If you’re reading this and thinking: “We must be the healthiest couple in the world because we’re always fighting,” you’ll want to read the whole blog to know what I mean because I didn’t write “constantly fighting”. On the other hand, if you saw this title and you thought: “That’s wrong. My marriage is perfect because I’ve never had a fight with my partner,” you’ll also be in for a surprise. I’ve met a few people who say this kind of thing with a smugness that should be reserved for the vegans who look at me eating a juicy burger. (Side note: Why do we describe burgers as juicy? Can you imagine if instead of apple or orange there was a juice flavor like ‘Burger Juice’? That makes the idea of pulp so much grosser… who’d have thought you could make pulp worse? If you like pulp, you are one step closer to being a psychopath… that’s not scientifically proven, but one day it could be; you never know. And yes, I’m writing this after a long day and craving a burger). The truth is if you have 2 healthy people interacting a lot, there will inevitably be conflict because people are supposed to have different opinions and ideas. The question is how do you handle your conflict: healthy or unhealthy?
If you are one of those people who claim you never fight, 99% of the time it’s because one or both of you are so passive that you just give into your partner. With my first girlfriend, besides a “fight” about getting her to date me, we never fought… she shot me down three times over 6 months before wanting to be official; I think it’s because she didn’t think she was good enough to date a 21 year old guy who had never kissed a girl before; could you feel the sarcasm dripping from that? Juicy like a burger… I really need to eat something. In five years of dating we never really fought. Were we healthy? Absolutely not. Did I brag about never fighting? Absolutely yes. I needed to be able to brag about something. Before her I was a 21 year old who had never kissed a girl; clearly, I had something wrong with me. Plus, we didn’t kiss until our 1 month because I didn’t want to give away my first kiss… yeah, I was pretty lame. But we never fought. We didn’t fight when I would work on my computer instead of paying attention to her. We didn’t fight when I made her help me run a comedy festival for 5 years. We didn’t even fight after when saw an email where a girl from school confessed her feelings for me; a girl I had been excessively flirting with for a month and never told I had a girlfriend. Yes, I’m aware how terrible that is… I would hope so or I’d be a terrible counselor: “No, go ahead and flirt with random girls even though you’re in a relationship. I didn’t get in a fight from it, so it must be okay.” There’s that sarcasm again. My girlfriend at the time and I didn’t fight because she was incredibly passive. She just took everything. She took it, and took it, and took it, until she left me for her new “friend”. We almost had a fight during this transition because I confronted her, but then I was the passive one. Yes, what goes around came around for me. On the plus side I learned firsthand that being caught cheating or being the cheated on both really suck equally in their own way. My advice: Don’t cheat… I don’t think many would disagree with that advice.
If you never fight there’s a good chance one or both of you are just taking it, and taking it. A simple way to know if this is the case is to ask yourself the following questions: Do you or your partner make all the decisions? Do you or your partner rely on the other to make all of the social plans? Do you or your partner always get your way? Do you or your partner do most to all of the work without complaint? Do you feel like a parent to your partner? If you said yes to these questions, there’s a good chance you and/or your partner is passive. If this is the case, you may want to address this, possibly with a therapist like me because the long run always ends with problems.
A healthy relationship will have some conflict, but healthy people share their ideas and opinions in a loving way, and are quick to listen to what their partner has to say. Like anything healthy, this takes work; for some, this will take a whole lot of work, but it is always possible when both parties are on board.
This week, may you discover what healthy conflict encased in love looks like.
Rev. Chad David, www.ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people