|
A “bad” fight,¾one in
which the verbal gloves come off¾can
permanently damage your relationship. Serious damage occurs
when you start bullying each other, when each of you is
focused on proving that the other's point of view is trivial,
stupid, or wrong, or when you make a personal attack.
You’re engaged in a personal attack when you make her wrong or
diminish her sense of her own worth or capacity so that she
believes she is less of a person. In short, don’t demean
her¾ever. It is the
single most damaging tendency in a relationship. You want to
shoot the problem, not one another.
|
True friendship is never
serene.
¾Marie
de Rabutin-Chantal |
|
|
First fights.
When
the wonderful¾but
unrealistic¾“bliss
bubble” has popped, when real life has presented itself, and
you and your lady have your first fight, pay attention! First
fights provide very important information that can be a
reality check for both of you.
If you pay attention when the
fighting starts, you’ll probably discover parts of one
another you didn’t know about. |
|
What you observe at this point can be very reassuring—or give
you insight that will save you a lot of trouble later.
When it’s
over, either you’ll have developed a deeper trust because
you’ve learned that you fight fair together, or you’ll have
seen the red flag of “irreconcilable differences” waving in
your direction.
In many ways a first fight means that you feel comfortable
enough with each other to display your unhappiness, concern,
or displeasure about something—i.e., “I care enough to fight
with you instead of sweeping this under the rug and bashing
you with it later.” Or: “I respect and love you enough
to fight about this, and I trust your sense of yourself is
strong enough that you won’t get blown away by our difference
of opinion.”
Emotional abuse. A
cautionary note: What you—or your partner—think of as “anger”
may be nothing more than a polite name for emotional abuse.
Any conduct that threatens to, or actually does
punish, shun, harangue, shame, deprive or
disgrace the other person is emotionally abusive. Don’t
expect to wave a magic wand and have your tendency to abuse
disappear. Get help. Anger management problems can be an easy
fix. If you delay, you get to watch the abuse worsen and your
quality of life deteriorate.
Fight-o-phobia. “We never fight,” you say. Too bad for
you! “Fight-o-phobia” can be deadly to a relationship.
Human beings cannot be together day after day and go
around smiling all the time. It’s an impossible feat.
Someone is not telling the truth, and eventually one of you
will start walking toward the door. You need to come up with
ways to identify a controversy so you can discuss it before
one of you has to stuff it. People do not¾cannot!¾live
together without disagreements. It’s the skill with
which you manage your disagreements that saves the day.
Good fights.
A good fight is a fair fight.
Keep the discussion specific to the problem. The basic
challenge lies in being able to keep the problem in
your sights—aiming at it and not at each other.
Keep expressions like
“You always…” or “You never….” out of your brain and out of
the fight. “When you walked in here, you didn’t hug me” can be
dealt with in a couple of minutes. “You never hug me” can lead
you into an argument that tracks back over years and goes on
for five hours.
Listen to her! Work to
understand the point of view behind her anger even if you
don’t agree. If you have words in your mouth ready to speak
before your partner is through speaking, you’re assuming a
defensive posture rather than listening. This is not the time
to try to be “right”¾it’s
better (and safer) to listen, without interruption, until she
empties.
A useful technique is for
you to summarize back to her what you believe she’s
said, so she knows you’re listening to her. For example, you
could say: “Let me see if I’ve got this right: you’re upset
because I didn’t….” When you do this, you acknowledge having
heard her point, and you clear the way for her to say more of
what’s on her mind.
And remember, one road
out of a fight is to offer an apology. Even if you don’t want
to apologize, you can say, “I’m sorry for upsetting
you.” (You probably did do that much, right?) Such an apology
offers a neutral but sincere invitation to move on.
The “good fight” ends
with both partners feeling emotionally safe, feeling that no
cloud is hanging over their heads. Neither one of you feels
resentful, nor is either of you going to retaliate or punish
the other by becoming passive-aggressive.
There’s plenty more good
stuff on fighting in Chapter Ten of Build a Better Spouse
Trap. (Portions of this
column have been excerpted from Build a Better Spouse Trap.
M. Evans, Publisher 2002. Build a Better Spouse Trap
is available through all major booksellers and
Amazon.com.)
|
