Blog Post

Do I stay or do I follow? How Sheldon and Amy resolve their conflicts

Silvia Bauer • 31 March 2023

How Amy and Sheldon resolve their conflicts

resolving relationship conflicts

Hi there
I am back with another look at our friends from TBBT and their social skills. This time I decided to have a closer look at Amy and Sheldon’s relationship skills. I was particularly interested in their way of handling conflicts. Although Sheldon may usually not excel with social skills, it seems like he figured out how to communicate successfully with Amy. As I know that some of you may question their relationship skills now and then, I was interested in understanding out how those guys grow and deepen their relationship – slowly but nevertheless – growth accelerating as Amy declares on their wedding day.


Like it or not, handling conflict is one of the key skills in creating secure functioning relationships. In consequence, I decided to zoom into Amy and Sheldon heading into their conflicts. I am not sure if you expected that, but I didn’t run short on examples… they had quick and quiet arguments, plenty of running away and even some shouting duel.


I divided this blog into 3 parts:
1.  How to interrupt fights or “Do you want to run away and slam the door?”
2.  How do you calm yourself down or “increase your alpha-wave activity!”
3.  How do you repair conflict or “do I stay or do I follow?”

Let’s dive into the heat of the moment:


1.   Do you want to run away and slam the door?

Sometimes your partner says or does something, and you’re losing your mind within seconds, right?

There’s no better reaction than to escape – for the moment. And that’s perfectly fine. When we’re stressed out, just about to freak out, there’s no better choice than immediately interrupt what we’re doing. In those moments, the emergency program in our brain gets activated and prevents us from thinking clearly.

That’s entirely reasonable, considering it was originally designed to rescue us from the famous saber-toothed tiger or whatever catastrophe just occurred. In such a life-threatening situation we’re not supposed to start elaborating a creative solution – but better fight or RUN!... this strategy saved our lives countless times and humankind survived. Great success, I’d say.


Just for empathetically listening to your spouse and elaborating a win-win-situation from scratch – NOT a great starting point.


So please, storm off. Maybe you remember Season 11, Episode 1 when Amy is upset about the way Sheldon treated her colleagues. Back home, they get into the argument whether Sheldon “always has to be” the smartest person in the room.

Amy lets Sheldon know, “I am storming off into my room”.

Sheldon is left behind pretty confused, then calls Stephen Hawking for marital advice…


Good for them, Sheldon generally doesn’t react strongly to being left alone, AND Amy has a great way of letting him know what’s going on.
Maybe you remember season 12, Episode 1 when they had a fight on the street during their honeymoon: Amy lets him know that she will walk away if he wouldn’t stop… and he doesn’t. She walks off.


They can repair their conflict soon after
… but, before we get to repairing the conflict, our upset partners better slow down themselves.

 

2.  Increase your alpha-wave activity!

After escaping to your room – or whatever place you find most suitable…remember, in Season 11, Episode 1, Sheldon is sitting in the bathroom when he calls Stephen Hawking for relationship advice.

So, no matter where you are, try to soothe yourself and calm down. Distracting is a wonderful strategy, although many people underestimate our natural reaction of watching videos, reading or gaming. It’s incredibly helpful to calm down from overwhelm and distance yourself from the stressful situation.


What other strategies do you know to calm yourself down?
There are some situations in TBBT the characters bring up suggestions about handling stress:


1.  In Season 1, Episode 3, Sheldon asks Leonard to sit down and increase his alpha wave activities in his brain when he feels like having a panic attack. Well, Sheldon is perfectly right – just his way of instructing is not really helpful.

But increasing alpha waves does help reducing stress and anxiety and allows people to stay more focused. There are plenty of “meditation-“ or “relaxing-“ music on Youtube with a low frequencies that help realizing Sheldon's intention.

As this video suggests - please be aware that it usually takes 20-30 minutes to calm down.

 2.    Another strategy Sheldon looks up in when Amy is upset – is going on a walk. Well, as it’s Sheldon, he leaves for a walk when Amy is upset … it’s rather supposed to be the other way round.

3.    In Season 11, Episode 5, Penny tries Bernadette’s parenting book on Sheldon and does a great job in validating his feelings this way “that would frustrate me. Does it frustrate you? I get this.”
This way of talking appears peculiar, especially as Sheldon’s worries are hard to get for Penny – but actually turning towards a friend who really gets you and validates your feelings is a great way to calm down.

4.    Cleaning or washing the dishes – practically anything you get into doing and physically sensing something can be helpful. In Season 9, Episode 9, Raj explains that washing the dishes can be an excellent form of meditation: “The key is that while washing the dishes, one should only be washing the dishes. It’s about being present in the moment, focusing on the feeling of the warm water, the smell of the detergent, the sound of the dishes squeaking and your own breath. It’s about simply be…” and like any other form of meditation, it helps you to ease into the present moment and letting go of activation.
Amy cleans the fridge from inside out when she is upset. That’s equally helpful.

The more artificial but for sure very effective way is guided meditation. Guided Meditation or Bodyscan on YouTube, Headspace on Netflix or Meditation Apps will do their job. I really fancy Headspace, but for sure there are thousands of Apps available. As there are so many choices – it will be helpful to choose one BEFORE you are stressed out. Keep your favorite handy. It may not be helpful to start searching when you’re already stressed out. You could get stuck in the choosing process – and that's probably less soothing.


3.    Do I stay or do I follow?
After calming down and having soothed your mind and body, it’s time to come back together. The conflict is still not resolved, and shoving it under the rug will really erode your trust and hurt the relationship over the long run.

Most likely you didn’t just storm off – out of the blue – but there is an underlying reason that caused the conflict. There are different types of reasons for arguing. It may be relieving to be on the same page about the cause of your conflict, e.g. value differences or childhood projections.
But not matter if you can classify your conflict or not – repair must be done.

Like with any fixing, the sooner, the better. But if you’re not capable of fixing soon, don’t underestimate the value of any repair at all – however late.
Repairing conflict requires being fully present with the partner, and it may take some attempts until every hurt, anger and pain could be seen, heard and understood on both sides. Just don’t give up, until you both feel really relieved and emotionally reconnected. And usually, an apology is required on both sides. It takes two to tango.


In Amy and Sheldon’s fight we started this Blog with, in Season 11, Episode 2 about the way Sheldon showed up towards Amy’s friends at Princeton University, Sheldon makes up his mind and comes back very concisely:

1. He checks in to see if Amy was available to listen to him. This is a small but nevertheless meaningful step. It shows respect for the partner’s time and availability. Understandably, many people feel more pressured than Sheldon and spill the apology over their partner, no matter if they’re ready to listen or not. That may go well – or may not. Sheldon’s way is definitely more considerate.

2. He shares his considerations. He takes responsibility for his behavior. Strikingly, he starts the following three sentenced with I: “I’ve been thinking about the adventures. I realized that Iron Man is great, and also Captain America is great… and that should have been me tonight. I should have been…”

3. As we all know, Sheldon has a hard time relating to emotions directly, so he compares himself to Iron Man and his story. That allows Amy to be able to relate to Sheldon’s experience without diving into the depth of his feelings.

4. In the next step, Sheldon makes promises, he’ll do a better job in the future about “sharing the spotlight” with Amy… as they’re a team. Amy seems deeply touched, they even hug.

Last but not the least, Amy sets very real expectations about the appearance of conflicts, “we have a lifetime to practice”. That and Sheldon’s reoccurring willingness to engage in this argument-repair-cycle sets their relationship up to deepen.

So, you can see how Sheldon put his formula successfully into practice by really checking in with his experience of the conflict and sharing it bravely with Amy. Please feel free to follow through with Sheldon’s steps:
1.    Check on your partner’s availability
2.    Take responsibility for your (mis)behavior
3.    Share about your inside world (feelings are welcome, but not the only way)
4.    Come up with improvements for similar situations in the future

As you may have guessed, the answer to the headline is always:
Follow! The only question is about the timing.
That means the soon you and your partner calm down and are open to revisiting the conflict. 
Then you go out and follow through with your repair. Until you end up there:

Putting into practice…
I hope I could introduce you to a successful way of handling conflict that leads eventually to personal growth and accelerated growing love. Please don’t expect to work through this whole process on your own. Many times, it’s harder than it appears due to the high stakes at risk. So don’t feel worried turning to friends or a counselor to get help applying that formula.
I hope you enjoyed improving your relationship skills with TBBT characters, and check out my reels for further short tips.

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