We all want to have happy, healthy relationships with people we care about. But it seems that we have fallen under a false belief thanks to media and culture that fighting in relationships is a sign that your relationship is “toxic”. Because we think fighting in relationships is a bad thing, we avoid it or tell ourselves we have to leave the relationship if fights start to happen.
This makes a lot of people feel bad about the relationships they are in, and leads many people to ending relationships prematurely because they have been convinced that fighting is necessarily a bad thing. What if it is actually more toxic to be in a relationship where you never fight…ever? What if butterflies and rainbows aren’t always the best for developing a long-term sustainable relationship?
I have been in a relationship where we never fought and it sucked, and I’m currently in one where we fight almost daily but we learn and grow each day. More important than not fighting in a relationship are things like clarity, honesty, transparency, and vulnerability coming from both parties. Here is why fighting in relationships is not only healthy, it’s necessary:
Fights lead to a higher understanding of where you both are coming from
Sure this can be done without fighting, but sometimes it takes a couple minutes of tears and yelling for the true emotions and thoughts to bubble up to a point where they can be communicated. We typically know how we feel at a conscious level, but 90% of the activity within our consciousness happens beneath our conscious mind at the subconscious level.
To bring up those subconscious feelings and emotions, all we have to do is allow them to flow through us naturally through times of intense emotional suppression.
When you both do this through crying, yelling, arguing, and other forms of self-expression, you can begin to see into the consciousness and perspective of the other person at both a conscious and subconscious level. The key here is the feelings and emotions beneath ordinary states of consciousness that bubble up during times of emotional trauma and fighting in a relationship.
I’m sure that some of you reading this can testify to the importance of having the occasional fight with your partner to increase understanding and compassion towards one another’s position. If your goal with your partner is to reach the highest level of clarity and happiness with them that you possible can, sometimes tears and broken feelings are stepping stones towards that kind of partnership.
Fights releases tension in the relationship
What happens when you shake a bottle of soda too many times? You either reach a point where the cap pops off and you can allow it to fizzle out and then proceed to drink from it, or you have to throw the bottle out. The point is, when you fight with your partner you release tension and clear the air in a healthy way.
Instead of cheating on your partner out of resentment, leaving them out of spite, or slipping into a state of self-loathing, sometimes all it takes is for you to have the self-respect to express yourself fully in a way that gets the message across. I have seen tension build up within married couples time and time again, because they would rather just “bite their tongue” then speak up.
When you bite your tongue in a relationship too many times over a long period of time, it ends up building up and creates an undertone of frustration, coldness, and resentment towards that person. If something is off in you energetically, communicate it right away. Say what you mean and in the way that best expresses how you feel, and if the other person loves you than they will hear you out.
Fights allow us to better listen to our feelings and our partner in the future
The more you fight, the less you need to fight in the future because you will both get the hang of identifying dissonance within yourself and will
understand the importance of communicating it right away before it builds up to a boiling point. The better you get at communicating with your partner, the less you will have to fight because the tension will be released right away.
But remember, fighting is a sign of potential, not break down. It’s the ultimate climax at which you and your partner get to put it all out on the table, and if your love for each other is strong enough then it will only give birth a higher understanding of self and of others.
For me personally, I didn’t realize how much I was impacted by small comments and sarcastic remarks until I started identifying why it was I carried an energetic background of tension towards my partner. If you are every uncomfortable with your partner, don’t just marinate in it, meditate it away, or bite your tongue. Try communicating it in a way that suits you and how you actually feel in the moment. Don’t be afraid to be genuine and in integrity when you are expressing your deepest concerns. If you love this person enough to express a concern to them, then they should love you enough to hear you out.
But sometimes they may get defensive and have their own baggage they need to unload as well. This is ultimately what “fighting” is. It’s an exchange of energetic and psychological baggage that gets tossed back and forth until the energy is clear and both parties have an understanding of what happened.
You won’t find many happy couples that never fight or argue, and this is because it’s through the energy of dissonance and the communication of that dissonance that both people are able to learn about the areas they need to improve in as a partner. It’s not always the sign of a toxic relationship. It’s always an opportunity for growth.