“You’re never going to win,” says my husband.
“If you think there is winning and losing in love,” I say. “You’ve already lost.”
Arguments aren’t meant to be won, they’re meant to be resolved.
Little things are meant to be won.
What flavor of ice cream do you love? Mint chocolate chip. I win. I get to have the flavor of my heart’s desire. He chooses a mocha almond chip. He wins too.
We can disagree but both walk away fat and happy.
But not in the world of love and relationships.
When we were in our twenties, I used to tell my husband it was exhausting talking to him. I didn’t understand it was a signal of a disrespectful communicator.
“Talking to you wears me out,” I say. “It’s like point-counterpoint.”
What was my husband doing? He was trying to win. If I was saying something he disagreed with it wasn’t a conversation. It was an attempt to prove me wrong. Hence, the point-counterpoint.
There was zero discussion.
“Why do you feel that way?”
“I haven’t had that experience but I understand why you feel that way.”
“It’s okay if we disagree, we’re not going to agree on everything.”
People who want to win are interested in being in control. It’s a threatened form of communication. “I think this way, you should too.”
When our marriage was struggling, love should have prevailed.
But it became a battle for control.
Looking back, I’m aggravated I engaged in the war. The first time those words came out of my husband’s mouth, I should have walked. The writing was on the wall. It had been there since our twenties.
My husband wasn’t interested in addressing our conflict.
He was determined to win.
Arguments aren’t meant to be won, they’re meant to be resolved.
Unless you’d like to share some ice cream.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Leslie Soto o Unsplash