How do you fight? (married couples)

[yssie]

Not married, but FI and I have been living together for 1.5yrs now and we''ve certainly had our disagreements.


FI fights fairly. No bringing in old arguments, no unnecessary digs - he just sticks to the issues at hand and spells out his opinions. I, on the other hand, have this bad habit of bottling up all my problems, big and small, and then something will set me off and I''ll explode a fortnight or a month later and sometimes FI won''t even remember the original issue - which just makes it worse. I know I have my mum''s temper - I can be fuming, then laughing fifteen minutes later.. my dad, on the other hand, is able to hold a grudge for weeks, I hated that!


The making up afterward is fantastic

 

[ksinger]

Hmmm. We both value domestic tranquility over just about anything. Honestly, I''m usually the one to get really angry. Usually after a warning period. I''ll tell him flatly what I require - because beating around the bush does NOT work with men in general and with this one particularly, and then give him the chance to give me what I need. Example. Recently he''s developed this weird habit of shutting the bathroom door after using it. Even to just brush teeth or wash hands. Well, I get up sometimes in the middle of the night, and because the door is dark, run smack into it. NOT fun. So I say, "Honey, you''ve got to quit shutting the bathroom door, because I''m going to run into it. Please don''t do that." And then give him several more reminders, usually with the caveat that the next one probably won''t be so pretty...I think the last time I mentioned it, the word "volcanic" was in my warning. He hasn''t done that recently. He''s a hard, strong man, but has that natural inborn fear of angry redheads I guess. But I suppose that isn''t really a description of how we fight.

There is usually him barking something in a particular "tone" that can set me off almost instantly. And I stay mad. I can stay that way for a day or so actually, although it takes a lot of energy and I have to feel strongly that I''ve been truly wronged to keep that level of anger up. I''m older and it takes more out of me than it once did, quite frankly. It ends up with me being pretty silent - not as punishment, but as biting my tongue and choosing my words, because we both truly value the solution more than sticking to some sort of position. When I''m calmer, I will address the issue, and we work it out like grown-ups. We''ve always come to some solution and moved on without recrimination. We really don''t fight much. I don''t enjoy being angry or at odds with the man I love. But right now we ARE in the stress time of year for him and these things tend to flare up until the end of school. We had/are having a minor one as I type, as a matter of fact. I''ll be glad when school is out for the summer...