Avoiding Gridlock

Has there ever been a situation in your relationship where you both cannot come to an agreement? You are going round and round and just can't seem to come to an argument. Many couples have their "gridlock" problems. How do you cope with these gridlock problems? Do you let it affect your whole marriage? Dr. Gottman talked about how an important aspect into avoiding gridlock is to ,”…spend some extra time on strengthening your fondness and admiration and practice turning toward each other”. It is really hard to look past certain problems or even work on them when you are turned away from each other. I have noticed this with the relationships in my life. For example, in my last relationship, there was a big issue that needed to be worked on and we were definitely deadlocked. But when we were not talking about the problem, we were fighting about other little things that were not important. Instead of focusing on the things that we enjoyed of each other and turning towards each other, we did the exact opposite and it eventually lead to the end of the relationship. This is what you do not want to do. Strong marriages do not let these gridlock problems overcome their entire marriage. You need to have that separation and focus on the good things going on in your marriage.