8 Tips On Fighting In A Marriage Respectfully

Marriage is a forever type of commitment, and a conflict is an opportunity to learn better about the person you have agreed to spend the rest of your life with. Don’t be afraid of conflicts. It’s a chance for your relationship to grow despite the recurring differences in your thoughts and feelings. If you are asking if fighting fair in a marriage is possible, the answer is yes. Below are some of the tips on fighting in a marriage respectfully.

# Don’t act out of anger

This is the first point that I want to address as a newly married woman. It was all good during the honeymoon period. But once the honeymoon phase began to grow faint, the differences started to emerge. The clashes were quite silly and happened due to trivial things in the beginning. Differences related to movie choices or where and what to eat for dinner. Then followed the bigger issues where neither the fights nor the reasons for them were small.

# Listen empathetically

Empathy is very essential in every relationship. Lack of empathy in relationships don’t usually survive in the long run. Listen without interrupting your partner and try to understand where they are coming from. Maybe put on their shoes and look at everything from their perspective. Hold eye contact and assure them that they are being heard. Once your partner is finished talking, keep your side of the story on the table.

# Rules of fighting in a marriage – Don’t be mean and don’t give ultimatums

If you are always fighting in a marriage, then maybe you are just being mean to one another during the fight. One of the major things to avoid is name-calling and mocking the other person. Stop criticizing them. Always fight respectfully with your spouse. Attacking the person, and not the issue, won’t end your fight. It will aggravate the problem and anger your partner even more.

# Don’t downplay the issue

One of the tips of fighting in a marriage is by addressing the issues respectfully instead of ignoring them. This is one one of the relationship challenges everyone faces. When your partner is pouring their heart out and stating an issue honestly which rubbed them the wrong way, don’t downplay it by shrugging it off. It just looks like you don’t care about their feelings, which is wrong on so many levels. It will make you the villain even if you didn’t do anything wrong to upset your spouse.

# Have cooling-off periods

Anger management in relationships is very important. If you feel either of you won’t be able to control your anger, then establish a cooling-off period where you can pause and take a deep breath. It’s like the pause button which Lily and Marshall use in How I Met Your Mother. A cooling-off period is necessary to not lose sight of what’s important and what will remain after the fight is over—the relationship.

# Tips on fighting in a marriage – Stay on one topic

This is one of the things I mistook for harmless mistakes in a relationship, and one which I am guilty of doing. I used to wonder why my husband argues with everything I say. And then I realized that I bring up past issues while addressing the issue at hand. That’s the answer I found to why my husband and I fight all the time. I was never capable of sticking to one topic. We kept fighting over different issues.

# Don’t stonewall your partner

Stonewalling is a toxic habit most people have in order to maintain control and self-sufficiency. If you withdraw from listening to what your partner has to say and refuse to give them a response, that’s called stonewalling or the silent treatment. You being unresponsive to your partner’s concerns won’t lessen the problems.

# Choose words carefully

When having a conflict, most of us resort to statements like “you did this” and “you did that”. Such phrases put all the blame on one person even though it always takes two to tango. Saying hurtful things affects the relationship. You can’t expect your partner to shoulder all the blame and accountability when you have also been in the wrong. Instead of making the entire argument a bizarre blame game, use healthy statements like “I feel” or “I think”.