(Tip: You can improve your relationship by doing the exact opposite of the suggestions offered here.)
Many therapists teach couples the skills they can use for better communication: establishing rules for fair fighting, using “I Statements,” mirroring and paraphrasing what you hear, practicing the nonviolent language of needs, making and keeping agreements, to name a few. However, these methods are pointless if you’d rather initiate and win arguments than engage in meaningful dialogue.
Following are some of the more reliable tools to ensure that conversations with your partner remain unproductive or, even better, escalate into heated arguments. Identify the techniques you already use. Determine which ones you’d like to perfect and which you’d like to add to your arsenal. Be sure to hang on to any other effective methods you have developed to turn talking into fighting.
Avoid Conversations
A good long-term strategy is to avoid conversations altogether. That way, issues can be swept aside and be allowed to fester until they erupt later. An occasional war is always preferable to annoying daily incursions. Stonewalling, giving the cold shoulder, and refusing to look at your partner can be effective tactics. Invent creative excuses you can deploy as needed.
If, despite your best efforts, you get sucked into discussions, keep them as short and infrequent as possible. Listen only to the words; ignore emotions, tone, body language. While your partner is talking, plan your response. Listening carefully will only encourage them to continue, and the imposition on your time may exceed your attention span.
Get Defensive
Listening respectfully to feedback about your behavior may give the impression that you agree with it and are willing to change. Instead, push back. Argue that it’s untrue or inaccurate. Split hairs when necessary. Make excuses or explain in great detail the reasons for acting as you did. Tell your partner they’re hypocritical because they do exactly what they’re complaining about.
Get Aggressive
Alternatively, when you have a complaint, raise it when you are not pressed for time so you can persist until your partner agrees with your point of view. Initially they may want to disagree. Raising your voice and carrying on at great length may not convince them you are right, but they may be willing to give in rather than face more of your ranting.
Interrupt Often
One of the most effective ways to keep your partner off balance is to interrupt frequently. Bring up side issues, correct grammar or choice of words, answer your phone, or mount a counterargument when your partner is in midsentence.
Dominate the Conversation
If interrupting doesn’t work, try making long speeches. Respond to complaints by raising some of your own instead of addressing the ones your partner raised. Answer questions indirectly and at length, introducing irrelevant issues as needed.
Insist on Your Point of View
If you try to understand your partner’s viewpoint, they may sway you from your original position and end up changing your mind. Staying focused and insisting that your partner agree with you will help avoid the danger of becoming confused. More importantly, you won’t risk discovering you were wrong and having to admit it–out loud.
Bring Up the Past
Focus on history instead of staying with the present. Bring forward the litany of complaints you have accumulated over the years. To exaggerate, make extensive use of words such as “always,” “never,” “should,” or phrases like “if only once you would (fill in the blank).”
Play the Blame Game
Offload the responsibility for your problems, feelings, and behaviors onto others, especially your partner. After all, you don’t get mad at anyone else, so it must be their fault. In building your case, make sure that every sentence begins with the word “you.”
Play Psychologist
Tell your partner what they are thinking or feeling, and why. Share your insights about why they are acting in a particular way. Observing how much they are like one of their parents is always a handy way to increase the heat. Read your partner’s mind and share the fruits of what you find.
Manipulate
Refusing to tell the truth is always an option. Another is practicing emotional blackmail: tell your partner, “If you really loved me, you would (fill in the blank).” Invoke your partner’s worst fears: for example, threaten to break up if they fail to comply with your wishes.
Misinterpret
Deliberately shade, distort, or and misrepresent what you hear to prove your point, to justify your sense of outrage, or to make your partner’s shortcomings the subject of the argument.
Escalate
Choose words that are disrespectful of the other person. Employ name-calling, snide remarks, putdowns, and negative facial expressions. Say hurtful things that attack their most sensitive spots. When the encounter gets too heated, refuse to take a break and insist on continuing the discussion now.
Practice Verbal Abuse
Resort to the types of verbal abuse defined here. You can criticize, counter, demand, deny, dismiss, harass, humiliate, interrogate, judge, mock, practice sarcasm, taunt, trivialize, undermine. Use a harsh or belittling tone when you speak.
Intimidate
Raise your voice. Swear. Get in your partner’s face. Block the way if they try to leave. Throw or break things. Gesture with your fist. Grab, push, hit, or kick if necessary. Sometimes it seems like it’s the only way you can win the argument or make your partner feel bad, and you can frequently accomplish both at the same time.
Never Apologize
This is a no-brainer. Saying you’re sorry implies that you were at fault and only makes you vulnerable to further attack. However, you may be able to extract an apology by exaggerating the many ways you feel victimized.