Kick-ass quote
“What do you want from your partner? Bliss? No. No, you don’t. You want periods of peace punctuated by a good fight. That means you respect them; it means you have something to offer each other, and it means that you’re both growing.”-Jordan Peterson
Words from me
Fighting too much is bad. I think we can all agree. But I’m noticing more and more the effects of not fighting enough. And they suck, too.
So, I guess, here’s to fighting (sometimes, in the right way, but also not too much). Yay!
Something I’m thinking about
I heard Jordan Peterson say something that I thought was very interesting. It was something along the lines of, “A divorce happens when there are 10,000 fights that haven’t been had.”
I thought, “Huh, I would have thought that HAVING 10,000 fights is how you end up divorced. But he’s saying it’s not having them that’s the problem?”
Well, there is a bit of counterintuitive wisdom. Intriguing.
I often hear the one side:
“Fighting is bad.”
“Conflict hurts people.”
But I rarely hear, “Yeah, dude, you just need to argue MORE. That’ll solve your issues.”
So, then, which is it? Is having conflict the bad thing, or not having it?
I’d say both can be right and both can be wrong.
Conflict, like many things, is just a tool. And the effect it has depends on how you use it.
My own experience with conflict
I’ve had both: times where I had way too much conflict and times where I should have had more.
When I was a teenager, I had too much conflict. I fought with my parents constantly. It got to a place where there wasn’t even any real peace anymore. It was either storm or the calm before the storm.
Which was very hard on the relationship we had. We grew more frustrated with each other, and all of us suffered because of it. It sucked.
To get some space, I went to work in the Netherlands for a while. During a part of that period, I stayed at my uncle’s house. Wary of conflict, I went in the other direction. When something bothered me, I didn’t speak up. And the more I pushed away things that frustrated me, the more alienated from myself I became.
I lost my capacity to put my foot down, and as a result I felt weak. I hated that too.
Final thoughts
I guess middle ground is what one should be aiming for. You don’t want to fight over everything all the time. But you also want to be able to address and resolve things so the relationship can grow.
Another factor that presumably plays a huge role in all of this would be the way you fight.
Is there a foundation of trust that you can build on? Are arguments carried out respectfully, aimed at finding a solution? Or are you both trying to “win”?
And lastly, the thing it might come down to the most is the relationship you have with yourself. If you feel unlovable and interpret every conflict as a threat because the other person might leave you, you’ll avoid arguments like death.
On the other hand, if your strategy is pushing people away before they can do it to you, you might intentionally create conflict without there being any real reason to do so.
What issues we haven’t resolved in ourselves will play out in our relationships with others.
And I’m sure that applies to conflict as well.
Challenge
If you were to take an honest look at yourself, are you more leaning towards too much or too little conflict?
After figuring that out, you can try to be a little more balanced.
If you tend to be hot-headed, try to let some stuff slide. It’s probably not that big of a deal.
If you tend to like peace, you might want to address some things that you’ve been carrying with you for a while. That might bring you some real peace.
PS—What do you pick?
