By David Foreman A young couple came to see me because they were fighting all the time. Lets call them Fred and Susan. It took three sessions before Susan finally came out with what was pulling them apart. The reason I shut down is because you used to be so caring and now youre not, Susan said, looking at me. I told her to repeat her words to her husband. After a moment of hesitation she went on. After a year of marriage any time you touched me you wanted sex. I loved sex, I really enjoyed it, but I didnt want it all the time. I was afraid when you kissed me that it meant you wanted sex. Id be doing the dishes and youd hold me and touch my breasts. Youd want to have sex and I didnt want to do it. A sheepish look came over Freds face. He looked away and shrugged. Im just being a guy, he said. When was the last time you had sex? I asked them. Two months ago, they admitted. She just turns off, Fred added irritably.Their situation was hardly unusual. Fred was obviously getting sexually frustrated. All this sexual energy was building up. Hed start hollering at his wife for not putting away the dishes when what he was really trying to say was We didnt have sex last night and I resent it. But the message wasnt getting through. Susan thought that he was really talking about the dishes. But the truth is that she was sexually frustrated, too. When I ask couples why theyve come to see me whats causing them so many problems they give me any number of answers. They typically talk about money problems, time constraints, inability to communicate, the demands of children, or like Fred and Susan, they complain about sex or the lack of it. Their arguments take many forms but whats interesting is how little the subjects of their fights have to do with whats really driving them crazy (and driving them apart). So theyll argue about dirty dishes, or who makes the bed and who takes out the trash. Of course, their real problems have little or nothing to do with dirty dishes piling up in the sink. But they cant focus on their real problems. Theyre too involved in content (those damn dirty dishes) when the real trouble is in the process the underlying patterns of behavior, needs and expectations. The content is always changing when its not the dirty dishes its why one partner flirted with a stranger at the party last night but the process is whats at the root of their problems. Its a misconception that marriages fall apart because couples argue frequently. Ironically, research shows that marriages have a better chance of lasting if both partners are arguers. (So long as they know how to argue, but well get to that later.) Conversely, marriages can survive if both partners are passive by temperament or inclination and dont argue much at all. Marriages get into trouble when the partners arent in accord the husband is an arguer and the wife is passive or vice versa. In those cases opposites may attract but there unlikely to stay together. Its not how much you love each other that can best predict the future of your relationship but how well (or poorly) you handle conflicts and disagreements.Yet people still have the nagging suspicion that fighting in marriages is to be avoided at all costs because its too disruptive and hurtful for both partners. There are two main reasons that most people think fighting in marriage is bad. For one thing, they remember how their parents fought. For the most part, their parents example isnt one that they would like to follow. Even so, people tend to duplicate the behavior they learned by watching their parents. Learning the skills you need to confront your partner also means unlearning the bad lessons youve received early in your life. The second reason people believe that fighting is bad for a marriage is because we think of conflict in marriages in much the same way we think of a football game or a boxing match. In other words, if we regarded our partner as someone whom we love and care for but happen to disagree with a fight wouldnt be such a forbidding prospect. However, if a marriage is already in jeopardy were more likely to consider our partner as our adversary. That is to say, the marriage is no longer a fifty-fifty proposition. Its winner take all. However, marriages dont benefit by avoiding conflict just the opposite. Marriages are hurt when couples dont know how to fight. If you know how to fight well your marriage will actually be strengthened. To fight well, though, you need to know how to communicate well not just in the middle of an argument but at any time.An argument doesnt happen in a vacuum. Theres a context. If youre getting your needs met (for support, for affection, for sex) youre putting money in the bank. That means that when disagreements arise and no marriage (or any close relationship) can ever escape them you can argue without fear that the marriage is on the line to such a degree that if you dont win you might as well throw in the towel. The same holds true if your partner slights you or neglects something youve asked him to do. Sure it hurts, it gets you angry, but its not the end of the world. Only when the same thing happens day after day when the slights build up, when the neglect persists, when your needs are not being met on a regular basis and you have to draw down your account that you should be concerned. Thats when couples begin to drift apart. When Im not getting my needs met, when I want to go right and you want to go left, passion and love wither and die. Needless to say, trust erodes as well. Trust is like a bridge, it offers a way back. Once its broken youre stranded on opposite banks with an impassable river in between you. Because couples fail to understand what is actually going on beneath the surface, they become frightened and panic. They simply dont know how to get their needs met. What is clear to both parties, though, is that they are trapped. Their conflicts escalate, their relationship deteriorates, and they find themselves in a vicious circle. But of course they never make any progress, they never reach any resolution. Thats in the nature of a vicious circle. An adversarial relationship begins to develop. Your goal is no longer how to restore love or a harmonious marriage its how to outwit or humiliate your partner and prove that youre the innocent one whos been misunderstood and victimized. Neither partner has any incentive to play fair why play fair when your partner is doing his best to sabotage you? When a couple recognizes that theyre trapped and that every fight simply leads to more frustration, more resentment and more bitterness they come to the conclusion that they have two choices: pick at the scabs before the wound can heal or avoid the conflict altogether. Paradoxically, the reason that couples drift apart is when they start to recognize the pattern. If the choice is to turn off or to plunge back into the maelstrom its understandable that people often choose the former. Confronting your partner, telling her what your needs are, has the capacity to inspire such fear that you simply shut down. Any time that the conversation threatens to touch on a sensitive subject you find an excuse to avoid it youre tired, you have too much to do, you put off the discussion until later. And of course, later never comes. Researchers have found that couples who have stopped confronting each other, who have basically declared a sullen cease fire and who nonetheless manage to live with each other (the way that the U.S. lived with the old Soviet Union), but who are no longer in love actually make up the greatest percentage of divorces. So how do we deal with this dilemma? If we keep fighting over the same dirty dishes or why youre out every night while Im sitting home waiting for you, we wont get anywhere. Well just keep going around and around in circles. On the other hand, if we avoid tackling whats wrong, if were so fearful of confrontation that we just disengage and sulk and seethe in silence the marriage will inevitably unravel slowly and painfully. As well see, there is a way out of this dilemma. But before we can get to that point we need to know about your intentions in the relationship. What do you really want out of it and out of yourself? When couples come in to see me its generally because theyre still hoping to save their marriage, its just that they havent a clue how to go about it. At the very least they want to feel that theyve given it their best shot. For them my office is a last resort and sometimes the last stop before divorce court. Occasionally one person has a secret agenda or maybe he or she has been having a secret affair on the side. Under those circumstances its almost impossible to help the couple because the two people arent after the same goal. It is one thing when you disagree about how to reach your destination that can usually be worked out but its quite another when the two of you are headed in entirely different directions (even if one partner doesnt realize it yet.) What I also look for is good will. You both have to want the marriage to work.When you dont have good will you have nothing to work with. There may be multitude of things that bother you about your partner. You might even feel at the end of your tether and thought about getting a divorce. But in spite of all the problems you still care about the other person. In other words, you might not know how to live with your partner but at the same time youve been able to avoid demonizing your partner or turning him into an adversary that must be defeated and bombed into submission. If youre determined to fight until your partner declares an unconditional surrender then theres not much I can do for you. If, however, both of you have good will then the chances are fairly good you can restore and resurrect your marriage. In the case of John and Melissa there was no question in my mind that they wanted their marriage to work. Their destination was the same, but they couldnt figure out how to get there. A second important point to keep in mind: When partners support each others goals they arent likely to see an argument as a fight to the death. By goals I mean anything that holds importance for a person: his business, her ambitions, his hobbies or her artwork. If something is important to your partner, it should be important to you, too.So lets go back to the question I posed earlier but this time let me rephrase it slightly. How do we confront each other without causing each other needless pain and making things worse than they already are? Notice I used the word needless in the sentence above. You wont be able to avoid inflicting pain altogether even when you dont mean to no more than you can entirely avoid being on the receiving end. Pain is an inevitable part of life. But we can minimize the pain we cause just as we can learn to deal with the pain that other people cause us without falling to pieces. For this to happen, though, you will have to unlearn many things youve been taught about how to fight. Youd think that problem solving skills would be something that should be taught from first grade on. But for the most part we dont learn how to solve problems in the class room. Instead we get most of our lessons from our families and our friends and from the television shows we regularly watch and the movies we go to. I dont think I need to point out that in general the lessons that we learn from our culture fail to teach us what we really need to know. On the contrary, unless youre very lucky in your choice of parents, you will have inherited some dangerous misconceptions about how to argue and confront. And if we have to rely on examples presented to us on the screen and many of us do were in very deep trouble. How many times have you seen couples portrayed in the media hashing things out in a reasonable way, with love and respect? Id say almost never. They argue, they shout, they hit each other, they break things. I admit that that telling your partner why youre upset, using a soft tone of voice, isnt very exciting or dramatic but do you really want to turn your living room into a stage set where you get to perform Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? every night? But since Americans tend to view every confrontation in terms of a contest a zero-sum game in which there has to be a winner and a loser its no wonder that we tend to see conflict in the same way. Thats why its so hard for so many people to imagine engaging in a confrontation without arguing and yelling and door-slamming. People learn two basic strategies: attacking and criticizing, on the one hand, and hunkering down and going into a defensive mode on the other. Thats what Melissa and John did. You have to care about somebody to confront him or her. (Otherwise why bother?) But thats only a first step. You need to confront your partner in a loving, caring manner. No getting around it, thats a tough assignment, especially in the heat of a dispute. Its not the fight itself that Im concerned about as much as it is the style of fighting. And heres where I have some firm rules that I try to impress on all my clients. The first rule is that there is absolutely no excuse for aggressive behavior. That means no loud voices, no hand thumping, no prolonged eye contact, no standing erect with your feet apart, no expansive gestures (arms flying around), no sneering, no expressions of disgust and no making demands. You cant belittle your partner or any other person whose name comes up in the argument. You cant answer for another person. You have to make a conscious effort to dispense with name calling, swearing or expressing hostility. You have to resist the temptation to respond to something your partner says with a clever put-down. Avoid repeated use of the word You! Thats all your partner is going to hear; she wont get past the pronoun. Above all, no hitting! All these are examples of aggressive behaviors. We get married to nurture each other and help each other grow. Tearing your partner down even when youre upset, especially when youre upset — isnt part of the bargain. My second basic rule for arguing relates to knowing when to disengage. I call it the Five Second Rule. We all get carried away in the passion of the moment. We lose our temper and words fly out of our mouths that we dont truly mean and will regret later. The key point to keep in mind is that if you sense that you or your partner is about to go over the line or has gone over the line already you need to take a break. If hes becoming loud and aggressive give him five seconds. Thats the limit. When you see that things will only escalate just stop! Tell your partner that youre going out for fifteen minutes and give him a chance to calm down. If after fifteen minutes hes still revved up tell him youll be back in half an hour. Then if that doesnt work and you see that itll take more time for him to settle down make yourself scarce for a longer time. If necessary, spend the night at a friends house. Taking a break spares both of you from saying words that you cant easily take back (if you can take them back at all) or doing something that will cause lasting damage When you sense that an argument is spiraling out of control thats the time to leave. Staying put will only provoke him further. That cant happen if youre not there. Dont prevent your partner from leaving. Too many of my clients tell me that when they attempt to leave their partners will block the door. Using physical force to keep her captive is counterproductive. Let her go. By the same token, if youre the one whos leaving, dont use your break to figure out how to retaliate when you return. Instead use your break to take a therapeutic walk, breathe deeply and calm down. But how, you wonder, is it possible to have an argument without attacking or defending? Isnt that what an argument is all about? Well, yes and no. You need to make your feelings known and if youre hurt then you have to say so. But how you make your feelings known, how you tell your partner that shes hurt you, is the key to having successful fights and its something that I teach all my Marriage Counseling clients to practice. I call it the Support Sandwich. Leslie Horvitz writes articles in collaboration with the staff at A Center For Marriage Counseling. ACMC is a group of Marriage Counselors in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and throughout the state of Pennsylvania. The website for the practice is http://www.acenterformarriagecounseling.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Foreman http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Have-a-Good-Fight—Advice-From-A-Marriage-Counselor&id=378030 i need to order soma muscle relaxefor my neck and back online cheaper carisoprodol carisoprodol generic soma online soma carisoprodol buy diazepam online
