How many rounds? December 20, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Dr. Jay , trackbackDo you fight with your spouse?
I wonder if Jay and I are unusual. We rarely fight. When I say rarely, I can recount 3 fights during our 14 year relationship. The first biggie was me yelling and he agreeing that secrets are not to be kept if trust is to be honored. The second was when we disagreed about a leaking pipe. The third was right after Luna was born and we had her Brit Bat at home and we started arguing and I turned to him in tears and we both agreed we were stressed from everything and we hugged and made up.
I don’t mean to say we agree on everything. Certainly not. We disagree alot. But we don’t FIGHT about it.
The first big fight was within the first 4 months of us dating. I won’t go into details, please don’t ask. That is between us. But we did discuss that we need to be honest with each other. That trust is earned, not given away like a present. We also agreed at that point to be civil at all times. This is a serious one to me. I know friends who have been in abusive relationships. The words that can be spoken and hurt harder than any blow could just tear me apart. I don’t understand why people insist on trying to hurt the other person with harsh words.
Since that first one, we have kept things civil. We agree to disagree when things get tough. We agree that I can sweat the details and he can sweat the big stuff. We have agreed to always have a plan to deviate from.
How does your relationship work? Do you have knockdown fights? Do you discuss things? are we weird because we calmly discuss things when the going gets tough?
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We have tiffs where I won’t say goodnight to her. That happens about once a year. But, no screaming or shouting matches. Not perfect, not angels, just too…..tired or mature or BOTH(?) to go into fireworks over every little thing.
thank you….for normalizing my experience.
David and I don’t fight either. In the 10 years we’ve been together, I can think of exactly one “fight” we had, and only a few instances of misunderstandings that have escalated to a feeling of “get out of my face for a while while I cool off and figure out how best to discuss this”.
For the most part, we are talkers - both of us. I like to talk immediately (or as immediately as possible, as we do not have these kinds of discussions in front of the kids). He likes to take time to think before he’s ready to talk. Neither of us likes to go to bed until we’ve talked something through.
Overall, we rarely disagree, certainly not on “the big stuff”. Our biggest two things have been around how he used to act when we are at his parents house (he would regress into an ingoring teenager, leaving me to answer all 9,432 questions his parents throw at us about our “plans”, which sets me up to be the bad guy), and initially about his fears that we were “moving too quickly” which I misinterpretted as him wanting out of the relationship…which obviously, I was wrong on that one (thankfully).
But we talk…and talk….and talk….
This is interesting….we don’t fight, either. I can remember maybe two major arguments in 8.5 years of marriage, but neither of us will yell when it’s a major disagreement — we just stew for awhile, then talk it out.
I think I gripe at DH fairly often, but for dumb things like leaving crumbs on the counter, or whatever. He’s really great at deflecting with humor, and he’s wonderful with just letting me blow off steam when I need to, knowing that I’m just bitching because I’m stressing, etc.
DH, on the other hand, almost never gets angry at me…at most, he will lecture me for throwing away something that should have been recycled, LOL. But that is the extent of the discord between us…and I’m so very grateful. I think we just agree on most of the big topics, and let the small stuff slide.
We don’t fight very often (maybe once a year?) But we have “discussions”. My Son will say “don’t fight” when we are disagreeing, because that is what he thinks a “fight” is. (discussing!)
Did that make any sense? I am so tired…
Well we fight, lol. We call ourselves “passionate”. Nobody has ever made me as angry or crazy as him; but nobody has ever made me feel as deeply, securely loved either. I’ve heard of couples who don’t fight. I think so much of it is personality.
I wrote a long respose to this and it hasn’t shown up…hmmm. I am too tired to write it again. Maybe tomorrow!Lisa