A: "Why don't you ever ask me what show I want to watch? You never take me into consideration! Like that time when we went to the cinema with our friends and you just assumed I wanted to see that movie! Or that time we went to the restaurant and..."
B: "I do too take you into consideration! Don't I always ask you what you want for dinner? And when we are at the bar, I get the beer you like and..."
"You ALWAYS do that!", says the first person. "Well, you ALWAYS do that other thing", says the second person. Then it just spirals on and on until nobody can really remember what they were fighting about in the first place. The fight veers away from the issue at hand and becomes something bigger for which both parts have very plausible arguments... Neither is right and neither is wrong. You can't generalize because either will always find a counter argument of one time when they did or didn't do something.
In my opinion, having fights in a relationship is not something to worry about, it's when you don't care anymore that you should be more alert! Disagreements and occasional clashes are to be expected when two human beings who can hardly understand themselves try to understand each other.
However, these conflicts can get bigger, uglier and last for days for no apparent reason. Have you ever found yourself arguing over something as silly as 'why you didn't say thank you when he gave you a soda'? And then it just goes on to an actual fight about why you never show affection, which ends up with neither speaking for hours and going to bed angry.
Well, there are a few tricks to preventing these issues and learning to 'fight right'. I didn't come up with them myself, they're things I have learned through books and experience (both personal and professional), but they have all blended together so I'm sorry I'm not including references for this one!
Part 1. Stay on topic
If you get upset because your partner didn't take out the trash, it doesn't matter if he never does it; what matters is that he didn't do it this one time and that is the one thing you can handle at the moment. Most couples generalize issues making them way too big to be solved with one peaceful discussion. It's like when you want to improve your house and you look at all the little details that need attention; normally, you get overwhelmed, the amount of work seems endless and you end up irritable, stressed and blocked out. When you tackle one issue at a time, things are much simpler and manageable.
The dialogue at the beginning of this post is a good example of that. Another way that can go wrong is:
A: "You know, it bothered me that you just chose that show and didn't ask me if I wanted to see it."
B: "Well, you never tell me what you want to watch and when I ask you you always say 'whatever'."
Which would trigger another endless conflict resulting in more drama than the new season of Smash. If both parts stay on topic, it's easier to address the one thing that is causing conflict at the time.
These things might not seem to 'matter' much, but in the long run it makes a huge difference in how a couple can resolve a conflict.
In the next few weeks, I plan to post more tips on how to improve your 'fighting' skills... Or rather, ways to solve conflicts without visualizing painful ways you could punish your partner for not agreeing with you.
