The Repair Window

It finished about forty minutes ago. At some point their breathing changed and they were asleep, and you are not asleep — you're running the whole conversation again, with better lines this time, wondering what it means that a person can fall asleep in the middle of this. Both bodies go up during a disagreement, and coming down takes considerably longer than the conversation did. Two people rarely come down at the same rate. This one-page guide is for working out your own small move — one that carries no content about the argument at all, and can be made long before anything is resolved.

This is for the ordinary version. If the arguments between you leave you feeling unsafe, or the same one keeps happening with no shift in it, that is worth taking to someone who can sit with both of you.

What's inside

A single page for the hour after, worked out in daylight rather than at midnight.

• Six things the time after an argument tends to do — the transcript, the better lines, the audit, the one o'clock apology, the breathing check, the morning plan
• What happens in the time after — the shape of it, written down so you recognise it next time
• What may be happening in theirs — held loosely, with no verdict attached
• Three moves with no content in them — ordinary and domestic, and the one you'd actually reach for
• A reflection line for what you noticed

It mistakes a recovery rate for a character trait.

The prompts are fillable — type straight into the page on your phone or laptop, and save it.