So Why Are You Fighting?

Aiming just to be right can leave you dead wrong

Jan 27, 2007 Rhonda Langefeld

Important questions to ask yourself and your spouse about your arguments.

It's hard for me to watch a marital argument acted out in a public place. As the words fly I invariably want to smack one or both of the participants. Why? Because as an outsider, I can see what the married couple cannot, or chooses not to see at all. Just what I imagine an outsider would see and hear, at times, by listening to me.

What do we overhear in marital arguments? Immaturity. Selfishness. Maneuvering to get one's way by twisting the other's words. Clouding the issue with all sorts of unrelated emotional baggage.

Then there is the unequivocal insisting on one's own "rightness." The desire to win at all costs--even if it means destroying love, part of a person, or the marriage itself.

My daughter's driving instructor taught that on the road "rightness" or "right-of-way" is something that is definitely yours in certain traffic situations. However, right-of-way is not something you insist on or force, because you may end up being hit by another car. "I had the right-of-way!" is a pretty poor inscription for a tombstone. Yet some spouses fight as if they would happily carve "I was right!" on the tombstone of their marriages.

When another conflict arises with your spouse, ask yourself:

Why am I fighting?
Do I only want to win my point no matter what the cost?
How can we both win?
How can our marriage win?

Then sincerely ask your spouse, "How can we both win here?"

That's a question that's always right.

The copyright of the article So Why Are You Fighting? in Marriage is owned by Rhonda Langefeld. Permission to republish So Why Are You Fighting? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.