How To Reduce Arguments In Marriage?
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Arguments and marriages are synonymous.
At least that’s what seems like when we look at many of the marriages around us.
We have seen our parents fighting, arguing at times, calling names and cursing, and we grew up thinking that this is how marriage is.
Then we get married and now when we find ourselves in their shoes we are not surprised.
In fact, the fighting in our marriage becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But have you ever thought that “Fights are part of marriage” is a myth?
Well from my personal experience and my experience of coaching others I have realised that “disconnects are part of marriage but fights don’t have to be”.
When it comes to fighting we actually have a choice. We can only take up this choice when we know what is actually happening in our relationship at a given moment.
The 5 insights spoken in this blog will enlighten you and help you cut down on the fights and at the same time bring you closer.
Insight 1: Storm comes after form.
In the year 1965, Bruce Tuckman proposed a model of team development (see the diagram).
He said that these phases are all necessary and inevitable in order for a team to grow, face up to challenges, tackle problems, find solutions, plan work, and deliver results.
Marriage is an organization which has the smallest and most intimate team of all in the world and hence marriage too goes through these phases.
Like every team, a married couple also has to go through storming before it moves onto norming and performing.
When we realise this fact we can be ready for this phase.
Unfortunately, many marriages are stuck at “storming” even after decades. In these marriages, people are always alert at the oncoming missile from their spouse and are ready to attack.
Every now and then they unconsciously call for peace just to carry on with the necessities of life and then get back to fighting again.
The good news is that your marriage doesn’t have to get stuck there.
Learning your partner’s personality type by learning Enneagram and skills of deeper connection can help you get through this phase and move on to norming and performing stages.
Insight 2: Criticism slaughters marriages
One indicator of a storming stage is that the partners start finding faults in each other.
The things that they overlooked during the forming stage (before marriage) appear to be boulders on the way to loving their spouse.
And with good intention, they start correcting the other.
Unfortunately this kind of correcting, which is perceived as criticism, only brings out the worst in their spouse.
Why is it so? Why does your partner misunderstand you when you try to help him to be better? Check out the diagram
As we see in the diagram, out of all the needs that we have, safety is the second most important human need.
It comes after basic needs and is more important than love and family.
Safety is a very important need for animals as well but animals only worry about physical safety, whereas we humans look for physical as well as emotional safety.
In fact, in today’s world, we are not threatened by physical danger but more by emotional danger.
Every time you criticise your spouse which you think is a correction, his rational human part of the brain stops working and everything that he says or does comes from his animal part of the brain.
And in danger animals do one of the two things: either they defend or attack.
Either way, it doesn’t bring you closer. With continuous criticism, you only reach the end of your relationship.
Thus it is extremely important to learn to tell your spouse in the most non-threatening way.
For this, you need to understand what kind of language or tone threatens your spouse.
And make sure you don’t use it to tell him something unpleasant. If your relationship has become a war zone then you can seek help to make it a safe zone.
Then only you can have a conversation where your spouse listens and makes the necessary changes.
Insight 3: Both of us right almost all the time.
How many Squares are here?:
I show both these pictures to my participants whenever I do a workshop on conflict management.
When I show the first picture and ask my participants how many squares they see, they give varied answers.
Then I ask them to come to the screen and prove that they are right.
And eventually, they come to the conclusion that there are 40 squares. When I ask whether everyone agrees, they say ‘yes’, in unison.
When I show the second image everybody says that both are right. In life, we have both types of conflicts.
The first one being the logical conflict, for which there’s only one answer.
One has to be right. We can dig into history, encyclopaedia or in recent times, ‘Google’, to prove that we are right.
Some of these points of arguments include: who is the present president of a country?
Who has acted in a particular movie? And the list goes on. But these are not the questions that we get stuck at.
Most of our conflicts are of the second type.
Should we buy the washing machine or not? Who should do the cleaning in the evening? And during these arguments both the partners are right.
And when both are right, the most stupid thing to do is to convince the other, and the wise thing to do is to connect.
When we connect, we listen to the other’s point of view, acknowledge and ask ourselves what is the best thing to do and come to the best possible mutual win-win decision.
Isn’t all this hard work?
Of course, it is. In fact, everything that is worth having is hard work.
The good news is that it is just like learning to drive.
At the initial stage, you got to focus on so many things, but with time your body and mind unconsciously coordinates.
Focusing on making marriage awesome is really worth it. Think about your own marriage.
If you put together all the time you have spent in fighting (open or silent) then will that come to few ha ours, days, months or perhaps years.
Is it really worth it, especially when we think of ourselves as nothing but a bubble on the water ready to burst anytime? I don’t think so.
Write down what you think. Also, write which insight from the list made a lot of sense to you.
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June 8, 2021 @ 6:50 am
Hi do u help woman.
June 8, 2021 @ 12:00 pm
No. My friends help women. You can reach out to them at http://www.saranjali.com
June 15, 2021 @ 6:21 pm
1. We should always understand our partners need and their personality type so that we act accordingly .
2. Criticism is the worst thing in any relation
3. Listen to other persons thought is also very important rather than thinking I am always right .
June 15, 2021 @ 11:09 pm
Great insights Kapil. Awesome!
January 22, 2022 @ 5:14 pm
Don’t try to correct your partner as criticism slaughters the marriage
April 15, 2022 @ 2:01 pm
Great insight!
January 27, 2022 @ 4:57 am
Not something new. Quite obvious in fact.
But quite difficult to implement. Arguments take away the life force. A minute into the argument one realises that it would have been better to shut up. But it is already too late.
Amazingly next time also I make the se mistake…
March 21, 2022 @ 1:01 pm
Great realization.
Learning relationship science would ensure such mistakes are not repeated
February 11, 2022 @ 5:37 pm
Dear Val
1. I now understood my partners requirements. Drom 1.8 years Trying to connect to her but she is not giving me space. In between lots emotional damage happened
April 15, 2022 @ 1:50 pm
Great realization!
May 16, 2022 @ 4:34 pm
I have realised one should try and understand partners requirement and appreciate their feelings rather than always criticizing them .Understanding partners feelings and reacting accordingly is very important.
May 24, 2022 @ 8:10 pm
Great insight!
May 26, 2022 @ 6:49 am
1)Criticism is the biggest problem we are facing it as we try to correct our partner with our own believes and thoughts. Which ultimately leaves the other partner to a believe that either she/he defends or attack
2) We always argue to win a situation by being right, whereas we need to connect the situation so that the decision should be a win win situation for the partners
May 27, 2022 @ 6:42 pm
Amazing insight!
June 8, 2022 @ 2:20 pm
Glad to know this. Thanks!
August 2, 2022 @ 2:25 am
Try to see from other side also before coming to conclusions
2)there is no need always logically correct.As a man we think every time logically not emotionally.
August 14, 2022 @ 8:00 pm
Amazing insight!
September 25, 2022 @ 11:06 pm
I studied all these but forgot to implement in my marriage. No use of my study. How can I forget – Team formation stages, Maslows hierarchy of needs? I understood that I shouldn’t be convincing. Instead, I should be convincing.!!
October 28, 2022 @ 11:01 pm
Good realization Akshay!
October 6, 2022 @ 12:45 am
Well said VAL.. These types of criticisms, arguments, We have had many a time in our marital life. I have done the foolish efforts of proving that I am right by various means, including googling etc. Now, I realize, how big a fool , I have been. The pleasure of having won in an argument is just temporary but the sheer wound caused during the course of those arguments takes longer time to get healed. After all Marital life is far, far bigger and larger than these small skirmishes which can be very well avoided and the momentum of love and care, affection can be carried on and ahead which is the most wanted thing than such petty fights and deciding who the winner is. IN fact its so nice to lose many times to your beloved wife in marital life. . Joy of losing as I would like to call it 🙂
October 17, 2022 @ 4:02 pm
Deep thoughts Ravi! Amazing learnings.
July 6, 2023 @ 12:25 am
really eye opener sir…now i realise why after so many efforts things got worse …never to correct spouse which causes critism
July 13, 2023 @ 10:55 am
Great insight Pawan!