Emotional Caretaking & Arguing in regards to the LOVE ecronym:

I created the LOVE Ecronym to teach people to Empathize with themselves in order to heal all emotional wounds. However, the LOVE ECRonym can be practiced on others as an Empathetic Response; which will enhance our ability to Empathize with ourselves.

L isten to the negative thought (i.e., "You never listen to me.")
O bserve the context in which it was created
V alidate the negative thought (i.e., "You never listen to me.")
E mpathize with the Emotion(s) created from the negative thought
E mpower: Challenge the negative thought and Replace with a positive thought.

Our explanation of how we did not mean to hurt the person's feelings is the Challenge and Replacement we are trying to give them.  [Empower]
If the person is pushing back/ is not listening to our explanation of how we did not mean to hurt their feelings, then we have not Validated their words and Empathized with their Emotions that were created from their words/ experience in which their feelings were hurt.
This may be a simple misunderstanding, but a person must feel that we truly understand their experience before they are calm and ready to listen to our explanation.

Explaining our reasoning/ intention (not making excuses) too soon to the person whose feelings we hurt  will lead to the person feeling invalidated. There is a time and a place to explain to the person that we are sorry and we did not intend to disappoint them, but we must first make sure they feel heard and understood [Validated and Empathized] by us; that we know what we said or did that led to them feeling hurt/ being upset.

Emotional Caretaking in Arguments:
Emotional Caretaking is sitting there while we are still hurt [we do not feel heard and understood by the person] and letting the person explain to us what their reasoning was/ how they did not intend to hurt our feelings so that they feel better.

I used to refer to this as “sitting there and taking it” in an argument with partners. I did not feel Validated or Empathized with how I was feeling that led me to speak up and express my upset, but I was to sit there and take it as they “made excuses” as to why they did/ said what they did. [Do you hear my resentment??]

I could understand the person’s perspective eventually, but I consistently walked away feeling as though they did not understand mine. ["It's not fair!"]
Every time this happened, the resentment got higher due to my Emotional Caretaking them.

So what do we do instead??
1. Put our needs/ wants ahead of the other (capable of learning) person. = Assert our Healthy Boundary

2. Have Clear, Direct communication:
    A. Explain how we are feeling
    B. And Why.
“I understand you are just trying to explain yourself, but I am getting more and more upset as I listen because it does not seem to me that you think my experience in this is valid. I am happy to talk about this later when we both have some time away from it.”

3. Repeat our Broken Record that asserts our Healthy Boundary (aka. Do not engage
    with a person who is wanting to argue).
“I am happy to talk about this later when we both have some time away from it.”
“When I calm, I am happy to continue this conversation.”

4. Only repeat our Broken Record if the try to engage us.
“I am happy to talk about this later when we both have some time away from it.”
“When I calm, I am happy to continue this conversation.”

5. After a reasonable amount of time has passed, Follow through with what we said we would do and finish the conversation. = Be accountable.