Should a Couple Argue in Public?

My boyfriend and I have been together for nearly five years. We argue, like all couples, but our arguing tends to happen after long emotional conversations about our future and what we want from it.

Since we don’t tend to get into those sorts of conversations when we’re around other people, we don’t argue in front of other people.

There are several other couples I know where this is not the case.

Let’s take my mum and step-dad. If it were a choice, they would not argue in public. My mum is far too private and concerned about what others think about her to do that. But their arguments flare up fast and thick and sometimes my mum is so angry about something that she can’t hold back, even when the family is present.

There have been times when she has openly shouted at my step-dad for something that she thinks is huge and urgent. My step-dad is usually quite good at de-escalating the situation, but there are the odd moments where he fights back.

This happened several times over the Christmas period, and it left everyone else feeling awkward and uncomfortable as we looked on, or away, as they fought.

Should they have kept it to themselves?

It’s a hard question to answer. It made everyone feel awkward, most particularly my step-dad who felt like he was being publicly humiliated by my mum’s anger. As often happens in these scenarios, my siblings and I tried to pacify my mum — which didn’t help her either as she felt that her anger wasn’t being taken seriously, and that we were taking sides.

It was clearly a moment of uncontrollable anger. It wasn’t something that could have been avoided by my mum. Should we expect her to bite down her anger just so that everyone can pretend to have a nice time? That seems too fake to me, as though we’re trying to sugarcoat real life.

Is having an argument in private better? That’s what happened between my brother and his girlfriend over the same Christmas period (Christmas with all the family is intense!) and everyone else was left wondering why they both looked so grumpy and despondent for the rest of the day.

I’ve seen friends in couples have arguments too when I’ve been staying at their house for a weekend. Where do you look? Do you weigh in? Do you try and crack a joke to break the tension? Do you ignore that the argument has happened and carry on as though everything is normal?

If I had to come down on one side or the other, I would say that it’s better not to argue in front of your friends and family if you can help it, but you can say something along the lines of “X and I are in the middle of a disagreement, so sorry if we seem a bit off. We’ll work it out later” so that you don’t have to completely pretend that everything is ok.

What would you do?

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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