Conflict is part of all relationships—how boring would it be if we agreed all the time? But that doesn’t mean every disagreement needs to turn into yelling, name-calling and three days of the silent treatment. To help us solve the inevitable conflicts reasonably, we asked the experts for tips to keep our cool and come out of an argument with solutions, not tears.

Strategy One: Avoid the screaming match all together.
If you feel an argument coming on, Dr. Patricia Covalt, author of What Smart Couples Know: The Secret to a Happy Relationship, offers several strategies to keep the situation under control:

1. Manage your emotions. “Stay self-aware and in touch with what you’re feeling. Watch how you’re handling your anger,” she says.

2. Control your breathing. “Stop and take relaxing breaths as often as you can. That has a powerful effect when you’re in the middle of an argument,” Covalt says.

3. Give yourself time to calm down. “Never discuss serious issues in the heat of the moment, always wait until later when everything’s fine and say ‘this is how I felt when that happened,’” says Judge Lynn Toler, of the shows Divorce Court and Decision House.

Strategy Two: Calm down if you’re already in the middle of a brawl.
Some fights just can’t be avoided, but even if things have escalated to a volume the neighbors can hear, there are some ways to bring it back down and resolve the issue: