Is it important to learn how to fight? Doesn’t a healthy marriage mean you don’t fight? You talk things through calmly and everybody goes away happy. Maybe that’s what you thought. Or maybe that’s what you thought you were seeing in the way your parents interacted. They seemed to get along well. So why is it so hard for you and your spouse to agree on certain things? And why do you seem to have the same fight over and over?
When Joe and Julie talked about marriage, they imagined that their love would carry them through anything. They’d share their lives—the joys and the burdens, they’d make every decision together. They’d have honest, open communication. They’d split the workload at home. When kids came along they’d share the parenting 50/50. They’d talk through problems and just solve them. Nothing would ever come between them. They were committed to each other “till death do us part.”
And then life happened. Joe and Julie discovered that they were two very different personalities with differing needs and desires. They’d thought they knew each other very well, but somehow the permanency of marriage changed things. They found that their feelings about certain issues they’d discussed in premarital counseling were different now. . . It all sounded great in the planning stage, but living it out is not going the way they’d thought. They’d decided that they’d share the household tasks. They’d each do their own laundry. They’d take turns making dinner, cleaning the bathroom, mopping the kitchen floor. But then life got busy with their different work schedules and activities, and the plans just went out the window! Now there is nothing for dinner, they’re both out of clean underwear, and the place is a mess. And to top it off, Joe’s parents are coming for the weekend! And they had agreed never to spend more than $100 without running it by each other. But on Wednesday Julie’s car wouldn’t start. Joe was out of town on a business trip. Julie was late for work, so she had to arrange towing and then pay for expensive repairs. She had to put it on the credit card, and now she knows they won’t be able to pay the balance when the bill comes, as they’d promised each other they would always do. Joe goes to check out of his hotel on Friday morning and his credit card is declined. Embarrassed, he steps aside and calls the credit card company to tell them they’ve made an error, only to discover a $900 charge to the auto dealership! Fuming, he calls Julie, who has avoided calling him about the car because she knows she should have asked him before using the credit card. Joe is livid! This didn’t have to happen. He has a friend who owns a repair shop, who would have come to the house, changed the battery, and saved them a whole ton of money. But because Julie went ahead and got the car towed and had the dealership do the repair, he can’t even put his room charge on his credit card!
When Joe arrives home in the evening is their love going to carry them through? Will they just have honest, open communication and have “nothing between them?” If you’ve been married for very long, you probably see Joe and Julie’s little problem as just that—little. In the grand scheme of things it won’t make or break the marriage. They will have far bigger problems as time goes on, we know. But the way Joe and Julie handle this conflict will affect how they handle future problems. Harsh words spoken in anger hurt. When we’re angry with our spouse we can go into “attack mode” and be so determined to “win” that we lose sight of not just the issue at hand, but our spouse’s well-being as well. In the heat of the moment we can’t see how hurtful we’re being.
How do Joe and Julie avoid getting into the all too common “fight cycle” or “fight dance” that erodes the foundation of their relationship? How do they learn how to communicate without allowing their emotions to take over so they say things they will later regret? Is it even possible to talk things through in a way that actually solves anything without causing emotional injury to each other? How does Joe rein in his anger? How does Julie find the courage to be honest and forthcoming? How do they keep their relationship “safe” for each other?
It is possible to learn to show honor and respect to your spouse in the midst of a disagreement. Maybe your parents didn’t demonstrate healthy communication. Maybe you’ve been married for a long time and know that you’ve already done a lot of damage by the way you’ve argued in the past. Maybe you have a really strong fight cycle going on and you’ve distanced yourselves from each other just to keep the peace—except it’s not really peaceful at all. It feels terrible. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can change! No matter how long you’ve been married and how ingrained your fight cycle is, you can change it! But you’re probably going to need some help! That’s what Covenant Shore is for. We have BEEN THERE! We had such a strong fight cycle going that we thought we’d never get out. We had resigned ourselves to just never being able to resolve some issues. There were “danger zones” where we just didn’t go. Now, however, after some hard lessons and plenty of tears, we are better than ever. No subject is off limits—because we now know how to talk about anything. And we’re committed to helping other couples find what we’ve found. If you would like to learn more about how we can help you, contact us today!