If I were to ask you what causes arguments between you and your partner, you might give me a list of things you fight about. Money. Sex. Parenting. Household duties. In-laws. All of these are common and understandable triggers.

Or you might go a step further and point to some personality difference. "He's always late." "She overreacts." "He's irresponsible." "She's controlling."  You may have even become so frustrated that you've begun to look down on your partner for what you perceive to be a major personality flaw!

What if I were to tell you that none of these things are actually causing your arguments? That the source of your distress is something else entirely?

I have a saying in couples therapy: "Conflict is inevitable, combat is optional." If you're in any kind of intimate relationship, you can expect that you and your partner will disagree from time to time, even quite frequently. After all, you are two different people, with different backgrounds, personalities, preferences, lifestyles, needs, perceptions, brain chemistry, trauma histories,  and emotional worlds (to name a few!).

But when it comes to the kind of knock-down, drag-out arguing that makes couples miserable, alienates partners from one another, and erodes the love, affection, safety, and trust between them, disagreements are rarely to blame. While differences may spark the argument, there are other forces operating beneath the surface to create and maintain a couples' distress.

Unfortunately, lacking an understanding of these hidden mechanisms, many couples' efforts to cope with their problems actually make their situation worse. They try things like yelling louder to make a point. Or criticizing one another in hopes of producing change. Sometimes, exhausted and resigned, they give up and withdraw from the fight entirely, letting problems fester. Or they turn to something outside the relationship, like work, alcohol, or an affair. After awhile, pain, frustration, isolation, loneliness, and hopelessness become dominant themes in the relationship. 

As you might imagine, this profound level of disconnection doesn't provide much of a foundation to negotiate, collaborate, or engage in any kind of creative problem-solving. The couples' life together feels unmanageable, and they struggle to deal with external stressors. A feedback loop forms, one where the couple isn't connected, so they can't work on their problems, and because they don't work on their problems, connection feels ever more difficult. 

By the time they seek help (if they don't separate first), the couple has often confused their content with their process. That is, they think their problem is what they're arguing about -- the money, the kids, the sex, the housework, the personality differences -- rather than how they dialogue about these things. As long as they continue to misunderstand their difficulties, they will remain stuck. Just as a physician needs an accurate diagnosis to effectively treat a medical condition, a couple needs to understand why they are arguing in order to interrupt their usual pattern and do something different.

Enter: "Anatomy of an Argument!"

In "Anatomy of an Argument," I'll explain how understanding attachment distress is the key to identifying, interrupting, and circumventing your most destructive relationship dynamics. But in order to understand attachment distress, you'll need to know some basics about attachment theory. Attachment theory is the science of human bonding. It's the branch of psychology that tells us the exact kinds of relationship interactions that promote safety, trust, and intimacy, as well as those that lead to disconnection, alienation, and isolation.

A central tenet of attachment theory is that humans are wired from birth to seek out and nurture important and irreplaceable connections. When an important relationship feels threatened, we feel "attachment distress." Attachment distress is coded in the brain as being on par with a life or death situation. This is why a seemingly innocuous disagreement can lead partners to fight as if lives depended on it. As far as their attachment systems are concerned...they do!

Unfortunately, the way we cope with attachment distress often pushes our partners away, thus creating the very thing we fear. This leads to a feedback loop that clinicians call your "distress cycle," and that colloquially we refer to as "arguing." 

In "Anataomy of an Argument," you'll learn about the importance of attachment needs, and how they lie at the heart of your most difficult arguments. You'll also learn how unmet attachment needs cause attachment distress, which can show up as you or your partner's most difficult behaviors. 

Once you have a basic understanding of attachment, I want to walk you through a typical fight point-by-point. Together, we'll break down an argument into a predictable sequence, from an initial trigger, to an emotional response, to self-protective coping strategies, and finally to mutual escalation. If you've ever found yourself in the middle of a heated argument without a clear understanding of how you got there, this section will be transformative. Just imagine: No more confusion and unnecessary heartache!

My goal with this course is to give you and your partner a unique opportunity to slow down a process that normally happens in the blink of an eye. In fact, I'll spend 90 minutes teaching you about something that takes 90 seconds at home! I want you to be able to see what's truly going on behind the scenes so that you can opt to do something different. I want to demistify arguments so that with practice you can spend less time feeling jerked around by these invisible forces, and more time feeling connected to and collaborating with your partner.

I truly believe it can be life-altering to come to a deep understanding of what creates and maintains your relationship distress. But, to me, the ability to finally interrupt your cycle isn't even the best part!

I happen to believe that in the heat of the argument there lies a profound opportunity for connection. That's because you wouldn't be arguing if there wasn't something important at stake. When you finally understand the hidden vulnerabilities that are fueling you and your partner's defensive reactions, you can set yourself up to respond to one another in ways that promote safety, intimacy, connection, and passion. 

This makes "Anatomy of an Argument" more than an approach to managing conflict. It is your ticket to understanding how to give each other what you need most so that you can stop fighting and start building the kind of relationship you've both been dreaming about.

I'm excited to share this with you because this information has been so transformative in my own life. I'm confident it will do the same for you. I hope you will join me!