Conflict - Learn how to "Fight Fair"

Let go of your habitual unfair, undignified, unsuccessful fighting styles:

Swallowing your gripes, then dumping them all at once – this is called “kitchen-sink-ing” by some authors X

Playing Prosecutor or Interrogator or Persecutor X

Getting too intense X

Waving off, or dismissing as “not that big a deal”, the other’s grievances X

Trying to Win at all costs. Succeeding in winning is even more devastating X

Not letting your spouse know you love him/her X

Getting defensive. Withdrawing, crumbling, trying to defend yourself X

Getting aggressive. Being critical, fault-finding, hurtfully-jabbing, nasty, ridiculing, sarcastic, mocking, contemptuous, rude, disrespectful, unmannerly X

“Naming, blaming and/or shaming” of self or other X


“When someone is hostile, my instinct is to find out why.” – Cynthia Cooper
(When I am hostile, time to go searching inside me, past, present and future, for anger roots.)

“You can get away with bad fighting habits for only so long, once you are faced with a major crisis, if you haven’t developed good problem-solving skills, you’ll be at greater risk of troubles with your relationship.” - Sybil Carrere

“Often what you are arguing about on the surface isn’t really what the fight is about.”
- Sybil Carrere

“Although your anger feels real, it’s only temporary.” – Renee Bacher

“When you find yourself saying ‘Yes, but…’ it’s a sign that you’ve slammed your mind shut to what the other person has just said.” – Renee Bacher

“You have a choice every time you say something to each other. You can choose: to tear down your relationship or you can nurture it.” - Sybil Carrere

“Ask yourself ‘Would I talk to my best friend or my boss the way I am about to speak to my husband/wife?’ Then choose your words carefully.” - Sybil Carrere

Thank you: Cynthia Cooper, Sybil Carrere, Renee Bacher - RD - Oct 2003 p62, T - Dec 2002 p 51

Some Well Documented Better Strategies for : “Fighting Fair” - Managing your conflicts more effectively and problem-solvingly:

1. Talk, talk, talk. If the situation gets ugly or unfruitful, take a ‘time-out’. Do some ‘weeding’ of your own resentments and bitterness’s and other bad habits. Talk again – as soon as you both can. “It is better to debate an issue and not settle it than to settle an issue and not debate it”.

2. Try until you succeed. Accurately get to understanding your own, and the other’s, feelings, significance, and point of view. This may take years.

3. Be increasingly sensitive and honest about your own and the other’s feelings and hidden agendas – work gently and respectfully, respectably. Develop a genuine interest in your own and the other’s feelings and point of view.

4. Come clean. Your true cause and motive for your feud? Seek the other’s deep reasons for the conflict. “What am I/are you afraid of?” “What might be the fear?”

5. Ask yourself (and maybe the other) “Is this productive?” “Now?”

6. Stick to the point at hand. If you want to discuss other things, do it later.

7. Try something (anything!) different – get out of your ‘repetitive cycles’ and unproductive patterns “If you keep on doing what you have always done, you will keep on getting what you have always got”.

8. Stay connected. Get connected again, when you can, if your ‘connection’ has frayed. Introduce some positives, and make some ‘deposits’ into your relationship.

9. Find ways to nurture your relationship mid-dispute, creatively.

10. Let your spouse know by your big and small actions, between disputes, how much they are genuinely respected, cared about, listened to, loved.

11. After discussion, find Compromises that please you both – keep working toward compromises – however long it takes

12. Co-exist (“agree to disagree, agreeably”) for as long as you have to

13. Collaborate more and more – celebrate your differences. Make them work increasingly FOR you instead of AGAINST you – turn your defeats into victories. “Two heads are better than one.” “We are a magnificent team.”

14. Work towards WIN/WIN situations and let go of the lose/win and the win/lose. These are usually personal and relationship losses.

15. Keep conflict-avoidance to a minimum. Have regular, small, gentle clean-outs of ‘issues’. “How are you doing? Do we have anything to clear up?”

16. Promise yourself not to dismiss gripes “If this is important to you, it’s important to me too. I want to understand you and how this looks to you.”

17. Take a breather. Rephrase. What are you hearing? Work on your own approach. If you get stuck the same way, over and over, ask someone you trust and respect for some ideas. Keep searching until you find what works for you.

18. Cultivate your own problem-solving, mild, appropriate sense of humour.

19. Breathe deeply, regularly. Strong emotions need lots of oxygenated blood flowing to the body and brain-in-stress.

20. GROW UP – Get Rid Of (your own) Weaknesses - Under Pressure. (Steadily, forever.) Change yourself - you can't change anybody else.