1.3 How You Handle Conflict

Last fight you had — did you yell, walk away, go silent, or just agree to make it stop? That reaction wasn’t random. It’s been your pattern for years. And research shows it predicts whether your relationships will survive.

Why Conflict Patterns Matter

Conflict itself doesn’t predict divorce — how couples handle conflict does.

John Gottman’s research at the University of Washington’s “Love Lab” tracked couples over decades. His team could predict divorce with remarkable accuracy — up to 94% in one study — simply by observing how couples discussed disagreements.^[1]

The difference between couples who stayed together and those who divorced wasn’t the absence of conflict. It was the presence of toxic patterns versus healthy repair.

The Four Stress Responses

When conflict arises, your nervous system picks a survival strategy. These patterns — sometimes called the “4 Fs” — were adaptive in dangerous situations. In adult relationships, they often cause more problems than they solve.

Fight

Voice rises, body tenses
Need to “win” the argument
Defensiveness kicks in immediately
Hard to back down, even when wrong
Heart rate elevates; cortisol spikes

Flight

Leave the room, change the subject
Stonewall — go silent, refuse to engage
“I need space” becomes escape, not pause
Partners feel abandoned mid-conflict
Withdrawal provides temporary relief but prevents resolution

Freeze

Go blank, can’t find words
Dissociate — feel like you’re watching from outside
Partner thinks you don’t care (you do, you’re just stuck)
Processing happens hours or days later
Nervous system overwhelmed; shutdown as protection

Fawn

Apologize even when you’re not wrong
Abandon your position to keep the peace
“You’re right, I’m sorry” — even when you don’t mean it
Resentment builds underneath
Connection maintained at the cost of authenticity

Note: Fight, flight, and freeze are well-established stress responses in psychology. “Fawn” is a clinical term introduced by therapist Pete Walker in the context of complex trauma.^[2] While widely used clinically, fawn is not yet formally validated in peer-reviewed research — consider it an emerging concept with strong clinical utility.

Gottman’s Four Horsemen

Decades of research identified four communication patterns that predict relationship failure with alarming accuracy:^[3]

1. Criticism (attacking character, not behavior)

Destructive: “You never think about anyone but yourself.”
Alternative: “I felt hurt when plans changed without discussion.”

2. Contempt (mockery, eye-rolling, disgust)

The strongest predictor of divorce
Signals fundamental disrespect
Includes sarcasm, name-calling, hostile humor
Research shows contempt even predicts immune system suppression in partners

3. Defensiveness (denying responsibility)

Destructive: “That’s not my fault — you’re the one who…”
Alternative: “You’re right, I could have handled that better.”
Defensiveness escalates conflict instead of resolving it

4. Stonewalling (shutting down, walking away)

Heart rate exceeds 100 BPM; brain enters “flooding”
Person appears checked out, unresponsive
85% of stonewallers are men (physiological, not character)
Partner feels abandoned and pursues harder

The research: Couples displaying these patterns had significantly higher divorce rates. In one study tracking newlyweds, these behaviors predicted marital outcomes with 83% accuracy.^[4]

The Demand-Withdraw Pattern

This is one of the most documented and destructive conflict cycles in relationships research.

The pattern: One partner demands, criticizes, or pursues discussion. The other withdraws, avoids, or stonewalls. The more one demands, the more the other withdraws. The more one withdraws, the more the other demands.^[5]

Research findings:

The pattern is highly associated with marital dissatisfaction
Women more often demand; men more often withdraw (though this varies by topic)
In naturalistic home settings, husband-demand/wife-withdraw occurs at equal frequency to the reverse^[6]
Depression is linked to increased withdrawal behavior, mediated by emotion regulation difficulties^[7]

Why it persists: Each person’s behavior makes sense to them. The demander feels unheard and pursues harder. The withdrawer feels attacked and retreats further. Both are trying to manage distress — but their strategies are incompatible.

The Physiology of Flooding

When conflict escalates, your body enters “flooding” — a state of physiological overwhelm that makes productive conversation impossible.

Research on marital conflict shows:^[8]

Heart rate elevates above 100 BPM
Cortisol (stress hormone) spikes significantly
Women show greater cortisol response to conflict than men
The quality of interaction (positive vs. negative) predicts different cortisol patterns

When you’re flooded:

You can’t think clearly
You can’t listen effectively
You’re in survival mode, not problem-solving mode
Taking a break is not avoidance — it’s necessary

Gottman recommends a 20-minute break when flooding occurs. That’s roughly how long it takes for physiological arousal to return to baseline. Trying to resolve conflict while flooded makes things worse.

Attachment and Conflict Behavior

Research connecting attachment styles to Gottman’s Four Horsemen found:^[9]

Anxious attachment predicted ALL four horsemen behaviors (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling)
Avoidant attachment specifically predicted contempt and stonewalling
Attachment orientations explained 22% of variance in these behaviors, above relationship satisfaction

This means your conflict patterns aren’t just habits — they’re connected to your deeper attachment system. The anxious person criticizes because they’re terrified of abandonment. The avoidant person stonewalls because closeness feels threatening.

Incompatible Conflict Styles

The real problem often isn’t your style. It’s the mismatch.

Pairing	What Happens
Fighter + Fighter	Every disagreement escalates. Exhausting for both.
Flighter + Flighter	Nothing ever gets resolved. Issues fester.
Fighter + Freezer	One attacks, one shuts down. Both feel unheard.
Fawner + Anyone	The fawner suppresses, then explodes months later.
Demander + Withdrawer	Classic pursuer-distancer cycle. Highly destructive.

The healthiest pattern? Two people who can recognize their defaults and choose differently in the moment.

Examples

Kavya (Fight) — Her voice rises before she even realizes it. In arguments, she can’t back down until she feels “heard.” Partners have called her “intense” and “aggressive.” She doesn’t mean to intimidate — but criticism and defensiveness are her go-to moves when she feels threatened.

Sameer (Flight/Stonewall) — When things get heated, he leaves. Comes back hours later acting like nothing happened. His ex would chase him around the apartment trying to finish the conversation. His heart rate was probably over 100 BPM — he was flooded and couldn’t engage. He genuinely thought he was “keeping the peace.”

Neha (Freeze) — When her boyfriend confronts her, she goes blank. Her mind empties. She knows he’s waiting for a response but she can’t access words. He thinks she’s ignoring him. She’s experiencing nervous system shutdown — her body’s way of protecting her from overwhelm.

Rohan (Fawn) — In relationships, he apologizes for everything. Disagreement feels dangerous — it triggers his fear of abandonment. He’d rather be “wrong” than risk losing someone. Six months in, the accumulated resentment explodes — and his partners are blindsided by anger they never saw coming.

Repair Attempts: What Actually Works

Gottman’s research found that what distinguishes satisfied couples from unsatisfied ones isn’t the absence of conflict — it’s the presence of repair attempts.^[3]

Repair attempts are efforts to de-escalate tension during conflict:

“Can we take a break and come back to this?”
“I’m sorry, that came out wrong.”
Using humor to lighten the mood
Reaching for physical connection (touch, eye contact)
“I can see your point, even though I disagree.”

The key finding: In happy couples, repair attempts work. In unhappy couples, they’re ignored or rejected. The difference isn’t the quality of the repair attempt — it’s whether the relationship has enough positive sentiment for repairs to land.

One Thing to Try

Next conflict, pause. Notice: “I’m going into [fight/flight/freeze/fawn] mode right now.”

Just naming it creates space. You don’t have to change your response immediately — awareness is the first step.

If you notice flooding (racing heart, tunnel vision, can’t think straight):

Say: “I need 20 minutes. I’m not leaving this conversation, I just need to calm down.”
Actually take 20 minutes. Don’t stew — do something calming.
Come back and try again.

Over time, that pause between trigger and reaction gets longer. That’s where choice lives.

Reflection

What’s your default mode in conflict?
Has a partner ever said something like “you always shut down” or “you never let things go”?
How did conflict work in your family growing up? (This often predicts adult patterns)
When you’re flooded, what does it feel like in your body?

References

Buehlman, K. T., Gottman, J. M., & Katz, L. F. (1992). How a couple views their past predicts their future: Predicting divorce from an oral history interview. Journal of Family Psychology, 5(3-4), 295-318. Gottman Institute PDF
Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. CreateSpace. Pete Walker’s Website
Gottman, J. M. (1994). What Predicts Divorce? The Relationship Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Taylor & Francis
Gottman, J. M., Coan, J., Carrère, S., & Swanson, C. (1998). Predicting marital happiness and stability from newlywed interactions. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60(1), 5-22. doi:10.2307/353438
Christensen, A., & Heavey, C. L. (1990). Gender and social structure in the demand/withdraw pattern of marital conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(1), 73-81. UCLA Research
Papp, L. M., Kouros, C. D., & Cummings, E. M. (2009). Demand-withdraw patterns in marital conflict in the home. Personal Relationships, 16(2), 285-300. PMC3218801
Holley, S. R., Haase, C. M., Chui, I., & Bloch, L. (2018). Depression, emotion regulation, and the demand/withdraw pattern during intimate relationship conflict. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 35(3), 408-430. doi:10.1177/0265407517733334
Heffner, K. L., Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., Loving, T. J., Glaser, R., & Malarkey, W. B. (2004). Wives’ and husbands’ cortisol reactivity to proximal and distal dimensions of couple conflict. Psychosomatic Medicine, 66(6), 924-932. PMC3775283
Attachment dimensions and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (2011). Communication Research Reports, 28(1), 16-26. doi:10.1080/08824096.2010.518910

Next up: Your Emotional Needs — what actually makes you feel loved.