Relationship fights happen to the best of us. You and your partner may feel hurt or driven apart, as each of you struggle with the feelings that follow, but there’s still hope. Things get better, and a fight doesn’t necessarily mean things are over.

I think it comes as a surprise to most of us that the person we love usually is the one who causes us the most pain and suffering. Many of us imagine living happily ever after with the one we fall in love with.

We have these dreams of everything just being beautiful and romantic and perfect. And maybe it is for a while. But somewhere along the line things start to change and that perfect feeling of everything being just wonderful starts to diminish.

Relationship Fights Accumulate as Things Wear On Us Over Time

It’s not that we fall out of love. No, we keep that part, but there are other things that just start to drive us mad. Like trying to understand why they didn’t know certain things about us. Or noticing that our partner doesn’t talk about their feelings.

These are little things at first, but after we minimize them for a while they just start to add up. We push them away because we want the feeling of being in love to last and last and last.

Eventually though they turn into irritations and those irritations start to turn into dislikes. And those dislikes become resentments and often these feelings lead to some of the biggest fights we have ever had in our lives.

Relationship Fights Don’t Mean We Hate Our Loved Ones

So all of us can see the pattern that these relationships follow, but none of us can initially believe that we could ever hate the person we love. I mean not always hate them, but in the moment where our feelings are hurt or we have been ignored or rejected, well that could feel like hate.

And then when we are overcome with distressed emotions we might even lash out at the one we love and say some terrible—I mean terrible—things. All of us have done this. You are not alone. And here we are, yelling and cursing at the one person in the world that we love more than anyone else.

What Can You Do About Relationship Fights?

So yes, we war with the one we love. Then, what do we do about it? We have to get out of our own way and learn how to be a partner. Yes, we each have to do the work. It isn’t up to your beloved to make you feel safe, happy, and loved every minute. No, you have to figure out how to calm yourself even when your feelings get hurt. And then you have to develop a way to talk with the one you love about what you might need and want from them and you have to learn how to do this without blaming them or making them feel bad. These are crucial skills to being a good partner in a relationship.

Here is the best part: Everyone can learn them. You might have to practice on each other for a while, but as I live and breath I assure you anyone can learn.

And it doesn’t matter what you learned in the family you grew up in. Just look at mine, we yelled at each other all the time. I learned not to yell. I practiced my relationship skills, and now, well…we are in our 20th year. Imagine that!

Want Fewer Relationship Fights?

Read a Book About Relationships

Learn how to communicate less confrontationally in your relationship, by reading Linda’s book Safe. Happy. Loved. Simple Skills for Your Relationship. It just might help you be more open, fight less, and feel closer than ever before. Give it a read.

Get Couples Counseling

Come in for couples counseling. Couples counseling can help you and your loved one get the most out of your relationship. It'll equip you with coping strategies and tools for communication that can help you argue less and love more.