Quotes from Alan E. Fruzzetti

The central idea in this book is that highly aroused, negative emotion—dysregulated emotion—is the core problem for high-conflict couples and that there are specific skills partners can learn to manage their emotions effectively, which in turn makes effective communication (accurate expression followed by understanding and validation) possible.

And, finally, how others respond to us—particularly people we are close to—shapes the direction of our emotion in very important ways. Certain responses, such as understanding and validating our experience, soothe our frayed emotional edges, but others, such as criticizing or invalidating our experience, are like salt in an open wound in our hearts.

Thus, being dysregulated is not the same as being upset. You can be upset and still be quite able to make effective decisions, hold your tongue, or otherwise "control" yourself—manage to act in ways that help you achieve a better relationship, a better life, rather than simply escaping an unpleasant (or even awful) situation by doing something that hurts the other person, escalates the conflict, or, in general, makes things worse in the long run.

Conversely, a person with low emotional sensitivity can sometimes have a really hard time intuitively understanding what another person is feeling. This person may need to have a lot more explaining and more direct and specific requests in order to be emotionally supportive and responsive. Low emotional sensitivity can leave a spouse or partner feeling misunderstood or even lead to falsely (but understandably) believing that the other person doesn't care about him or her.

Thus, big reactions (high reactivity) can communicate more clearly what a person is feeling, but also can result in the person sometimes reacting too quickly, getting upset or even dysregulated before all the information has become available. This can sometimes be counterproductive, of course: if reactivity had been lower, the person's response might have been quite different and more productive.

Your high arousal also fuels negative and judgmental thinking, which further fuels negative emotional arousal—a vicious cycle.

if we are able to describe the situation, what we want, what is happening, and legitimize the emotional process even when we do not like it, typically our emotional arousal will start the return toward a lower state of emotional upset and eventually back to normal emotional arousal

Of course, it is painful when your partner verbally attacks you. Recognize that by responding in kind, you are almost guaranteeing more volleys in your direction, the negative cycle will continue, and you will find no peace.

Well, refusing to continue to fight to the death (of your relationship) is hardly surrendering. Rather, if defeating your partner is also self-defeating, then stopping the fight is both showing the courage to do what is needed to survive and the courage to engage in self-preservation without harming your partner.