Little known fact about me, I married my high school sweetheart. To be fair, we dated two years in high school, broke-up for three in college and then dated six more years until we got married in 2013; on our 11-year dating anniversary. But who’s counting? We fought like cats and dogs our entire relationship but before we tied the knot, we learned fair fighting rules.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a soapbox post where I tell you that I’ve been with my husband for almost sixteen years and this is what you need to do because I know everything. Quite the contrary. This post is about how I married a man I have nothing in common with who’s just as stubborn as I am but through daily hard work, we don’t kill each other and live a pretty amazing life.
Sean and I have been going to couple’s counseling off and on since before we got married. Not because anything, in particular, was wrong but because we wanted to tackle the hard stuff BEFORE it went wrong and we’re both huge advocates of that approach. So I’m coming at you my simple fair fighting rules that I’ve learned to implement after getting professional help.
Don’t Name Call
When your partner is being a jackass, it doesn’t help to call them one. It feels good at the moment and then an hour later you feel like garbage and that wasn’t even the issue at hand! Just like we tell our kids, use your words. If your husband isn’t listening to your issues, say that. If your wife is not understanding your point of view, try and explain it differently. Cussing each other out just escalates the fight and diminishes the original argument.
Diffuse With Humor
Sean is great at cracking a joke before things get too heated and I’m great at letting that dissolve the tension. I say that because I think for a long time Sean tried this tactic and it just got me more riled up. Like “Why the eff are you making a joke at a time like this??” But now, 90% of our fights are dissolved with laughter. As I’m typing this, we just got into a tiff over him not taking Georgia outside yesterday because today it’s raining so we’ll be cooped up. Yep, these are the things we fight about; I’m sure you can relate. However, he cracked a little joke and I laughed and let it go. I got my point in and he’ll probably take my ideas into consideration next time.
Don’t Scream
Surely I’m not giving this advice? I’m the resident yeller. Yelling and screaming were always how I saw adults communicate when I was a child and it terrified me. I scream when I get angry and I truly hate it because I don’t want to perpetuate the cycle with my girls. You will always get your point across more quickly and taken more seriously if you don’t raise your voice. So if you feel yourself getting to that level, take a breath and walk away. Yes you can, trust me I know it’s hard as hell to do but you can do it. You are an adult and you are in charge of your emotions.
Don’t Go tit for Tat.
Oh, you don’t like this one either? Same. These tips are hard to put into action, trust me I know. Sean and I both work extremely hard every day to provide the best life for our family. However, our days are so different it’s hard not to want to one-up each other when the daily tally sheet comes out. Who cleaned more, whose days were more physically exhausting, whose day was more mentally exhausting, who got up earlier, etc. This road never leads to victory because no one hands out a life scorecard at the altar. Both people need to be putting in 100% and if that’s not genuinely going on in your marriage then I really do encourage you to seek professional help.
Leave the Past in the Past
If we have a fight three months ago about an issue and it was since resolved, I try not to be the jerk who’s bringing it up in a current fight as ammunition. We’ve already squashed it and zombifying a fight will never get you ahead. Sometimes a new fight brings up the fact that an old issue wasn’t resolved. That’s a valid feeling and conveying that fact in a rational way can be helpful.
As a stay-at-home-mom, I rely solely on my husband to provide me with accolades. We had that fight for months because we weren’t really getting to a resolution that I was happy with. Through very simple language, I was finally able to get him to understand what I was feeling. He took his efforts up a notch and I took my expectations down a notch so we met in the middle.
Stop Repeating Yourself
I will repeat myself 15 times in a fight just hoping to get a different reaction or response from Sean. Never works. When you feel like your point isn’t being heard, table the fight for a bit. It’s amazing what even one hour of cooling off can do for mental clarity. After an hour or two, I have an easier time trying to convey my feelings in a logical way. At this point, Sean has usually had his own realizations and can grasp my frustrations more. “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.” -NA Pamphlet from 1981. (Random sourcing but truth nonetheless.)
Don’t Get Hung Up on Tone of Voice
“It’s not what you said it’s how you said it.” I lived by that mantra for way too long. In marriage, I have found that sometimes you just gotta let inflection go. I’ve probably asked Sean to repeat himself without an attitude about a million times in my life. When I say it doesn’t go over well, that’s an understatement. We’re fighting, of course, he has an attitude. He can be cleaning the whole house but if I sense he’s doing it with an attitude, I lose it. Now we’re fighting over how he’s clanging dishes and tossing toys instead of the issue at hand. Don’t waste your time!
I’m coming at this from the perspective that once the fight has ended and we’ve had a meeting of the minds, the attitudes dissolve. We don’t walk around in foul moods all the time. Letting the attitudes hang around for an hour or so after the fight is normal and drawing more attention to it is unnecessary.
Progress not Perfection
Hopefully, these tips helped in one way or another. It’s never too late to implement fair fighting rules, regardless of how long or short, you’ve been together. However, you won’t always be perfect and that’s okay. As long as you’re making progress and always striving to be a better partner, you’re on the right track. I’d love to know if there’s something you do that helps keep the peace in your house.
Help For Serious Situations
I’d like to add that I’m giving this advice as a woman in a happy marriage who has normal fights with her husband. There is no emotional, verbal or physical abuse happening. I say this because I grew up in a very volatile house and none of these tips could have fixed that. If you are in any sort of domestic abuse situation, I urge you to get help. The National Domestic Abuse Hotline can be a great resource. Please call them at (800) 799-7233.
Taran is a self-proclaimed undomestic mom. She thrives as a stay-at-home-mom by consistently carving out time for herself and practicing realistic self-care. As a busy mom of 3, she knows that if mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy! With a focus on how SAHMs can carve out time for themselves everyday, she teaches fellow SAHMs how they can do the same.
Great advice! Thanks for sharing. It is a hard topic to open up about but every marriage has it challenges!
Thank you! Yes, it can definitely be uncomfortable to open up about but I know these are very common themes running through everyone’s relationships. That phone fight picture though:)