♫ Can't Kiss Everything Better

I hate fighting. I’m not talking about the cute let’s pretend fight, because it’s fun to argue, and decide who wins this stellar argument over rock, paper, scissors. I mean the real kind too. The kind where you throw stuff, and yell, and get angry, and hate him for a few hours, and then feel terrible afterwards. The kind that starts off the movie P.S. I Love You so well. The kind where you begin to worry where you’re going to sleep that night, because it’s that bad.

But.

As much as I hate fighting, I hate not fighting even more. I’ve been in enough relationships to know that not fighting, gives me so much inner turmoil. There are only so many things that you can let go before they catch up to you. It’s like heartburn, only worse, because you can’t describe the feeling, or make it better. They don't make tums for inner turmoil yet. I'm emailing the labs though, please hold.

I love that I have a fighter. We actually get made fun of quite often for how much we argue. Mostly it’s the annoyingly adorable fights, but we have the real ones too. And we’re good at it. It’s amazing the relief when it’s actually cleared out of our systems though.

Confession:

I am a passionate person, and I have a temper. It’s actually pretty hard to find. It’s buried deeeeeeep. When it comes out to play though, it does not play well with others. I’ve learned some things to better our arguments. Sometimes, you have to agree to disagree. More often, you have to compromise and it sucks. The most important thing though, is to breathe. It’s better to take a self-check and think about what you’re emotional or angry about, before actually getting to that boiling point. Steps to survive, and not end up sleeping in the bathtub.

#1. Agree from the very beginning that you will not go to bed angry. I always thought that rule was junk, until I did go to bed angry. And slept angry. And woke up angry. Nope, fight until morning if you have to.

#2. It’s ok to take time to breathe. Sit there in the awkward heavy silence, leave the room, take a drive, take a walk. Breathe. Practicing breathing when you’re angry, concentrating on breathing, actually clears your head and gives you straight thoughts to decide if you really should be angry, of if there is another underlying issue. It’s kind of like…when a baby is crying uncontrollably, sometimes you have to just let him cry it out. You have to walk away before you hurt them. Well…we grow out of that lesson, apparently. Walk Away. Cry it out….instead of strangling the other person. Amazing how it works.

#3. Give them their turn to speak. This one is still my weak point. In arguments, when he’s talking…I’m either shoving my point out of my mouth so fast it drowns him out, OR I’m thinking so hard on what I’m going to say, that I’m not hearing his point. The only way to ever reach a compromise, is understanding their stupid point of view too. ;)

#4. Never yell. It’s hard, in the heat of passion. But it’s one of my favorite rules between him and I…and even between me and my kids. There is nothing that you need to say, that needs to come out IN CAPS LOCKS VOICE. You can talk everything out calmly, and if you can’t, you’re not ready to discuss it anyway.

Of course there are more rules than this. And no relationship is perfect. But this is a really good start to going the distance, healthily.

Want proof that arguing really does help? Read this: The Bad Habit That's Good For You Give it a minute, it'll take a bit for the page to load.

Curious, what works for you in arguments?

Yours Truly,
Nomz