This one goes out to those of you who have girlfriends or wives (and if you’ve been paying attention and using your brains all along this series you will realise that most of what i say would fit into a ‘how to love your man better’ series or be applied to family and friends and work colleagues to differing extents so i hope no-one has been put off by the titles – i am specifically wanting to help guys be better men which is why i am addressing it to them) because as amazing and incredible and heart-fluttering and life-transforming and silly-grin-forming and so on as it is, there will come a time…
Being married is not easy. Well i mean it is. A lot. A lot of lots of easy. A lot of the time. But not all of the time. Sometimes it is not easy. Sometimes it is work/effort. Sometimes it is sacrifice and compromise. And sometimes it is arguing…
Because inevitably that will happen. If you never ever argue or fight in your relationship then chances are you are not being real with each other. In fact i’d stake the farm on it. I don’t have a farm, but if i did this is the bet i’d gamble it on. And i don’t think it is much of a gamble. There may be some couple reading this who go ‘oh but we never fight’ – if you’re a long distance couple and see each other for two days once a month then that is likely to be true because every night is date night and mxit or facebook or sms or phone call only reveal the good positive happy fun side of your person. But if you are in ongoing relationship (and especially if you are married when you have to stick around – and more importantly choose to – you can’t not be there when you don’t feel like it or when you’re cranky or she’s cranky or you both are) and see each other a lot, there will be conflict. [or one of you or even both in our grande dislike of confrontation might suppress and argument and back away or withdraw and so it may look like you’re not fighting, but the fight has just moved to an internal battlefield with far worse consequences eventually]
And so arguments will happen. To love your woman better you can choose to argue well.
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[…] that good). To check them out go to Irresistibly Fish and explore or you can see the first one here. I contributed to some of the posts – which are as much lessons in how to love your […]
[…] the first one was titled ‘how to love your woman better’ but it was really about how to be in a good relationship and so it works for women as well to read cos generally the principles work both ways – it is a series of posts with each one having a link to the following one and so you can read as many or as few as you please [and as always, if you think any of them will be helpful to anyone you know, feel free to pass on]: http://brettfish.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/how-to-love-your-woman-better-part-arguing-well-part-i-of… […]
Hey Brett…
I’d like to take you up on your farm bet in this discussion!!!
My hubby and I have together for 4 years now and never did the whole long distance thing!!
And We don’t argue! Seriously.
Yes we have both disagreed on stuff, but its never gotten to a stage where either of us is angry with the other
We simply discuss, debate, talk.
We are madly in love- are convinced marriage is the best thing God invented,
And although things haven’t always been easy its never become a situation of taking it out on the other person
If Tim has hurt me, I wait until the hurt isn’t smarting quite so badly and quietly and privately mention it to him.
He apologises and we move on- and visa versa..
Nothing isn’t discussed or is suppressed..
Starting to wonder why we seem to be so different to other couples!?
Do you seriously all fight?
Love Jax & Tim
hey Jackie,
i feel fortunate perhaps that i don’t have a farm altho i am not sure if this is a semantical discussion cos instead of argue stick in disagree cos i think that was the point i was making – you will have conflict at some stage whether on a different idea of doing something or difference of opinion or actual physical/verbal/louder conflict and it sounds like you guys have it going well which is really good and exciting and the post was specifically aimed at those who have it less so. depends a lot on personality as well in terms of how the conflict goes and it seems like you might be very well balanced in that area and possibly chilled people generally whereas my wife and i are both quite intense in some ways [some would say passionate, we would, i think, and not saying that you are not passionate] but what works for us as a strength a lot also comes back and bites us on the bum…
hope that makes sense
love b
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