Most adults are familiar with the idea of the timeout. A child gets a timeout when he or she crosses a boundary, pushes too much, yells too loud, disobeys too long. How is a timeout helpful? Kids need limits and, more often, a chance to cool down when they are upset.
Adults, though older, are still much the same. You too can get out of line when you get upset. You cross lines, you say things you don’t mean, or worse, say things you do mean and can’t take back. Adults can use timeouts just as much as children can. But, as opposed to children, you, an adult, don’t have anyone to give you a timeout when you need one.
Or is that true? As an adult, no matter how angry you are, there are some lines, and some people, you generally don't cross. When a police officer holds you up at a traffic stop, you keep cool. When you feel insulted by your boss, you hold your tongue. A boss or an officer are people with some power over you. They can give you a timeout - or the adult equivalent: a night in jail, or a suspension from work - so you keep yourself together and prevent a tough situation from getting worse.
So, at work or in public, you can be given a timeout. At home, on the other hand, you can’t be jailed, suspended, or even ticketed. Is that because you are a master of self-control at home? Probably not. Adult self-control of the "Yes, sir. It won't happen again, sir" variety usually falters once you step inside your own front door. Judging from the clients I see who have experienced physical and emotional abuse at home, home is a place where timeouts are most needed.
At home there is no cop or boss with power over you, no one who has the authority to enact official consequences over you for getting angry and ‘crossing the line’. That contributes to the reason why, at home, it’s easier to slip into timeout worthy behavior. At least that's one way to look at it.
There's more to it than that though. Adults need timeouts not because of a lack of consequences when lines are crossed at home. You need timeouts when someone crosses you and causes you to feel you are of no consequence. I believe timeout worthy behavior rises out of moments when you feel powerless and marginalized. These moments are pretty common: your spouse isn't listening to you, forgot you, or doesn't seem to appreciate or even care about you. These are the kinds of moments which tempt you to raise your volume, push your spouse - verbally or physically, dismiss him or her, reject his or her complaints, or withdraw into a stony silence which sends a harmful message as well. At home, you need to feel like you matter. I believe when you don't feel like you matter, or don't feel loved enough, that's when you cross lines.
It's tempting to point at the figure of a boss or the police and say that you need to be that person in power at home, because without power at home, lines get crossed, and, more importantly, you get hurt. The problem, though, isn't that you are not in charge, the problem is that in your marriage you're not the only one in charge.
You and your spouse are on the same level at home. Each of you has the same rights, responsibilities - at least I imagine you aim for that, and power. However, all the same, at times you feel like you don't matter to your partner. That feeling hurts and you fight that feeling. Or, I should say, that feeling makes you fight. Besides, even if you did have greater power than your spouse at home, you would matter based on fear really, not love and acceptance of who you are.
When you feel discounted, overlooked, or marginalized, it hurts. That hurt is much greater when you feel it at home, and you see it caused by your husband or wife, the one person who committed to loving and cherishing you. That kind of hurt makes you want to fight. It makes you angry.
When couples - and parents with children too - give way to anger in their thinking, there is a subtle but real change. The loving couple, or happy family, imperceptibly, but truly, morph into adversaries. It may only be temporary, but as anger rises, an angry person feels the stakes rise too, and your foundation of loving connection with your spouse fades out of all perception and accessible memory. With anger, love and connection evaporate, as does restraint, which leads to escalation, and a conflict becomes a fight. At its worst, the moment you feel you don't matter, you see an adversary in front of you, and you show your "loved one" that that they don't matter - at least not as much as you do. And why? Because you feel hurt. My Franco-American grandmother, whom we called Memere, had a phrase for instances heading towards adversity; “ca va tourner un joue des chienes”, that’s going to turn into a game of dogs.
The best reason to take a time out is to keep yourself from losing your mind. That’s pretty much what happens when you forget yourself and lose grasp of your love for the person in front of you. I imagine that's what people lose when they say "I just lost it". If so, when you lose it, you can't see a spouse. You see only an opponent. Opponents are okay in games, but even in games, heated moments run a risk of becoming a game of dogs.
The rules of the timeout are simple, starting with this: adults take their own time outs. As an adult you are a free and autonomous human being so you are responsible for yourself. For the same reason you can't give another adult a timeout. Kids can take their own timeouts as well, but because children don't typically have enough awareness of themselves, and because adults are responsible for kids, adults generally assign time outs to kids. The bottom line though is this: when you are starting to feel angry, prevent yourself from getting all the way there, take a timeout.
Timeouts are predetermined in length. I suggest a minimum of 30 minutes. This is highly important for two reasons. A time limit of any amount helps prevent you from using a timeout like a dramatic storm off, intending to abandon or shut someone out. It's harder to shut someone out when you leave on "I'll be back in 30 minutes, after I cool down." The amount of time, 30 minutes, is useful because adults need about 30 minutes to calm down after becoming escalated in a conflict to the point of feeling angry.
Come up with a timeout signal. I suggest the universally recognized "timeout" hand signal, the two hand held together - fingers extended on one hand and held perpendicular to the open palm of the other hand - in a "T" shape. Any word or phrase that works for you both will do the job. When you realize that you're getting to the point of feeling angry, and you know you heading toward crossing some lines, give your “timeout” signal and tell your partner you'll be back in 30 minutes.
Very simply, separate for thirty minutes. Go for a walk around the block, get a coffee, sit in another room, take a shower, do a chore or two. After 30 minutes, return to your spouse and check in. Are you still feeling angry? Is he or she angry now? If either one or both of you are still feeling angry then continue the timeout for one hour more. Then check in again. If need be, extend the time out for 2 more hours, then half a day, then a whole day. Return only after you are calmed down and you can see a spouse again, not an adversary. Also, I recommend tabling the topic which lead to a timeout for a day. After cooling down once, returning to the same topic of conflict, while tempting, usually leads to more timeouts or a fight.
During a timeout, your main goal is simple, though not easy. Cool off and come back. You want to come down from anger, come out of an adverse stance of you vs me and get back into relationship, an orientation of we. A relationship rests on the foundation of the mutually held belief that “my spouse/partner wants me to be happy." If you can't see that yet, in any way, you probably need more time.
Relationships will have conflict, but not all conflicts are fights. Timeouts aren’t meant to avoid conflict. Timeouts help keep conflict from turning into fights. So once you cool off and come back to that orientation of we, hopefully you can see your spouse again as a loving partner and you’ll both be back in a better frame of mind. You both want each other to be happy and to be happy with each other. Great place to be, right? From that place, you’ll be better able to see some of his or her point of view again and he or she will be better able to see yours too.
How do you know you’re not done with a timeout? If any part of you still feels angry, and reacts to your partner as an adversary, then you still need time out. Some signs that you need more time in your timeout include thinking in angry or defensive tones, thoughts like, “He always…”, or “She never…”, or “He is so ____...”, or “I never _____, but she always does...". If you still feel angry and your thoughts sound like these, take more time. You have plenty of it. Take it. Cool down. In my experience working with relationships I've never had someone tell me, "We got angry, yelled at each other, and found a new level of mutual respect and understanding." It just doesn't work like that.
Some different methods or techniques can be used to temper your anger and come back around to that orientation of we. First, give yourself permission to feel some anger. Feeling angry is okay, and when you do feel angry you probably do have some good reason to. As mentioned, the problem, is not feeling angry but that adverse responses kick in after you get angry enough. Giving yourself permission to feel angry can help you feel less angry.
Second, remember that when you’re still angry you’ll be looking for an opponent and evidence against them, rather than a lover and reasons to connect with them. As you listen to the angry thinking in your head, try looking for exceptions to the always/never thoughts about your spouse. Using humor here can really help too.
Third, try to let go of some of the angry thinking. Replace it for the moment. That’s where you take that walk, get that coffee, or go get a quick workout. Let those angry and opponent oriented thoughts subside again. In the course of the timeout you’ll come to a point when you actively choose to return to the we orientation. You need to let the heat die down enough to make that shift, or wait for the weight of the moment to pass, but in the end it doesn’t happen on its own. You will exercise some choice to return to that we orientation.
So you’re done with your timeout, you feel bruised still, some annoyance, but you hopefully can feel a little love for your spouse coming back. Maybe you can let yourself believe again, that even if done poorly, he/she does want you to be happy too. Do you then jump right back into the topic of conflict again? No way! Give yourselves a break. Take a bit of time. The strain of a fight is like popping a shoulder or elbow out of joint. To fix it you put all the parts back in alignment, but still give it time to tighten up again before taking on a workload. Decide, as part of your timeout system, when next you’ll revisit the topic – especially topics that must be addressed – and prepare yourself a bit, before hand, to approach the matter from a we orientation knowing that you’ll both be tempted to get angry and shift back into an adversaries.
The point here is NOT to avoid hot topics. The point is to build a discipline, that of speaking with your wife or husband always from a place of loving respect and connection, especially when it’s hard to do. This is simple once you get the gist of it, however, it’s always hard to do. When the heat rises and the tension builds, a timeout can help you do that.
If you want to hear more about time-outs, and, with your spouse/partner, learn to communicate more effectively and have conflicts without the fight, e-mail me at Andre@appsychotherapy.com, or call me at (617) 326 - 8404 to schedule a consultation
