4 Strategies for Fighting Fair
The best relationships have conflict.
The worst relationships have conflict.
In all relationships, conflict is unavoidable. It’s a natural consequence of individuals choosing to engage with one another, each with their own perspectives, preferences, habits, quirks, and shortcomings. When we allow our lives to be intertwined with others, that closeness can cause all of our perspectives, preferences, habits, quirks, and shortcomings to bump into each other and spark conflict. When you add the intimacy and emotional intensity of a romantic relationship, that can make the conflict even more heated and overwhelming.
But although conflict is inevitable, it is not negative. To experience conflict means that something has been unearthed - whether it’s a problem that needs solving, a disagreement that needs settling, emotional wounds or relational rifts that needs to be repaired, or a communication pattern that is breeding misunderstanding and needs to be improved. Conflict is an opportunity to improve your relationship and grow closer, and as such, it can be a gift. Imagine if you and your spouse came away from conflict with a better relationship, closer intimacy, and deeper understanding of one another. How wonderful would that be? Of course, conflict may not feel like a gift to most couples, especially if you (like many) dread confrontation or relational tension. And although conflict itself is not negative, it can easily become negative when it is mismanaged or approached destructively.
Good news - anyone can learn to manage conflict better, and the four key strategies we’ll discuss here will help you to do just that. And “manage” really is the operative word here, as renowned relationship researcher Dr. John Gottman would tell you. There’s no sense in trying to eliminate conflict. To do so only results in avoiding problems or burying hurt feelings, which only breeds resentment and delays the inevitable conflict. This is why the first key strategy for managing conflict and “fighting fair” is to engage with conflict rather than avoid it.
1. Face conflict rather than avoiding it, and make time for arguments to be constructive.
When conflict is avoided or repressed, it has a nasty tendency of sneaking out at the least opportune and most emotionally-heightened moments. This means you are forced to address conflict at the moment when you are probably least prepared to handle it in a constructive manner. In that situation, the conflict is more likely to become destructive and painful. Rather, it’s better to face the conflict head on, and use it as an opportunity to confront a problem, work together to find a solution, and come away feeling closer and more united. Of course, it takes some practice, and every couple will still have their stumbles from time to time, no matter how skilled, how practiced, or how much they love one another. But with time and practice, confronting issues head on becomes easier, more instinctive, and less scary. Learning to confront issues and engage in the conflict with your husband (or boyfriend…or best friend, or family member, or any other close relationship) makes it that much more likely that you’ll be able to use conflict for the opportunity that it is to improve your relationship, and even your lives, and grow closer through the process.
Facing conflict and making time for arguments to be constructive also includes choosing when to argue. It’s always best to address conflict rather than avoid it, but that doesn’t mean it’s always best to initiate a confrontation the moment you notice something you don’t like. You want to balance the urgency of the conflict and timing of the conversation.
One big factor in how productively a conflict is managed is timing. This is even more crucial if the matter at hand is particularly sensitive or provokes strong emotions. The ideal time to address a conflict is when you both are calm and have ample time to discuss your perspectives and collaborate on how to solve the issue. You’re setting both you and your man up for failure if you choose to bring up conflicts at a high-tension time of day - like when you’re getting ready to leave for work, when you’ve just gotten home at the end of the day, when you’re in the middle of getting your kids ready for bed, or when you’re on the way to your in-laws. Of course, these high-tension times tend to be the moments when we feel most frustrated and flustered, and it can be an easy moment to start an argument based on your heightened emotions. We all do it from time to time, but it’s best avoided when you can.
2. Take ownership and use “I statements” to be specific about what bothers you, how you feel, and what outcome you want instead.
One of the most common mistakes couples make in an argument is assuming that their partner knows what they need and how badly they feel in the current situation. It’s true that knowing one another intimately and deepening your shared connection does improve your understanding of one another, and our ability to anticipate each other’s needs and responses…but even the best, most well-connected husbands and wives are human and lack the power to read minds. What’s more, all of us are approaching life from our own perspective, and the tension of a fight tends to give us tunnel vision and make it challenging to practice empathy and imagine our spouse’s perspective. Not only that, but we tend to assume that our spouse knows why we are upset and what we need. In reality, unless you tell him, your spouse is unlikely to have a clear picture of how you feel, what you’re upset about, and why.
The best antidote to this is specificity and responsibility. Take full responsibility for communicating your perspective, and be as specific as possible. The three key things share are:
The events or actions that you did not like
How you feel in response to those events/actions
What you need from your spouse/partner
It may sound very basic, but you would be surprised how few people communicate these three things effectively in a conflict. What’s crucial is making sure that you are providing specificity about what bothered you/what you need without being critical or attributing motives to your spouse’s actions.
For example, let’s say your husband has been on his phone during dinner and is distracted in your conversation. You’d likely feel hurt, and you could say that one of two ways:
Reactive response: “Why is it so hard for you to put down your damn phone? I’m trying to have a conversation with you and you haven’t listened to a word. I must be sooo boring if you always have to be on your phone.”
“I statement” response: “I had been really looking forward to talking with you tonight, and you’ve been distracted on your phone most of the time that I’ve been trying to talk with you. I’m feeling insulted and a bit hurt by that If tonight is not a good time to talk, I need you to let me know rather than just ignoring me.”
The reactive response is what most of us might lean towards, especially when we are feeling hurt. The reactive response is just that - reactive. It reacts emotionally and is an attempt to preserve your feelings or your pride. While that might feel good to say in the moment, if your goal is to get your husband to set his phone aside so you two can talk, saying it that way will almost certainly be counterproductive. That statement is loaded with sarcasm and criticizes your husband more than it describes what bothers you and what you need from him.
Remember, the most constructive thing to do here is to be vulnerable and specific. You get vulnerable when you take responsibility for your feelings and tell your husband how you feel, and you get specific when you objectively describe the actions or events that bothered you and what you want/need from your husband (without criticism). It’s much easier to say than to do, and it’s easier to practice in an imaginary scenario than it is in a real argument when you’re upset. Most of us are not used to speaking this way, and especially when it comes to describing our feelings - after all, it’s much easier to criticize our partner or be sarcastic than it is to describe our emotions and what we need from him. It can sometimes be difficult to communicate openly about our emotions, especially more vulnerable emotions like sadness, hurt, or embarrassment. It’s helpful to remember that emotions are what you feel, not what your partner does or what you think your partner feels. For example, telling your husband, “I feel like you don’t care about what I have to say,” doesn’t really tell him how you feel, it tells him how you’re interpreting his actions. Instead, you want to use words that describe an emotion, like “hurt,” “embarrassed,” “disrespected,” “sad,” “disappointed,” “angry,” “frustrated,” “rejected,” “annoyed,” “turned off,” etc. So instead you might describe how you feel by saying, “You have been really distracted while I’ve been trying to talk with you, and I feel hurt” - it’s much more vulnerable, and more accurate.
These “I statements” can be transformative, especially when both spouses/partners are committed to implementing this type of communication. You can only control your own actions, but ideally both of you will be working to communicate more clearly and effectively. By explaining with great specificity what has bothered you, how you are feeling as a result, and what you want your spouse to do differently, you are taking ownership of your own feelings and needs. This makes it easier to stay clear-headed during an argument and keep the conflict productive. All too often, couples in a conflict get too heated, too fast, and they end up talking in circles around themselves and just firing criticism and blame back and forth rather than trying to understand each other and solve the problem, which leads us to tip #3…
3. No name-calling, personal attacks, sarcasm, or snide remarks.
One of the most destructive things you can do in a conflict is to start criticizing. There can be a fine line between being critical versus being honest and specific in telling your partner what they have done that is bothersome or hurtful to you. This is why it is so important to be objective when describing what behavior or events are upsetting to you, and to avoid assuming malice is behind your partner’s actions. There is a big difference between telling your spouse:
“You told me hours ago that you were going to wash the dishes, but now it’s 10pm and they’re still sitting in the sink. It’s pretty frustrating, not to mention gross. I wish you would wash the dishes sooner and not wait so long to do them.”
As compared to criticizing your spouse and being sarcastic:
“It’s been 3 hours since dinner and you still haven’t washed the dishes - is it that hard for you to get off the couch and wash a couple dishes? It’s like you think that if you wait long enough, I’ll get fed up and end up doing it myself. Never mind that I did all the cooking, not to mention the grocery shopping, too! Go ahead, you just sit there and relax, and I’ll do everything, as always.”
See the difference? It seems more obvious when we can compare the two statements side-by-side. In the heat of the moment, when you are frustrated and staring at a sink full of dirty dishes, the two statements might not seem so different, even though one is objective and specific while the other is critical and angry.
After all, both versions convey the message that you are angry about the dirty dishes not being washed several hours after your spouse said that he would wash them. But the first message - the objective one that specifically explains what he did that bothered you, how frustrated you are by it, and what you’d like him to do differently - is much more constructive. It lays out exactly what he did (waited to do the dishes) that upset you and what he can do to fix it (wash the dishes more promptly). The second message is critical of your dishwashing-averse spouse, insinuating that he is lazy and unappreciative of your efforts, and that he has malicious intent and is deliberately waiting in the hopes that you will wash the dishes yourself out of frustration.
The second message drips with sarcasm and disdain for your spouse. While you certainly feel frustrated when you are saying something like that, it’s unlikely that you truly think so poorly of your partner - after all, few of us would marry a partner we thought of as lazy, unappreciative, malicious, and manipulative. Such a statement, then, is doubly damaging. It is harsh and hurtful towards your partner, and puts him on the defensive, but it also communicates an inaccurate message about how you view him…a message that you will likely regret after the heat of the argument when you realize how hurtful it was and feel compelled to apologize. Speaking of apologizing, that leads us to our fourth and final strategy for fighting fair…
4. Learn the art of apologizing, and practice it generously.
Just as it is critical to take ownership of our emotions and relational needs by communicating them clearly and specifically, it is equally important that we take ownership of our own shortcomings and any hurt we cause by apologizing sincerely. Apologies can be finicky beasts. Most of us grow up never being taught much about apologies, or relationship repair in general. What we learn is mostly from what we observe, and many people unwittingly internalize deeper meaning to apologies. Some see an apology as a sign of weakness and “losing” the argument, so they will resist apologizing even when they know that they have made a mistake and feel remorse for causing hurt/distress to their partner. Others see apologies as a relational talisman that smooths over the uppermost layers of a conflict so that you can end the argument sooner, and the discomfort can be out of sight and out of mind. Both of these beliefs and related approaches hinge on our human desire to avoid discomfort.
In reality, apologizing does require vulnerability and admitting that you were wrong. And it is one of the most powerful things you can do to improve conflict and improve your relationship overall. There are many opportunities in a conflict when apologizing would be appropriate and helpful for repairing the relationship.
The problem is that it’s much easier to be defensive than it is to take ownership of where you’re fallen short. After all, an apology requires vulnerability. Many people unknowingly tend to favor defensiveness and delay apologizing - truly apologizing, that is, not just saying “I’m sorry” to brush over the deeper and more uncomfortable issue at hand. Unfortunately, defensiveness is like criticism in that it only worsens conflict.
But the good news is that defensiveness can be defeated, even if it may often be instinctive to try to defend ourselves if we feel criticized. Rather than digging in your heels and defending your perspective, aim to clarify and find common ground. If you spoke harshly, said something unkind, or were unnecessarily critical of your spouse, take responsibility for that mistake by apologizing, and then clarify what you meant to say by restating it in a gentler, more objective, and more constructive way. (Using those “I statements” we discussed earlier can help!)
If tempers are flaring and you find yourselves butting heads, you need to find common ground. Conflict tends to snowball when it gets heated, and the argument can quickly become less about the subject of your conflict and more about how you are arguing - how harsh or unkind you each are being toward the other. In this kind of situation, it can be profoundly helpful to take a moment to reflect on your own behavior in the argument, and then admit to your spouse that you have been harsh/critical/unkind, and apologize for it. After all, finding common ground means finding something you both agree on - even if what you both agree on is that you both could be handling this conflict more constructively. What’s more, it’s likely to prompt your husband to reflect on his own comportment and apologize for where he has been out of line (not guaranteed, but certainly more likely after you have apologized). Even if he doesn’t apologize for his own shortcomings, your decision to own up to your part in the conflict can go a long way in softening the overall tone of the argument and helping you both to feel a little less like opponents and a little more like a team.
Of course, this is much easier said than done. It takes practice, and it is tremendously helpful if you and your husband are both working on improving your communication during a conflict. (All the more reason to share this article with him!) But even if you were to start implementing this strategy on your own, it can change the way your conflicts unfold. After all, conflict is always an opportunity. When one partner becomes defensive in an argument, it is an opportunity for the other partner to clarify and help soothe their spouse. Remember, you’re a team: the goal is to resolve the problem, not to tear each other down or for one of you to “win” at the expense of the other.
Apologizing for where you’ve messed up does not mean that you are forfeiting or that you are giving up the argument. Just as important as owning up to your mistakes and where you may have caused hurt is owning up to your feelings, what has hurt or upset you, and what you need or what you want changed. The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are more powerful together. When you are willing to admit where you’ve gone wrong and apologize, you are demonstrating that you want to work together with your husband as a team. This gives you more credibility when you are telling your husband what you want him to change or do differently, and it can motivate him to reflect on ways that he may have unknowingly hurt you or contributed to the issues that are causing conflict between you.
So when you know you have done something wrong, apologize. And when you apologize, do so sincerely.
The Takeaways
Argue when it is constructive - don’t avoid an argument because it’s uncomfortable, don’t initiate an argument when it’s clearly a bad time (i.e. one/both of you just got home or are heading out the door, and call a time-out when either/both of you is too heated to argue constructively
Take ownership by using “I-statements” to describe events, observable behaviors, and emotions. One of the fastest was to escalate an argument is to attribute motives to your partner’s actions and to tell your partner what they were thinking/feeling. Think of how angry you get
No name calling, attacking character, or using sarcasm/snide remarks. No matter how angry or hurt you feel, it is not worth allowing the poison of contempt into you marriage/relationship. (And if you don’t feel you can keep from saying something you’ll regret, step away from the argument until you’re calm enough to exercise appropriate self-control over your speech.)
Learn the art of apologizing. When you do make a mistake - as we all do - take ownership for what you did wrong and offer a genuine apology to your partner.
One final note:
However heated it may get, conflict is not abuse. Conflict does not include physical violence or patterns of speech that degrade, humiliate, or dehumanize another person - that is abuse. No matter how much some abusers try to normalize abuse under the guise of conflict or even just “passion,” abuse is vile and unacceptable and should be called what it is. If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, please reach out to resources like The National Domestic Violence Hotline (24/7 hotline: 800-799-7233), which can provide support and assist you with getting help. Conflict as discussed here, and anywhere else on this website, is always referencing relationship conflict - which may be heated, emotional, even overwhelming at times, but never abusive.
