James Cordova

And, you know, she would try and

And he would feel judged.

And then they would, you know, sort of turn away from each other.

You know, she'd try a few times and then give up in frustration.

And he would feel judged and just sort of wander off.

So one of the patterns that we often see in couples is how they respond when there is conflict between the two of them.

So something comes up that feels tense or hurtful or painful in some way.

And our natural human reaction when something is painful most often is some version of either fight or flight.

And so some of us lean a little bit more in the direction of fight.

We're sort of like porcupines.

When we're having conflict, we pull our quills out, we push our quills out, and we go toward our partner.

The sense inside of that is, I'm going to resolve this problem myself.

By moving towards it and fighting it.

And for others of us, we're more like turtles.

We've learned something more of a flight response to feeling pain.

So when we're feeling that stress of conflict or judgment, we get quiet.

We pull inside.

Sometimes it's just getting quiet.

Sometimes it's actually literally leaving the room.

And the pattern emerges such that it can happen in either direction.