Today is a short but powerful episode on emotional flooding that can lead to stonewalling or, in other words, a total emotional shutdown. But have no fear. I’m going to give you 8 steps to self-soothe when you or your spouse feel this way. You will find show notes to this episode at reviveyourmidlifemarriage.com/13. 

There are times in our relationship that conflict can emit intense emotions. It can feel so overwhelming we can totally shut down. This shut down is called stonewalling. I talked about it in episode 9 When I spoke of 4 things to avoid in a fight. If you haven’t listened to that, you can find that at reviveyourmidlifemarriage.com/9. Stonewalling is one of the four horsemen you want to avoid when having any conflict. You don’t want the wall to come up because it shuts down any resolution to the problem. 

Let me give you what happens in your body when you are flooded before stonewalling. Your heart rate increases, your body goes rigid, your breathing becomes shallow, and your emotions override your thinking. Then your brain goes into fight or flight mode.  Guess how rational you are in fight or flight mode? It’s like seeing a car coming toward you in your lane. Your brain doesn’t think, your adrenaline spikes and you go into instinctual reactionary mode. You don’t think, “Oh, there is a car coming toward me in my lane. What would be the best way to handle this?. No. You react and remove yourself from the danger.

Now according to research, in 85% of heterosexual marriages, the man is the stonewaller.  In studying the physiological response among the sexes, men are more overwhelmed by marital conflict than women.  However, this doesn’t mean women can’t stonewall. I have experienced my own stonewalling in almost every relationship.

I use to be the queen of getting so overwhelmed that I walked away and refused to engage any longer, refusing to come back to the issue at hand. My favorite phrase was, “I’m done with you.” 

 My daughter and I were having a heart to heart about a conflict she was having with her significant other the other day. She was detailing what happened and her response. We laughed out loud when she told me she said, “I’m done with you!” and walked out. We both knew where she learned that skill. She even said It sounded just like you, mom.   Of course, we spent another 30 minutes on the phone talking about how to de-escalate with self-soothing and coming back to talk. Thank God I’ve learned better skills so I can help my kids become better partners. 

Problems in any relationship have to be discussed rationally -not that emotions aren’t present, but manageable, or they can become a roadblock.

 So, I want to give you 8 things to self-soothe when you feel emotionally flooded during the conflict.  This is called progressive muscle relaxation to being our bodies and minds down to a calmer state.


Complete show notes to this episode can be found at  http://reviveyourmidlifemarriage.com/13