Would you like instant relief from worrying about your marriage? Here it is: it’s OK to argue. You may not enjoy arguing, but when it comes to dealing with stress in a marriage, it’s better than sidestepping issues. Today we’re going to learn how to observe our baser instincts, so that we can rise above simply picking fights or avoiding them.

In my research of couples, I’m amazed at how many people measure the quality of their marriage by how often they fight. Couples who fight a lot are ashamed to admit it, and often believe that their marriage is teetering on the brink of divorce. Other couples proudly assume that since they never fight, they have great marriages.

I don’t think it’s that simple. I will never forget the words of a doctor from Columbia Medical School who specializes in children’s cancer. She said, “I seldom worry about a child’s prognosis when I see her parents fighting with each other. Cancer is a crisis, and all that stress has to go somewhere. It’s the kid whose parents are distant and reserved that I worry about.”

THE FIGHT OR FLIGHT RESPONSE
Why do we humans use arguments as a barometer of how our relationships are going? Most of us have heard of the fight-or-flight instinct we share with our animal cousins. We are very aware of our fight instinct. When we react to something our spouse says, our blood pressure goes up and we start pumping adrenaline. We feel angry, agitated and out of control. It doesn’t feel nice to curse or raise our voices, and it’s very embarrassing if somebody overhears us. In short, our fight instinct “feels” bad to us. Since we like to feel pleasure and fun, we associate fighting with bad relationships.

But what about our flight instinct? We know for example that gazelles survive because they get scared and run away. But we humans don’t like to feel fear, so we pretend we’re not scared, and we seldom admit to running away from anything.

This is one of the biggest delusions of our lives. I believe it is the greatest source of pain in our relationships. Unfortunately, most of us are aware of our fight instinct, but we remain completely blind to our FLIGHT instinct.

We know what the fight instinct looks like in animals. They bare their teeth, growl, and attack. We humans scowl, raise our voices, and criticize. But we can also be a little more subtle. When we’re upset with someone we give them a guilt trip, the silent treatment, or we point out their faults behind their backs and form alliances against them.

Now, notice the flight response in animals. They are nervous, jumpy, and avoid threats by running away. But how many of us like to admit when we’re nervous or jumpy? We don’t like to think of ourselves as cowards who run away from things.

HOW WE RUN AWAY
Yet, in very subtle ways, we run away from our families many times every day. We spend more time at the office, and travel frequently on business. We avoid taboo topics (or important decisions) with our spouses because the discussion will almost certainly end in an argument. We talk about the weather with our parents, rather than “upsetting them” with what’s really going on in our lives. We have that extra drink in the evening. Our community and social activities are for a good cause, but they also happen to mean less time with our spouses.

So you see, the flight response is just as common in humans as the fight response. We’re just not as aware of HOW we run away. We make up lots of good “reasons” for why we do what we do.

I believe that we human beings give ourselves too much credit. We tend to believe that we are the kings and queens of the animal kingdom. In fact, we’re just snooty cousins. The main difference between us and our mammal relatives is that we have an extra part of our brain, the pre-frontal cortex, that allows us to think. Our primary mistake is believing that our thinking mind actually controls our behavior. Our feelings and actions are often still governed by the other 90% of our brains that we share with animals. Unfortunately, we use our unique, thinking minds to justify and defend the irrational, fearful, petty behavior we often exhibit. For every dumb thing we say or do, we can always come up with a smart “reason” why we did it.

NOW, THE HAPPY ENDING
This all may seem like bad news. In fact, it’s great news. In order for we humans to rise above the ugly behaviors of our fight-or-flight instincts, we have to train ourselves to spot when we attack or avoid another. Only when we acknowledge that we spend the majority of our relationships in fight-or-flight mode can we begin to rise above this knee-jerk reaction to our parents, spouses, and children. We tend to become “experts” on how our spouse avoids us, or criticizes us. This leads to blame, cynicism, and resignation. But real peace of mind lies in becoming experts on our own critical or avoidance tendencies. Once we learn to observe our fight-or-flight behaviors, then we can rise above our base instincts to become the thoughtful, resourceful spouses and parents we were meant to be.

In the end, what do you want as the epitaph on your tombstone? Would you like, “Our marriage was my spouse’s fault,” or how about, “I learned to love, and seized the day”? It’s up to you.

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