Dating : Your Relationship Depends Not on How You Love but on How You Fight

You’ve surpassed the honeymoon phase, and the fairy dust in your eyes has started to settle. The person you love becomes who they always were: a sometimes smelly human with faults.

Someone different from you.

Suddenly, you can’t agree on a movie to watch. Suddenly, instead of cuddling you to sleep, he wants to stay up late and read when you just want him to turn the lights off. Slowly, you both start to reclaim your individuality.

And as the differences between you sharpen, you will butt heads. If you’re not careful, you will start nagging, being passive aggressive, or lashing out.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

There is a way to handle conflict with grace and poise, and your ability to do so will, more than anything else, determine whether you can thrive together.

So how do you fight gracefully? Well it starts with some solo work.

Instead of snapping at your partner when you’re angry, first observe the feelings flowing through you. Your heart rate may pick up, your face may get hot, you may have the urge to hit something.

Don’t suppress those feelings. Accept them, but try your best not to react to them right away.

For example, the other evening, I asked my partner whether he wanted some wine.

“No I don’t need any,” he replied.

Need, I thought. His response struck a nerve. “I was just asking if you wanted some wine. I don’t need any wine either!” I felt offended by his choice of words, so I replied in an aggressive way.

Next time, instead of snapping at his fairly harmless comment, I should have said, “Okay,” observed the anger stirring inside of me and then followed the next steps before I responded.

Next, try to identify why you feel what you feel. Why does whatever she said make you angry?

In my case, it was that I felt like my partner was implying that by wanting wine, I needed wine.

I felt judged somehow. Which was also likely a reflection of an insecurity I have deep inside about choosing to use mind-altering substances.

It’s important to recognize that ultimately our feelings come from inside of us. It’s not our partner’s fault that we feel offended. Ultimately, we always feel offended because of our own insecurities, which our partner somehow provoked.

It’s best to wait until you are not angry to communicate something that’s bothering you.

Take a few deep breaths to slow your heart rate down first. Remind yourself that just because you’re angry, it doesn’t mean that anger is meaningful.

It’s like when someone cuts you off at an intersection. You might become enraged, but really, it’s not that big of a deal. There are much worse things that could happen.

Your level of anger does not directly relate to how important something is.

When you partner says something that makes you angry, try your best to respond neutrally at first until you can fully process what happened.

Once you’ve had some time to reflect, it’s time to communicate. First, start out by going over the incident. State only the facts as objectively as possible.

In my case, I would say to my partner, “Just before, I asked if you wanted to have some wine, and you replied you didn’t need any.”

This step is important, just so everyone is clear what actually went down.

Already at this point, you may end up solving the problem. For example, you may find that you misheard your partner and what she actually said wouldn’t have made you angry had you heard her correctly the first time.

Once you’ve stated what happened, talk about what feelings arose in you without blaming the other person.

So in my case, I would say, “When you said that, it made me angry. It made me feel badly about how I wanted to relax at the end of the day.”

This step is important so your partner understands why you are confronting them in the first place.

If they don’t know how you actually felt, it’s going to be much harder for them to feel empathetic and thus, motivated to change their behavior.

Now he knows you are feeling badly, help him figure out what you need to not feel badly. But also remember this is still about you, not necessarily about your partner.

In my case, I would say, “I need to not feel judged for wanting to drink a glass of wine at the end of the day.”

Now is the time you actually suggest how your partner can change her behavior.

In my case, I could request that next time I suggest a drink, he say, “No thank you, I don’t want any right now,” instead of saying, “I don’t need it.”

Usually the request you make is going to be one related to communication.

An unhelpful request would be, “Can you not make me feel like an alcoholic anymore?”

That won’t work because it depends on your feelings and ultimately, your partner cannot be responsible for how you feel.

He can only be responsible for the physical actions he takes and the words he speaks.