4 Strategies to Stop Arguing

You know how it is: Sometimes you feel so much damn love for your partner, you want to eat his face; other times, you'd like to kick him in the teeth. Well, according to recent studies, feeling both love and hate is totally normal. That's because the same area of your brain that activates mushy feelings is also responsible for producing white-hot rage—which helps explain why even happy couples are destined to fight from time to time.

"Arguing can be a sign that your relationship is strong and passionate, and that you're comfortable enough to express negative feelings without fear of losing each other in the process," says Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D., author of Make Up, Don't Break Up.

Still, there are right and wrong ways to resolve disagreements. We break it down.

Use Your Ears, Not Your Mouth
If you find yourself sounding like a playlist on repeat, try pressing pause. "Research has found that unhappy couples tend to repeat themselves out of desperation to be heard, which isn't productive. They wind up talking at each other instead of having a dialogue," says Benjamin Karney, Ph.D., codirector of the Relationship Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Don't Make It Personal
In the heat of an argument, the gloves often come off. The problem, notes Rita DeMaria, Ph.D., director of relationship education at the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia, is that once nasty insults start flying around and feelings are hurt, nothing will be resolved.

Also, according to a study conducted at the University of Chicago, our brains have a built-in "negativity bias," which causes us to be more responsive to unpleasant news. Why? Back in caveman times, our survival as a species was dependent on our ability to stay out of danger, so our brains developed protective systems that made it impossible to overlook the