Is fighting a problem in your relationship or marriage? Fighting is a very serious problem for many couples. The good news is that I am about to help you solve it permanently.
Read this article and then listen to me talk about how to fight fair by listening to a conversation I had with empowerment coach Kim Knight, at the bottom of this post.
First you have to understand that you should not fight at all, with anyone. I don’t mean you should not disagree with others or your significant other. Nor should you not feel passionate about your disagreements. But fighting describes a set of behaviors that are very destructive to a relationship and must be prevented at all costs.
Here’s what we do when we fight. We get angry and defensive. We get passionate and have trouble controlling our emotions, words and actions. People often exaggerate facts when fighting or they say things they don’t mean. None of this is productive in any relationships and especially in a romantic relationship. In fact, it is damaging. And it accomplishes nothing.
Instead, when you have disagreement with your significant other, follow the nine commandments of fighting fare:
The Nine Commandments of Fighting Fare:
1. Both people have the right to have needs and wants and make requests of each other
2. Even if one person’s needs, wants or request makes the other person uncomfortable or unhappy, it’s still ok to have these needs, wants and requests
3. Both people have the right to be understood, to state their case, to be heard
4. Both people have the right to express their opinion even if it is about each other
5. Even if the conversation makes one of the people uncomfortable or anxious, it still needs to happen if the other person needs it to happen
6. Both people matter
7. The conversation needs to end in a compromise, where each person gets as much as possible of what he or she wants – both people need to work towards a win win
8. If a partner brings up an issue it is already important, otherwise it would not be brought up. Dismissing, stonewalling, ignoring, minimizing and making promises that are not kept are disruptive to the relationship.
9. Emotions such as anger, anxiety, impatience need to be kept in check, even if it means the couple needs to take a break to calm down and/or talk about the issue in short segments
If you approach “fighting” in this way, you will no longer have fights. Instead you will have a partnership with two people who come to each other with needs, wants and thoughts and are lovingly, openly received, supported, helped and honored by each other. That’s the kind of fighting that brings people closer rather than tearing them apart.
Both of you need to be at your best when you discuss issues so that you do not fight. It is important that intense conversations be timed when both people have the best possible chance to behave as a loving, supportive grownup.
This means that when issues come up, do not hold them in and gather them to the point where you are going to burst unless you have it out right now, but do choose the timing of difficult conversations carefully.
A note to men about fighting:
Men tend to see women’s emotions as manipulative and are often afraid of women’s anger. And if you are man out there who finds it difficult to deal with your wife’s or girlfriend’s anger, I would ask you to think about one thing. She’s not your mother.
When your mother was angry at you or was manipulating you with her emotions, that was a life and death sort of situation. What boy wants to loose his mother’s love? Your mother’s anger or disappointment could probably reduce you to tears when you were a little boy, because she was person #1 in your life.
On the other hand your wife or girlfriend may be the love of your life, but she did not give you life. She is your equal, not above you. She does not have the power your mother had over you. So let her be angry and learn to breathe and be with her anger and disappointment – it can not hurt you. If you can allow and honor her emotions and give her the right to have them she will see you as her hero.
Last tip to avoid fighting and have productive, loving discussions with your partner:
When your partner is talking, listen. If you start getting upset say to yourself “he is saying this and I am still ok” or “she doesn’t like something I am doing and I am still ok.” It’s a ways of bringing yourself down from upset so that you can listen and be in the conversation and make your relationship work.
For more relationship help get my two ecourses for couples:
Essential Communication Course for Couples: Get help improving communication in your relationship. Learn the rules of healthy communication, why you are communicating even when you’re not, and how to establish communication that makes your relationship thrive.
Increase Intimacy in Your Relationship: regain the closeness and love you once had and never loose it again. Learn about what kills intimacy, how to get it back and how to get your partner to want you more.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
when we starts to fight just think about the most loved person in ur life and the moments spend with you will be automatically cool
That are very smart ideas Renatta. I completely agree that angry defense and attack never solve the problem, but break trust and hopes to find the solution peacefully. This advices work when both partners want to find a different way to solve the disagreements. When it is only one spouse tries to get intelligent way and another doesn’t even want to read it, I think its time to go to the marriage consultants where independent person will be heard.
Rinatta, hi. Another 31DBBB friend here. I hope you won’t mind if I comment a bit. While I love the idea of helping individuals learn how to navigate through disputes, I was a little troubled by some of the suggestions, particularly, 5 and 7.
Engaging in conversation honestly and in a self aware way is very difficult in the best of situations because we often don’t know our own wants or don’t how to separate actual needs from strong desires. It’s near impossible when a person is uncomfortable or angry. You’ll get talk but it won’t be productive, and might even do more damage. Better to discover how to create an environment in which that reluctant person can feel ok talking. Best way to do that is ask: It is important to me to talk about xxx, what do you need so we can do that?
As a veteran mediator of 17 years, I’m all about the win-win. However, too often I hear couples misunderstanding what compromise is. As you say, compromise is about getting some, but not all of what you want. Problem is those other unfulfilled needs don’t just disappear. They can fester into disappointment and resentment. How does it feel to know you can’t ever get everything you need- bad.
The trick is to really differentiate between what you want and what you actually need. Then work towards getting that over-aching need met. For instance, if my hubby and I are fighting over why he never does the laundry, I may want him to do it more often, but my actual need is to get laundry completed without being the one to do it all the time. From that vantage point a lot more options become clear that don’t require compromise. Like get a housekeeper, or pay our teen, or give me a treat whenever I do it.
And, if we wanted to be grow our relationship even more, we might discuss why the laundry was a problem and why it feels important to me (i.e. a sign of caretaking) and why he doesn’t like it (feels anxious about ruining clothes).
Opps, sorry, this is a long comment. I’m passionate about people understand how to approach and resolve conflict, especially in relationships.
Love=Fun
Dina
Hi there CuriousDina, all good points. But, the point I was trying to make in #5 is still very important. All too often partners ignore each others needs in the relationship until it is too late. Often one partner may sound to another like a winy kid – he or she may need something, but its not that important.
It’s important to know that if your partner wants to talk about something, it is very important not only to him or her, but also to you and to the survival of the relationship.
Never would have thunk I would find this so indsipsenalbe.
Hi Rinatta! I just saw your post on problogger. Looks like you’ve got some great tips. I’m looking forward to following your blog.
Bea’s last blog post..Life After Residency: Preparing for a "Windfall"
Bea: hi there! thanks for visiting!
Ann: thank you. I find that more specific the ideas, the easier they are to apply and have success with.
Searchingwithin: Ah, that is very good. Exactly, if we learn to walk a mile in our partner’s shoes, stand in their fears, have compassion for them, it would be much easier to hear and respond in a way that causes love rather than hurt.
Thank you for the commonsense rules.
In my opinion, anger stems from fear and hurt, and listening has to come from the heart, and not the ears. Usually we are planning our response, defense, and assessing our own reaction, that we don’t hear what the person is really trying to say, and usually the answer isn’t being expressed through the words they are saying, which many times has nothing to do with the real issue at hand.
The real issue isn’t that you didn’t take out the garbage, yet again, or you didn’t call when you said you would, etc., the real issue lies in your fear of loosing something that you are attached to, whether it is a value, respect, identity, love, acceptance, person, thing. Listen for what they are afraid of loosing.
Give up blaming and winning, and listen for the real message.
searchingwithin’s last blog post..Love Means Never Having to Say Your Are Sorry, Or Does It?
I love the specificity of this, Rinatta. Thank you.
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