He started it. Well, maybe you did. Either way, you don’t want to talk about it anymore. Do you have to finish what you began? No, says David Ransburg, a therapist at the Family Institute at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois. In fact, you shouldn’t continue until you’re calm. “When we’re in a ‘flooded’ emotional state, access to the part of the brain where logical thinking resides is inhibited, and IQ drops noticeably — perhaps by as much as 15 points,” says Ransburg. “This is when we say things we wish we could take back.” So call a time-out. Typically, your logic will return in about 20 minutes, at which point you can resume the discussion in a productive way.

If you can’t call a time-out midspat, practice with tiny disagreements, suggests Ransburg, when you’re both less likely to take things personally: “Knowing you can — and should — do this will make it easier when you really need to take the kettle off the stove.”