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How ‘Speed Agreeing’ Could Save Your Relationship

It’s 11:45 p.m. You’re exhausted. According to your calculations (aka how many It’s Always Sunny episodes have played in the background—that’d be two), you’ve been circling around the same point of contention for a full hour, and now, you just want to go to bed. The problem? Your husband is mid-monologue on why loading the dishwasher his way is better. The kicker? You agree. You get it. You want to load the dishwasher his way from now on. You will never put a bowl face-down for the rest of your waking life. So how do you cut to the chase and get on the same page? 

What is “speed agreeing.”

It’s simple; you just yell it out with gusto (you can even give it a little roller-coaster hand motion if you so choose to), and you’ve successfully halted what would’ve been a 45-minute diatribe on why taking the subway will actually be quicker than calling a Lyft. Crisis averted.

Does this really work?

From our experience: 100 percent. It stops the convo before it escalates and let's you move on faster to more important things. It’s kind of like splashing somebody with ice-cold water; it interrupts the moment and shifts the focus so you’re not stuck in the same temporal loop for the rest of existence. And then you almost always get the “Huh? Oh, OK great—so…you wanna see a movie?” 

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DaraKatz

Executive Editor, Frazzled Mom, Bravo-Holic

Dara Katz is PureWow's Executive Editor, focusing on relationships, sex, horoscopes, travel and pets. Dara joined PureWow in 2016 and now dresses so much better. A lifestyle...