The Secret to a Happy Marriage Is Knowing How to Fight
I hear couples talk about money by casting one partner as the obstacle — the wife wants a vacation,
the husband wants a car — instead of noting that life itself presents obstacles.
A conversation — as opposed to parallel monologues — involves two people who are making an effort to understand each other.
People who study marriage, or work with couples in therapy, as I do, talk about the
need for a “we story,” a collaboration between partners about values and goals.
Through that conversation we cultivate the essential emotional attitude in marriage: I can try to understand what you think
and feel, without it taking away from my own experience.
I also see couples whose frozen 17-year marriage begins to thaw once they start saying difficult things that need to be said.
Accordingly, weddings have become less of a symbolic expression of a couple’s commitment to a shared future
and more of a curated Instagram spectacle of “having arrived.”
The capstone wedding promotes the notion that its flurry of decisions represents a high point of stress
and intensity, to be followed by the predictable routines of married life.
If your partner is an emoter, stay compassionate and firm: “I’ll be able to respond better
if you take it down a couple of notches.” In bad moments, we all need these skills.
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