Why do couples fight?

Why do couples fight?

Marital squabbles can be over lots of things:

· Control struggles (who's in charge) and how decisions are made
· Degree of reciprocal control or independence
· Treatment of in-laws and significant relatives
· Sex: how, when, why, by whom, varieties
· Money: earning, managing, saving and spending

With the objective of controlling, humiliating or winning over the other, all kinds of negative things are said, that are difficult to retrieve. The results are very sad, because repetition of the fight, which is inevitable when it is not resolved, will sour the relationship.

Here, I want to let you in on a secret, the hidden motivation to connect and have a good, healthy fight. Once you understand this, it is easier to look at your current “enemy” – your partner –with empathy; to see their hidden motivations; and perhaps come up with some solutions to fill this deep need for confrontation.

Why is winning or losing a dispute so important? Why is there it so essential to our self-esteem? Because we think that we fight mostly for control of things, like time, money, the car, clothes or a good job. But really, almost every fight actually has at least something to do with the rarely acknowledged need for us to get some recognition from the other. That person is so important because she can give us the acceptance or recognition that we crave!

Go back in your memory to the last three fights you had with your loved one…..Imagine that each fight is a heartfelt quest for support, recognition and respect from him or her. If so, having your partner say out loud, “Yes, you are right on this issue,” validates you and makes the world right again.

Does it feel good? Now, compare that with the pleasure you get when obtaining the thing you were ready to fight about….how does it compare? No way!

Why can't we even mention our deep need for validation from our spouse? Very simple, it has to be offered, spontaneously! That is the crux of the matter: If we have to beg for it, it doesn't taste so good, right? It has to be proffered because it is an evident, undeniable fact that we are right, that we are intelligent and beautiful and lovable… not because we ask people to say so!

And that, by the way, is the reason we get married: to have someone, freely elected, who can say to the world that we are such a beautiful person they want to spend their lives with us!

And then, very shortly, this admiration we managed to achieve goes missing, and sadly the only way to get our partner’s attention back on us is to have a good fight.

NOW, if we could only know how to do a positive conflicts fight!!!

How do You React to Conflict?

We can have several reactions to conflict, depending on what past experiences have taught us:

• Fight fire with fire and answer with more defensiveness, including verbal and physical violence.
• Deny the conflict, hide inside and avoid future conversations on problematic issues.
• Give up and go along with others, forgetting our own interests and finally compromising our souls.
• Decide to get our own way no matter what, and do "passive aggressive resistance" without ever getting to discuss our behavior and its deep motivations and its impact on the other.
• Go the way of skilful negotiations, and learn how to talk about difficult issues with the people we love, and explore different sides of a dispute and get an agreement.

If you have experienced your share of conflict in your life—and who hasn’t? — You may even be afraid of conflict. Perhaps you lost big time when you tried to impose your views on your spouse; or your best friendship ended in sour recriminations that nobody wanted, but nobody could stop.

What is the lesson here?

What did you learn?

Is there another way?


In the future, you may decide to escape; to do anything to avoid another conflict situation: giving in to other’s demands without being satisfied yourself, only to keep the peace; settling for second-best without getting your needs met, and in general taking refuge in a place where you don’t ever have to be bothered with anything related to confrontation, challenge, or friction.

If you adopt this response while in a relationship, the demands of the other person will be seen as intrusive and could lead, on your part, to all kinds of passive aggressive behaviors - sabotage, and self-isolation, to name a few - which will escalate the conflict. You may go deep inside yourself, in fear and mistrust, and refuse to get near other people again, preferring loneliness to anger and mistrust.

Sometimes, people never have learned the necessary skills to assert themselves with respect, to challenge toxic situations or to negotiate their own needs’ satisfaction with others! People never obtained the skills to negotiate with loved ones with little risk to the relationship, and this is the problem here, because now, they don't know what to do. You can see clearly how this terrible lack of skills compounded their loneliness and frustration.

Rremember that all avoidance ways of dealing with conflict will help you stay away from confrontation but will never provide you with the warmth, intimacy and confirmation you are always craving for! Besides, there is no learning of more productive strategies, if you keep avoiding. So, face on and do some positiveconflicting, right?

6 Keys to Understand Relationships & Fighting

Probably the vast majority of what you have learned until today about resolving conflicts wasn't very successful. Conflicts are often handled in two main ways: either to avoid or to confront and both were yielding very poor results. We need to learn other ways to manage conflict in such a way that we can come out of it enriched, with a sense of growing ability, and experiencing a stronger bond with the other person, born out of reciprocal satisfaction of both our needs.

In short, there are several concepts that I want you to consider.

Let’s go though them one by one, and watch your reactions to each:

1.- Conflict, as part of any relationship, is inevitable. All relationships have to include some understandings on how to process confrontations. If you two are not fighting, then one of you is repressing his or her needs and it blow up sooner or later.

2.- If we care about something, it will appear as part of a discussion, because it is an important part of who we are….our dreams, our values. It shows that you are alive, and that you care.

3.- It’s a call for attention to discover where our relationship hurts. If you decide to give the disputed thing away, (to be left alone) you are not looking carefully at the relationship behind the dispute! Or you did ignore the early signs, because you feel that you don’t have any skills.

4.- Each discussion helps you see better what you want…So, if you are confused about some issue, go and have a fight about it with your spouse, and it will become clear! If you have an agreement before it happens (“Honey, every now and then, when I’m itching for a fight, please, could you go along? You don’t need to defend yourself, or be offended by what I say, only listen and let me vent…it will be OK very soon, but I need this!”)

5.- When you recover your senses, she will have a lot of very funny stories to share with you, so you can learn how others see you! Isn’t it fun?

6.- There are strategies for resolution that are available and DO work. Even when forced to fight, you can always fight fair, and send a powerful message.

So, now, it’s time for you to be grateful because you have your share of conflicts in your love relationship, through which you can learn about yourself and grow, right?

We will never know what we can do without challenge and opposition. We will never develop new skills if sheer necessity does not force us to do so. In short, without necessary conflict, we will never grow up.

When you engage others in positive conflict, you are telling them that he/she is important enough for you to invest some energy in improving the relationship, by challenging the sore points in it. You are giving others a big compliment by having a positive conflict with them!

Doing positive conflict is having the courage to confront others in order to change a hurting situation and find a better, more inclusive agreement, which will benefit both of you. This is the key here: the search for a mutually acceptable solution, doing a respectful process that answers both sides’ needs.

This is just the beginning. Once you see that conflict is not necessarily a bad thing, you can start exploring the techniques that will allow you to use conflict as a way to strengthen relationships.

To your healthy relationships!

6 Keys to Understand Relationships & Fighting

Probably the vast majority of what you have learned until today about resolving conflicts wasn't very successful. Conflicts are often handled in two main ways: either to avoid or to confront and both were yielding very poor results. We need to learn other ways to manage conflict in such a way that we can come out of it enriched, with a sense of growing ability, and experiencing a stronger bond with the other person, born out of reciprocal satisfaction of both our needs.

In short, there are several concepts that I want you to consider.

Let’s go though them one by one, and watch your reactions to each:

1.- Conflict, as part of any relationship, is inevitable. All relationships have to include some understandings on how to process confrontations. If you two are not fighting, then one of you is repressing his or her needs and it blow up sooner or later.

2.- If we care about something, it will appear as part of a discussion, because it is an important part of who we are….our dreams, our values. It shows that you are alive, and that you care.

3.- It’s a call for attention to discover where our relationship hurts. If you decide to give the disputed thing away, (to be left alone) you are not looking carefully at the relationship behind the dispute! Or you did ignore the early signs, because you feel that you don’t have any skills.

4.- Each discussion helps you see better what you want…So, if you are confused about some issue, go and have a fight about it with your spouse, and it will become clear! If you have an agreement before it happens (“Honey, every now and then, when I’m itching for a fight, please, could you go along? You don’t need to defend yourself, or be offended by what I say, only listen and let me vent…it will be OK very soon, but I need this!”)

5.- When you recover your senses, she will have a lot of very funny stories to share with you, so you can learn how others see you! Isn’t it fun?

6.- There are strategies for resolution that are available and DO work. Even when forced to fight, you can always fight fair, and send a powerful message.

So, now, it’s time for you to be grateful because you have your share of conflicts in your love relationship, through which you can learn about yourself and grow, right?

We will never know what we can do without challenge and opposition. We will never develop new skills if sheer necessity does not force us to do so. In short, without necessary conflict, we will never grow up.

When you engage others in positive conflict, you are telling them that he/she is important enough for you to invest some energy in improving the relationship, by challenging the sore points in it. You are giving others a big compliment by having a positive conflict with them!

Doing positive conflict is having the courage to confront others in order to change a hurting situation and find a better, more inclusive agreement, which will benefit both of you. This is the key here: the search for a mutually acceptable solution, doing a respectful process that answers both sides’ needs.

This is just the beginning. Once you see that conflict is not necessarily a bad thing, you can start exploring the techniques that will allow you to use conflict as a way to strengthen relationships.

To your healthy relationships!