Anger and resolving arguments

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, as have come to belatedly realize a couple of things about my interactions with my DA.  Especially that my focus was on me and what I wanted, and experiencing that as a flood of emotions and need. I am thinking that the way I can handle it better in my particular situation is to try to approach these emotional confrontations this way:

1.  Give myself time to think/calm down/center before a confrontation. (In my situation, these are always initiated by me, so I can have this luxury if I can only resist the immediate impulse to "fix" things and come off the ledge of intense activation--the twin evil horsemen for me, especially the latter.)  I am also wondering if I can go through possible responses from him, mentally, that will trigger me and think in advance how I will react to circumvent my activation when these things happen. Or, perhaps the key to this is committing to "hearing" him, too.

2.  In that period, ensure that I have a specific goal for the outcome.  I have tended to focus on how an action of his makes me feel and that is what I have communicated.  Which, in my case, has been utterly  counterproductive as it makes him shut down. And then I get frustrated and keep on going, making my argument, explaining, accusing, and things so south in a big way.  So, I have been thinking that asking for a specific action rather than explaining at length why his behavior hurts/upsets me is concrete and more digestible-- and actually is the end result I want anyway.

3.  Go into it with the point of view that I need to consider his reactions/triggers and make the active choice to communicate in a way that he can hear.  This requires self discipline on my part.  It means, in my case, keeping things short and sweet and letting him go away to think about it.

4. Make it about us rather than just me.  Start from a place of caring for him and acknowledging the steps I appreciate he has taken (fair to him, centering for me) rather than just basically pushing/fighting for what I need.  The challenge of this, in me, is not negating myself to get what I want. I can't make it all about him, either.  But I think this "us" approach is crucially important.  I tend to approach it as fighting for what he is withholding from ME, what HE needs to fix so I don't feel bad/anxious/activated. I realize I have never, not once, asked, what he needs/wants in a sincere way. I feel rather ashamed about this.

Post confrontation, we both never talk about it again.  Because neither us wants to feel bad again.  But then it never feels resolved, right?  Because both of us were upset and we don't forget it--making us wary, which undermines everything. For me, the missing pieces have been apology and appreciation.  I want to remember, after things have cooled off, to go back and simply say, "thank you" for whatever it is I need to express gratitude for--talking with me, telling me how he feels even if I don't like what I heard, doing X in response to what I asked--whatever it is. And I need to remember to apologize, too--for not acknowledging how my activated behavior made him feel, for overloading, for not being fair--whatever it may have been.  Because the truth is that these confrontations hurt him, too.

I know that he will not do the same for me, as it's not the way he is wired.  So, this is not about modeling for him or manipulating him to be like me.  It is about taking responsibility for me, and how I can more effectively communicate and feel better about how we leave things between us.   But yes, I do hesitate as am instinctively afraid that bringing it up will move us back into a bad place and I want to get away from there.  I think I can do it if I act from a compassionate place rather than fearful place. I want to try, anyway.

I have not had a chance to employ any of the above as things seem to be over for him.  But I am committed at some point to communicating the gratitude/apology I have been thinking about, as I think it is important for me to do this. Neither of us has been fair to the other. I can't control him, but I can control me and I want to be honest and authentic and fair --true to myself-- instead of framing everything as getting/ not getting or winning/losing and just making him the bad guy.  Which is basically what I have been telling him by the way I handled confrontation thus far.