Summary
Joe Hudson shares the most powerful trick for fighting well in relationships: making agreements about how you’ll fight before you’re in a conflict. He emphasizes this can’t happen in the heat of the moment because your nervous system is already activated—it has to be done during calm times.
He tells the story of watching friends fight in Colorado who modeled two key things: they didn’t hide their conflict (refusing to make fighting shameful), and mid-fight one partner said “we agreed not to use that word,” the other immediately acknowledged it, and they continued. Joe and his wife Tara were stunned and adopted the practice. The friends even experimented with fighting naked to increase vulnerability, which transformed the quality of their conflicts.
Joe explains that agreements can include specific words you won’t use, promises not to threaten divorce, sentences that defuse trauma responses (like Tara saying “I see how much you care” when Joe gets rushed), and protocols for being with each other’s emotions—sitting with tears without fixing, or leaving the room when anger feels abusive. The key is that agreements must be mutually created, revisited regularly as both people grow, and held with grace rather than rigidity.
Key Concepts
- Relationship agreements create safe conflict
- Fighting without shame transforms conflict
- Vulnerability transforms the quality of conflict
- Name your trauma in the fight
Key Quotes
“One of the biggest tricks for fighting well is just making some agreements before you fight.”
“They didn’t hide their fight from us. They weren’t going to go into the shame. They weren’t going to say fighting was shameful.”
“Our agreement was that whenever we got in a fight we get naked… it totally changed the way they fought.”
“She just says ‘I see how much you care’ and it totally just makes me go soft because I’m in a rush because of the way that I was raised, not because of what the fuck is going on right now.”
“Your first set of agreements are not going to be great. You’re going to learn some shit and you’re going to have another set of agreements.”
Transcript
one of the biggest tricks for fighting well is just making some agreements before you fight and that doesn’t mean like oh we’re about to get in a fight now let me how are we going to do this that doesn’t work because by the time you’re getting in a fight your nervous system is already wild so this is about like sometime when you’re not fighting sit down and say how do we want to fight together and I remember Taran and I one day we were I think we had I think we were seeing some friends in Colorado and they got in a fight and it they they gave us a couple examples the first one was they didn’t hide their fight from us they weren’t going to go into the shame they weren’t going to say fighting was shameful and they could do that because they weren’t abusing each other right they weren’t trying to control each other they were just having a conflict and so that was like quite a lovely thing to see in itself but the secondary thing was at some point in the fight somebody said what was it exactly it was like somebody said uh oh yeah hey we agreed not to do that we oh we we agreed not to use that word and the other one was like oh yeah sorry and then they continued with the conflict and I was like what the what the T and I looked at each other like what the fuck just said like that’s not how but that’s not how you fight and so we asked them about it after their fight ended which was like in a relatively short period of time and I said uh what what the hell what the hell was that and like oh we have an agreement we have our agreements on how we F and they literally had a piece of paper which T and I never have done and though would probably be a good idea to have a like have them written down because I think we forget them often they they said even at one point and then T and I experimented with this they said at one point our agreement was that whenever we got in a fight we get naked so like if we’re going to fight we’re going to be completely unclothed and be completely vulnerable and they said it totally changed the way they fought and it changed the way Teran I fought too and we we don’t do it to this day they stopped doing it but like you can literally have agreement ments of like the words that you’re not going to say and you’re not going to make threats you’re not going to threaten divorce you’re and to have those agreements and the thing that I’ll say about it is that if you do that don’t expect to live up to all of the agreements on your first fight right and but also don’t make it an excuse not to it’s our first fight so I haven’t you really want to try to maintain the agreements and you don’t want to have a fight over the fact that you didn’t maintain the agreements so it’s it’s really important to be able to say that’s not our agreement and be able to stop and say okay yeah that’s true we agreed to this and it’s also important that those Agreements are actually something that are creative and make you both feel good and that you both actually agree to you so it’s not like a cajoling like okay so this is how we’re going to fight right good like it’s literally like oh when you do this I can say this and so T and I have a many of those things like so for instance if I feel like in a rush and that’s creating conflict she knows like our rules are she just says I see how much you care and it totally just makes me go soft because I’m in a rush because of the way that I was raised not because of what the fuck is going on right now right it’s my trauma it’s not the real thing and she knows that that one thing that she’s just acknowledging my care can totally disintegrate that rush for me and disintegrate my like urge to try to control her to speed up so it can be many kinds of agreements like sentences that you say when somebody is in their trauma or the agreement of if somebody says hey I’m in my trauma then you go over and you just touch them or when somebody’s sad one of our agreements is like when somebody’s crying we don’t try to stop them we don’t try to fix it we just be with them in their tears you know or if somebody’s angry and you need and you feel like it’s abuse you say hey I need that to stop can you please go into a different room and then you go into a different room and get angry and come back like there’s all sorts of agreements you can have and they have to be yours they have to be something not prescribed by me but there something that you and your partner sit down with and say how do we want to fight how do we want to be with each other and your first set of Agreements are not going to be great they’re you’re gonna learn some shit and you’re GNA have another set of agreements you’re going to have another so to to go back to that set of agreements over and over again and say this is how we want to fight together this is how we W to have our conflict because we’re speaking our truth because we’re growing because we’re changing as human beings we’re going to have these fights and this is how we want to do it so that they’re most productive so that we can get to growth quicker so that we can love each other better these are our agreements and it’s just so good to have them