Stress has a significant effect on how couples communicate, transforming traditional conversational landscapes into minefields. Heightened tension and shorter fuses often go hand in hand, making you more likely to snap at innocuous or well-meaning comments or questions. In the clutches of stress, it can be a surprisingly quick leap from, “What should we do about dinner?” to one of you saying, “I can’t deal with this right now,” or, worse, “I can’t deal with you right now.”

Sound familiar? It happens to the best of us. Learning how to communicate when stressed is a crucial relationship skill. Yet it’s one that, experts agree, many couples suck at. Signals mix. Lines cross. Cycles persist. So, what can you do to better handle it? What helps is understanding how the brain functions under stress and developing tools to help you sidestep the traps that heightened state can produce. Oh, and maybe giving yourself a refresher on a few communication basics while you’re at it.