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How often do you fight?
If you’re married/partnered, how often do you and your partner fight?
I was reading a book about parenting and in a chapter in conflict resolution the authors mention a study where (heterosexual) married parents recorded every time they fought. Women recorded, on average, 8 fights while men recorded, on average, 7 fights. Per day. Which seems like a lot to me, even when I remember those misty halcyon days where I actually saw my husband every single day instead of the terrible overlapping work schedules where we don’t see each other awake for several days in a row every week because aughblarglefffffffffffffffff.
Now, I realize that “oh, but we don’t FIGHT! Ever!” is part and parcel of that whole “we’re SO SERIOUSLY BLESSED, our marriage is PERFECT, we just NON STOP HAVE FUN and ARE PERFECT and ARE BETTER THAN YOU” thing and I’m not going there. But Nesko and I rarely fight, even if you take spats like “OMG WHY DON’T YOU EVER CLOSE THE CABINET DOOOOOOOOOOOOOR” and “WHY DON’T YOU EVER DO THE LAAAAUUUUUUNDRYYYYYYYYYY” and “OMG STOP LEAVING YOUR SOCKS ON THE FLOOOOOOOOOOOOR” into consideration. We BRING STUFF UP, like, “Hey, honey? I’d really appreciate it if you could hang your wet towels on a hook to dry, instead of the bed frame. I worry the bed frame will warp/rust.” and “Sweetie, please stop leaving your boots in the door way where I will trip over them.” and “If you don’t fold and put away this laundry I WILL CUT YOU.” but it’s peaceful and just like… a conversation instead of an airing of grievances.
I don’t think we fight/argue/bicker even 8 times a WEEK.
Is there something wrong with us? With the way we communicate?
What do you think?
How often do you and your partner (or former partner!) fight?
What do you fight about?
Mirrored from Now Showing!.
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I think that's a good thing. I think as long as the things that need to get communicated get communicated, and nobody is secretly nursing a grudge because they think the other person should JUST KNOW BETTER, everything's fine.
Most of the anger when couples fight comes from one of two things:
1) Honest communication has been tried and isn't working--because one or both partners don't actually listen, or they listen but they don't change their behaviour/do the thing that's been requested/pay attention to the feelings behind an unusually emotional request.
2) Someone's assuming their partner should JUST KNOW BETTER and waits and waits for the other person to realise this and when they don't, blows up.
In the absence of passive-aggression/fake caring and assumptions about how other people "should" think/behave/talk/know things, there's not any real need to blow up at anyone.
If I was having 8 fights a day with someone I'd move out!
I also wonder if some of these people don't regard bringing stuff up as fighting.
The only time Verity and I ever came close to fighting was when she was closing the lid of the toilet bowl and I kept asking her not to and she kept doing it and the cats broke the toilet seat. I was a little annoyed because I knew it was going to happen, but once she explained that she was on autopilot in the bathroom and the toilet seat cover was pretty, we got rid of the toilet seat cover and put a (very artistically done) message on top of the new toilet seat (calligraphy & Sharpies FTW) reminding her, and also guests, to leave the lid up when they left the bathroom (it's legit to close it when doing hair/makeup, who wants to drop lipstick in the toilet, but the cats WILL push it aside if they decide they want that water and one of them is big enough to break it).
But that was one of the very rare "I keep asking, you keep doing it anyway" scenarios and what I was really upset about was why she kept doing it anyway; once we figured out how to prevent that, there was nothing to be upset about.
And yes, I know there are toilet seat locks for babies and toddlers, but people on autopilot will mess up operating those, plus if for some reason we are trapped in another part of the Bay by an earthquake or other unforeseen eventuality, I don't want the cats to die of thirst before anyone finds them.
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I'm assuming (yes, yes, blah blah blah, ass you me) that they included little spats/bickering in the arguing, and stuff like "how come I'm THE ONLY ONE WHO EVER does dishes around here!!!" etc because otherwise... wow.
(side note, I used to have a strict toilet seat DOWN rule to prevent stuff from falling into the toilet, but after an extended bout with gastritis and THEN getting pregnant and having to pee at a second's notice, we now have a toilet seat UP rule. I totally get Toilet Seat Issues Being Big and adore the idea of a prettily lettered reminder on top of the seat.)
If you're interested, the book says that arguing is not inherently bad, but if you hide arguments from their kids (especially if you start arguing then go off to finish the argument where they can't see), then THAT is bad. Kids do best when they see arguing that is RESOLVED. So sure, fight about who drank the last coke (or whatever) but let your kid also see how you resolve the issue. Which was interesting, and makes sense!
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I mean, sometimes I want to fucking throttle him, but generally speaking that's not actually something that is a fight. Like, one of the things that causes that, is that how he handles frustration with technology drives me right up the fucking wall. There's not really any changing that on either end, seriously, so I just remove myself until he finishes fighting with it. Like -- if I don't, we will fight? Over something stupid and not actually important.
So you know, like motherfucking adult, I know this and remove myself until we can both be sane again.
I always have wondered if maybe we're doing something wrong, if like. We're burying stuff or something and some day this will all blow up in our faces. But it never feels like that, to me anyway?
Which, I mean, my parents did fight sometimes. My parents and I also fought (usually me and my mom). It didn't always resolve all that well either, in the sense of resolving the issue? But I did learn conflict is not the end of the world, and it doesn't mean they don't love you anymore so. I don't think that I'm afraid of fighting with him? I just mostly don't need to.
Also I honest to god cannot even imagine fighting or even bickering that many times a day even if we spent all day every day together. What.
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The main thing driving me crazy right now is that, no matter how many times I remind him, he won't rinse out or otherwise clean stuff he's putting in the recycling.
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I've been living with my partner for less than two months, so I doubt we've settled into a pattern yet. But we've been together for years, and ... he doesn't start fights with me, ever. That seems to be my job! It's pretty silly because he loves arguing with people online and he and his father fight basically whenever they're in the same room. Whereas I hate conflict.
My current analysis is that he thinks of fighting as the appropriate response to people you're contemptuous of (his horrible father, online conspiracy theorists) and, since I am not contemptible, he doesn't need to pick fights with me. So far, when I'm doing something he doesn't like, he's either comfortable enough to calmly tell me to stop it, or he retaliates with escalation. (E.g. if I am annoying him by playing with his hair, instead of saying "Stop playing with my hair," he will ruffle mine back until I look like a sad poodle. If anyone else did this I would probably kill them, but he has somehow figured out how to be maximally obnoxious without actually upsetting me at all.)
Whereas I think of conflict as something that is unpleasant, not a fun voluntary activity, but the means to solving problems that seem like they could cause resentment later. The more I care about and respect someone, the more it matters to me that we solve our problems and that I be honest with them about how I'm feeling, and so the more likely it is that I'll bring problems up. I guess I notice problems more now that we're living together, too, because I'm the one with higher standards for living-space tidiness.
I think I need to work at remembering that the individual things I bring up to fight about are not, really, that important, so that I don't get all emotionally invested in winning an argument. And I wish my partner were a bit better at telling me what he wants. But we're doing okay. And we definitely don't fight eight times a day.
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We did occasionally have a very serious disagreement and I'd get furious, and believe me I can stay angry for a very a long time (mom's training at work here) -- he came back from three weeks away, walked into the apt. and I glared at him, and he said, "I CANNOT BELIEVE you're still mad!" and I was, because he ducked dealing with all that was angering me. That may also be why we fought so little though -- is that he doesn't like confrontations.
But we've been together now for many years and we've arrived into that golden glow of years that you only get when you are together that long and you still love each other and share common goals and ideals and make each other laugh. We never fight, though we will disagree on some things. But it's never serious. We've come into very comfortable accomodations with each other's failings as well as each other's wonderful parts.
We can even write books together, books of history, and not even disagree very often ....
Love, C.
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