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Email a FriendI grew up with one parent who was explosive and one who was calm…...out of all my siblings (8) we all prefer the calm approach. We couldn’t help but see our mom who was explosive and loved to argue with her siblings (even as an adult) as out of control and way too reactive. I can’t help but think of Christ, Mary, saints and the way they handled others. Temperaments and passsions need to be fine tuned and worked on so we become more virtuous. I have to disagree with this post, it’s true we have our backgrounds and what we tend toward, but they shouldn’t become an excuse for “this is how I am or this is how I was raised, etc. etc… There’s a balance between getting your point across to someone and how you go about it, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to say anything and keep calm and quiet all the time. I better quit now….I think you get my jist.
How to Fight Fair
Posted by Kate Lloyd in Family on Wednesday, June 16, 2010 10:00 AM
My boyfriend hates to argue, but I love it. When I think about why we communicate so differently, I attribute a lot of it to where he is from.
His is a typical New England family. They’re polite and reserved. My family is an Irish-American clan from Philly, and last time my boyfriend was here, my little brother called him fat to his face. (He’s not.) Fighting is just an extension of talking where I’m from.
But if you aren’t the type of person who likes a fight (or if you are, but realize, like me, that it’s an anti-social character flaw) one way to avoid fighting and hard feelings is to figure out why each fights and reacts the way he does. How much two people disagree may have to do with a few things that don’t seem apparent right away:
1. Where you’re from and what you’re family is like. If your family is polite to each other, chances are you expect people (especially those close to you) to be like them. It freaks you out when they’re not. At least it freaked me out.
I remember having an argument with my boyfriend one day, and just watching him calmly drive. “Don’t you get mad?” I asked exasperatedly, my voice rising. “I’m really upset right now,” he said, calm still. “Can’t you tell?” I couldn’t.
He never considered yelling about it. He thought I was rude to him, and I thought he was totally nonchalant about everything. Neither were true. While it’s never good to be impolite to each other (sometimes yelling is completely rude) it is good to remember that people consider different things to be the norm. I never considered a good argument impolite until I realized my boyfriend hated it. And he realized that it wasn’t completely ridiculous the way I was acting: it is how I communicate.
2. Your temperament. Without going into the temperaments too much, it’s helpful to know if your tendency is to explode or implode, and whether you react quickly or slowly. The problem in the car escalated, partially because I have violent reactions very quickly, and then everything’s fine. He reacts slowly and with more control.
We both realized we needed to pay attention to what the others like, or just have them tell us, so if something does happen again, we are more attune to it.
3. The fact that you are two different sexes. One day I was telling a friend what was bothering me about my boyfriend. Actually, it wasn’t so much what he was doing as the fact that he couldn’t figure out why I was annoyed by it. I kept giving him hints (what I thought were very obvious hints) and trying to make him figure it out on his own.
My friend just stared at me. “For heaven’s sake. Quit the guess work! Tell him what you’re thinking.” It was a simple enough solution. I swallowed my pride, and told my boyfriend very frankly exactly what was on my mind. I could see the light bulb go on in his head. We never fought about it again.
Comments
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Harmony, I agree, but I do think Kate has a good point also. Let me explain.
I am from a family where everyone yelled all the time. It hurt. I don’t consider it the norm just because it’s the way my family reacted. In fact, being yelled at/ spoken to in a rude way now hurts even more, because it brings back memories of being a child, and being powerless, and having to endure a household full of yelling.
Consequently, I have made a tremendous effort as a mom to first, learn to manage my own anger in an appropriate way (St. Francis de Sales and Fr. Lovasik were great helps there), as an example to my children, and to guide them in exoressing anger. Several have intense temperaments, and I have had to put a lot of effort into training them to avoid hurting others with their intensity.
Furthermore, one of the biggest problems in my marriage is that my husband has an intense temperament, and when he is angry, and expresses that intensely, I find it incredibly painful (even though I think it would not hurt a less sensitive person quite so much—I do not mean to paint him as some sort of beast!). I think Kate is wise to think about this issue before getting married. I didn’t think about it before marriage. I wish we had worked out the issue ahead of time.
There are valid temperamental differences—but there is also an objective standard about right and wrong ways to express feelings. Sometimes it can be hard for people prone to be explosive to distinguish betwen the two.
Good points to ponder, Kate. Thanks for bringing this issue up.
I came from a family where the parents hardly spoke when they were angry. Mom would stalk up to the study and shut the door and stay in there for a few hours, and Dad would get into his truck and leave for several hours. They eventually got divorced. I knew something was wrong, but I never saw how people can work through to a solution. I don’t recommend the silent treatment.
My husband came from a family of screamers. Even now, when I start to get a bit loud because I am upset, (even though I am not screaming) he *hears* the screaming from his childhood and gets mad.
It’s definitely something to consider before marriage—-but things can be worked out!
My husband and I try to talk things out, but not in front of the kids. However, I do say, when things are tense, that we are a little mad at each other, even though we still love each other very much, and we are working things out. I don’t want them to feel the way I did, that “Mad” equals “divorce”.
Thanks for the comments! Nowhere do I mention marriage in this entry. That is totally out of my range. The entries I’m writing are about dating.
As far as fighting goes, I’m not advocating it. There is a lot of yelling at my house that at times is, shall we say, less than ideal. Its a character flaw to like a good fight too much. The point of this entry is to understand the other person (and yourself) better so that you don’t fight as often, or if you DO have an argument to realize what’s going on and not blow it out of proportion.
Yelling and being passive-aggressive are equally bad. Virtue is the medium between two extremes. So the goal should be to not avoid confrontation but to communicate in a mature way. I don’t believe in “arguments” but there is a place for debate. Debate becomes argument when it gets rude, loud or overly emotional. Arguments are bound to happen but each time it happens between my husband and I, we retrace our steps and find out where we veered off and try to work harder at reasonable and productive discussion. We’ve gotten pretty good at it so after 13 years of marriage though we still have major disagreements, we now have discussions and debate and very few arguments.
I’ve been married for 18 years. We’ve argued and had fights. The sacrament of marriage has given us graces that have helped us throughout the years. Kate, you are young and inexperienced. If you and your boyfriend argue a lot, you may need to find a new boyfriend. Call me old fashioned, but I’m not sure why someone who has never been married is giving relationship advice. Am I missing something?
I don’t think Kate is trying to offer us married people relationship advice. She is simply sharing her experiences as a young single Catholic which I find very interesting. Further, I think she made clear that it’s not that her boyfriend is causing the arguments; she would probably be the same way with any boyfriend due to the way she grew up. So the answer isn’t to break up with her boyfriend, it is to find a communication style that will work for both and that means compromise.
The point of Kate’s posts is not to give relationship advice to those of us who are already married, it is to discuss dating and pre-marriage relationships. So, if it does not apply to you, you don’t need to read it.
I second momof2’s advice, nothing is learned if you say, we fight so we break up. It is to learn to communicate in a more effective way. Or as one marriage counselor friend I know says (who has been married 50 years this month and is a devote Catholic) learn to fight fair. Hey, that’s the title of this post….odd how that gem came from someone never married and a many years married marriage counselor.
Unfortunately from Kate’s piece people are picking up that quarreling as an acceptable mode of communication in our house. It’s not. Some members of our family are given to it, others not.
But the quiet ones (me too) are given to other faults. We all have stuff to work on.
It helps to get this stuff on the table before marriage. As someone married a long time, I would advise my daughters not to be afraid to bring things up openly before marriage. Don’t be afraid of losing the guy if you talk about your differences.
Such differences do not go away but may increase over time. Better to start working on them right away.
Personally, I wish someone had pointed out the differences in background to my wife and I. I grew up in a military family and my understanding of argument was whatever dad says, no matter how asinine or nonsensical goes. Not that all military families are like that, but our family was an extension of the troops my father commanded while at work.
My wife grew up in a modest, midwestern family where everyone always seemed to agree. The truth was, when someone disagreed, they simply stopped talking and left the conversation.
I was a shouter because it was all that was ever modeled for me. My wife had it ingrained in her to keep her opinions to herself. The one time she became so angry she lost it, it was like another language coming out of her mouth and she took off driving and got into an accident. Those things are not healthy. After many years of counseling, we aer both at a place to whee we can discuss things like normal human beings not like a drill seargant and a statue. How much some advice like this and premarital counseling beyond pre-Cana would have helped us earlier!
For the sake of fairness, I should point out that I take after the side of the family that fights. My mom’s side is much quieter. In my house arguing happens, but real fighting is not tolerated. Whoops, I guess I should have been more careful with that one!
I think it’s always amazing to look at a couple, and their family backgrounds, and then look at how the couple communicates, and handles disagreements/fights/melees, or whatever you’d like to term it. You’ve hit the nail on the head, when you mention that your family background and upbringing strongly shape how you handle conflict, be it with your significant other, your friends, co-workers, or your children.
Thanks for the honest insight.
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