Why We Argue and How to Reduce It
What do you and your partner argue about? My wife and I tend to blow up over little things. Next, we get upset that were are so upset over such a little thing. Then we blame each other for causing such a big drama in the first place.
And here’s the greatest irony: if you ask us later what we were arguing about, we can’t remember! This begs the question: if we were in fact seeing the situation objectively, why wouldn’t we remember what we saw? If anger and fear did not cloud our eyes, why did two intelligent people escalate so quickly over such a trifle? And finally, why do we tend to fight over small issues, but avoid dealing with the big issues in our family?
We humans tend to think we have a clear, unbiased, objective view of the world, and of the people around us. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Most of us are not even remotely aware that we wear “fight-or-flight glasses.” These glasses have very thick lenses. One lens is the anger of our “fight” response. The other lens is the fear of our “flight” response. Almost every person we interact with is viewed through one or both of these lenses of anger or fear. Hence all the “cheap drama” we experience in life.
Most of us go through life with a simple belief: when we get angry at someone, our anger is of course justified. It’s not because we’re being judgmental or projecting onto that person; we believe anyone in our situation would feel the same way. We also seldom see ourselves as critical. Instead, we’re accurately pointing out someone else’s faults, and we think any reasonable person would agree on that person’s faults.
Let’s assume our perspective is in fact true, and we’re always right. This puts us in a tricky position, because it means we can never be at peace. There will always be some darn person saying or doing the wrong thing, and causing us to get upset. As long as our peace of mind depends on the behavior of people around us, how can we win? If we’re not in control of our own emotions, then our only option is to hang around people we can control, or else retreat from social contact. Not a desirable lifestyle for most of us.
The good news is, we can take back some control of our emotions. We don’t have to be subject to the people around us for how we feel on a given day. opportunity to control more of our fate, and create more of the life we’re living-rather than being tossed about on the stormy seas of emotion, or other people’s behavior.
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David Code is an Episcopal minister, family coach, writer, and founder of The Center for Staying Married & Raising Great Kids. Read more about his work at http://DavidArthurCode.com.
Kids pick up on everything, and research shows that children can "catch" their parents' stress just like they catch a virus—soaking up the stress that pervades a household until their developing nervous systems reach "overload." Then kids act-out, or get sick.
