To Reduce Relationship Conflict, Do These 7 Things

While there’s still time to salvage it.

Karen Nimmo
Published in
4 min readDec 13, 2020

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You’ve had a fight with your partner.

No drama, you tell yourself. It’s normal — even healthy to clear the air. But you wonder…lately there have been more niggles, more blowouts between the two of you.

When you think about it, your relationship is quite different from a few years back. You couldn’t wait to spend time together; now it feels like you’re sliding in the opposite direction.

You’re both busy, you’re both always tired, you feel like it doesn’t take much to say the wrong thing and, before you know it, you’re scrapping — again.

It’s starting to worry — and stress — you. How can you get things back on the rails?

To Reduce Relationship Conflict, Do These 7 Things

“Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.” — William James

Everyone fights. Okay, maybe a few saintly couples don’t ever go there but they’re rare. Most of us stray onto…

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Karen Nimmo

Clinical psychologist, author of 4 books. Editor of On the Couch: Practical psychology for health and happiness. karen@onthecouch.co.nz