If you go to just about any beach in America and there is a red flag flapping wildly in the wind, it probably is there to serve as a warning that swimming is not recommended due to dangerous conditions. There is typically no lifeguard on duty and swimming is at your own risk. Nonetheless, there are people who believe the experts don’t know what a good swimmer they are and they decide to indulge. Sometimes the outcomes are not happy.

The same is true with marriage relationships. There are usually red flags that indicate there is a problem but for some reason people tend to ignore them and proceed to barrel head first into the choppy water and inevitably get into trouble.

To help your relationship run smoothly, one of the most important things you can do is to pay attention to “red flags.”  These are the kind of issues that if left unchecked can drown a good relationship and really cause a disaster or persistent problem.

Researchers Markman, Stanley, and Blumberg note in their book, “Fighting for Your Marriage” that these warning signs commonly take the form of escalation, invalidation, negative interpretation, and withdrawal or avoidance.

I want to address escalation in this article. It is what most people would call “the snowball effect.”  It’s where a small matter grows into an ugly argument, name calling, or responding back and forth negatively. Before you know it, you’re fighting about something that has nothing to do with the original topic.  It’s the tendency to move from simple frustration or anger to getting really personal and attacking.  Different ways you can escalate include:

• Content Escalation: The subject of your conversation gets worse by dragging things up from the past and “upping the stakes” by reminding the other person about past offenses or failures.
• Physical Escalation: Where you feel the increasing emotional intensity build up and manifest in your body—palms get sweaty, heart races, stomach turns in a knot, breathing increases.  The argument faces a real risk of becoming physically aggressive.
• Volume Escalation: The volume of your conversation may start out at a normal level, but before you know it, voices are raised (but you’re not yelling yet) and then you really let it rip. A shouting match is on complete with yelling and screaming.

How do you defuse or short circuit escalation?  One of the best ways is to learn how to call a “time out.”  No, this isn’t like what you do with your kids when they’re naughty, but in some ways, it’s similar.   It’s giving yourself (and your partner) a chance to calm down, collect yourself and come back to the conversation when you’re not as volatile.  It’s important to note that a time out is something you assign to yourself and not something you impose on your partner.  Otherwise you may cause the situation to escalate even more. But a “time out” will not work unless you have “time in” and actually deal with the problem.

Pay attention the next time you see a red flag. It’s a warning intended to help you from getting into further trouble.