I don’t remember what the fight was about.
My husband was working from home, and I was taking a much-needed break from housework, kids’ schedules, and being overwhelmed from a combination of his frequent absences for work and our busy lives. He was home after a stint of being away, and the transition period of coming together afterwards is always hard. I was quietly reading and eating a snack in the kitchen, and he came in and said something.
Or nothing. Sometimes that’s worse.
In a flash, I went from nibbling on cookies to spewing venomous words that, combined with the crumbs, made for a dramatic scene. It all went downhill so fast, neither one of us had time to make sense of the events. I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I looked ridiculous, didn’t care that the taste of tears mingled with the sugar and disgusted me, didn’t care that I must have looked like a big terrible baby throwing a very messy tantrum.
I was mad.
I whipped a cookie across the kitchen so hard that I felt a twinge of pain in my elbow, and watched with fleeting satisfaction as it hit the cupboard and broke into a million pieces, just like my resolve, my patience, and my sanity right then.
I would not clean it up until much later. I left it litter the floor and counter. My feelings were those cookie fragments: destroyed, messing up the house, ruining the mood and the rest of the day.
My parents recall through laughter a fight they had when they were younger and my mother was pregnant as she emptied the dishwasher right onto the floor, breaking all of their dishes. It wasn’t as funny then, probably. I knew ours was a similar, silly fight, one that I hoped I might look on later and laugh about – the ridiculous of it all, me eating cookies, then spitting them, then throwing them against the wall – but right then all I wanted was to run out the front door and never return.
It was all about the theatrics in that moment, and my loud, stubborn arrogance clashed against his quiet, resolute pride in a battle that both of us would lose.
We are products of our respective families. Mine is a yelling family, screaming our feelings, demanding attention. His is not so outspoken. I needed to let it out, cry it out, talk it out, and yell it out so that I could get on with my business – he needed to go away silently and process our conflict. For hours, days, possibly weeks.
That fight was some years ago, and one of that magnitude hasn’t happened again. We each took what we needed to learn from it, and it didn’t ruin our relationship, and we moved on from whatever offense occurred then. Thankfully we haven’t had to revisit the cookie fight, except in the telling of the story. Over the years in our marriage we learned what works for us individually, tweaking our reactions to conflicts to allow compromise, patience, understanding, and where applicable, apology. We still argue, but not quite as memorably, and not nearly as spectacularly.
“Fight nice,” parents lovingly admonish children when things get out of hand between siblings and friends. Fighting nice means that nobody gets hurt, that a conflict resolves itself without injury. It’s hard to get to that point – pride and the protection of our own feelings take precedence over seeing another point of view. My feelings have been hurt so badly that at times I considered a slap across the face, the quick-healing sting of physical injury, to be preferable to an emotional pummeling. Further, a relationship suffers in a time of conflict, which is isolating for both parties. Who is this person? Why is he acting like this? He is hurting me. I don’t like him right now. Can we survive this?
Despite the volatility that results from differing opinions, broken feelings, ugly pride, and score-keeping, over the years my husband and I have managed to learn how to fight nice. Sometimes I think that age tempers our tantrums – neither of us has the energy or spark anymore to endure big blow-ups. We are older, wiser, and know each other better – we’ve learned which buttons to tap softly and which to avoid at all costs. We use nicer words and are kinder and gentler with each other. Then again, sometimes I think it’s an individual maturity despite age that precludes the fighting, the arguments, the rash and often harsh reactions. And sometimes, I’m just too tired to argue.
Where does love come in? Shouldn’t love banish all conflict? For us, no. Love is there, enduring the battle, getting tossed by the winds of dissent between us, being battered and bruised yet still existing, panting on the sidelines. It’s what keeps us together, ultimately, but it’s not a cure for our differences. Can I say that our love is stronger because of our fighting past? Maybe, but love can become stronger whether or not two people argue. More often than not I think love is the referee, keeping us honest and mindful of why we are here, whispering in our ears, “Hey, you two. You’ve given this a go. It’s time to wrap things up.”
My husband and I have learned that it’s okay to back down, back up, and start over. To make allowances for wrongdoing, hurt feelings, and missed apologies. To stop keeping score (my toughest hurdle) and to start giving in (his).
I wish I could say that it’s easy, that there is a perfect formula and that we always act perfectly according to it so that conflict is minimal, forever and ever amen. But that would be a lie. We are human, and we make mistakes, and we do things that we know are wrong every single day. I can only speak for myself when I say that some days I don’t feel like doing my best in our marriage.
But I do trust with some sort of blind faith that just as we will continue to have differences, that as the years pass, we will continue to express them with more generosity than ever before. That we will continue to fight nicer.
Preferably without having to involve innocent cookies.
I second the non-sacrifice of baked goods in fights!
I do think that fights sometimes need to be had – feelings need to be felt, words need to be said, conflicts need to be out in the open. Fighting nice is the challenge, and coming to 7 years of marriage, we haven’t quite mastered this 100% just yet. I still have to learn to choke up “I’m sorry” when I’m wrong :)
Alison recently posted..Through The Lens Thursday #29: Cozy
Those poor, poor cookies. What did they ever do? I remember what kind they were, too – store-bought sugar shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day. They weren’t even very good.
I am suspicious when people say they don’t fight with their spouses, maybe because of what I’ve experienced. I wonder – where do their feelings go when things go wrong?
Andrea recently posted..Fight Nice
The cookies! The COOKIES!!
But yes, I think there is a process to learning how to fight in a marriage. I think it is important to get things out and there is always a certain amount of venting – at least with us – but we got better at reigning it in over time.
Kim recently posted..Boys on the Bus
Yes! It’s learning how to get the words out without hurting the other person. And sometimes the venting is more important for one party more than it is for the other.
There is a story passed down in our family about my grandmother standing in the kitchen cooking. She was stirring something in a glass bowl while having an argument with my grandfather. She was tapping a metal spoon on the side of the bowl and got so angry she broke the bowl with the force of her “taps”. And then there was the time my mom through a box of laundry detergent across the garage at my stepdad. The only thing that surprised me about that was that she used the laundry detergent, which spilled everywhere. Why not the bleach or the fabric softener? At least those had a lid. I guess you can see how our family expresses itself. After 24 years of marriage I guess it is a miracle that I’ve never thrown anything at David. That I can remember.
Jennifer recently posted..When Your Kid Goes to Summer Camp
I know this kind of fight. It happens, not often, but it does. And it’s so crazy how it can escalate so fast!
This is not only honest, it’s full of truth; and those two things don’t always go hand in hand.
I married a man who is as non-confrontational as I. This means we had to LEARN to fight – to express our hurts and needs, anger and hope.
If we hadn’t, we could not have made it this far. It’s still not easy. We tend to WISH the other person would just know. Why doesn’t he just know???
Still. I’m getting better at speaking my truth out loud, before I get so angry I’m yelling, or worse, crying.
Bill and I will be married 18 years in August and we plan to continue to fight nice with each other forever.
Andrea, Thank you so much for being here on my blog today. This is a really great post! Dan and I used to both be two very stubborn individuals and our fights were no pretty. But I realized that our individual stubbornness wouldn’t work, so I began to lose mine, which also made me avoid fights (and also communication) like a plague. I don’t think marriage without fights are necessarily good. Many of my friends’ parents who never fought as we were growing up are now divorced. Fights are healthy and refreshing, but you’re right, they need to be done in a way that doesn’t leave someone hurt more.
Thank you for your openness and honesty and your awesome style today! xo
Laura O’Rourke recently posted..Loving Canada
I hate those fights where I feel like I am totally losing control. I know I’m acting irrationally, but there just seems to be no way out unless I completely remove myself form the situation. Luckily we can come together afterwards and at least apologize for being so nasty to each other.
Leigh Ann recently posted..apologies
In marriage, fights are sometimes necessary, but there it is a fine art.
Cookies? Mandatory!
Tonya recently posted..A Good Cry
Poor cookies! It’s funny, because in our house neither of us likes confrontation, so it’s taken us time to learn to fight instead of just smoothing. I’ve always been a smoother.
angela recently posted..Boundaries and spaces
*cringes* Not the cookie!! *falls to knees* Noooooooo! Why? Whyyyyy?
No one likes to feel they’ve lost control. It’s a very scary feeling. Losing your words is an awful feeling. We are not so far removed from the toddlers we once were! It’s so important to try to remember to “use your words”.
Learning to “fight” fair is just that… learning. It’s not bred in the bone. Like coping, it’s a learned skill. A very important one at that!
A “fine art” is exactly right. Treading the waters of two unique arguing styles blended into one is tricky!
I have found that when I focus on “what is right” rather than “who is right”, the air gets cleared very quickly.
Great post!
Peady recently posted..Thursdays with Peady
First off, LOVE your honesty. We’ve had some wicked fights too but never involving cookies. There may have been a framed picture involved once, however… Ahem. I also come from a loud, fighting family who never guarded their emotions and married a guy from the opposite kind as well. It can be hard when you are used to putting it all out there and then you marry someone who is not so used to that kind of stuff, I know.
But yes, we’ve also learned to back down and pick our battles more wisely and that comes with maturity in both ourselves and in our love for each other.
And I adore the idea of LOVE as the referee. Perfect.
Thank you for sharing this Andrea….
Elaine A. recently posted..Dreams Do Come True
First off, I love that you named your fight the “cookie fight”. I’m always so interested to hear how couples fight or don;t fight. I basically married my clone, so we tend to shut down and walk away and process things and come back to each other with some sort of unsaid understanding. Maybe it doesn’t sound that healthy, but it certainly works for us. This is a fantastic post, Andrea!
Jeanette Nyberg recently posted..dog
Oh, the cookies!
And that’s borderline hilarious.
Our better fights are like that. It’s the silent, deadly ones that last longer: