This psychologist explains the proven way to reduce conflict in relationships.
1 Strategy For Couples To Fight Less
The key isn't winning arguments, it's truly understanding your partner's perspective. Learn why this works and how to practice it daily.
By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | Last Updated:
For most couples, recurring conflict is about more than just the verbal disagreement at hand. More often, what keeps damaging cycles going is how both partners relate to each other when their emotions are running high.
Research has made it abundantly clear that disagreements are not the real enemy in a relationship; poor understanding of each other's perspectives is. When partners simply try to "win" an argument, rather than genuinely understand each other, frustration, defensiveness and fights escalate.
However, there's one strategy that has consistently been linked with fewer fights, more effective conflict resolution and deeper emotional connection, and it's called perspective-taking.
In simple terms, perspective-taking refers to the exercise of pausing to see a situation through your partner's eyes so you can understand their experience before reacting. A growing body of research shows that perceived perspective-taking in couples has measurable effects on how disagreements unfold.
How Couples Can Practice Perspective-Taking
In a 2025 study published in Contemporary Family Therapy, researchers explored how quality time and perceived perspective-taking intersect to influence conflict resolution among married couples.
The results showed that quality time strengthened emotional closeness and built the belief that one's partner tries to understand their thoughts and feelings. This "felt understanding" then supports positive conflict resolution and reduces destructive conflict behaviors.
What this research underscores is simple but powerful: couples fight less when they trust that their partner understands them. In other words, lasting reductions in conflict are not about suppressing disagreement but about improving empathy and understanding.
Partners can have the best of intentions during disagreements but things can still escalate if they don't have the right tools to apply them. Here are a few tools you can use the next time you want to understand your partner's perspective but don't know how:
- Active listening and validation. Perspective-taking begins with active listening, which isn't merely hearing, but understanding and responding in ways that signal comprehension. This includes reflective listening, or paraphrasing what your partner just said before responding. It also requires emotional validation, communicated through remarks like, "I can see how that would hurt you."
- "I" statements instead of blame. "I feel…" statements focus on one's own emotional experience, rather than accusing the partner. They help the speaker take responsibility for their feelings and invite understanding from the partner. This technique is widely used in couples therapy precisely because it reduces reactive fight-or-flight responses during disagreements. An example of this technique would be to say, "I feel unheard when I don't get a chance to fully explain how I'm feeling," as opposed to sometime more accusatory like, "You never listen to me."
- Pausing Before reacting. When emotions flare, couples tend to respond reflexively, which often escalates a dispute. Small pauses before answering create space for empathy. Even brief breaks are shown to reduce emotional arousal and aggressive reactions in couples' interactions. Even just taking a five-second break before responding significantly lowers aggressive reactions between partners in a conflict.
- Discussing core needs and values. Conflict often expresses deeper values and unmet needs. And talking explicitly about why something matters can open pathways for understanding rather than defensiveness. For example, a fight about chores may actually reflect deeper needs for respect, partnership or emotional closeness, insights often revealed when partners take the time to explain why the topic matters to them.
Why Perspective-Taking Works For Couples
It's worth noting that fighting less doesn't mean never disagreeing. In fact, decades of work by relationship researcher Dr. John Gottman shows that conflict is unavoidable in lasting partnerships. However, the way couples handle conflict predicts relationship quality far more than the absence of conflict itself.
Partners who can genuinely explore each other's perspectives even during disagreements:
- Feel more emotionally connected
- De-escalate disagreements more effectively
- Resolve everyday conflicts without personal attack
Perspective-taking shifts a dispute from adversarial ("Right vs. wrong") to collaborative (understanding each other and problem-solving together). That simple cognitive shift has ripple effects in reducing both the frequency and intensity of fights.
Curious to know your unique romantic style as a couple? Take my Romantic Personality Quiz for an instant, science-inspired answer.
How couples resolve conflict directly informs how satisfied they feel in the relationship. Take the research-informed Relationship Satisfaction Scale to understand your bond better.