Fighting actually can be, if done correctly, a very healthy way to build knowing and intimacy in a relationship. 

Yep. I promise! When I have these couples that do show up in my office, and they say something like, “Oh, we don’t ever fight” or “my parents never fought”, and I’m like, huh?! Is that the goal? Because that doesn’t seem real to me. I mean, if there are two independent people that have two personalities, two opinions, two perspectives, two life experiences, how can there not be crossed intersections at some point in time. 

So it’s not that couples fight. That’s not what the goal is, especially in my office, when I’m working with couples. The goal is to show up fighting in a way that is safe and secure for both parties. And, it has good closure, end of reattachment ways of coming back together, connection, and closure. When that is the opposite thing, this other chronic rigid negative fight cycle becomes the predictor of divorce and dissatisfaction in the relationship. 

Two things happen in relationships. There are issues and themes that we fight about. There might be an event, a circumstance, a look, a tone, or a word spoken - history replayed over and over and over again. A pattern. And then the second thing, is how we fight about it. If you actually go back and take the time in your life to map out your disconnection cycle, over time, it develops into the same dance no matter what we’re fighting about. In couples counseling, we address how that dance looks. 

Before we go in and address the trigger sets, a lot of times couples counselors make the mistake of immediately wanting to know what the issues are, what the stressors are and let's go and talk about and try to find, negotiate, compromise, and contract how we're supposed to show up in these certain areas. 

For instance, when your mother-in-law comes, if you're expecting your wife or husband to act in a certain way, or to set a certain boundary, let's go ahead and negotiate, compromise, and fight fair over that, right? That doesn't work. Because come on, let's be honest, when we are outside of these counseling rooms, emotions fly high. So, we have to actually help experientially emotionally shift with couples on how they do that interactive dance before we can actually feed these trigger sets through a more safe and secure fight cycle. 

In the next few weeks, we’re going to really break down this fight cycle because if honest, this is the one thing that has the highest percentage of predictability in relationship satisfaction and/or divorce. If we get this right, then hey, we're all on a good course of reconnection, vulnerability, and developing that emotional bond that we're looking for over the course of this year.

If you enjoyed reading this, I would love for you to join me for my free webinar March 7-13 where I will address how to resolve conflict and reignite romance. You can register here to get your Zoom link!