The Pattern
Here’s a pattern that might be familiar to you:
You pick a fight with your partner or family member about not washing the dishes properly and the next thing you know you’re arguing about something they did to you twelve years ago and about how you hate the way they breathe when they eat.
These conversations have a way to start small and rapidly escalate to something big and abstract. You can know that you were part of such conversations when you struggle to explain to someone else why you haven’t talked to your sibling for three weeks over the fact that they don’t take off their shoes when they come into the house.
It is not useful to minimize these arguments based on their seemingly trivial causes. You’re rarely fighting about the thing itself, you’re likely fighting about the way things are being communicated and about the baggage you both bring to the table. Without knowing it, you’re likely negotiating the dynamics of your relationship. This is not something that can be ignored. The argument is a surface manifestation of deeper conflicts begging to be addressed.
A Prototype Solution
It is tempting to want to resolve all the problems in any given relationship when you start arguing about something. Your brain will bring to your attention all the instances where this person has done you wrong in the past. It’s tempting to want to wash all our dirty laundry once the washing machine is running. However, it may be more effective to only wash one colour at a time.
It may be more effective to limit any particular argument to one topic (doing the dishes, shoes at the door, who takes care of the finances, etc). Other topics will come up. You can write them down and table them for future conversations. My guess is that you won’t feel the need to address most of the “problems” on the list after taking a step back.
Perhaps washing your metaphorical clothing one colour at a time will result in less dirty laundry piling up over a lifetime than if you were to wash it all at once every now and then.