No one likes to admit that they argue. No one is specially like to admit that marriage is can have really really really rough patches. No one shares that they have gone through extremely hard patches and what they did to get back out of it to build a better marriage. We have just had our 5th wedding anniversary and 8 years of being together, and yes there was times I wanted to strangle him. I like to think of our marriage as a tango. You can’t dance with one person fighting for control. It takes two of you to do the dance and when you do come together it looks beautiful. We got married so young and with the extensional circumstances that happening in your life early on we learn how to have a good strong marriage under stress. But when we are not under stress we don’t know what to do. We never learn how to play and have fun. We both needed to play more and that would have helped our stress levels, which I spoke about here and here. Here are a few things that we learned on how to argue better.
- Never have a real argument in front of other people.
- Never belittle the other person.
- It’s ok to have a cooling down time before you start talking again. Its better to talk level-headed than mad and say things you didn’t mean.
- Try and see why are you really arguing? Are you talking out the stress of the day from home/work/kids/school on each other ?
- BE HONEST!!!! It is better to be honest with your husband and get ALL the feelings on the table, then to keep bringing the topic up. This may be painful. Take the time to sit down and work through the issue on the table. Be prepared that it might take hours and its worth losing sleep over.
- Try and end the argument and change it to a discussion instead. Instead of arguing about (chores, bills, stress, ect) try to work together to figure out a solution that you both like. It might mean a job change or other major life style change. But its worth it to have those HONEST discussions and tweak your life, then to hurt your marriage .
- End the talk telling the other person that you love them and share a kiss and go to bed happier.
