Fair Fighting in a Relationship

All’s fair in love and war, right? Not quite. It is not having conflict in your relationship that is the problem…in fact, all relationships have conflicts. Some have conflicts that come up over and over again.  It is how you deal with these conflicts that can be problematic.  Below, I detail some of the “fighting fouls” that you should look out for in your conflicts.

Fighting Foul #1: Treating Each Other as Adversaries

If you are approaching a problem in your relationship as you vs. me, instead of us vs. the problem, you are creating a sense of a battle instead of a collaborative problem solving approach. The ultimate hope is that the problem gets solved, not that more problems and hurt feelings get created.

Fighting Foul #2: Bringing Up the Past 

It is so hard to not do this. When things get heated, you feel that you have to defend your position and what better way to do this than to bring up past transgressions? The problem is, this detracts from the current issue that you are trying to work on and can lead to nothing getting solved. Which leads me to…

Fighting Foul #3: Bringing Up More Than One Problem

 Try to focus on only one issue at a time. Otherwise, the original issue may get lost in the shuffle and never resolved!

Fighting Foul #4: Verbal Abuse

Name calling, screaming, threats, cursing…all no-no’s. Criticizing your partner’s actions as a reflection of an inherent flaw in their character or person instead of as a human mistake is another big one.  It is OK to assert your needs in your relationship by expressing how a person’s actions impact you (i.e., I hate when you leave me to deal with the kids all alone at night because it is very stressful for me.) It is not OK to make your partner out to be a horrible person because of his or her actions (You are such a lazy SOB and never help me with the kids at night!). Remember, you married this person for a reason. Additionally, contempt for your partner, or acting as though they are less than you, is very detrimental to your relationship. In fact, the presence of contempt in a marriage is a very strong predictor of divorce and if present in a marriage needs to stop for the marriage to be saved.

Fighting Foul #5: Defensiveness and Stonewalling

Ever get in a fight with your partner and not even listen to what they have to say because you are waiting for your chance to defend yourself? This is very detrimental because it wards off any responsibility you may have for the problem at hand. Very rarely are issues in a marriage all one person’s fault. By immediately jumping to defensiveness, you are not listening to your partner’s complaints and dismissing them before they even get a chance to be addressed. Conversely, simply withdrawing from the conversation without any indication that you want to come back to it later (stonewalling) is harmful to communication as well

Fighting Foul #6: Physical Aggression

This is never acceptable. Ever, under any circumstances. If you are getting to the point where you are laying hands on each other, individual therapy or anger management is indicated vs marital counseling until you are able to control yourself.

If you find yourself unable to shake any of these fighting fouls in your marriage, seek help! New behaviors can be learned and you and your partner can have a solid relationship going forward.