Everyone fights. Maybe you and your partner bicker about money, household chores, or parenting styles. Perhaps you’ll be able to’t stand their tone of voice while discussing logistics or your skin crawls once you discuss politics.
While it might feel, at times, like you could have a shared identity, you and your spouse are two different people. “Even though you’re together, fell in love, and maybe built a family, that doesn’t mean you’re the same person or have all of the same views and opinions,” Lisa Brateman, LCSW, a New York City–based therapist and the creator of , tells SELF. That’s not a foul thing: With distinct personality traits, you’ll be able to learn from one another and potentially have a better time coping with stressful events and solving problems (as they are saying, two heads are higher than one). However, it does mean that you’ll, inevitably, butt heads.
If you fight the way—you’re open to your partner’s perspective and truly take heed to their concerns—your disagreements can provide help to understand one another higher and grow as a pair. But we humans are complicated, messy creatures, which suggests we don’t all the time behave rationally. As a result, relationship fights can quickly get combative and cruel (and I believe it’s protected to say no one ever resolved one by giving their loved one the cold shoulder.)
Sparring together with your SO doesn’t must be a lose-lose situation, though, so in the event you feel like your arguments are more destructive than constructive, it could be time to vary up your style. After all, as Brateman puts it: “It’s not you fight, it’s you fight.” Here are five glaring clues that your word wars are doing more harm than good—and some easy-to-implement suggestions for fighting fair.
1. You blame one another.
Let’s pretend you asked your partner to be ready to go away at 7 p.m. to get to your dinner reservation on time. It’s 6:55 and they’re still within the shower and you might be…fuming. Ten minutes later, they hop out of the lavatory and, with a you say, “Why aren’t you ready yet? You knew we were supposed to leave 10 minutes ago!”
Should they’ve managed their time higher? Perhaps, but Brateman says blaming is certainly one of the more common toxic behaviors she sees in unhappy couples. “Blame is: ,” she says, and no matter whether or not your partner tousled, once you come at them with that attitude, they’ll likely feel attacked and go on the defense. The result: Instead of finding out your conflict, you most likely won’t resolve anything and will proceed to spat.
People throw blame at family members over all types of issues: Maybe you’re feeling like your person sucks at scheduling quality time with you, they never pick up your phone calls, or they’re god-awful at planning ahead (see shower example above)—and you’ll be able to’t help but say, “Why on earth did (or didn’t) you do that?!”
