If you fight a lot in your relationship – let’s say a heated argument (either lasting either a couple hours or some tense hurtful things said) every couple weeks, and some less serious bickering and everyday conflicts in between – what’s the secret to staying happy in your relationship? Is it that the bickering/fights add some fire and you both know that the other person doesn’t mean it because you love each other? Does a lot of love/affection balance things out? Is it that there’s no criticism? Are there apologies and resolution/repairs afterwards?
Also, how does the dynamic change or affect things once you have children and start a family?
I’m a guy who is in a relationship a bit like this, and I’m curious how it will work long term and what it might look like in marriage. I generally am calmer/reflective and like peace, my gf in quicker to react and grew up in a fight-y household. We both do show each other a lot of affection (cuddling, gifts, joking around etc.) as well, so, even though the fights build up and do detract quite a bit, I don’t want to paint a picture of every day being terrible.
tl;dr – How do people who fight a lot in their relationships/marriages have happy and successful ones?
Comments
If you’re fighting that much, your relationship is long over.
Couples therapy or be real with yourself. You can love someone and not like them. It’s weird to experience but I’ve been there.
That much fighting does not a happy, healthy relationship make.
The people in relationships like that stay for a variety of reasons. Kids, money, it’s easier than leaving, fear of loneliness, content to settle. But none of them are actually, really happy and fulfilled. They might be deep in denial and say they are, but they’re not.
It’s deeply, deeply unhealthy to think fighting and being hurtful to one another is a sign of passion or “fire”. It’s not. It’s a sign of two adults who suck at communicating. That’s all. Stupid Romcoms and TV dramas have a lot to answer for in making people believe it’s good to stay in shit relationships.
I’m in exactly the same situation and the fact one of the comments says our relationship is long over is super hurtful.
Been married 31 years this year, we have never yelled at each other or called each other names or used put downs in all that time. Sure, there have been one or two course corrections needed but there is ZERO room for that kind of nastiness in a persona relationship. If you want to be treated like shit and yelled down every five minutes you should have married Reddit.
srsly though, if you both want a good relationship then seek a good therapist and both of you work through your shit. Or you could break up and find yourself in the exact same position with someone else in a year or two. Which would bring you to the place you are already at now.
The way you describe this relationship it does not fit the definition of happy. As a matter of fact it sounds horribly dysfunctional. An argument or disagreement now and then is normal, constant bickering and fighting is not
Was in a relationship like this once. It can’t last forever despite even an intense amount of love. When you get to the point where literally being HOME is the worst cuz it’s gauranteed argument, you want OUT, but it’s HARD cuz you still love them. Best way I can sum it up: with the girl I was with she is responsible for some of the best times of my life, and also all the worst times in my life.
One of the hardest kinds of love to leave behind, but you should, imo, leave them behind.
Life is far nicer without all the volatility, and there isn’t one person for us all, there’s many, often it’s even a choice not just something that just happens. As you get older you don’t just “fall in love” logic ends up playing a far bigger role.
You can feel natural attraction to many people, but real long term love is a series of choices, bad that includes the choice to be respectful and not always have silly, relationship quality eroding fights.
You will always love her but the volatility ain’t worth it, you will love others, and you’ll like them more and be more compatible with others.
Do both of you a favour and leave this one before you are locked into a life of volatility and likely divorce one day.
Sex
I go to counseling and tell community members about our problems and we get more help. Also, we do have genuine fun together. If you have 5 good interactions to every one bad interaction that’s a general rule of thumb that helps. You also have to clean up after the fight. Own what you did, apologize, renegotiate behaviors/boundaries/whatever so that everyone feels each conflict is resolved enough to feel emotionally safe after. Some conflict, even high conflict, can be healthy in relationships and is natural even in healthy relationships as long as you repair after and resolve each issue enough at the end
Some couples fight because they are bored then they have make up sex and repeat this over and over… I’ve seen it with my own eyes with friends.
I don’t think there really is a secret to it, if they fighting is happening regularly without progress to not fighting then the relationship is doomed to either break or never be truly happy.
That being said, the nature of the fights and how you go about them matters a lot.
My current partner and I have been having fights fairly often, but it usually comes from a difference in how we naturally communicate and interpret what is said and how it is said. The fights usually happen when one of us is too tired/stressed or have had something else happen that has put us in an emotional state, and we have both been pretty good at recognising when that is the case for ourselves (granted it sometimes takes 10-20 minutes after the fight has happened to calm down). Once we have had that moment to calm down we address the fight, what triggered it, what emotions we had leading into it, what was similar to past fights and what might have been new, discuss what we could have done differently, and then commit to one or two different approaches next time we feel in a similar way.
When these alternate approaches are different to how we fundamentally communicate it can take time for them to become the new norm, so we accept that there will be times we forget to take on the discussed approach, and if it gets to hard we look for alternative ways to go about it.
No fight has ever had us personally attacking the other or calling names or being violent, we have never even yelled, and no fight ever should have these elements.
Ultimately we love each other a lot, have a lot of fun together and a lot in common, and we both want to give the relationship every opportunity to succeed before we consider ending it.
Neither of us want to be fighting, we don’t see it as cute, or part of our dynamic, fighting is exhausting and ruins our time together. We both feel that if it ever feels like we are no longer making progress towards a fight free relationship then it will be time to consider if the relationship should continue.
This isn’t healthy. If you normalize fighting a lot, you’ve already lost.
Two basics:
There’s a LOT more positivity required in that relationship, including after care.
If you aren’t familiar with agreeing on safety guidelines before hand, and doing after care, it’s time to go learn.
You need to be able to have a lively little sparring match, but also know that your opponent is trying to match wits with you, they aren’t aiming to seriously hurt you.
What keeps me going is this: without this conflict and challenge to my misconceptions, denials and outdated, sometimes outright harmful defense mechanisms left from my early development, I just would’ve gone on not really understanding myself or realizing the problems I cause. I honestly may not have realized there were really awful parts of myself, because in all honesty and humility, I grew up around some really, really awful and malicious people, so by comparison, I thought I was an angel. I never would’ve had the drive or motivation to be open with anyone, therapist or otherwise. I had such pride and insecurity, although I obviously didn’t think I was prideful.
I’ve easily walked away, almost without feeling, from every other person without learning what it means to love someone rather than to live in order to get love. He said once to me, what’s love got to do with it? In other words, grown folks do what they gotta do regardless of their little feelings. And out of control emotions are not a reason to make a fool of yourself.
The more I’ve fought with my husband of 17 years, the more I’ve sacrificed the parts of me that aren’t really functioning as intended anymore. Instead of keeping a distance between myself and the kind of trashy, mean-spirited people who liked to pick on a sensitive, kind, and dense young girl, those defenses were keeping me from the one I wanted to know and to know me the most. I just knew in my heart that somewhere between him and I was something closer to the truth than either of us could imagine.
I’d sacrifice any part of myself to be known by this man. No one ever has or ever will touch my true feelings, positive or negative, in the way he does. I had honestly begun to worry I was psychopathic or something like that because I just didn’t experience out of control emotions to the point of showing anyone weakness or vulnerability since I can remember. I’m the type that eventually learned that crying got you hurt further and no one was ever going to care or offer comfort, so I just cut the connection between my feelings and actions and learned to think of things in a more detached manner. But he has inspired such passion in me. I used to be afraid to fight, but I know how to stand up for something now.
I’ve learned such patience, bravery, forgiveness, and humility through this, my only marriage. I would not have a backbone of not for the conflict and the pull between us.
What even is a lot of fighting?
If fights are one way then you’ll be the doormat after marriage too. Does she contribute? Is she gonna want to be a housewife to not work? Red flags if you’re the slave someday. Beware
So the thing with relationships is that conflict isn’t necessarily always bad. Studies have shown that some of the happiest couples have a lot of conflict – not only about day-to-day but even also ongoing and not resolved differences.
The key part is HOW these couples fight. Successful conflict tended to include honest but not intense emotion and I think importantly was mutual and didn’t have toxic behaviour like hurtful comments.
Honestly OP what you’re describing doesn’t sound like that at all – and typically conflict INCREASES through marriage and children as there is more stress and more things to fight about.
Your saying arguments but reading between the lines it sounds like she’s mistreating you fairly regularly