The experts also offered advice on what you can do instead.
Once, when my husband, Tom, and I were battling about something, I got so worked up that I blurted, like an angry toddler: “You bad man!”
Conflict is “inevitable and normal in intimate relationships,” said Andrew Christensen, a distinguished research professor at the U.C.L.A. department of psychology. But the way that couples manage it is a key to a healthy bond, he added.
There’s a productive way to deal with conflict — attacking the problem rather than each other, for example — and an unhelpful way that fails to resolve the fight or makes it worse.
Name-calling, as I did, falls under the second category. (Fortunately, Tom laughed, which made me — grudgingly — laugh, too.)
Other unproductive habits? Criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling — often referred to as the “four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse.”
But there are additional red flags that can arise when partners fight. I asked experts to share some, along with advice for what to do instead.