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Take a Structured Pause

When you're in it with your partner

For when either of you is above about 70 and staying in the conversation is making it worse.

1. Name it out loud: I need a pause. I'm too flooded to do this well.
2. Say when you will come back — 20 to 30 minutes, not tomorrow, not never.
3. Physically separate. No last jab. No rehearsing your closing argument.
4. Use a body-down practice from this page. Cold water, a sigh, feet on the floor.
5. Return at the time you said. Start with one sentence about the pause, not the original fight.

Why it works: Leaving without a return time is abandonment. Staying while flooded is more damage. The skill is both: step out of the threat response, then come back on purpose.