The Monogamist: How To Win An Argument
Posted by: Annemarie Conte
Filed in:
relationships
9:00AM, Thursday September 4th 2008
I was so pissed off yesterday. My boyfriend (er, fiancé…but Amelia has already addressed why that’s the worst word ever) had to help some friends move. He called to tell me they were done and he’d be leaving in a half hour so we could hang out. Two hours later, I’m killing time watching reruns of Project Runway I’ve already seen and I’m starting to get a little mad. After my text of “Where the hell are you?” and his response, “Eating pizza” that was it.
Instead of exploding, I just got mega passive-aggressive. I work from home. It’s me and the dog all day long, so on the days when people who have real jobs don’t have to be at work, I get excited by the prospect of actual two-sided conversation. But rather than explaining that, I just ignored him when he finally showed up. Which, I’ll admit, it immature and not at all proactive, but it’s like I couldn’t stop myself. I was too annoyed to be rational and I figured that if I was going to feel isolated, so was he. Finally, I yelled. And he yelled back. Then split to take the dog for an hour-long walk. When he got back, we weren’t speaking.
Now, relationship experts will tell you to make sure to stay on point, be prepared to compromise and other sorts of things in order to argue effectively (and if you want some actual advice on that, you can get it here), some of which I do think is valid, but most importantly, I think you just have to let it happen the way it’s going to happen because when you’re in that sort of state, it’s nearly impossible to step back and think about crafting sentences with “I” statements rather than be accusatory. Hell, you want to be accusatory—that’s why you’re mad in the first place, because your partner did something annoying.
It’s after the argument that it’s time to step back and really think about what you said and go through a mental State of the Relationship, when you’re calm and rational again. If you’re arguing about the same thing all the time (say, trust issues), that needs to be addressed (like, with actual counseling). If you’re arguing about little things all the time (the dish rack always being full), that definitely needs to be addressed (and the one who never empties is may never empty it so addressing that might mean just learning to live with being the person who puts all the dishes away). And if you’re arguing about big things all the time (the fact that one of you comes home smelling like strip club four nights a week), then you probably need to break up.
As for us, we went to see a movie and in that two hours I had to cool off, I felt better about the situation. He was tired and hungry from moving boxes, he didn’t realize that much time had passed, etc, etc. I get it. And he understood why something that seemed fairly innocuous made me so upset. And I think we’re good now and we’ve moved on. It’s not really about the arguments specifically because the State of the Relationship is more than a single isolated incident.
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Stephanie
wrote on September 4 2008 @ 09:24 am: [report]
Ok so the title says How to Win an Argument. after reading this post I am a little lost because I never got any tips.
par3
wrote on September 4 2008 @ 09:27 am: [report]
i do the passive aggressive stint every time and it gets me into even more #&@$%. he’s over it but i’m still fuming and hr later- of course over stuff like ‘where are you i’m hungry and waiting’... ‘i’m eating at xyz’s’. okkkkk.
jenna
wrote on September 4 2008 @ 09:49 am: [report]
I think the tip this gave is: take the time to see things from the other person’s perspective. I used to argue like this all the time in my past relationships, but somewhere I learned how to (at least most of the time, I still blow-up sometimes, it’s inevitable) calmly state why I’m mad and what I need to change. Then I ask the bf how he feels and what he needs. And then we compromise. It’s a beautiful thing.
Stephanie
wrote on September 4 2008 @ 10:57 pm: [report]
I also feel its important to see things from another perspective and he did just that and realized you needed his company when he said he would be there. I myself am guilty of getting into fights (lucky for me we don’t raise our voices bc that can get ugly). However the simultaneous silent treatment is worse then yelling. I just cant stand it. I feel like we are both wasting our time, but both feel we are right and can not give in and be the bigger one because we are trying to prove a point!
Muffaletta
wrote on September 4 2008 @ 11:23 pm: [report]
You know what the second worst word is (to fiancé). Proactive. What a pathetic attempt it is at articulating how you take action. It’s like taking the F-word and using it as a pronoun, verb, adjective, etc.
Matt
wrote on September 5 2008 @ 08:54 am: [report]
I’d say that there’s an important point here to be noted and that is, that the best way to win an argument is by not starting one. And while he was fine stopping for food after spending an afternoon moving heavy objects, the polite thing would have been a phone call or a quick text; “honey, we’re starving and stopping for pizza. Might be a little longer than an hour…”, perhaps followed by a nice ILY or some such.
So not to harp on an old, tired cliche TOO much, but communication is so important. If you’re not going to do what you’ve said you’re going to do, then at least update the expectation. It avoids so many problems. And if the guy’s friends are the types to give him crap about being on a leash or whatever… well, when my friends do, I always just remind them that my girlfriend is way prettier than all of them.
The flip side of this (not to put ALL the burden on the poor guy moving all the heavy objects) is that when it started to feel like too long had passed, a quick phone call or text; “I’m starting to be worried… everything okay?” would have illicited the text RE: pizza before your mood was irreperably turned to the negative.
Most of the time, I’d say that people don’t go out of their way to hurt the people that they love. In fact, they generally don’t even go IN their way to do so. But often through lack of clear thought, we do it anyway. In fact, as a guy, I can say that I am not thinking clearly a lot of the time (what with being so busy thinking about sex every 7 seconds and all). It’s a wonder I can keep a girlfriend at all, really.
Joyce vormawor
wrote on September 9 2008 @ 05:41 am: [report]
Can you belive this myboyfriend’s friend was coming to norway from africa and we ask my mother to give him somthings for me. and i travel to another town so my boyfreind call’s my mother to go and give the thing to his friend, but my mother was sick but she did not tell my boyfriend that, so he got upset and insulted my mother.
should i live him??????????