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Relationships
How to Stop Fighting With Your Partner
A simple change in perspective can help to ease the conflict.
Updated February 13, 2024 Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
Key points
- When partners argue, each person generally assumes they're right.
- Believing you're right usually has more to do with perspective than facts.
- Resolving conflict is typically less about right vs. wrong and more about feeling understood.
Think of an ongoing conflict you’ve had with your partner—common topics include sex, how you spend your time or money, jealousy, the kids, how you speak to one another, and the division of labor. The last time there was a disagreement about the issue, whose side did you take?
The question seems a bit ridiculous because the answer is so obvious: You took your own side, of course! Who wouldn’t? And you no doubt believed, in your heart of hearts, that you were in the right and that your partner was confused or willfully ignoring the truth. For their part, your partner probably believed and felt the same things, thinking you were not only wrong but stubborn and irritating.
Wouldn’t it be great if a neutral third party could hear the case? It’s so obvious to everyone (except your partner) that you are right; any reasonable person would surely take your side. In fact, your friends and siblings—maybe even your therapist—see things from your perspective.
And of course your partner (and every partner) is thinking more or less the same things—but they can’t all be right. If we assume for the sake of argument that one person is right and one is wrong in every conflict (ignoring ties for now), then not everyone can be right every time. In the universe of couples, the average person would be right half the time and wrong the other half.
Accordingly, your chances of being right in a given argument are 50/50. That means anytime you’re blaming your partner for their role in a conflict, there’s a good chance the finger really points in the other direction. It's possible that you're an extreme outlier and you're actually right more like 95 percent of the time, but that's unlikely. And being willing to question your rightness can reduce a lot of the heartache in your relationship.
Try this: Am I definitely right? The next time you’re upset at your partner, ask yourself whether it's possible that you're not seeing things in an entirely fair way. Are you taking your side because you're objectively right, or out of self-protective habit?
Beyond Right and Wrong
In reality, of course, most fights don’t come down to one party being right and the other wrong. It’s not that simple, for better and for worse. If it were that black-or-white, you wouldn’t find yourself sometimes having the exact same fight with your partner but this time you’ve switched roles. You’ve done this, right? For example, you got mad at your partner for something, they got defensive, you didn’t understand why they couldn’t just apologize, they accused you of being too critical, and you both felt angry and hurt.
And then at some point down the road your partner got mad at you for the same thing you got mad at them for, and boy did that make you feel defensive. They said you should just apologize, and you disagreed, and you also thought it was maybe just a little bit hypocritical of them to get mad at you for the same thing they did. But oh, geez, then you sort of half-realize that you’re reacting the same way they did, which at the time you had said was completely unfair of them. Whoops.
In the end, most fights are less about being right or winning and more about being heard and understood. You want your partner to know that the way you think and feel makes sense, given the circumstances, your history, your personality, how much sleep you got last night, and everything that makes you you. You want them to know that you’re not “crazy” for reacting the way you do and for needing what you need. Your partner wants the same things. Simply acknowledging and validating the other person's feelings often goes a long way toward easing a conflict.
Try this: What do they need? When you're stuck in an argument, notice when your mind is telling you that your partner is being unfair or unreasonable. Then ask yourself what need they might be trying to meet through their actions.
The Joys and Sorrows of Sharing a Life
Most likely—assuming your partner isn’t truly toxic—the fights you have aren't caused by one person being clearly in the wrong. You’re just two complicated human beings—which is to say, just two human beings— whose egos, fears, desires, and defenses sometime conflict. Nobody who has shared their life with another person would claim it is smooth or easy. We might have thought that was what we were looking for, and the early part of the relationship may have felt like it was going to solve all our problems.
But that was never the deal. You probably know by now what a beautiful mess of a human being you are, so it’s easy to imagine how tricky things get when your complications collide with your partner’s. Getting over ourselves is really the work of a lifetime—maybe several lifetimes.
There’s no way to completely eliminate fights with your partner, and you don’t have to avoid conflict to have a strong and healthy relationship. Instead, you can recognize that your partner is doing the best they can, just like you are, even when conflict comes between you. You’re willing to keep starting again with someone who’s just as broken and just as whole as you are—not because you complete each other or take away the other’s pain, but maybe because you find solace in sharing your flawed journeys together.
