love, arguments, and the art of relationship

Love, Arguments, and the Artof Relationship Building

How to Make Your Relationship Stronger

By Having "Positive" Confrontations.

This is a book extract about the role of conflict in our lives as a tool for learningabout ourselves and about the others we care about. In any personal relationship ofvalue, conflict is the master which pushes us to more understanding, more patience

and more connection.

If you have been engaging in too many destructive conflicts that have soured yourrelationships and left you lonely and bitter… Are you pretty sure of how to negotiatesome relationship aspects with a loved person? And, being pretty sure that keepingsilent and sulking will not help either?

You have very few possible responses to interpersonal conflict:

• You either escalate, fighting fire with fire, which is totally opposite to thegoals of a love relationship and destroys it;

• Or play dead and respond with all kinds of avoidance or passive aggressivebehavior (and thus you practically defect from your role in the relationship.)

• Or you learn how to negotiate change and differences with your loved one.

If you are confused and afraid of asserting your needs, because of not knowing howto do it without damaging the relationship, here is some help to restore balance andhope.

How to Grow Stronger Relationships By Fighting With Love And Respect

There are many aspects of daily life where differences occur. You can accept them aspart of normal human interaction, or see them as signs of disaster and deny them.

At the beginning of a personal relationship, we tend to assume that we knoweverything about the other. That which we don’t know, we think, will not bother us.People tend to conceal their true feelings, in order to not challenge or disrupt thisbelief.

“Fair Fighting For Couples”© Creative Conflict Resolutions INC

http://www.creativeconflicts.com

http://www.positiveconflicts.com/FairFightingForCouples


This change just in the moment there is an all-out war, and countless negativeaspects and incidents are aired at the most heated moment.

A relationship will not be truly intimate unless each partner knows what the otherone is thinking and feeling. This means accepting that both parties need a means forbringing differences of opinion out into the open, and so prevents one of them fromforming the habit of "suffering in silence."

Speaking up, finding out what's wrong, and then coming to a jointdecision on what to do about it are signs of a healthy relationship.

In the many households we grew up in we never learned how to negotiatedifferences, and so, as grown ups we have to learn those skills in the most painfulway, if we want to preserve and be nurtured by a good relationship.

This principle applies to all kinds of conflicts you can have in a marriage.

It does not matter what you fight for, there are plenty of issues:

The list of possible issues to fight about is endless.

Given that anything can be used to confront the other to finally get some recognitionfrom that person, willingly or not, this list is only a short one. However, it includessome of the favorite daily life issues people can choose to fight about.

• Control struggles (who's in charge) and how decisions are made• Degree of reciprocal control or independence• Treatment of in-laws and significant relatives• Sex: how, when, why, by whom, varieties• Money: earning, managing, saving and spending• Individual time versus shared time• Social life: shared goals and methods of socializing• Communication styles and attribution of meaning to behaviors• Children: having, rearing, sharing child care tasks• Household maintenance and responsibilities• External influences: gambling, alcohol or drug use• How to express feelings: isolation, jealousy, emotional dependency, etc.

What Is Fair Fighting?

Fair fighting is a respectful, structured way of confronting each other on importantissues that are causing open or hidden conflict.

It is a method for handling and resolving the differences of opinion that inevitablyoccur between spouses or partners.

The basic idea is to provide an alternative to “dirty fighting” which uses reciprocalblaming, yelling, accusing and humiliating the other, in order to win or be “right.” Infair fighting, you can defend your ideas while recognizing your partner’s needs!





A structure is defined as: “agreed upon ground rules for handling differencesand conflict well.” Since few people have learned a set of rules or a structureof conversation to handle such matters well, very clear rules can give couples aroad map for getting through discussions that they are otherwise likely to escalateinto dirty tricks conflict. The structure of simple rules brings a degree of safety to aconversation that allows for greater openness and less negative effects.

TIP: It is better to acknowledge beforehand that there are some things that you candisagree on (opinions on politics, personal interests, and beliefs), but other thingsmust be worked out (how to raise the children, how to spend money, how youwould like to be treated, future planning, etc.) Those very differences about importantissues, if they go unacknowledged, will fester inside and produce disappointment andanger.

Anger must be recognized and expressed or it will build up. Make a commitment touse the rules of fair fighting. Schedule arguments ahead of time when you feel thepressure building up. You should choose a time when you will not be distracted byfamily members, guests or television, and when both of you are relatively relaxed. Sitface to face and keep eye contact at the same level. Make a contract to discuss theissue of concern only, and agree to avoid those ways of acting that sabotage problemsolving.

You could say: “People already know how to fight! Why practice fairfighting?”

Because what people call fighting is what many couples do: they engage in "dirty"fighting, which consists of mutual blaming and accusations, explosive anger, and notlistening to each other, but trying to overpower them.

With the objective of controlling, humiliating or winning over the other, all kinds ofnegative things are said that are difficult to retrieve. The results are very sad, becauserepetition of this kind of fight, which is inevitable when it is not resolved, will sour therelationship. Fair fighting is designed to deal with issues that bring conflict withoutdestroying the relationship.

Principles of Fair Fighting For Couples

1. Accepting your own share of the responsibility for the problem:

In a fair fight, you both have to take responsibility for your participation in whatcreated the conflict and what you are doing to escalate or solve it.

To fight fair entails accepting your part of responsibility.

There are not pure victims or pure victimizers; we are both agents doing differentroles at different times.





Whether you raised the complaint, or you are feeling defensive, criticized, put down,or any other negative feeling, it takes both parties to construct a fight!

All your behaviors: if you feel sad, angry, threatened, shut down, or resentful, notone of those feelings are predetermined; you are making those active choices.

It’s your choice to accumulate resentment, to clam up to make the point that you aredisgusted, or to talk and solve the problem.

Do you want to be right, and prove that the other side is a miserable person, onceagain?

Or do you want to understand, accept and resolve?

2. You are always part of the process, and responsible for its fairness.

Redefine the purpose of a fight. It has nothing to do with a neighborhood brawl.

Here and now, this is a love relationship and your co-purpose is to find amutually respectful agreement, NOT TO WIN.

During a fight, emotions are let loose and anger is expressed by shouts and harshwords.

All the images of the past, which told us how to fight to win, come out in the openand push us for a “win over the other and prevail.”

You can have the impression that the person you are is not seen or worse, is notrespected.

You could get to the perception that all is wrong: the other person is the wrongperson, and you are in the wrong relationship.

It helps to chart on a big sheet of paper the framing of the conversation as: “we arehere to understand each other’s side, not to conquer or destroy.”

Even if this is your last fight with this person, do it with respect and class.

3. Disputes over things you care deeply about are inevitable:

Accept that sometimes a confrontation is unavoidable, and has to be dealt with.

Fair fighting is always about getting your grievances out in the open, in a way thatnurtures understanding and growth.

Choosing to practice fair fighting and not collecting grievances to later playrevenge with, is showing respect for the other.

Frustration, anger and sadness are signals that point to the needs for change andreassessment within the relationship.

4. Both parties are co-learning:

Because you both agreed to the rules of engagement of fair fighting, nobody hasto be victimized. This is a relationship that is the most important for each other, so





whatever you do, affects the other. You are co-creator and have an important say inhow the fight goes, and your silence also counts. Even though you may feel prettyignored, remember that you have an impact on the other person.

Use this lever to express yourself, and in doing so, you show your trust in therelationship and its development.

5. Learn to respect yourself: Don't collect discontent and hurts:

Gather your courage and make a rule for both to bring up whatever dissatisfaction orfrustration you experience, fast.

What you keep secret destroys any confidence on the fact that yourrelationship is able to work out the differences.

It extends its dark cloud over more and more areas of your relationship until there isno more room for trust.

Only contempt survives. If you collect grievances, then they will pop up at themoment of fighting, all together, making a sad parade of past complaints that willundermine the trust of the other.

If everything is rotten, why bother?

6. Bring up only one problem issue at a time:

If you ask for two or more things at the time, there is no possibility to develop a goodargument about the first one, and understand each other’s side. You are sabotagingyour own efforts and confusing your partner by juggling several problems at the sametime.

Don’t overkill: You want a resolution to one problem at a time, assert your needsconcerning this, and only this one problem.

Wait for another confrontation if you have another complaint to solve. This is thereason for having a method with which to vent your differences. With fair fighting youcan process issues as they come.

7. Watch out for past and unresolved complaints to pop up:

You have been repressing some anger about past incidents, but this is not the time tovent about everything, or to use past episodes, now resuscitated at your convenience,into the present discussion.

If you have a long list of past grievances, (with the attached resentment) write themdown.

Keep the list at your desk for several days. Then prioritize it. Discard petty things andcome up with a list of real issues that you want resolved and buried. This is the list tobe used when doing fair fighting.

Remember that you need to keep this conversation focused on the issue you agreedto deal with, and exclude all others.





8. Keep your childhood grievances out of this fight.

As a rule of thumb, you can assume that, if you feel anger, it has to do with what ishappening in the current moment.

In contrast, if you feel rage, it is probably triggered by some situation in your past,when some relative did a thing similar to the one your spouse did to you now. It isuseful to re-think that, even when your spouse acts like your mother or father, theyare different and deserve to be treated in a different way.

Please, identify where from this impulse is coming: were you systematicallyhumiliated and put down as a child?

If you discover that you are still reacting to any behavior from your partner as if heor she is one of your parents bent on controlling and humiliating you, STOP! Take adeep breath and focus on the differences between this person, (here and now) andthe adult from your past (then and there) ….

This person has been chosen by you to be your support and loving companion, right?

Be aware again that the optimal game for couples is cooperation and not competitionto win.

The TENDENCY TO PROVE THAT YOU ARE RIGHT, AND THE OTHER IS TOTALLYWRONG, AND SO DESERVES TO BE HUMILIATED, can be very strong. And verydestructive!

Rules of Engagement For Fair Fighting (Ready to print, frame and use)

1. No physical violence, whatsoever.2. Maintain mutually respectful behavior. Do not call names or accuse your

partner of lying. Do not say what you believe your partner is thinking. Eachperson speaks for himself or herself.

3. Avoid psychological descriptions of the other person ("Every one of yourfriends says you are a big spender"). Avoid laying guilt or accusations of badfaith.

4. Make eye contact, verbally acknowledge the other's feelings (apologizingwhen appropriate), and ask questions to be sure each has understood theother's feelings.

5. Repeat verbatim what was said by the other to confirm that what is said iswhat was understood.

6. If anger escalates, take a brief time-out (from half an hour to no more than24 hours) and state a definite time to return to the issue.

7. If anger returns when the discussion resumes, use another specified timeout.8. Be specific. State your problem and why it bothers you. After you have

stated the problem, your partner states his or her point of view on the issue,and you do reflective listening. Then, restate the differences between what isoffered to you and what you need.





9. Use "I" statements (as in, "I feel annoyed when you leave your thingsaround for me to pick up"), rather than more blaming "you" statements("You are such an inconsiderate slob").

10. Accept that you two will inevitably disagree. Realize that this is normal and itdoes not jeopardize the relationship. We are assuming here that both haveagreed on the main values and big issues when deciding to marry.

11. If you are having trouble coming to an agreement or compromise, agree onan intermission, from an hour to a week.

12. Stick to the agenda of the current fight, and agree from the beginning NOTto raise other grievances from the past.

The fight is over when:• Both parties agree to a compromise satisfactory for both;• Or reach a mutual agreement that the fight is over, and no agreement is

possible; both agree to disagree, but at least they know more about theirreciprocal positions.

• And both have given each other time and attention to express the grievance!This is a big step ahead and you should feel proud of offering a respectfulear to your partner’s complaints.

Ready To Discover How To Steer Your Relationship OnThe Right Path?









love, arguments, and the art of relationship

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