Couples arguing: making up and the 5 conflict styles

Couples arguing are usually fighting over a need nobody has said out loud, and the way back has three steps: cool down for about 20 minutes, repair the feeling, and only then return to what set it off. The same steps come easily to some people and feel impossible to others, because everyone handles conflict in a different style. Under most fights sits an unspoken need. Once a fight involves threats or violence, though, it has stopped being a communication problem.

What are couples arguing about? Usually a need nobody said out loud

Arguing does not mean a relationship is in trouble. What researchers watch is the ratio of good moments to bad ones during a fight, and whether the couple can repair afterward.

Relationship researchers John Gottman and Robert Levenson started in the 1970s by asking couples to discuss a disagreement in a lab and then following them for years. The Gottman Institute’s summary is that stable, satisfied couples have roughly five or more positive interactions for every negative one during conflict: a nod, a joke, a moment of understanding. When the ratio slides toward one to one or worse, that is a warning sign. The same piece cites Gottman’s view that anger alone does not necessarily hurt a relationship. It does damage when it travels with criticism, contempt or defensiveness.

Another figure gets quoted a lot: Gottman’s team estimates that about 69% of couples’ conflicts are “perpetual problems,” rooted in basic differences in personality or life needs, and they keep coming back. So “we’re fighting about the same thing again” is common. What matters is whether you can keep talking about it well.

The loudest fights are rarely about the thing itself. The argument looks like it is about dishes, and underneath it is asking, “Can you see what I put in?”

When the need goes unsaid, a fight slides from “the dishes” to “you don’t care about me.” Getting the middle column out loud makes it more likely the fight stays small.

Four kinds of fights that need four different moves

The same communication trick can work in one fight and backfire in another, so the first job is working out which kind of fight you are in.

Online advice usually offers one rule for everything: always start with “I,” never blame. The research is more specific. McNulty and Russell (2010) followed two groups of newlyweds and found that direct negative communication (blaming, demanding, rejecting) made satisfaction fall faster for couples with only minor problems. For couples with serious problems, though, the same directness was linked to steadier satisfaction, because the problem was actually being dealt with. Indirect negativity, the hint-dropping and sideways kind, went with lower satisfaction whether problems were big or small.

Overall and McNulty (2017) sharpened the point in their review. Direct disagreement helps when a problem is serious and the partner is able to change. It can also hurt when the partner is not secure enough to take it in. When the problem is small, cannot be changed, or the partner is already defensive, warm, affirming communication works better.

Following that logic, fights come in four kinds:

The same topic can land in different boxes for different couples. The Gottman Institute’s explanation is that chores, parenting and in-laws are a one-conversation fix for some couples and a values issue for others, which keeps coming back. When it is hard to tell, ask yourself: “If we agreed on a rule for this, would I actually feel settled?” If yes, it is probably solvable. If not, it is probably a lasting difference, and what you need is an ongoing conversation. The fourth box is not a communication-skills topic at all, and a later section covers it separately.

How do you argue? The five conflict styles

When conflict comes up, everyone is balancing two things: protecting their own position and protecting the other person’s needs. Cross those two axes and you get five conflict styles.

This “dual concern” framework has been used in organizational psychology for decades. Thomas (1992) reviewed how five conflict-handling modes were carved out of two dimensions, assertiveness and cooperativeness, and Rahim (1983) built an interpersonal conflict-styles measure on similar axes. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), common in workplace training, belongs to the same family. The site’s Communication & Conflict Style Test uses the same two axes, but its questions and names are original and it is not the TKI or any commercial instrument.

Names for the five styles vary across the internet, so here is a side-by-side:

None of the five is better than another, and the research from the last section makes that clear. The Rhino’s habit of saying it straight is the right move for a serious problem that needs to change, and a bad one for the thermostat, where it reads as picking a fight. The Sloth’s pause can be a lifesaver when both people are close to losing it. If the Sloth never comes back, the other person sees only avoidance. The Alpaca gives ground generously on small things, and when it gives too much, its own needs slowly disappear, which overlaps with people-pleasing. The Hippo’s compromise is efficient, and the risk is cutting the part each person cares about most in half. The Orangutan is closest to the textbook ideal, at the cost of taking a lot of time and being the most tiring when the other person is not on board.

Everyone uses all five, just in different proportions, and you may use different moves with a partner than with a boss. The site’s test has 30 questions: 20 scenario questions set at work, with a partner, with family and with friends, and 10 agree-or-disagree statements. The result gives a usage score for each of the five modes (0 to 100, where 50 matches the average raw score of random answers), plus your main mode, your backup mode and your least-used one.

Once you have both taken it, swap results. Knowing your partner is a Sloth makes it easier to hear “let me think about it” as thinking, not as “I don’t care.”

The most common stuck pair: one wants to talk, one wants out

A very common deadlock in couples is one person who wants to talk right now and one who wants to back away first, so the more one chases, the more the other hides. Researchers call it the demand/withdraw pattern.

It often gets simplified to “women pursue, men withdraw,” but the research is less clean than that. Christensen and Heavey (1990) had 31 couples discuss two topics: something the wife wanted the husband to change, and something the husband wanted the wife to change. Overall, “wife demands, husband withdraws” was more common than the reverse. But that gap showed up only when the topic was the wife’s desired change. When the topic was the husband’s desired change, the two directions did not differ clearly. And both husbands and wives were more likely to demand when discussing a change they wanted, and more likely to withdraw when discussing a change their partner wanted. Beyond gender, who chases and who hides depends a lot on who wants the status quo to change.

The loop has real consequences. Schrodt, Witt and Shimkowski (2014) pooled 74 studies covering 14,255 people and found that the demand/withdraw pattern had a moderate association with poor individual, relational and communication outcomes (r = .36), stronger in couples who were already distressed.

Among the five styles, the pairing that gets stuck most easily is a Rhino or Orangutan (wants to talk) with a Sloth (wants out). If the chaser is also leaning toward anxious attachment and the retreater toward avoidant attachment, the loop will feel especially familiar. To start with the four attachment styles, read what attachment styles are. From the attachment angle, the loop looks like this:

Breaking the loop does not require the other person to go first. The one who wants to talk can swap “let’s settle this right now” for “no rush, let’s talk at nine.” The one who wants out can swap disappearing for “I need half an hour, I’ll be back at nine.” If just one person changes their reaction, the next lap cannot get going.

Try not to pin “chaser” and “hider” on each other as permanent labels either. By Christensen and Heavey’s findings, the roles can flip with the topic. On saving money you chase and they hide, and on moving closer to their job it may be the other way around. Instead of fighting over whose problem it is, ask in a calm moment: “On this one, which of us wants things to change more?” Once that is answered, who should slow down and who should come back gets much clearer.

A few other common pairings have their own traps:

How to make up after a fight: cool down, repair, return to the topic

Making up works in order: first let your body cool down, then repair the feeling, and only then deal with the issue. Rushing into logic the moment the fight ends often turns straight into round two.

Step one: pause about 20 minutes, and say when you’ll be back

At the peak of a fight your heart races, your breathing gets fast, and it is very hard to take in anything. Gottman calls this flooding. The Gottman Institute recommends pausing for about twenty minutes and doing something that calms you, not rehearsing your comeback in your head. They also describe an experiment in which researchers interrupted arguing couples under the pretext of adjusting equipment and asked them not to discuss the issue but to read magazines for half an hour. When the couples resumed talking, their heart rates were noticeably lower and the interaction was more positive.

An everyday version: walk to the corner store for a water, go around the block on a bike, take a shower. The wording should tell the other person you are coming back:

• “I’m too worked up right now, and if I keep going it’ll only get uglier. Give me half an hour. Let’s talk in the living room at ten.”
• “I’m not ending this conversation. I want to have it in better shape.”

If you are a Sloth, remember the second line most. A pause without a return time reads as the silent treatment.

Step two: offer an olive branch, and take the other person’s

The repair attempt is one of Gottman’s core ideas: any statement or action that keeps negativity from escalating, even a silly one. The Gottman Institute notes that repeated failure of repair attempts is a warning sign for a relationship’s future, and that couples who criticize or get defensive in fights can still stay solid if they can repair.

The olive branch can be tiny: their usual coffee order, a meme only the two of you would get, or “were we fighting about the dishes just now, or about something else?” The person receiving it matters just as much. When your partner reaches out, take their hand first and save the hurt for later. After a few olive branches get swatted away, people stop offering them.

Repair ability is also built up in ordinary days. Driver and Gottman (2004) watched 49 newlywed couples during 10 minutes of dinner at home and 15 minutes of discussing a conflict, and found that couples who were more playful and warm in everyday moments also showed more humor and tenderness while fighting. The researchers cautioned that this is correlational, so it cannot be read as cause and effect. For ways to bank goodwill day to day, see the five love languages.

Each of the five styles has a repair opener that is easier to say out loud:

• Rhino: “I came in too fast. You go first, and I’ll hear you out before I respond.”
• Orangutan: “We don’t have to reach a conclusion today. I just want to be sure we’re both okay.”
• Hippo: “Before we split the difference, tell me the one thing you can’t give up.”
• Sloth: “I needed to cool off, and I’m back now. Let’s pick it up.”
• Alpaca: “I said it didn’t matter, and it kind of does.”

Some very precise-sounding make-up numbers also circulate online, such as “negative feelings past 24 hours are hard to repair,” and we could not find an original study that matches. Watching whether someone starts offering an olive branch tells you more than counting hours.

Step three: when you return to the topic, the first three minutes matter most

Carrère and Gottman (1999) analyzed 15-minute conflict discussions from 124 newlywed couples and found that the balance of positive and negative emotion in just the first 3 minutes could predict marital outcomes six years later. The Gottman Institute takes from this that how a discussion begins usually predicts how it ends: open with an attack, and it will end at least as tense. A discount applies, though: prediction accuracy of this kind is usually computed on the same sample and drops sharply when cross-validated (Heyman & Smith Slep, 2001). Treat it as a reminder about risky openings, not a forecast.

The soft-opening formula is the facts, plus your feeling, plus one specific request, with “you” swapped for “I.” Of Gottman’s Four Horsemen (criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling), contempt is treated as the strongest predictor of divorce, so take those out first when you rewrite:

If the topic is a lasting difference, the goal of step three does not have to be reaching a result. The Gottman Institute’s view is that what counts is whether you can keep talking about it with acceptance, even a little humor. Lasting problems that cannot be talked about get stuck, and eventually the two people drift apart emotionally.

Arguing is not abuse: when it stops being a communication problem

An argument is two people who can both speak and both disagree. Once behavior makes someone afraid, controlled or hurt, it is no longer a fighting-style issue. It is a safety issue.

Legal definitions of domestic and dating violence, and who can get a protective order, vary by state, so ask an advocate rather than guessing.

After the fight: this week’s practice and when to get help

Arguments do not vanish from a relationship. What you can practice is the agreement you make before a fight, the pause in the middle, and coming back afterward.

Four small things to try this week:

1. Pick a pause signal. Choose a calm evening and agree on one phrase to pause with and a default time to come back. The Gottman Institute mentions a couple who, when a fight got close to out of control, threw a yellow penalty flag like a football referee’s, and both agreed to stop when they saw it.
2. Sort the fight you have most. Use the table in the second section to decide whether it is a small friction, a solvable problem or a lasting difference, then decide whether you need a rule or a regular conversation.
3. Swap conflict styles. Each take the conflict style test, then share what surprised you about the other person’s main mode and one thing you would like them to do for you in a fight.
4. Bank a little goodwill each day. A specific thank-you or a hug is what you draw on when you need to repair. If big feelings take you a long time to settle after fights, emotional regulation is a good place to start.

Couples counseling or individual therapy is worth considering if you keep getting stuck at the same spot on the same issue, if contempt or humiliation shows up often, if one of you no longer wants to repair, or if fighting keeps you awake or drags on your work. If your partner will not go, going alone can still help, at least to see your own part in the loop. When your feelings are too heavy to carry, you can call or text 988, free and open 24/7. If there is control, threats or violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.