It’s time us ladies learn to fight with conviction, integrity, and fairness with our husbands.
Notice how I included the important conjunction, “with,” in my opener. I didn’t say, “at,” or “to” in that sentence.
it’s time us ladies learn to fight with conviction, integrity, and fairness at our husbands.
it’s time us ladies learn to fight with conviction, integrity, and fairness to our husbands.
Too many times in the media do they validate that it’s OK for the wife to spit vile low-blows to the husband; and then, cue the laugh track. Everybody Love Raymond is the show that comes to mind when I just said that. It seems that we normalized vilifying and emasculating the male leader of the household. In fact, it’s funny when we say hurtful, pride-crushing, snide comments to our husbands. Personally, I found it an accomplishment when I would get my girl friends to ooh and ahh when I would share the spiteful things I said to my significant other.
As said before, it’s in a woman’s nature to know how to hit home when it comes to the insults.
I know that I previously addressed what I do to be the best wife I can be. However, I didn’t go into detail of how I go about that.
let’s review from our previous lesson
- Submitting to him is our God-given duty to our husbands as the Bible commands
- Respecting my husband is important in the dynamic of a husband-wife relationship because I’m supposed to respect him while he is responsible to love me
- We are a team in which we are not trying to best the other or “win” the argument over our spouse when we have confrontations
How do we fight fairly?
My life changed drastically when I read Love & Respect and Scream-Free Marriage. My mentality on how I communicate with J. drastically altered from how I used to reassure myself that yelling and screaming obscenities at him was OK.
Soul-searching and observing how other couples interact with each other also influenced me on how I want to talk and address uncomfortable topics with J. I would think to myself, “Is this how I sound when I say those things to J.?” or “I do not want to look ugly like that if I have a disagreement with J.”
I could go on-and-on about how I encountered my epiphanies of being respectful when fighting with J. However, ultimately, implementing these changes in my life strengthened my relationship with J.; and, that is why we tuned in here, right?
don’t hesitate to say sorry first
I remember a time that I talked with an insufferable woman bragging how she makes her husband grovel to her every time he does something to inconvenience her. She forces him to play a guessing game with her of what he did or didn’t do wrong. It’s a rush of adrenaline when us ladies get this false sense of power over our husbands. It’s so fulfilling when we make him apologize to us first; it’s almost a sin to apologize and admit fault first.
That temporary satisfaction of getting him to apologize first for a disagreement we are both involved is the battle we win, but the war we lose. I do not choose to lose my soul in the process of “winning” a silly argument. I solve that problem by apologizing first because we are both wrong; there are always two sides to a paper. There is hardly ever a time that one party is completely innocent when it comes to a disagreement or argument. That’s why I simply admit fault first genuinely.
I’m angry, so I’m walking away.
It’s best not to say anything when you’re angry; that, we can all agree with. There have been many times I said regrettable things when I was angry at my mom, dad, friends, bosses, K., and J. Anger accomplishes nothing good, but it is not evil. It’s OK to be angry; even Jesus was angry when he flipped the tables at the church. It is not OK to act out of anger because it hurts those we love the most. Sometimes, we get so angry and heated in an argument with our spouse that makes us feel compelled to spew vicious words at them to let them know our wrath. Using our anger to control how we talk is childish; and, being childish has no place in a union between man and wife.
We all know the “count to 10” rule when it comes to handling anger or “breathe in and out deeply for 10 seconds.” Those, do not work for me. I follow a simpler rule to prevent myself from shouting regrettable things to J. This rule of mine may not be applicable to you or maybe you don’t want to follow the rule because you might find it too silly. The point I want to prove by sharing my methodology is that preventing a catastrophic disaster can be so simple and tailored to your style of conflict resolution. Us ladies do not need to over complicate how to stop a potential WW3.
What I do is simply use the “I” statement and volunteer to cool-down before reconvening on the heated topic. I will commonly say something like:
I am really, really angry at you right now. I know I’m about to say something really bad, so I’m walking away. I’ll come back when I am not angry.
Angry Mama a.k.a. me
Does this actually work?
These methods work in our household because I am able to maintain my respect to J. and J. gave his stamp of approval for this new way I fight fairly. J. and I initiated a game plan for future fights because every relationship will not be without fights and disagreements. The most important part of this success is being highly self-aware of when I start seeing red. It takes extreme self-control for me to realize that I’m crossing into dangerous territory. Mind you, it was trial and error, but I believe that the more I practice wanting to maintain love and respect in our relationship no matter the situation, the easier it gets.
Another way to increase your chances of fighting fairly is by having a sit-down with your spouse to talk about a game plan for handling future outbursts. It may sound silly and it may be uncomfortable, but it’s worth getting over this hurdle now before an all-out war ensues in your household. I suggested some talking points to establish during this conversation, but you are always more than welcome to add more and tailor it to the dynamic of your relationship:
- What triggers our anger toward each other?
- Do you want us to solve the problem at hand right then-and-there or shall we have a cool-down period?
- What are absolute topics we do not bring up when “fighting fairly?” For example, he doesn’t like it when you degrade his comic book collection.
- How do we hold each other accountable for potentially gaslighting each other?
- What would you rather me do other than emasculate you out of anger like I usually do?
