How often do you and your partner fight?

Is it constant, or almost never? What’s actually healthy?

I’ve personally always been of the mind, fighting in a relationship often is a massive indication that relationship is not serving either of you- and you should probably get out of it stat! However, having a little spat with my partner yesterday – I was not of that mind at all. Now that being said, we don’t fight often whatsoever. So its inevitable at some point in the six years we would encounter the odd fight – we are human. In that moment though, my reaction wasn’t we aren’t meant to be together, or he’s the worst. It was all just a big misunderstanding! … But isn’t that what they always say? Isn’t that basically the whole reason of a fight – is just misunderstanding one another? (I am not talking about abusive, insane below-the-belt fighting here also just to preface this more accurately.)

So how do we misunderstand someone who we deem to be the closest too? The simplistic answer is people are often misunderstood and you can never truly know what’s happening in someone’s head – and therefore, BOOM, misunderstanding is bound to occur. In reality though its such little micro moments, gestures, phrases, that can just intensify at moments notice to a breaking point. I think its repetition that is the devil of it all. It’s the things you’ve been nagging about, or pointed out more than once. Or the behaviors that keep occurring. Noticing those patterns and one day boiling over about it. At least that’s my experience.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil,” wrote Edmund Burke, “is for good men to do nothing.” Burke reminds us that, in a fallen world, evil has a momentum of its own. It needs no push to get it started; it’s already under way, and unless we take steps to consciously resist it, evil will overtake us in a glacial advance. Marriage partners should remember Burke’s words this way: “The only thing necessary for our marriage to become cold, angry, and loveless is for us to do nothing at all.” In the busyness of life, when we”
― Tim Downs, Fight Fair: Winning at Conflict without Losing at Love

This quote sort of sums up these behaviors or consistent words, that instead of your partner trying to change, avoid or fix them, they let it stay the same. Thus instigating a fight!

I think a fight can be useful to the be the catalyst to cause a disruption to previous behaviour, and call it out.

It’s up to the people fighting of whether or not they will compromise or sacrifice their current state of being, or actively be the change. I truly believe this is the only way forward to actually remedy the thing they were fighting about. The needle needs to move. That can take time and patience, and some setbacks sometimes. As long as progress towards the end goal is being made in a quantifiable shown effort – I think the fight was actually a purposeful shake up to break up what was dragging the relationship down.

To be honest this is much more a diary entry than an advice paragraph. I’m sitting here post-fight of me telling my partner he needs to make an effort to take me on specific dates, and plan them and step up. And his subsequent reaction that I “went about it the wrong way, and berated him for 20 minutes on a nice evening” (We were driving home from a concert (that I had planned).)

Meanwhile in my head, I’ve brought this up multiple times, I wasn’t trying to instigate a fight, just was saying how that night was fun, and I desire more of that. I was trying to communicate, that I want more of that. Somehow I suppose my delivery was misconstrued and I became the bad guy, and not grateful of what he does do. Which in my mind, is all extremely valid points, and I don’t think I was that mean, but he saw it differently.

Once I prodded it out of him (as he just basically gave me the silent treatment) that he was mad at me because of this, I made an active effort to prioritize a fix. I didn’t back down from what I said, but reframed it much nicer, and gentler, and pulled us into perspective that this is for the enrichment of both of us, and I didn’t mean it to come off ungrateful or mean spirited. I reaffirmed I loved him, and understood how it may of came across poorly to him. I think it worked, we kissed, made up and seem to be moved on.

I have obviously been ruminating on it today though. I have residual guilt for being the cause for the fight. I was just communicating though – right? I worry, is he still mad at me? I should make it up to him? What nice things can I do today?

Which frankly I think its GOOD. We need to feel remorse and guilt, but also want to bolster back up our relationship. That’s the remedy. That’s the whole point of a fight, to bring you back closer together stronger than ever.

So to summarize. I think humans are wired to fight. It will happen. You need to jab and cross and weave in the boxing ring briefly to hash stuff that happens out! However, their should never be a reigning champ. You both need to walk away from the ring feeling just amped up, energized, and happy that you were in it together, and left it together all the happier for it. I’m still figuring out how to fight. It is seldom, so I don’t much practice. All I can do is try to be empathetic, and better myself, and try to not sweat the small stuff. Life is too short. Your partner is who you love most in the world, so treat them like that – and I think if the relationship is right, they will follow suit and do the same.

XX

Fight fair!