Monday, February 17, 2014

Why We Work

WHY WE WORK...
We are both awesome.
Just kidding. Here is just a small bit about why I believe "we work"
 
 
We fight fair
Yes we argue. Yes we disagree. Yes we get frustrated and yes we are sometimes disappointed.
No we aren't any different then you and your significant other. No we don't break up every other day and no we don't hate each other.
 
When we first started dating I thought there was NOTHING we would ever argue about, NOTHING we could fight about and NOTHING could make me mad at him.
We were still in THAT stage of our relationship.
I was in for a rude awakening y'all.
After about 6 months of dating or so we had our first big fight. We were on the phone into the wee hours of the morning arguing back and forth, neither one of us wanted to admit we were both in the wrong and there was some a lot of crying on my end..
 I immediately thought our relationship was over.
Here we are almost 4 years later, we didn't break up but we did learn A LOT from that.
Actually, we learned to fight fair.
As hard as it is for us to admit sometimes we are wrong and we make mistakes but when you can find someone who can help you realize that without holding an "I told you so" over your head you are headed in the right direction.
STILL to this day we disagree on things and Lord willing we will have arguments in the future (I wouldn't want to have arguments with any other guy but him) but we have both learned not only from our own but from each others mistakes.
 
Some ways we have learned to fight fair are
 
We talk about it right then.
If it is possible we try to solve it right then and there because if we stay mad at each other it only gets worse. 
You know that saying "never go to bed mad at each other"? DO listen to that one or that saying "just sleep on it"? DON'T listen to that one. Why would you want to try and go to sleep mad? I don't know about you but I am not going to get a bit a sleep if I am upset or worried he is upset about something. So instead of prolonging something small or big just go on and talk about it. I would much rather spend 15-30 minutes talking something out then spend the whole night mad at each other.
 
 
 
Stop talking and just listen
We let each other get out what we need to say without interrupting the other one and telling them they are wrong. No one likes hearing they are wrong or being interrupted and that just creates a whole other argument. So stop talking and actually listen. Try and see where they were coming from.
If I am trying to tell Matthew he hurt my feelings or I didn't appreciate something he said or did then he tries his best to see how it could have hurt my feelings. He puts himself in my shoes in that certain situation and vice versa.
 
 
 
We are honest with each other
Towards the beginning of our relationship I didn't tell Matthew that certain things he did hurt my feelings or that I didn't appreciate some of the things he said. It was nothing major but I didn't want him to think I was complaining or being ridiculous but in reality I NEEDED to let him know when something bothered me as well as he NEEDED to let me know when I did something that bothered him.
 
 
 
Don't hold it in
Just like what I said before this is something that we both struggled with in the beginning. We would let little things grow and become big things. This is what resulted in our first fight that I mentioned up there. One small thing was said that night and it was like the flood gates were opened stuff just kept being brought up. We were both a little shocked that we had let that much stuff build up and that those small things bothered us; but we realized it, picked up from there and built a small part of our relationship on that.
 
 
 
I am grateful for our first fight.
 I am grateful for that long conversation. I am grateful for how far we have come when it comes to disagreeing, and I am grateful we have learned to fight fair.
Don't get me wrong, sometimes we still don't listen and just interrupt the other one when they are tying to get whatever it is off our chest and sometimes it is HARD to see where the other one is coming from. It is and will always be a work in progress and for that I am grateful too.
 
 
How do you and your significant other handle fights? Do you fight fair?  

1 comment:

  1. It's so great that you both fight fair! That's something that Andrew and I had to work on at first, but we fight fare now. Actually, I wouldn't so much say we fight anymore as we bicker every now and then, lol.

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