Have you ever gotten a fishing line all tangled up? You got so frustrated you just started yanking on the different loops of line, which of course made the knots and tangles even tighter and more difficult to untangle.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could notice the minute you were starting to tangle things up in a discussion with your loved one? To be able to stop and take a step back — a time out — before the frustrated yanking occurs? Read Full Story >

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If your time out could be taken before the intense anger and frustration surfaces, the tangles would be far easier to unravel, wouldn’t they? Instead, what I sometimes do is to take space with a “huff,” implying with my body language and tone that “she is impossible, it’s hopeless, I can’t take anymore of this,” etc. 

In such a moment, I’m often afraid that I have only two choices:

I am excited about a new option.  We can take time out in love as an expression of caring for the relationship. Our hope is to get back into connection all the sooner and to protect us from making the tangles all the worse. The key is to create a shared understanding with your loved one that the time out is in the service of reconnecting with yourself, rather than to flee the conversation. 

During that “taking space” time here are 6 things you can do:

"I like that idea, but how do I get there?"
Many of the couples I work with struggle to use a time out or “taking space,” because the inner jackals of guilt and self-judgment are simply too rampant for them to hear their needs. Here’s a common example of the pain I see couples in:

This issue is related to the old freedom/closeness dance — the struggle so many couples have between the desire for intimacy and their need for independence or autonomy. Couples can get too dependent on the idea that their partner is the only person who can meet his/her needs, so much so that they keep the fight going long after it's contributing to either of them.

Don’t listen to one more word than you want to hear
I wish that both men and women would refuse to listen to each other unless they were sure it was a compassionate contribution to the other’s need to be heard instead of a caving-in-concession. May we only “give to” each other and never “give in” to each other lest we breed the slimy serpents of resentment. Taking a time out can often be the best method to “give to” each other when the lines are about to be tangled.

[Of course this dynamic frequently occurs with the genders reversed.  But for the sake of simplicity I will continue to describe this yin/yang dynamic in terms of male and female.]

The pain and the emptiness and the loneliness can become so intense for women that they truly become either desperate or hopeless. They get into aggressive demanding, or pleading, or moping around in self-hate/pity, both of which are hard not to interpret as demands.

Meeting your needs is not dependent on your partner!
If they could just get some high quality listening/empathy somewhere it would take some of the charge and intensity off their pain and make it easier to open a dialogue with their mate.

Some women are afraid to do this because they interpret this as infidelity or disloyalty. Others think of it as inappropriately airing the family’s dirty laundry. Still others are afraid of having their vulnerability trampled upon.

The corresponding frustration, irritation and resentment gets so built up in the men that the slightest request triggers the unleashing of the backlog until their partners are walking around on eggshells.

Their resentment comes due to their own self-abandonment. It comes because they have listened when they needed to be heard. It comes because they were trying to be strong and not need to take space and rest and recharge when they needed it. The resentment is there because they didn’t know they had a choice not to listen when it didn’t fit for them to listen.

Listening to someone when you are really needing to be heard or to rest is violence to the both of you. You violate your responsibility to yourself and begin to hate yourself whenever you don’t take care of your own needs. Also you begin to hate and resent the other and hold the illusion that they are oppressing you.    

Somewhere along the line in the relationship the man grows to dread seeing the woman’s pain for several reasons:

Because he has such fear of his own anger about his powerlessness, and shame about thinking he is somehow inadequate, sophisticated men learn to go up to their heads to hide behind sophisticated projective, politically, and spiritually correct analytical labels of their partners.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Fight to the life, not to the death
Taking a time out to give yourself empathy, and to connect to the needs behind your jackals or anger can help you transform these unproductive and disconnecting ways of thinking. Think of it as your relationship’s preventive medicine. The next time you sense that the lines are getting tangled, try taking a time out in love, but remember to clarify to your partner your intention for doing so — to contribute to a more loving and productive connection later.