In this video, therapist, author, speaker and relationships thought leader, Esther Perel, offers couples sage advice on how to keep a fight from escalating.

Her insights address the common path taken by couples’ conflicts, where a confrontation over something small, devolves into a full-on attack regarding every single thing one or both partners have ever done wrong.

This kind of escalation is called ‘kitchen-sinking’, and in the heat of a quarrel it’s all-too-easy to fall into, leading to words exchanged whose toxicity will linger long after the fight ends, negatively impacting the relationship in each partner’s mind.

To avoid ‘kitchen-sinking’, Perel offers a different approach, which, if kept to, ensures a discontent or grievance is aired fairly and manageably, without dealing a body-blow to the health of the relationship itself.

View the original video here.

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