Help! My Spouse and I Can’t Stop Fighting!
Marriage is two individuals doing life as a team. You and your spouse will always have some differing perspectives, needs, priorities, habits, and let’s say – idiosyncrasies – that make you both unique. This means ongoing work on communication skills, learning how to handle disagreements and conflict, and doing the intentional stuff that keeps you connected and your relationship healthy.
Sprinkle in anxiety, stress, anger, and sadness, or maybe uncertainty about the future and tight finances. As a result, marriage can go from difficult to disastrous. Real quick. Heavy emotions or difficult circumstances can take a toll on your marriage. Everything gets magnified and intensified. This can lead to constant fighting.
Tensions, disagreements, arguments, and even some fighting should be expected in marriage, period. But they can be framed in a way that drives you toward each other – not apart.
1. Stop fights before they start.
If the best fight is the one that actually draws you together and strengthens your relationship, then the second-best fight is the one that never happens.
Understand Your Current Situation.
Acknowledge that you or your spouse may be experiencing high levels of fear, anxiety, and stress. This produces what marriage expert, Dr. John Gottman, refers to as “Flooding,” which is when the brain is flooded with stress hormones and chemicals that make it nearly impossible for the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for complex problem solving) to function. When you or your spouse are in “Fight, Flight, or Freeze” mode, you can’t physiologically function as you normally would. You can’t communicate as you normally should. This isn’t a fault in you or your spouse – this is your body’s nervous system. Hopefully, just knowing this promotes grace, empathy, and patience.
Practice Self-Care.
Be at your best when things are going sideways in your marriage. You each still need your space and need to take care of yourselves and find healthy ways to manage and process the stress you are feeling. Stay connected to your friends and the people that encourage you. It’s okay for you to sit in another room and watch television alone. It’s okay for your spouse to go for a walk without you. If you are both working on being the best versions of yourselves, you’ll both be in a better place when you are together.
Set Up Schedules and Routines.
This will make expectations clear, give your day predictability, and give you stability. Are one or both of you working from home? When and where in your house or apartment will work be done? Do you have children? Designate when you will take turns watching them so the other can work or get some alone time. Who is doing what chores around the house? Divide housework equally and play to your strengths.
Choose A Specific Time Each Day To “Check In” With Each Other.
This isn’t fight time. This is when you ask each other how you are feeling physically and emotionally. This is a time to share needs and ask how you can be helping each other. Take turns speaking and listening. It doesn’t have to be a long or formal time, just consistent.
2. Fight nice.
It may sound strange, but when you aren’t fighting, take some time to discuss and establish some “ground rules” for how you will handle tensions, disagreements, and problems. No bringing up the past. No interrupting. And no raising your voices. How will you call a “timeout?” What is the time limit? How will you signal that the “fight” is over? Use this blog to guide you.
Schedule Your “Fights.”
Set a time once or twice a week (max) when each of you gets to air out one (and only one) criticism while the other is only allowed to listen. Avoid words like, “always” or “never” and try to frame it as an “I” statement. “I get frustrated when it feels like you are being distant,” or “I need more help with putting the kids to bed,” or “I would appreciate it if you didn’t raise your voice at me.”
Respond, Don’t React.
You are both going to hear some hard things, especially if you can’t stop fighting. It is important not to escalate the conversation with the volume or tone of your voice, your body language, or your words themselves. Don’t react by letting emotions take control. As you actively listen, respond calmly, compassionately, and empathetically.
3. Reconnect.
It’s not all about not fighting. Make sure you are doing things that help you connect, have fun together, deepen intimacy, create some romance, and deepen your relationship.
Plan Some Fun!
Be intentional and schedule some fun things you can do together. Have a formal, in-home date night. Dress up and make a special dinner. Do something fun and silly like build a blanket fort and watch a movie. Go for a walk together. Have a game night. Don’t try to do any heavy relationship work during this time, just enjoy each other’s company. Generally, men bond shoulder to shoulder by doing things together, and women bond face to face, through conversation. So, make sure you are doing a little of both. Don’t forget why you married your spouse in the first place.
Figure Out What Says “I Love You” To Your Spouse.
Not everyone communicates “I love you” the same way and not everyone hears “I love you” the same way. Some people need quality time together. Some people need words that affirm them. Dr. Gary Chapman dives into this in The Five Love Languages: The Secret To Love That Lasts. You can also go to his website, take a free quiz, and find resources that will help you communicate love more effectively to each other.
What About Sex?
What about it?! Sex is one of the most powerful ways to stay connected! Understand the dynamics of sex – generally, women need to feel connected to have sex and men need to have sex to feel connected. Not a problem! This is the perfect example of how two people have to work to make the marriage work.
Mindset is everything.
When you’re fighting all the time, it’s easy to begin seeing your spouse as an adversary, and then your relationship becomes a contest of winning and losing. Ultimately, you need to remember that your spouse isn’t the enemy; the problem is the enemy. Then you can fight for your spouse and for your marriage.
Don’t be afraid to call in the pros.
Sometimes the problems run deep. One or both of you could have blind spots. You’re too close to the situation and might need a third party who can be objective and see what you’re missing. Get the help you need!
***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear your computer or device is being monitored, call the hotline 24/7 at 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***
How to Stay Positive When Everything Seems to Be Falling Apart
We were about a month into our COVID-19 quarantine when it finally happened. There had been some ups and downs, of course, but I was feeling pretty good and able to stay positive as an individual, husband, and father. My family was handling it all surprisingly well. I was getting tons of work done. I felt like I was leading the family well. Then I finally snapped.
During the month or so of quarantine, I had been straining, working from home, fearful about my wife working in the medical field, stressed about a son doing middle school online, anxious about a son doing college online, sad for two adult children out of work, worried about one adult child still working in “essential services,” and totally uneasy about my at-risk mother-in-law. ALL of this under ONE roof. (You catch all the emotions in there? I didn’t.) But we were actually navigating it fairly well and trying to stay positive – movie nights, game nights, lots of good conversations. We got this!
Then it all started to unravel. Then I unraveled. Big time.
In the span of a few days:
- My wife was filing for unemployment.
- We had a brush with a tornado that left us with a yard full of fallen trees.
- We had no power to our house for days.
- My car broke down while I was getting ice to keep food from spoiling. (It all spoiled anyway.)
- We had friends who completely lost their homes and we were heartbroken.
- We had all-new financial pressures.
Things were starting to pile up. Stress and worry were at all new levels.
I ignored it – too much to get done!
After about four days of trying to adjust to Generator Life and a bunch of new problems and expenses, I was soon trying to stay positive and hold my world together with threads and patches.
Then, in a single moment, life came undone. (Of course, it did.) The reality is, I came undone. Ironically, it was actually a relatively small thing that did it. Something so small that it would have been no big deal in any other context. Straw. Camel. Back. You know the saying.
I’ll admit it – I was lying in bed crying with the door locked, feeling fragile and helpless.
How did it get to this? I’m stronger than this! What if anyone in my family sees me like this?
If we can allow ourselves to be honest, vulnerable, transparent humans for just a second, you might be feeling it, too. You might be close to snapping. Maybe you are on the edge of being overwhelmed. You may have already broken down. Your story and circumstances might have some major things going on in them that make my little pity party look pitiful.
What do you do to stay positive when it all seems to fall apart?
Here’s what I learned after I snapped back from my snap:
- Acknowledge your emotions and share them with people that you trust. For a while, I had been suppressing or burying emotions and needs deep down, trying to play it cool, but making myself a ticking time bomb.
- Be real with your kids, your spouse, and your friends, because they have their “moments” too. Kids don’t need their parents to be perfect; they need them to be real. It’s good for them to see you work through imperfection and real-world problems.
- Guard your mindset! Be careful what you look for in life, because you’ll find it. If you look for everything that is wrong, you’ll find it and focus on it. If you look for what is going right, that’s there, too. Find it and focus on it. You can acknowledge what’s wrong and still practice gratitude for what’s right. Remember what is really important – people.
- Practice self-care. I was afraid to be honest with myself and the people around me – people that I know would help me, let me blow off steam, and help me process my emotions. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s more than okay to take care of yourself! Practice self-care. You may not be able to change your circumstances, but you can take care of yourself—physically and emotionally.
- Breathe. Think. Act. Take a moment to take some deep breaths, think about what you can and can’t control, and then respond appropriately – don’t react. Don’t make important decisions when you aren’t your best self or you’ve gone to pieces.
- Focus on helping others. This may sound counter-intuitive, but nothing feels better than helping someone with their problems. It actually makes our brain release happy chemicals and it may take your mind off your problems or even put them in perspective.
It’s okay to have a “moment”; it’s not okay to stay there. We’ve all been at a place where we felt like it was just one bad thing after the other and we’ve felt overcome by stress, anxiety, anger, or sadness. Give yourself permission to be real, but also develop a plan to stay positive the next time you feel overwhelmed and about to break down.
6 Tips to Have a Difficult Conversation with Your Spouse
One-bedroom apartment.
Two newlyweds working from home now.
Multiple video conference calls (sometimes simultaneously).
Only two options for “getting space”: Bathroom or the balcony.
Lots of uncertainty and anxiety in the air amidst a pandemic.
Time to work on those healthy communication skills.
I’m sitting on the couch with my husband when the phone rings. We pause our movie, he answers and all I hear is “Mhmm, yeah…okay, yeah.”
His family friend has a nice car and is offering it to us before anyone else and for a good price. Hmm…
Mind you, we have been saving for about 10 months now to replace my husband’s car. It’s been on our to-do list before all of these COVID-19 precautions. We both were antsy to check it off.
Now normally, I love a good deal, but I had to ask myself (and him), “Is this good timing?”
To be honest, a lot feels unknown. We don’t know the ramifications COVID-19 will have on the economy and making a big purchase scares me a little bit…a detour from our original plan feels necessary. To him, we’ve had a goal in mind, we’ve worked hard and this is a great opportunity.
This could be a difficult conversation.
During this pandemic, I’m sure you can relate to having your fair share of challenging conversations, too. There are lots of new, important things to talk about. Money is a touchy subject as it is, and during a time when no one wants to handle money and is quarantined, the irony felt all too coincidental. For us, this was a potential relationship landmine.
The last thing we need to take up space in our little apartment is tension. There’s not enough room for the distance created by the lack of good communication.
If you create distance because one of you or both of you are pushing away your feelings, rather than pushing through them, then you create an opportunity to have that gap filled by things that only make matters worse. Disappointment, resentment or misunderstandings start filling the gap and then you two have enough tension to fill a guest room that you don’t have.
You can’t fix a problem you don’t know is there and neither can your spouse. Neither of you is a mind reader. Conflict isn’t comfortable—I won’t sell it to you like it is. But I will be honest—it’s often a chance for growth and a better understanding of each other.
You aren’t doing life on your own anymore. Important decisions are made together. I mean, as the saying goes, “Two heads are better than one.”
And we had to put our heads together on whether this is a good time to buy a car or not. Who knows how this conversation will go? We often have to work to not get defensive of our own opinions. We agreed that at the end of this difficult conversation, both of us need to feel heard and cared for.
Before we tried to come to a conclusion, we set ourselves up for success.
We made each other feel safe to share opposing opinions and we listened with the intention to hear each other and respond—not just make a rebuttal (as tempting as that can be.)
- We made sure we had time to start and hopefully, finish the conversation.
- Both us of put our phones aside, made sure our schedules were clear and we made resolving our conflict a priority.
- We chose a spot where we felt comfortable talking.
- We reminded each other before we started making our points that this is our decision to make, no one else’s, and that we are on the same team. Win together and lose together. We replaced the “me” in mentality with “we.” What is best for us?
- We actively listened. (Meaning, we “listened” between the lines of each other’s answers and made sure to ask each other clarifying questions. Call us compassionate detectives.) “Are you scared of spending the money we saved for the car because of what’s unknown in the economy or are you really worried about your job?” “Are you not worried about using our savings just because we’ve been saying we would get a car, or because you feel secure in the foundation we laid for ourselves?
- We found a solution and made a plan where we both compromised a little while still reaching our goal. We are going to try and sell Tyler’s car before we make the purchase of the new-to-us car. That way we won’t drain our savings during an uncertain time and we are still marking off something we’ve put a lot of time and effort into making happen.
Maybe it’s been a stressful, exhausting week already and you don’t want to add to it. It’s possible you fear what the other person may say or worry they won’t see your point of view. Maybe it’s as simple as you don’t know where to start.
Make good communication a priority, now more than ever.
Remind yourself to push through and have those difficult conversations rather than push away the emotions. Remember that good communication will help both of you grow and find better ways to love each other.
In marriage, you should be able to rest confidently in the fact that your partner chose you, chooses you and will continue to as you do all the same things for them. If you both put the effort into making your marriage a safe place where you two can fully express and be yourselves, then the rest, even a difficult conversation, becomes easier.
***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear your computer or device is being monitored, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***
Do Happy Couples Argue?
Even after being married for 30 years, I vividly remember our first argument after we got married. It was intense and to be honest, it scared me. In my mind, I thought, “Wait, we are happy and we love each other, but happy couples don’t argue, do they?”
I wish I knew then what I know now: Happy couples do argue.
In fact, they actually argue about the very same things unhappy couples argue about – money, children, in-laws and intimacy.
Amy Rauer, associate professor of child and family studies and director of the Relationships and Development Lab at the University of Tennessee, along with three colleagues—Allen Sabey at Northwestern University, Christine Proulx at University of Missouri and Brenda Volling at University of Michigan—looked at two sets of couples who described themselves as happily married. One group averaged 9 years of marriage and the other group 42 years of marriage on average.
Couples ranked the issues they tended to argue about from most to least serious. Intimacy, leisure, household chores, communication and money were among the most serious, as was health for older couples. Jealousy, religion and family fell on the least serious end of the spectrum.
Researchers saw that these couples focused on the issues with clearer solutions. These solutions included division of household chores or how to spend leisure time. The couples rarely chose to argue about harder-to-resolve issues, which Rauer suggests could be one of the keys to their marital success.
“Focusing on the perpetual, more difficult to solve problems may undermine partners’ confidence in the relationship,” says Rauer.
Longer-married couples reported fewer serious issues and argued less overall, which is consistent with previous research suggesting that older partners’ perceptions of spending less time together may lead them to prioritize their marriage and decide some issues are not worth fighting over.
When it comes to not discussing the more difficult issues such as health and intimacy, researchers said that part of the challenge is when spouses believed talking about it might make the partner believe they were challenging their competence or it would make the spouse feel vulnerable or embarrassed, which might result in more conflict.
“Since these issues tend to be more difficult to resolve, they are more likely to lead to less marital happiness or the dissolution of the relationship, especially if couples have not banked up any previous successes solving other marital issues,” Rauer says. “If couples feel that they can work together to resolve their issues, it may give them the confidence to move on to tackling the more difficult issues.”
There are several really useful takeaways from this study.
- Learning to choose your battles matters. Early on, it might be a little more difficult to discern what is a mountain and what is a molehill. Some of this can happen through conversation and some will happen through experience. The most important thing? Focus on the issue and don’t point the proverbial finger at your spouse.
- Differentiate between issues that truly need resolution versus those that you can set aside for the time being. Sometimes timing or taking time to process can make all the difference. Some challenging issues really do require an amount of simmering to figure out what you think before you can even talk about a helpful resolution. Plenty of long-married couples could tell you that sometimes there is no quick fix. It may help to talk and think, then repeat the process over time in order to solve certain problems well.
- Seek solution-oriented. Clearly, couples who focused on working together to find a solution seem happier in their relationship. Also, working as a team to solve less-challenging issues builds confidence that is helpful when tackling more complicated issues.
- No matter what stage of marriage you are in, there will always be something to argue about. Remember – your spouse is not the enemy. Choosing the issues you will focus on matters. And making some intentional decisions together about how you will engage around those issues will impact your marital happiness, for better or for worse.
Even after 30 years of marriage, obviously there are issues that still arise.
We have learned over time that many of the issues we spent a lot of time and energy on were molehills. Ultimately, we began asking, “Is this something that will matter a month from now or six months from now?” If the answer was yes, we began to problem-solve together. If the answer was no, we stopped letting it distract us from what really mattered – our marriage.
***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear your computer or device is being monitored, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***
Why do couples fight? And what do they usually fight about?
Most people say they fight about money, sex, kids, and in-laws straight out of the gates.
In romantic relationships, all kinds of major and minor disagreements can impact the quality of a couple’s relationship. If you’re wondering what couples are most likely to fight about, check out this 2019 study by psychologists Guilherme Lopes, Todd Shakelford, David Buss, and Mohaned Abed.
They conducted the study in three stages with newly-married heterosexual couples. They looked at all of their areas of discord, and what they found was pretty interesting. Out of 83 reasons for couple conflict, they found 30 core areas which they placed into six component groups.
Component Groups:
- Inadequate Attention or Affection. This would include things like not showing enough love and affection, lack of communication, one not paying enough attention to the other, not being appreciated, and feelings.
- Jealousy and Infidelity. This was affected by real or perceived risk to the relationship from things like talking to an ex, possessiveness, past relationships, and differing opinions on whose friends couples hang around more.
- Chores and Responsibilities: Think about everyday tasks that couples may share. The housekeeping, chores, who does more work, not showing up when expected, and sharing responsibilities would fit here.
- Sex. One may want sex and the other doesn’t. Frequency of sex, sexual acts, and telling private information about the relationship to others—the list goes on.
- Control and Dominance. This would refer to events in which one partner tries to manipulate or control the other in some way.
- Future Plans and Money. Things like goals for the future, children, and the ability to invest in the relationship fall into this category.
Utilizing these areas of discord, the psychologists created the Reasons for Disagreements in Romantic Relationships Scale (RDRRS).
Key Findings
- Jealousy and infidelity seemed to decrease after several years of marriage
- A husband’s higher income contributed to control and dominance issues.
- Men who were more religious mentioned less disagreement over jealousy and infidelity elements.
- Relationship satisfaction improved over time, although the frequency of differences did not change significantly during the three years of marriage.
- Females were less satisfied when there was more disagreement about control and dominance. As women grew older, there was more disagreement about infidelity and jealousy.
- Women reported that sexual satisfaction was lower when there was greater disagreement about chores and responsibilities.
- Women were more likely to guess they would have an affair in five years when there was greater disagreement around inadequate attention and affection.
Whether considering marriage, engaged, or already married, this info can provide a great foundation for a conversation about potential disagreements. There’s some relief in knowing that lots of people struggle with the same types of issues. However, it might be a bit disconcerting to find that the one you love doesn’t see things the same way you do. It’s pretty much impossible for two people from two different upbringings to come together and not have any differences of opinion about certain things.
Either way, knowing you have these differences or areas of conflict can help you talk about how you’ll navigate them so your relationship can thrive in the process.
How Do You Talk About It?
Find a time when you both can talk for 30 minutes or so without distraction. Choose one of the topics you differ on and begin sharing. Keep in mind, always seek information and to remain curious. Don’t include any rules about the conversation ending when the timer goes off! This also isn’t the time to try and convince your partner they’re wrong and should for sure see things your way.
Couples often find that seeking to understand their partner helps them make sense of why they think the way they do. It doesn’t mean you have to agree. You can still disagree on some things and have a healthy marriage, but it’ll require some effort on each person’s part. If you’re dating or engaged, your differences may be significant enough for you to evaluate whether marrying each other is the best next step. It really boils down to respecting your partner and doing what’s in your relationship’s best interest.
***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear your computer or device is being monitored, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***
When things seem hopeless, it can be really hard to think you’ll ever find hope again.
Dyan and Alik fled their war-torn village in Sudan in 2012, but they were separated as they tried to get to refugee camps in Africa. While fleeing, evidence of their marriage was destroyed.
The camp processed Alik as a single mom. They processed Dyan as a single man, however. This made him a very unlikely candidate for resettlement in the United States.
Alik arrived in Fort Worth, Texas with her two children and their third child on the way. She didn’t know if she would ever see her husband again.
Enter Molly and Mary Claire, two moms looking for a way for their families to serve others. These two families were paired with Alik and her children. As they developed a relationship with Alik, she shared with them about her husband being stuck in a refugee camp in Egypt.
When Alik spoke with her caseworker about getting her husband to the States, the caseworker gave her little hope. Molly and Mary Claire spoke with immigration attorneys, members of Congress, and anyone else who might be able to help them reunite this family. They also were told repeatedly it would be a real miracle for Dyan to join them.
After four long years, and reams of paperwork, Dyan rejoined his family. You can watch the video here.
Perhaps you’re dealing with a situation that seems hopeless, too. Unemployment with no possibilities on the horizon, a persistent illness, marital strife or a family member dealing with addiction. Sometimes it’s hard not to give up hope.
If you’re struggling to find hope, here are some suggestions to help you keep going.
- Find a community to engage with. It is likely that while both Dyan and Alik kept hope in their heart, there were probably times when they thought their efforts were futile. Their friends helped them keep going.
- Be aware of your own self-talk. Negative thoughts will almost certainly lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Carol Dweck in her book “Mindset” points out, self-talk is very powerful. Statements such as, “It hasn’t happened yet, I will eventually find a way,” “This is temporary,” and “Even in the midst of the storm, I am learning,” are very different than giving up hope.
- Do something. Maybe you can’t do what you planned, but you can do something else while you wait. Alik continued to live her life while she was pursuing getting Dyan to the States. While she may have doubted she would ever see her husband again, she made friends with Molly and Mary Claire, cared for her children and participated in activities.
- Keep putting one foot in front of the other. As Dory says in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.” So often, people throw in the towel just before things start to turn around.
- Phone a friend. Sometimes talking with someone helps.
- Volunteer. Use your skills to help others while you wait. It may help you feel better about yourself and your situation, and you never know who you might meet while you volunteer. You might be able to encourage someone else, too. Or, you might work alongside someone who can help you with your current circumstance. Either way, it’s a win.
Desmund Tutu once said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness.” If you are still on this earth, you can still find hope.
In his book, The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction, Justin Earley shares this quote by Mortimer J. Adler:
“Without communication, there can be no community. … That is why conversation, discussion, or talk is the most important form of speaking and listening.”
FRIENDSHIP MATTERS
We seem to be having fewer and fewer sit-down, face-to-face, real conversations these days. Texting, emojis, messaging on Facebook and emails have replaced some of them. These things may have unintentionally short-circuited our ability to know each other deeply.
News stories abound about the increase in anxiety and depression for all ages, we’ve seen the suicide rate triple for teens, and surveys indicate we as a culture are lonelier than we’ve ever been. In light of that, perhaps the new year should designate a year of intentional conversation with others.
“Everything in the universe has its roots in friendship,” says Earley. “That means that longing to be in right relationship with other people and things is at the heart of every molecule in existence—and most powerfully in our own hearts.”
Earley explains that conversation exposes us in two ways: face-to-face conversation brings risks and truth-telling happens.
HOW WE COMMUNICATE IMPACTS EVERYONE
Massachusetts Institute of Technology psychologist and author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Sherry Turkle believes that replacing face-to-face communication with technology is depleting people’s capacity for empathy toward others. Research shows that the way people are currently seeking to communicate through devices threatens true friendship. Instead of things happening in real-time right in front of us, people are planning and curating the versions of themselves they want to bring to the discussion.
Removing tone of voice, facial expression and body language from communication leaves the conversation lacking in so many ways. How can we bring back real, honest conversation? It’s not as hard as you might think.
- Make an effort to remove devices from the dinner table whether you’re at home or at a restaurant.
- Create space for regular conversation and fellowship with family and friends. Instead of the well-meaning, “Let’s get together soon!” pull up your calendar and set a date to catch up on life together.
- For the sake of your emotional health, connect with a couple of people on a regular basis. These would be the people Earley is describing with whom risky conversations take place, truth-telling occurs and perfection is not expected.
- When it comes to modeling the art of conversation with your children, create tech-free zones/times in your home where your family can come together for game night or other activities that invite the opportunity for conversations to occur.
REAL CONVERSATION STARTERS
If you feel like you aren’t great at getting conversations going, here are a few questions to get you started:
- What is something that is popular now that totally annoys you and why?
- What’s the best/worst thing about your work/school?
- If you had intro music, what song would it be and why?
- Where is the most beautiful place you have ever been?
- If you had to change your name, what would you change it to and why?
- How should success be measured, and by that measurement, who’s the most successful person you know?
- If you could learn the answer to one question about your future, what would the question be?
- What was the best period of your life so far? What do you think will be the best period of your entire life?
People of all ages are dying from the lack of community that currently exists in our culture, but that trend doesn’t have to continue. Every person can have intentional, regular, and meaningful conversations with others. Imagine how different our culture could be if we all committed to working on this.
Cheating. Pretty much universally denounced as the worst thing you could do in a relationship (maybe just a tiny bit behind murdering your partner). We can all agree that cheating is wrong and definitely nobody wants someone to cheat on them, but…
“But what?” you ask. But let’s be honest, so much of the media we consume glorifies cheating and we sing along or sit and watch and munch our popcorn. And who among us isn’t fascinated by the latest celebrity scandal of who’s “steppin’ out” on who? Let’s get even more honest. Who hasn’t clicked on one of those, “6 Ways To Know If They’re Cheating” articles, you know, just to be sure…
Cheating simultaneously repulses and fascinates us. It’s one of the ultimate taboos, so we want to know all the details when it happens to our friends, but we really, really don’t want it to happen to us. Oh, but tons of people cheat. Tons and tons.
Statistically, it’s very likely that it has or will happen to you.
Sorry. (I’m going to assume that you want me to just skip the research-y parts here and just get to the parts that help you avoid being cheated on. I hear you.)
So you want to avoid having your partner cheat on you? You want to remain faithful to your partner and you expect them to remain faithful to you. Here’s where I encourage you to start: Make sure you both agree on what constitutes “cheating” in the first place. Confusion and poor communication cause a lot of what passes for “infidelity,” not a lack of character.
Yes, yes, there’s the obvious stuff. I’m not talking about that. But what about not being honest about where you spend your time? Porn? Friending an ex on social media? Not being honest about how you spent money? Talking about problems in your relationship with an opposite-sex co-worker? Anonymous internet “stuff?” Texting with an opposite-sex friend or getting emotional support from one? Business lunches and gym partners you conveniently don’t tell your spouse about? All of this shows up on surveys as to what counts as cheating. You and your spouse need to define together what “cheating” is to you.
So, yeah, you guys need to talk.
Framing The Conversation
So, you want to blurt out, “Hey, we need to talk about boundaries and what counts as cheating in our relationship!” But I’m begging you not to do that. Please. Just don’t. They’ll most likely hit you with a response like: “What? Don’t you trust me?” [And then in their head] “Wait! Why are you asking? Should I trust YOU?“
My advice?
The conversation about cheating doesn’t have to be about cheating. There are so many other ways to frame this conversation that won’t set off alarm bells and rattle trust issues. How do you have a meaningful, productive conversation about all the nebulous grey stuff in a way that draws you closer together instead of driving you apart by creating static and mistrust?
Can you have this conversation without using words like infidelity, cheating, betrayal, or even trust? It’s something to think about…
Shift: From What You Don’t Want To Happen, To What You Do Want To Happen
You want to talk about growing deeper in real intimacy, cultivating mutual respect, making sure that you are meeting each other’s needs, making sure you are healthy individuals and a healthy couple, protecting your beautiful relationship, and building a lasting legacy together.
So, yes, at some point you have to cover, communicate, reach agreements on, and honor each other in the following areas: (Note: This is not an exhaustive list. You don’t have to talk about them all at one time, for all-time. This is a dynamic, ongoing conversation.)
Phones, Tablets, and Technology
Honesty About Time
Emotional Bonds-Relationships Time With The Opposite Sex, Gym, Etc.
Pornography
Texting and Social Media
Honesty About Money
Opposite-Sex Co-Workers – Meetings, Trips
Keeping Relationship Problems Private
Remember how you’re framing these conversations. All of the above-listed issues and areas can keep you from being the individuals and couple that you both want to be. You have to address them—not because you don’t trust your spouse or partner—but because of the way they impede growth, intimacy, vulnerability, mutual respect, and the legacy you want to cultivate as a couple. Be ready to disagree but respect each other’s needs, and, above all, respect the relationship you are building together.
***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear someone is monitoring your computer or device, call the hotline 24/7 at 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***
