Today my wife asked me a question… why is it that when two people fight, they bring up issues from the long past? How is that when Jill is pissed off at Jimmy, she can remember that time 3 years ago when Jimmy embarrassed her in front of her parents? Why doesn’t Timmy from sales ever seem to let go that time when Joanne screwed up his presentation and cost him a big client? It goes on and on, but we’ve all been there.



There are a couple reasons this happens, one of them being that our brains are actually designed to remember other people’s mistakes/flaws more clearly than their achievements. It’s called selective memory retention and it plays itself out in lots of interesting ways. It’s especially powerful against those who we don’t like or possibly consider our enemies.

When you get into a fight, especially a more serious argument, that person becomes your enemy, even if for a short time. In that moment your animal brain will go ahead and pick out all the memories that serve you in that fight. So you can defend yourself and win.

Selective memory retention is really useful for making us feel better about ourselves but it makes it very difficult to be fair in an argument. Then again, how many of us are concerned with being fair? We want to be right.

The other major reason we bring up negative memories and incidents in a disagreement is that we never got over the incident when it occurred. Bitterness and resentment are a special kind of poison that slowly erode trust, respect and love in any relationship. They fester and build up over time and explode at the first opportunity when there is a serious argument.

Resilience and strength in a relationship come from a strong foundation of effective conflict resolution, which in turn are based on trust and respect. Good communication is the engine that keeps everything running smoothly.

Everytime a conflict arises you have a few choices.

Use it as an opportunity to learn, grow and strengthen your bonds



Run away from it either by simple avoidance, passive aggressiveness or not addressing it completely which will certainly increase the chances of bitterness and resentment poisoning the future



Use it as an opportunity to demonstrate your power and attack the other person gaining some advantage, perceived or real



Some combination of the above



Of course option 1 is the healthiest, but it’s also the most time consuming and difficult, at least in the short term. Recognize that you are simply borrowing from future happiness when you decide to take one of the easier options.

The next time you are in an argument and find yourself bringing up negativity from the distant past, ask yourself :

Am I allowing my animal brain to take over here by selectively remembering things that help me beat my current “enemy” instead of being fair and objective?



Why do I still feel so much negativity about this?



How can I address this in a way that it won’t seem relevant in the future?



What is the point of bringing this up now?



What can I do now, so that this current argument won’t linger and be brought into future discussions?



Hopefully this helps you get a little more insight into what’s going on in our heads when we are in the middle of an argument, and next time we can use those disagreements as an opportunity to learn, grow and be a little more awesome.