If you’ve ever been in the middle of a painful breakdown with your partner and felt overwhelmed with rage, fear, pain, despair, or some combination of the above, you’re not alone. Even couples that share good relationships can occasionally experience feelings like this. At these times, it can also seem that turning this situation into a “learning opportunity” just isn’t going to happen, and the best that we can hope for is to do enough damage control to prevent things from falling into the “catastrophic” category. And even doing that is no small feat.