Noone fights in the warroom9/19/2023 Give what’s needed for the issue to let go of the grip it has on your relationship, whether that’s air time, validation, acknowledgement, an apology or reassurance.įor an issue to be an issue it only takes one of you to believe it is. Find out exactly what it is (though you will probably already have a fair idea!) and deal with it. the towels on the floor) – are just the way the issue calls you both back to the plate to deal with it. Something about that issue is unresolved and the topics – the little things that start the arguments (e.g. money or the night he/you came home late), that issue is actually where your work needs to be. If you keep fighting over different things but you always seem to end up on the same issue (e.g. Don’t confuse the topics with the issue.It’s the quickest way to send an argument off track and land you in a place where you forget what you were fighting for. It’s so tempting to confirm your ‘rightness’ by highlighting the other person’s ‘wrongness’, but don’t. The potential to cause scars is enormous. It’s too easy to say things that can’t be taken about.ĭon’t bring in irrelevant details just to prove your point. It isn’t always easy to do, but receiving conflict well or raising a difficult issue sensitively will provide the opportunity to see each other, notice each other and learn from each other.ĭon’t name call or bring the other person down to get on top of the argument. healthy and sometimes necessary when there is something important at stake for one or both of you. Here are the do’s and don’ts of fighting fair.Ĭonflict is an opportunity for growth. When you intimately share your life with someone there are going to be disagreements. You won’t always agree – and that’s fine – but being able to fight fairly for the important things, or through to the end of the unimportant things, is critical for the longevity of your relationship. This might take the form of barbed comments here and there, criticism, or a distancing. Unmet needs will fester and push for resolution in some way. Researchers have found that one of the best predictors of divorce is not whether a couple fights, but how they fight.Īll couples have probably fought dirty at least once, but the relationship will struggle when this way of relating becomes characteristic.Įveryone has needs and getting them met in the context of a relationship is important. Few things will fuel intimacy, connection and closeness like being seen, being heard and coming through a storm side by side. Having know-how around fighting fair can not only save a relationship, but also make sure you both get what you need and bring you closer. It’s going to happen, but it doesn’t have to lessen it. What wasn’t real was that idea of real love that used to throw itself into my ‘one days’ like pixie dust.įighting is a part of any relationship. And then we had our first fight. And quite a few more since. I could do it. Because I would be in ‘real love’.Īnd then I met the man who would become my husband. I know they were in love with each other once, it’s just that somewhere along the way they stumbled and fell out of it.Ĭlearly, it was pretty easy not to fight. They didn’t laugh together or ‘hang out’ together. I never heard them say, ‘I love you’ and I didn’t see them smother each other’s bad days with kisses. They didn’t say many words to each other at all. They never said a bad word about each or to each other. My parents never fought, so I had good reason to believe that a fight-free relationship was possible. Fighting, even if it was fighting fair, was for the more incompatible.įast forward a couple of decades and what can I say? Not a lot really because I’m almost choking on the naïvety of it all. I used to have this idea that real love was when two people remembered birthdays, anniversaries, and never fought.
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