Fighting Styles, Fighting Fair

In some relationships, fights never happen. The issues are unspoken. That was how my first husband handled things. In his birth home, even pet peeves were forbidden to be discussed. I knew I didn't have his approval but never knew why & that completely undermined me & my self-esteem. It also means that nothing got solved. I came from a more open family & believed that talking things out was a good thing, which is true. The best way to handle things is to catch them when they're smaller so they don't become big issues. You have every right to say when something is bothering you, but there's a productive way as well as non-productive.

First though, let's get to actual fighting styles. Some people want to have it out & get it over with so they can move on. Some people have to go process it first, calm down, & address the issues later. These people know that they can wound if they have to handle things in the heat of the moment. Often in a relationship one person wants to have it out & the other has to retreat for awhile. I believe that the one who wants to have it out has to learn to wait the other person out. There's a good & healthy reason the person needs to retreat first. That's the kind of person who wants to take it out of the reactive stage & really know what he/she wants to say before saying it. As hard as it is to need immediate resolution & not get it, allowing that other person his/her space is the healthiest thing for the relationship & you truly can train yourself to wait. Especially if it doesn't go on for days or even hours. Those of you who need to retreat have an obligation to make your retreat as short as possible. In relationships there has to be compromise, especially where there are differing styles, especially in fighting. The compromise in this case is for the "retreat personality" to make the retreat as brief as possible rather than using it as a weapon. In relationship fighting, there just can't be weapons. I speak all this from experience. In my second marriage he was a "retreat for days" kind of person only more so & I wanted it over. Unfortunately, there was no compromise & he used it as a weapon. He never apologized & it would be days before he'd address what set him off. Even then he'd use accusations, was non-productive & never took me into consideration. It might seem off to take relationship advice from me. You could consider me a 2 time loser since I've been divorced twice, but I have a total of 20 years experience living with the wrong men for me. The relationships didn't fail because of fighting styles or whether we fought fair, & since they lasted 10 years each, I learned a lot.

The rules of fighting fair include not yelling, cursing, tearing the other down, attacking, using absolutes, pushing buttons, or piling on, & absolutely stick to the real issues & give credit for gains. Personal attacks undermine the other person & the relationship & are never productive. Sticking to the real issues means that you have a chance of improving whatever is bothering you. And please don't pile on. That means stick to whatever just happened. Don't use a fight as a time to bring up everything you perceive is wrong with the other or the relationship. Stick to the current issue. And please give credit for what's right with the person or relationship & any improvements since the last fight. Then you validate & acknowledge rather than tear down. Which leads to absolutes. Words like "always" & "never" aren't true & are destructive. They negate the other person & any effort on his/her part. When you tell someone you "always" or "never" do that, not only are you inaccurate, you're completely failing to give the other person credit for any efforts to take you into consideration. In my second husband I lived with one of the worst & even he didn't fit into "always" or "never." The best way to not attack another is to put things in terms of how you feel. I mentioned this the other day but it bears repeating. If you say, "When you do that it makes me feel like you don't care about me" you're speaking only to your feelings even though you've used the words "you" & "me." If you say, "You have the memory of an ant. You never remember to do what I asked you to. You don't care about me at all." you've still used "you" & "me" but you've used them in a personal attack, used an absolute, & made an accusation. In extreme cases, mirroring as described in the post the other day is necessary for true resolution of an issue. Sometimes issues are deep & on some compromise won't work or will be a long time coming. Those are the times mirroring is especially important. Another word about piling on. If you are having a very productive discussion after you've both calmed down, it's ok to bring in other issues you'd like to work on. Finally, the only way to resolve issues is to be respectful of each other. None of the "nots" in the first sentence of this paragraph are respectful!

In all areas of life you have to know how to handle disagreements, most of all within the home. How you handle conflict within a relationship will make or break it. Seldom do you find yourself with someone who shares your style of handling things when tempers flare. In a love relationship, destructive fighting kills the affection freely given, the trust, & eventually all the love, respect, & regard. I remember after about 7 years with my last husband, mentally saying "there's another nail" after each incident. By then I didn't care that our relationship was dying, didn't have it in me any longer to fight for it. What I was acknowledging was that he'd just hammered another nail into the coffin of our relationship, knowing at some point it would be entirely over for me. At that time I still had some love left for him, but very little respect. I treated him with respect, but had lost most of my respect & true regard for him.

A few final thoughts here - don't say things you don't mean or make threats. Often when people fight they say hurtful things they don't mean because they're hurt. That's so destructive & you can't take a word back! You can't unsay anything. You can say you're sorry & you didn't mean it & that can help but it doesn't entirely negate what you said. And if you do that often enough, you'll lose the relationship. You just ruly will! If you make threats (usually to abandon the person) you'll completely undermine the security of the other & therefore the relationship. You'll only make things terribly worse because fear of abandonment is often the root of our hurt feelings. I can't begin to tell you how destructive this is to the overall relationship & the other person. It will erode things faster than anything else you can do other than physical violence. Monday we'll cover grudges & forgiving. Tuesday we'll cover how to build your relationships.