How to Fight without Fighting
I recently heard Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift haven’t fought in over 2 years.
Kelce even interviewed George Clooney, who hasn’t fought with his wife in 10 years.
And of course, the internet went crazy about it, claiming neither was telling the truth.
But from my experience, I have no reason to believe they aren’t telling the truth. And by my experience, I do not mean my own personal outlook on fighting in a relationship.
I am lucky and blessed enough to be married to someone who fights well, and because of that, we never really fight.
Not in some “there’s always peace between us” type of way - but our arguments never turn into fights. After putting some thought into it, I realize why.
She does 3 things really well, and I believe they keep us from fighting.
1) She looks at herself first
From our earliest days together, which go back almost 7 years now, my wife has always looked at what she did to contribute to the argument. She doesn’t come with a list of things I did, but a list of what she did.
This behavior immediately disarms me, which ends the fight before it begins.
Psychologically, men tend to view everything through the lens of respect. Women tend to have their own lens; safety. So when women feel unsafe in an argument, their language tends to imply blame on the man, as he is the one who is supposed to keep her safe. That implication often lands as disrespect, and the argument escalates into a fight.
My wife knows how to look at herself first, rather than blaming me. This disarms me and gives me no one to look at but myself.
She’s so good at this that whenever I am actually the one to blame, it’s very clear. Whenever she does lay out something I did, it bypasses the need in me for respect and triggers my responsibility to keep her safe. But those moments are coupled with the other things she does well;
2) She clearly lays out what she needs
Which goes hand in hand with the next thing;
3) She does not assume I know what she’s thinking
We’ve all seen that scene in the movie where she looks at him and goes, “It’s not something you did, it’s something you didn’t do.”
Public service announcement - we don’t know what to do! How are we supposed to know what we aren’t supposed to not do?
That sentence is as hard to understand as the situation it conveys.
No one, not even your spouse, can really know what you’re thinking. Assuming they know, or should know, it’s great fuel for a fight. It now accrues two mistakes to your spouse’s ledger: the thing they did and the ignorance of doing the thing.
Simply not assuming and clearly communicating what you need puts the couple’s attention on what’s important: what happened, how it can be remedied, and how to avoid it in the future.
I remember our first official fight. We had been engaged for a few weeks and were on our way to a big dinner together. I did something she didn’t appreciate, but with no malice in my heart; I shared something with someone she wished I would have kept between us.
We simply hadn’t spent enough time together to even know how each other operated; I’m an external processor, while she’s an internal processor. That’s really what the fight was about.
We’ve both come to the middle on the issue since then, but it’s because of that fight.
She wanted to shut down, as she hadn’t had enough time to process how she was feeling. But we hadn’t even gotten to dinner yet, and I didn’t want to waste the night. I’m still not good at sitting in silence, so spending a night together with her, mad at me, wasn’t on my menu.
In the middle of our “discussion,” I chose to try out something new;
“Take the next 15 minutes to think about how you feel, and I’ll sit quietly. Then, we’ll talk.”
This was equally challenging for each of us; for her, having to be ready to talk in 15 minutes, and for me, sitting quietly.
But what followed was the best discovery of our relationship to that point, and it didn’t take the full 15 minutes.
She needed time, and I needed resolve.
When we gave that to each other, we were able to have a wonderful evening. It’s a practice we continue to pull out before tensions are high.
And in that way, we’re able to handle our conflict before it becomes too conflicting.
I don’t think fighting well is about yelling or not yelling, agreeing or disagreeing, but about learning more about the person you’re with. Looking at yourself first, not assuming, and clearly communicating what you need goes a long way in helping you both learn more about each other and enjoy each other’s company more!
Which is why I don’t bat an eye at the idea that these other couples haven’t fought. Some couples avoid conflict in unhealthy ways, for sure. Others simply have learned how to communicate before conflict turns into outright fights.
Either way, I’m grateful I’m married to a woman who knows how to fight well.