In my college days, I dated Helen, a pre-med student with an angry streak. I had seen her angry while on the phone with her parents, but she’d never blown up at me. That changed one October afternoon. Helen had just mentioned her ex-boyfriend again. She was trying to convince me to skip some classes and drive to a club with her and some friends.

Bringing up her ex and his willingness to jump at her every wish wasn’t a good way of winning me over. I told her such and suddenly met the Helen I’d only wondered about before.

In one admirably smooth motion, she swung from the hip with her right fist. I caught it with one hand. She swung with her left and got the strike. I shouldn’t have tried to dodge her because it only served to put my nose in the way.

I looked at her, blood streaming down my face.

“Did you seriously think that was going to help?” I asked.
“I…I don’t know what I thought. I’m so sorry! Can…can I get you a cloth or some ice?” She stammered.

I was outraged. I wanted to commit unspeakable horrors against this angry 5′5″ fireball. Horrors including a speeding train, collapsing bridges, and a flying walrus.

At about the same time the bleeding stopped, I had gained some clarity concerning our relationship. I would have written Helen off for using physical violence except I’m a huge guy and had tried to stop her without setting down my sandwich. I now held the bread to my nose. I hadn’t planned on finishing it anyway.

Sounds adolescent and silly, right?

Yet many of the arguments we participate in as couples fall into the same category!

• We fight about money when the real issue is not how we feel about the bank balance but how we feel about each other.
  
• We fight about sex when the problems in the bedroom started with inattentiveness in the kitchen!
• We take small cues from our loved one to be big signals and overreact to complaints and criticism that come our way.

We fight for the win when a win on either side means a loss for the whole.

Helen and I were able to set our young relationship back on its feet because I didn’t take the bloody nose seriously and wanted to understand what drove her to the argument. Had I just written her off because of her crazed behavior, the relationship would have perished. (Knowing what I do now, I would have walked away. But that’s in the past.)

There is no reason to ever put up with physical violence or even threats of it in a relationship. If you cannot solve a problem in your relationship without resorting to violence, it’s time to go. That said, when it comes to arguing in a relationship, we often give up too easily!

I believe we should embrace arguments as a different and intense way of communicating blurred thoughts. Understand that many of the things your partner says in anger are new to their ears too. Comprehending this can make it easier to get past the momentary cruelties of an argument and focus on the greater intentions. To quote my friend Linnet Woods:

Usually, the thing that a person expresses as the reason they are angry is not the real reason at all. Fearing that the real reason would be too difficult to discuss, the person will express a lesser gripe.

The desire to defend oneself against a perceived attack can make one fail to listen and learn. It is not dangerous to let your partner speak his, or her, mind and let them see that you are giving what they have to say your consideration, accepting it as being no less valid than your own perception, however different.

Once it becomes apparent that you are really listening, it is difficult for a person to continue to shout because it isn’t necessary for them to do so. When they have finished speaking, a wise idea is to ask, very gently, if there is anything else that is bothering them. Very often, the thing that comes up next is what was actually causing them to be so distressed in the first place.

A typical example is fights over leaving the lavatory seat up, or down, or the lid off the toothpaste tube. Those rows aren’t about the subject being aired, they are about respect, consideration and other such issues but to broach those might open a can of worms so trivial things are picked instead.

Serious angry conversations should happen rarely if people are really interested in one another. When you live in confined quarters, constantly together, you need to be polite and appreciative of one another at all times and tolerant of each other’s foibles. [Linnet knows about this sort of thing. She's lived on a small boat with her husband for years!]

A really good relationship takes effort on both sides but, in time, less and less effort is required to bring out the best in each other and have a wonderful life.

Arguing isn’t easy and it’s rarely fun, but it’s possibly the most efficient way to clarify and improve a relationship. Don’t fear it!

Many of you already know this, but for you newbies: the person who can push your angry buttons the best will probably know the most about pushing your “other” buttons. There’s nothing boring or vanilla about make-up sex.

I’m not saying you should pick fights just so you can make-up…but it’s another reason to approach arguments with an eye for solutions! =)

As always, I truly welcome your thoughts!

Navigating Arguments: She Broke My Nose!

Photo credit: Steve Wampler

This post was first published  on Dec 17, 2008. It has been updated & reformatted for your enjoyment.

No related posts.

Marianna had not visited the treasured sandwich shop of her childhood memories in years. She decided that making the 2.5hr drive would be worth the pleasure of eating a sandwich at a rickety wooden table. I hold this trip up as an example whenever I’m asked why I try to keep first dates limited to brief afternoon encounters. But how could I argue? Marianna was beautiful, determined, and insistent that she couldn’t think of a better person to make the trip with.

Spontaneous chap that I am, I gladly embraced the idea of also visiting Marianna’s grandfather “since we would be in the neighborhood anyway.”

It was a warm summer afternoon and we took the jeep. Top down, wind blowing in our faces, I drove the seacoast route to her grandfather’s neighborhood. We liked the same music. We both greeted the toll booth attendant (no quick-pay on the jeep) and simultaneously noticed the live Canada Goose sitting quietly in the passenger seat of a late-model Mercedes that passed us.

Have you ever ridden around a store in a grocery cart as an adult? It’s a rite of passage in finding a sense of humor as an adult that I highly recommend. Marianna had not yet had such an experience and I pushed her around as we gathered ice cream and her grandfather’s favorite kind of pie (see where this is heading?).

Bring on the 87 year-old grandfather with a fondness for petting his obese pet cat. Fat cats are fine by me. Petting them when they seem to have a late-stage oozing skin infection doesn’t help me swallow pie and ice cream. But I did. I sat on a bench covered with afghans, having spent nearly 5 hours on a date with a brand new person, watching a very old man rubbing his fingers in cat ooze.

When he asked me how I felt about the Cubs? I told him that I didn’t think they’d ever win the World Series. I don’t watch a lot of baseball and I’m typically not out to hurt the feelings of others, but I knew I hated the cubs right then.

I’m fairly certain he didn’t hear what I said because he continued the conversation as usual. I know Marianna didn’t hear me because her smile didn’t disappear. But I knew what I’d done and that’s why I classify that date as a failure.

• I’d entered into a situation with a person I knew very little about without setting any sort of time restrictions on our meeting. I’m not saying to set beginning and ending times for your dates, but have an idea about how long things are going to take and plan accordingly.
• I’d allowed myself to remain in a situation that I knew would turn negative in the long run. Now when I see a situation on par with non-lucid guy+infected cat, I remove myself from that environ.
• I had already spent so much time with Marianna on our ride down that I’d depleted much of my raw inquisitive energy and left myself open to social blindsiding. Allowing myself to use up so much of that energy also meant that I lost out on the opportunity to make a lonely person’s day by gladly participating in a conversation that interested them. He didn’t know I wasn’t involved. But I do and I still feel badly about it.

Do not allow yourself to get so caught up in how well you’re getting along with somebody that you lose sight of the goal: leave them wanting more. More time with you, more knowledge about you, more ways to smile. Marianna was a lovely person but I set us up for failure by committing to more than I had resources for that day. Had we met up for coffee and an afternoon chat, who knows where we’d be. I still have trouble eating blueberry pie without wincing.

Seth

Photo credit danperry.com, em

#5

5 Ways I’ve Ruined Dates

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She was a perfectly built and initially charming redhead named Clarissa. I was back in my hometown for a few days and met her while picking up some groceries at the only grocery store in town.

We had met years earlier at a friend’s party. She had been interesting and funny. She had been with a fiancé who stuck to her like glue.

But now, arms filled with groceries, green eyes bright with conversation, she was available and very willing to join me for dinner that evening.

As I was getting ready, my mother asked me why I wouldn’t be there for dinner that evening. When I told her what I was doing, she was so happy. Apparently the respective mothers had recently had a conversation about Clarissa’s need for a guy like myself. I normally shy away from meddlesome people and should have taken the new information as a bad omen, but I didn’t. I had nothing else to do and some part of me was fascinated with the idea of finally going out with the girl of my adolescent dreams.

Red Flags:

1. My fuel-efficient rental car wasn’t classy enough for Clarissa. She insisted that we borrow her father’s car for the evening. On pressuring her for a reason, she admitted that she didn’t want her friends to see her out in a small car. I should have run. Instead, I traded keys with her father and headed out in his entry-level Mercedes sedan.
2. My chosen dinner spot was vetoed because Clarissa wanted nachos. I am all about adventure and trying new things. I just have trouble passing up a nice dinner at a great spot for nachos that I’ve had before and know are terrible.
3. My lovely and fantastic creature of a date decided to spend most of our dinner talking about how easy it had been to get a high GPA in her extremely difficult Master’s program. I was interested, then depressed, then annoyed at her insistence that she, unlike many others, was a brilliant woman. I suppose I’ve always wanted the option to build faith in a person and their intellect without requiring an academic transcript.

Clarissa confirmed her status in the neighborhood by ordering hot cocoa. She told me the restaurant made delicious cocoa and promising mugs of steaming chocolate were brought to our table. The server rolled his eyes when she asked him to make the hot chocolate to go…I should have taken this as another warning.

I had driven past every red flag and hit the broken patch of road when I sipped from that large Styrofoam cup. It was whipped cream followed by extremely hot greasy dishwater with a distinct soap flavor with hints of beef and ketchup with a watery finish. I couldn’t have been happier that I had borrowed her father’s car. I watched her sip her dishwater, fervently believing that it was actually hot chocolate. She seemed a little bewildered when I pressed the keys to her father’s car into her hands and thanked her for an eventful night. My taxi ride to pick up my rental was expensive, but worth every moment of silence. When you have a gut instinct early on, do not waste the time it may take to prove your instincts correct!

My pain, your gain.

Seth.

photo: rvw

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1. Knowing Your Limits: Fat Cats & Blueberry Pie
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I met her through total chance. The chance that my car would break down, the repair would take 40 mins, and the sandwich shop near the repair center didn’t have power so I was forced to move down the street to wait. The chance that the nearest restaurant would only be serving hard-serve ice cream because their power was out, too. The chance that my server would be an attractive redhead I’d met years earlier but never had a chance to spend time with. As well as the chance that our ensuing date would scare the living hell out of me. It’s barely October, but Halloween has already come to my house.

I’m a pretty tolerant guy. Open-minded, in fact. I like to try new things and it’s difficult to scare me. This woman seemed like a really good time and when she suggested we drive out of the city to an ice cream stand she’d not visited all summer, I was game!

I’d put my car in the shop again for a full inspection and borrowed my friend’s mustang convertible. I’m one of those people who feels torn between the inspiring power of an enormous engine and the giggle-inducing efficiency of a car that runs for days on a tank of fuel. As we powered down the highway, it was just fun. Lots of fun. The ice cream stand still churned it’s own amazing ice cream and had milk crates strewn across the grass to sit on. We sat and she made a show of adjusting the brevity of denim she was wearing as a skirt. She mentioned that she liked talking to me, that I made her feel comfortable.

This can mean one of two things. The first is very good, the second leads to what transpired.

We finished our ice cream and headed back to the city. It was one of those first cold nights we got this month and the stars were brilliant. Our conversation went back and forth with bits of personal information sprinkled among conversations on music, food, and places we’d traveled. Then she hit me:

“Seth?” She asked.
“Yup?”
“Do you think it’s weird for people to have sex with somebody they like, even if that person is dead?” She uttered, completely serious and wondering at my response.
“I think the person being dead makes it more about the live person than the dead one. Probably not so much about liking them at that point.”
She pressed. “Do you like me?”
“Yeah, from what I know of you. You’re smart and fun and really pretty.” I coughed out. Then she released the bit that causes this interruption:

“If you’re still alive at the time, would you promise to have sex with me after I die?” She asked, still straight-faced.

I said I didn’t know. I still don’t know. I don’t know what she needed me to tell her to set her mind at ease about the question of sex after death. I was sure, however, that I was not up to the task of figuring it out. I’m pretty open-minded, but I keep the line at live people. Live consenting people.

And giving consent before you die doesn’t count.

I guess the best part of this date was the experience I got out of it. It was still early enough after I dropped my date off to meet up with a buddy for a drink. I highly recommend that you find a friend to share your experiences with. They don’t need to have a lot of experience dating. All they need is a sense of humor and a belief that you are a person of value. Mine does. She went home after our drink to ask her husband if he’d promise the same. Perhaps it was the wine!

~Seth

Related posts:

1. The Beginning
2. If Our First Date Went Well, Why Is She Avoiding Me?
3. Knowing Your Limits: Fat Cats & Blueberry Pie

1. Recycled a location for a date.
2. Nearly killed me and my date in a violent car accident.
3. Took a village girl to a castle dinner.
4. Got angry at a Jewish girl for buying bacon (I’m not Jewish).
5. Debated a date’s dying grandfather on the merits of his long-cherished baseball team.

My pain, your gain!

Seth

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2. The Pig and The Jewish Girl
3. The Village Girl at The Castle Dinner: Overdoing Dates