Many of you know I’ve been a fan and follower of Dr. Corey Allan for quite some time. I’ve gotten to read a manuscript he’s working on about marriage, and I could barely contain my enthusiasm. There’s nothing out there like it. I asked him if he would provide all of you with a little taste, and he’s graciously agreed to do so. Corey blends the best of Scriptural truth and psychological/physiological insight to offer a tool that will help couples break out of unproductive and even destructive conflict. As an added benefit, learning this method will also help you surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit in your mind and heart. Because, as most of us know, most marital fights aren’t really just about the fight; they’re about what’s happening in our hearts and souls.
The Two Words That Can Stop Any Argument
By Dr. Corey Allan
Susan was mid-rant and she knew it.
Her husband had done the thing again — the thing she’d asked him not to do, the thing they’d “talked about” a dozen times. And so she was letting him have it. Volume rising. Accusations sharpening. A greatest-hits compilation of every time he’d let her down, delivered with the precision of a prosecutor building a case.
Then she saw her teenage son’s face.
He was sitting at the kitchen table. She hadn’t noticed him. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t scared, exactly. He was just watching — studying her the way children study the adults they depend on, trying to figure out if the world is safe.
In that moment, Susan saw herself the way he saw her.
She took a breath. And then she said two words that changed the temperature in the room:
“I’m regressed.”
When the Crucible Gets Hot
If you’ve read Gary Thomas’s work, you already know that marriage is designed to make you holy. The friction isn’t a flaw — it’s the system working. Marriage is a crucible: a container strong enough to hold the heat that refines you.
I believe that. I’ve staked my career on it.
But here’s what I’ve learned after twenty-plus years of counseling couples: believing that marriage is a crucible and knowing what to do when it’s actually burning are two very different things. The theology is sound. The 9:47 PM experience of your spouse saying the thing that sends you spiraling? That requires something more than theology. It requires a kind of in-the-moment awareness that most of us have never been taught.
I use a metaphor I call The Trench — modeled on the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean. When conflict heats up, you don’t just get upset. You sink. Your nervous system drops you into increasingly primitive functioning. At the surface, you can think clearly, respond with wisdom, and stay connected. But as you descend, your capacity narrows. Nuance disappears. Your spouse stops being the complex, image-bearing human you married and becomes a threat to be managed.
At the very bottom, you become what I call an Ugly Fish. Not because you’re a bad person, but because extreme emotional pressure produces creatures built for survival, not connection. Down there, you’re not interested in understanding your spouse. You’re interested in winning, escaping, or making the pain stop.
Everyone sinks. The question is whether you’ll notice before you hit bottom.
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