Enlightening Email

[lifestream]

I received an email recently on a newsletter group that I'm with. It deals with relationship advice and how to maintain love. I opened it this morning and thought I'd share this advice with everyone.

 

 

Don't add your own opinions to facts, distorting them.

 

Fact: Your wife asks for more space and freedom from you.

Opinion: She does not care about our relationship anymore.

 

Fact: Your boyfriend orders the food he likes. Opinion: He

never thinks of what I would like to eat today.

 

Fact: Your husband throws his clothes onto the bed after

work. Opinion: He does this to purposely irritate me.

 

You kick up a fuss. Most likely other unrelated stuff will

be brought in and a storm will begin.

 

Ask yourself, are you reacting to your own opinions?

 

Train youself to always possess a feeling of constructive

influencing of your partner through your own personality

instead.

 

Many people do feel themselves as incapable of resolving a fight with their partner.

 

So what do they do? They continue to fight, and they

continue to quarrel.

 

Just remind yourself that 2 people can look at the same

thing differently. If you catch yourself arguing for

something not important at all, decide to walk away from it

at once! Decide that it is just not worth it to spoil a

wonderful relationship over a minor issue.

 

Remember, being in a relationship is not "never fight with

my boyfriend", nor is it "never argue with my wife". It's how quickly you can snap out of arguments that aren't constructive.

 

 

I find this to be extremely true. We work ourselves up over things that are usually nothing. I understand at times people need to be defensive, but I feel that this is unfounded, and being defensive just leads to further pushing and pulling, which really don't help the relationship.

 

Thoughts?

[RUNN3R24]

hmm.. i like it

[lady00]

Makes a lot of sense. I think it just goes to show how communication is really important in a relationship. If you say one thing and your partner hears or interprets it as another, this can cause unnecessary tension.

[DropToZero]

Yep, just goes into the idea that people need to take more time and LISTEN...see it from the other person's point of view...most people are too set on never wanting to be wrong and would rather argue than face "facts." It's all about having an open mind...It's also about, like he said, the arguments that are actually 'constructive,' people get into too many pointless arguments about literally nothing. Some go that way and even forget in the first place what they fought about. Everyone has flaws, there's no reason to point out or hold them to each and every person...rather embrace and enjoy them, it's what makes us...who we are.

[karvala]

Mixed thoughts. As you can see from my additions above, people don't just arrive at these negative opinions out of thin air; they base them on evidence, experience and reason. In each of the examples above, there was potentially a good reason for the negative opinion.

 

On the other hand, I entirely agree with the conclusion that being able to snap out of arguments quickly is an incredibly valuable tool. To me, there is an almost clearly definable moment of choosing to let go, to release the negative tension that is resulting in the continuation of the fight, and *genuinely* (and it really has got to be genuinely to work; no pretending to do the right thing simply to score even more points) be pleasant, constructive and even conciliatory.

 

In reality, I find arguments in relationships are most often actually territorial disputes of a sort; a delineation of boundaries, of who will concede what and when, of how a compromise is to be reached. As such, arguments will very often have their own timespan, and follow a natural course, and prematurely ending them can actually be damaging as it will be misleading to one of the parties, and lead to a tougher argument in the future. Just learn when to let go, and do.

[lifestream]

I don't agree with your additions whole-heartedly.

 

Firstly, I don't believe the request for space necessarily means a person wants out of the relationship. I believe in many cases people who want space feel smothered in the relationship they're in. Smothering, for myself at least, is a type of love, but it's toxic. There's a hint of insecurity and obsessiveness.

So when someone wants space, it doesn't mean they don't CARE. It means they feel something in the relationship needs to grow and change. Space can be healthy and time apart is just as important as time together.

 

Secondly, yeah I believe if it is a chronic thing where one partner buys food (or whatever) only THEY happen to like then there's a problem. But if it happens a couple times and the partner doesn't know that you don't particularly like their favorite food then there's a problem too. One partner shouldn't have the expectation of their partner to know everything or do everything they want. Complete altruism is impossible.

 

Thirdly, I think if someone's had a hard day at work, there's no problem with throwing the clothes on the bed, as long as they clean it up after they've had some time to rest from coming home. There's a million different ways to interpret these. On the base level they work but when you add your own personal "fact" it is based again on opinion.

 

And I think these questions are hypothetical. I think it's more along the lines if one partner fails to talk constructively to the other partner about certain issues yet still gets irritated by them.

 

But I agree with the rest...I think letting go of an argument prematurely doesn't help things either as the issue never truly gets resolved.

Then again some issues really aren't issues in the first place...