How to Make Up With a Spouse

What's worse than fighting with your husband or wife? Not knowing how to make up after the fight is over. Making up with a spouse is difficult because you know each other very well. You know how to press each other's "hot buttons," and you can strike where it hurts. Once you and your spouse have hurt each other, it's hard to get over that hurt long enough to make up. Even after you've both admitted the problem is under control, your emotions aren't.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Take a break. Tell your spouse you need some space to distance yourself from the fight that just happened. Be sure to make it clear that you're not abandoning the conversation or your spouse, but are simply giving yourself some time to get your head together.

2. Ask your spouse if she wants a break, too. Give her the same courtesy of time and space that you would like.

3. Think about whether the fight is really over. Are all the major issues resolved? Do you feel you've been heard and understood by your spouse? Have you come to a common agreement over what happened? If unresolved issues remain, do they really need resolving right now? Think of both yourself and your spouse as you answer this. If you decide the fight really is over, you're ready to make up.

4. Apologize to your spouse. Whether or not you were right about the subject of the fight is not important. Chances are, you hurt your spouse. For that, apologize and show him that you care and are sorry.

5. Take some time to decide whether or not to forgive your spouse if she apologizes. Be honest about your feelings. Talk through matters if they need to be talked through.

6. Kiss your spouse, make love or engage in some other "return-to-normal" form of expression to show your spouse that the fight is over and reassure him that all is forgiven and that you still love him.

Tips & Warnings

• Whether you're fighting about an ongoing issue or a new issue and trying to fix it with a real solution, a fight is hard to recover from. Making up, however, is an essential part of fighting. It restores your relationship with your spouse to its normal state.
• If you don't go through the process of making up, anger and hurt are likely to simmer and result in another fight in the near future.
• Apologies can sometimes be accompanied by less friendly statements that take the form of "guilt trips," "blame trips" and excuses. If this is happening, you and your spouse may not be ready to make up.

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