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EasterJoy
Guest
Ah, fighting. This is another question altogether.
Before I start: What would you say is the difference between a fight and a discussion?
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Before I start: What would you say is the difference between a fight and a discussion?
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xzereus
Guest
This isn’t a thread about my fiancee. This is a thread about my struggles with “admitting fault” when I am not wrong. My compliment to my fiancee was simply an extra that I added. It requires a strange mind to take a compliment and turn it into some sort of insult as you have done. If the term “beautiful” at some point became disrespectful, I’d like to know when.
I gave only three options because these are about situations when I am right or wrong. “the fiancee is right, but she can’t prove it” fits under the “I’m wrong” category and thus does not need another slot. When I’m wrong, regardless of if she’s right and can’t prove it or can prove it, I need to apologize. I recognize that my post was not all encompassing and didn’t properly differentiate between objective/subjective. In fact, I included a comment to that in my original post. This does not warrant you coming onto the thread to make baseless claims.
I am not sure why you are even in this thread. It seems the majority of these people are here to help, but you simply seem to be trying to attack my character or my relationship with my fiancee. I do not appreciate your comments and I ask that you not post on this thread again. You are not helping anything and are taking the thread in a direction that is unrelated to my original question.
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seagal
Guest
Heat
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xzereus
Guest
Fights are rare and the only solution I see to those is to end it as soon as possible. The way that I see it is:
Discussion + Emotion/Passion = Argument
Argument - Rationality = Fight
I don’t think fights are every productive, but I think that arguments and discussions can be. I’m mostly talking here about fights and arguments and how I should react in those cases since they clearly involve emotion.
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white_sheep
Guest
The most important things are that she keeps a clean house, cooks good, and does what you tell her.
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seagal
Guest
You forgot the “just kidding” smiley face
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EasterJoy
Guest
Emotion isn’t a bad thing, but yes, you have to recognize it is there and make allowances for how it can mislead you. Emotion needs to be your servant, not your master.
We have a saying when emotions start to rob the discussion of any chance to become productive. We say, “It is after 4:30. Maybe we should talk about this later.” This is because we usually go in that direction when we are tired, stressed, still upset about a new situation, or the like. IOW, we don’t literally mean we can’t have a rational discussion after 4:30 in the afternoon, but that there are times when the stars are not aligned for anything good to come out of a certain topic.
Sometimes it is irritating to hear this–it can sound a lot like, “OK, let’s stop, because now you’re just being irrational”–but we really don’t ever fight, and we’ve been married nearly 25 years. This is one of those things you work out.
Some couples actually do just fight, and they say it is OK because they are good at repairing things afterward. I can agree this is theoretically possible, but only provided that they are fair–no personal attacks, that kind of thing–and that no one else ever has to be a witness. Don’t make your family or friends ever listen to you fight, especially children.
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CatholicRaven
Guest
I only skimmed the replies, so forgive me if I repeat what someone else already said.
OP, I think you are confusing “apologizing” with “admitting I’m wrong.” There is a difference between the two. You can be right and still be hurtful, disrespectful, arrogant, etc. You can “be right at the top of your voice.” You can unintentionally hurt the one you love. You might be right in the sense that you can prove it scientifically, and still be wrong in the way you come across. Yet, even if you’re “right,” these things still call for an apology.
Sometimes, she’s not going to care how much you know, until she knows how much you care. Sometimes you will think that she is saying “you are wrong,” when what she’s really saying is that she wants you to support her, to be there for her, to be on her side, to listen, to really hear her, and–probably most of all–to CARE what she thinks, even if you don’t necessarily agree.
In marriage, a difficult thing to remember sometimes is that a disagreement with your spouse is not about “winning the argument” because *the goal is not to defeat your spouse–*it’s to come up with a solution that you can both live with. And it really doesn’t matter how “right” you are; if you always have to “win,” no matter the cost to your marriage and spouse, then you are still wrong because your pride is a priority over your spouse. I’m not saying that you, OP, are doing that; it’s just a point for any spouse to keep in mind when we’re fighting that temptation to “prove I’m right” at those times when it’s really more important to let a spouse feel heard and respected.
In marriage, you are on the same team, and you both have to learn to respect each other’s opinions and feelings, even when they make no sense to you. Just because we both speak American English doesn’t mean my husband and I always mean the same things with the same words.
For instance, when you say you think she’s “unreasonably upset,” to me, that implies both that you think she’s being unreasonable, and that you know better than she does how she “should” feel. That’s probably not what you meant, but that’s what I would hear, and what she may be likely to hear. 
So then you end up fighting, not because your spouse disagrees with what you said, but rather, with how you said it… (yeah, BTDT… last night, in fact…)
OP, I think you are confusing “apologizing” with “admitting I’m wrong.” There is a difference between the two. You can be right and still be hurtful, disrespectful, arrogant, etc. You can “be right at the top of your voice.” You can unintentionally hurt the one you love. You might be right in the sense that you can prove it scientifically, and still be wrong in the way you come across. Yet, even if you’re “right,” these things still call for an apology.
Sometimes, she’s not going to care how much you know, until she knows how much you care. Sometimes you will think that she is saying “you are wrong,” when what she’s really saying is that she wants you to support her, to be there for her, to be on her side, to listen, to really hear her, and–probably most of all–to CARE what she thinks, even if you don’t necessarily agree.
In marriage, a difficult thing to remember sometimes is that a disagreement with your spouse is not about “winning the argument” because *the goal is not to defeat your spouse–*it’s to come up with a solution that you can both live with. And it really doesn’t matter how “right” you are; if you always have to “win,” no matter the cost to your marriage and spouse, then you are still wrong because your pride is a priority over your spouse. I’m not saying that you, OP, are doing that; it’s just a point for any spouse to keep in mind when we’re fighting that temptation to “prove I’m right” at those times when it’s really more important to let a spouse feel heard and respected.
In marriage, you are on the same team, and you both have to learn to respect each other’s opinions and feelings, even when they make no sense to you. Just because we both speak American English doesn’t mean my husband and I always mean the same things with the same words.
For instance, when you say you think she’s “unreasonably upset,” to me, that implies both that you think she’s being unreasonable, and that you know better than she does how she “should” feel. That’s probably not what you meant, but that’s what I would hear, and what she may be likely to hear. So then you end up fighting, not because your spouse disagrees with what you said, but rather, with how you said it… (yeah, BTDT… last night, in fact…)
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Irishmom2
Guest
Oh, so hilarious and so not what the OP is even talking about. Were you just waiting for a thread to come along where you could say that? Well, keep waiting. It doesn’t t work here.
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EasterJoy
Guest
This is the opinion of the guys who have learned that she is always right and they are always wrong.
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Xantippe
Guest
EasterJoy said:
“This is the opinion of the guys who have learned that she is always right and they are always wrong.”
I think that’s actually kind of true. I knew a 60ish guy with a very take-charge wife (she was from an old pioneering family) and I got the feeling that in his opinion, her fine home cooking made up for his being bossed around. (He loved to talk about her cooking! And, indeed, the home grown new potatoes at dinner at their house were worthy of having sonnets written about them. )
“This is the opinion of the guys who have learned that she is always right and they are always wrong.”
I think that’s actually kind of true. I knew a 60ish guy with a very take-charge wife (she was from an old pioneering family) and I got the feeling that in his opinion, her fine home cooking made up for his being bossed around. (He loved to talk about her cooking! And, indeed, the home grown new potatoes at dinner at their house were worthy of having sonnets written about them. )
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EasterJoy
Guest
“The husband is indisputably the head of the family. The wife, however, is the neck, and can turn the head any way she wants.”
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