Have a good fight

Boy, have Manny and I been having some good fights lately! So good, I just need to encourage you, too, to have some good fights. Have some good fights if you are parents, have even more fights if you are a married couple without kids, have even more fights than that if you are an engaged couple, and for couples who who pre-engaged, y’all need to have the most fights of all.

Years before I even knew Manny, I learned that married couples take seven times as long to get through a fight as pre-married couples. The idea is that once you're legally/emotionally/physically/spiritually bound on that new level, the stakes are so much higher that fighting becomes seven times as tricky. 

Of course it’s not good to have a bad fight, where things go unresolved or people are left wounded at the end. But a good fight should help air some inner truths or frustrations hiding below the surface of your relationship so that you can figure out how to operate better together. A good fight should end with you owning a bigger piece of your partner's operating manual, more information on what their needs and/or dreams are and what you can do to help meet and or realize them. A good fight is one where you can hold onto the awareness that you are actually on the same team. I believe good fights will give you great tools and insight in how to better love and serve your partner so that while your future will not be fight free, it can be more intimate and uplifting and you can better help one another realize your best selves. So going forward in this post, know that I am referring to good fights. 

I almost made a point of picking fights with Manny while we were engaged. That made for a tough season in our relationship, with the logistical stress of wedding planning, the emotional pressure of preparing to be married, then the relational tension of fighting fairly often. While I feel no desire to ever be engaged again, and I might instead advocate simply having the courage to have the fights that come up rather than picking fights, I am grateful for those fights we had. We got several big issues clarified that served us well into our marriage. We fought about things like whether or not to budget, how to interact with each other’s families, how our cultural backgrounds were different, and how dishes should be washed. After all of that out of our way, our first year, which many people warned us would be the hardest, felt like a blissful extended honeymoon. 

The point was not to have a marriage without fighting, let me be clear. While it was a pleasant and largely fight-free first year, to this day, more than seven years in, our fights are one of the aspects of our marriage I remain most grateful for. 

So that worked out great. But no one thought to give us the advice to get as many married-couple fights in as possible before a child was in the picture. If a married fight takes seven times as long as a pre-married fight, I'm going to estimate that a parents'-fight takes about a million times as long as a childless-married-couple's fight. Ok, I don't know what the actual ratio would be, I’d be interested to find out if anyone knows of any such data.

With a child in the picture, not only have the stakes been taken up another notch, but also you have to add in the factors of exhaustion, limited windows of opportunity, and the fact that most of your time together includes a little interrupting machine who makes it their mission to be sure you never get to complete a full sentence in one breath. (maybe that’s why I overcompensate by writing impossibly long sentences) It is not so much that the fight itself takes longer, it’s that opportunities to work through a fight are so much harder to find. The frustrations simmer, boil, and then explode to the surface before you have a chance to address all your feelings or concerns in a more peaceful way.

While I am a big believer in being sensitive to the impact of what you say and how you say it in front of your child, I am also a believer in letting your child see you fight. (again, remember I’m referring to good fights here) For one thing, you don't often have the luxury of choosing when your fights will come up. And if your child sees the conflict open up, but then never sees it resolved, how will they know that things are okay between you, and how will they know a healthy way of resolving conflict themselves? So if your child is going to be present while you fight, I think you should use that as an impetus for self-control in your tone, words, and attitude towards your partner, which in general is not a bad rule when engaging in conflict. And you should use that as motivation to work towards authentic reconciliation in your child's presence. (For more complete and educated thoughts on this, see John Gottman's books on parenting/children)

Manny and I have been having some of the most productive fights of our relationship lately, and I am SO grateful for them! Maybe it is the realization of how efficient we have to be in our fighting, or the external control factor (Sofia) pushing us to be more civilized and constructive, or just the reality that we've been at this for nearly a decade now and practice makes for better fighters (certainly not perfect ones).

We've gotten to a place where we can trust that the other is in it for the hard times as much as the good, so it is safe to air out our grievances. We've had enough fights to start learning that it is ok to face the discomfort of discord, and in fact that walking through that discomfort yields a happier ending than pre-maturely cutting off the conflict. We've practiced changing our behavior based on what we learn in the fights enough that we can make an assertive request for the other to change without resorting to the sarcasm that comes from hopelessness and only makes the fights more destructive and the ability and motivation to change so much harder. 

I guess the general rule is to fight while you can. Speak your suggestions and requests when that’s what they are, before they grow into demands laden with hurt. Be humble but honest about your needs with the person you choose to trust to meet those needs. And share your playbook as you learn for yourself how you operate, because remember, you’re on the same team!

I know I'm not an enjoyable person to fight with. I know that this concept of good fights is 99% counter-intuitive. And I know that having the courage to enter into a good fight is really scary. I count myself immeasurably graced by a husband who would love me in this way. We didn't start out this way. This is a measure of our growth as people, as a couple, as a family. I just feel too grateful not to make a big statement of gratitude to him. 

I have to thank you, Manny, for the great fights we've had in the past several months that have pushed us towards a better life and a deeper love. The evolution of your approach to fighting demonstrates to me an incredible selflessness and love that I know I do not deserve. I have to thank you for each good fight that gives me more courage to enter into the next conflict with real hope for positive change. I hope I can change for the better, love you more selflessly, and help you find the satisfaction of your needs and the realization of your dreams that proves to you that all our fights and vulnerable conversations are well worth it. 

Dear Husband,

I love you and I am grateful that I get to fight with you.

Love,

your Wife.

Dear Lobsters,

I wish you all some good fights.

Love,

Zoe