putting the work into your relationship and doing some of that deeper reflection and thinking will have a knock-on positive impact on the other areas of your life as well, such as um your mental health, your physical health, your um career, your finances.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

You can almost call them side effects, can't you? You sort out one major um source of X, and then suddenly A, B, C, and D, the side effects are they kind of regulate and uh and uh come back to good levels, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Like money always is always about the money, always about the money. Money or weight gain are a side effect of the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

And this is a this is a funny this kind of funny story. Um I have I suppose I think it's about a kilo to a kilo and a half of what I call emotional weight. So, like, usually when something is weighing on me or there's something literally like literally weighing on me. When something is weighing on me, or there's something I'm not looking at, um you're being self-critical, yes, or I'm being self-critical, but usually it actually is to do with emotion, some emotion that I'm repressing. I notice suddenly I'm like, how have I put on a kilo overnight or kilo and a half, whatever it is? Um for those that are in the US, a kilo is approximately 2.2 pounds.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

A kilo? Yeah, okay, yes, a kilo is two.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

So anyway, and before I used to like go into a tailspin, now I'm like, okay, that's interesting. Is there something going on? Every single fucking time there is something going on, right? That I either work out in the bedroom, like as in I will go into some kind of form of sexual activity intentionally to bring up and transmute that emotion, or I actually have to do deal with it in another way to process that emotion. So it's just it's just to say everything is interconnected. So if I'm gonna bring this back to a summary of because this links into what we were saying last week of how to argue. The problem is not that you argue, it's you're gonna argue, you have to argue. Yeah, it's learning to argue better.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

So, number one, even in the midst of an emotion, and it will usually be a really strong emotion if we're talking about a relationship argument, at least recognize that you're in the grip of an emotion and don't just kind of vomit everything outwards. So I'm not saying suppress the emotion, but for example, I held myself back from saying the most terrible things I could think of.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

What was it again? Oh, you wish you'd never met me or something.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Oh, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

I managed to get it, yeah. You've forgotten that as well. I got it out of you in the end. Uh yes, yes, I wish you'd never met me. All right. And I laughed at you. Because that's such a load of bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

No, but this is the point. It's not me talking, it was the emotion talking.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

But anyway, so express the emotion. Hopefully, you don't get to the phase where you just vomit everything, but then if you do, you do, right? Ideally, you want to go off and express that emotion separately as well. If by expressing it, you're escalating the argument. So if you're expressing it with your partner and your partner's calm and just allowing you to express, fine, express it that way. If it's just escalating, go off by yourself, feel your rage, feel like whatever it is that you need to feel, acknowledge that everything you're saying at that moment or wanting to say is coming from a strong emotion, and then come back together and actually have a discussion around what is the root of what was going on here in that moment. And if you are the one that started the argument, sorry to say, it starts with looking at yourself, even if you've convinced yourself in that moment that your partner is the devil. Like, what was it about that action or inaction that they did? What did it make you feel? Because then you are more able to have an actual conversation about it. Because again, a man is going to be more open to you being like, I asked you to take out the trash and you didn't, and it really upset me. But here's what's really going on, here's why it's really upsetting me, because that is something that comes from the heart or the deeper part, the more authentic part of you, and it increases intimacy. So if you can learn to argue well, which we have done after a long time, can't wait for the next argument. The upshot is we have these kind of quite vicious arguments from my side, anyway. Yeah, you speak for yourself, and and like it all blows over, like literally five, ten minutes. We're both over it.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Ten years ago or nine years, probably even about five years ago, actually.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Richard would be sulking about it for weeks, like literally weeks.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah, a couple, two, three weeks, probably, just like my mother, she used to do that.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

So, like again, the measure of success here is the aftershock of the argument. Does it linger on like this feeling of pissed-offness with each other, or is it kind of like it gets resolved in the moment? So that's a benchmark of how you're improving, and obviously don't expect to go from feeling pissed off for like 10 days to feeling pissed off for like 10 minutes. Although I don't know, maybe you can make that leap overnight, but more likely it's gonna be a process.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

It's gonna take a while, just like with everything, you just gotta keep at it.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

But I do sometimes have a visualization of the sort of face you would have made had I thrown you off the side into the water that night.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

You probably would have attacked me with a shark or something.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Well, I mean, we're at dinner, so I had access to knives.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

You would have had to climb back out, grab said knife, would have been terribly complicated. But I hope you know that that was said more in a joking tone.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

No.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

You didn't get that.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

No.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

It's probably really bad timing.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

No, actually, I wasn't listening to you. I was distracted by a dog that I saw in the apartment over the road.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

He's gone.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Okay, great. Well, folks, on that note, um, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Um, you know, what we tend to talk about here is real, and it's actually stuff that has happened, and uh we hope that you can take something home from it. Yeah. And so I bid you all a very rest of a pleasant day or night or afternoon, wherever you are in the world. Take care. Bye. Bye. We'd like to thank you for tuning in and listening to this episode today. If you like what you heard, I invite you to follow our show. And if you really liked our show, head over and leave a review on your podcast app of choice. We also want to hear your thoughts and questions. So, if there's anything you would like us to cover on the show, please drop us a line on the email below. Thank you for listening, and until next time.