It Takes Two To Tango

Believe it or not, the fights and disagreements that are happening between you and your loved one might actually be a sign that there is still hope, life and potential for your relationship to grow into a healthy and thriving relationship of love and security. I know at first glance this might sound totally crazy, however, if we take a closer look at what might be happening during that re-occurring argument that keeps happening, we might find some possible clues to look at improving your relationship towards each other.

1. Look more closely at what is happening when you argue. 

Ask yourself what is happening when you argue. Do you not feel heard or maybe you recognize that it’s your partner who’s not feeling heard. Do you find the argument ends up into another ongoing dance where you end up not even remembering what the initial argument was about. If so, then it’s possible that both of you care deeply for each other without knowing how to resolve your differences. Look at it another way; what’s the point of being with each other and wasting your valuable time arguing, unless the reality is that you both want to actually make this thing called love somehow work out. It’s very possible that each of you is trying to communicate how you are really feeling in order to feel heard and safe with each other. The problem of course is that how your communicating with each other is not being successful and you need to find a better and calmer way to communicate in order to feel heard and loved. 

2. Different Personalities:

There’s an old cliché statement that goes ‘opposites attract’ and even with online matching to find that perfect match I’ve yet to find a couple who have at some point in their relationship have found differences in personality that appear to sometimes clash with each other. And that’s totally okay. It’s those differences that we need to learn to embrace and sometimes learn to be patient with because chances are you have some differences that your loved one has been working through in embracing and learning to be patient with you.

3. Different confrontational styles.

When you argue between each other, think back to the most common issues that are driving you crazy. When you think of your disagreement what confrontational style do you have? I find often in working with couples and families someone tends to fall in one of 2 very general categories. The first confrontational style is I like to call “The fighter.” This is the spouse who just has to deal with the situation right now. The other style is called “The Runner.” This is the spouse who just can’t deal with the situation right now and just wants to leave the situation to deal with another day. Needles to say the fighter ends up chasing the runner and depending who is fastest, will generally lead to yet again another terrible tango built for two.

By looking more closely at your arguments it may be that your partner is really trying to make things work out. The challenge is that both your styles of arguing might be unhealthy in trying to fix the misunderstandings between the two of you. You also might not be using the correct communication tools to be able to bring repair into the broken relationship in order to take your terrible tango and synchronize into the harmonious dance with your partner you’ve always longed for. 

There is always hope for a New Life.