Fighting with my husband

It occurred to me this week that my husband and I have been having the same arguments for seven years. Before that, my boyfriend and I argued about the same stuff for about five years. Occasionally something new pops up—like I think he’s a bit too strict on the kids and needs to pick only the battles that matter, and he thinks I let my exhaustion interfere with the consistency of my parenting; that sometimes I’m not as strict as I’d like just because I’m tired. In this instance, we’re both right—but for the most part, it’s the same old thing.

Now you might be thinking, “far out Miriam, if he can’t get his shit together, why you not divorced?” but obviously none of our spats are deal-breakers.

Before I get any further into this though, I want to make something very clear. I’m not going to trash talk my husband, on the internet or otherwise, for people’s amusement, or for my therapy. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, that’s not what I’m here for. There are plenty of negative blogs were people complain about their partners and bag out their kids, which—spoiler alert—doesn’t help their relationships in the slightest. So if you’re here for that, prepare to be disappointed.

But I have learned a few things, and I do enjoy laughing at myself a bit too.

When I was a young witchling, I used to look for trouble. I’d just come out of an abusive relationship wherein I was unfaithful for years, so I knew that good people could do bad things and that I wasn’t the best at recognising bad people in the first place. From my early ears with Dear Hart I learned that if you look for a reason to be upset, you will always find one. If you snoop through someone’s stuff you will find a conversation that’s offensive without context, or that a password you once knew has been changed. Your mind will take you to the murkiest place. Worst case scenario, always.

He called me on it too. Right to my face. Asked me why I’m constantly picking fights, why I felt our relationship needed so much work.

I’ll tell you why. Because I had no sense of safety. I’d never been in a position where things remained happy and stable for any length of time. I didn’t know how to just “be” and I thought that left unattended our relationship would go to pieces, forgetting that some projects can be ruined if you keep trying to perfect them.

Some of those fights I picked were for the best. They were things we needed to agree upon, boundaries we needed to set. But a good deal of it was just my baggage that I needed to unpack. Thankfully, he was ready to stand by me while I got through it.

In those days, we fought about the influence people outside our relationship had on us within the relationship, and what consisted of a threat. That and housework. Woo, the how-to-do-dishes debate was killer. Seriously, getting a dishwasher saved our marriage.

Our other biggest argument has always been sleep. Studies have been done on the fact women need more sleep than men. When the babies were small we both got up during the night, splitting the tasks—I got the top half of the child, he got the bottom—but babies eat more than they crap, so I was still awake a ridiculous amount. Hell, we were fighting about sleep even before we spawned.

For years after Mum died I had the worst nightmares and I couldn’t fall asleep alone. I relied on him (whether that was fair or not,) and he knew it. So I’d be desperately tired and he’d be playing video games. I’d ask him to come to bed, and he’d get annoyed because I was taking away his leisure time. Nowadays I can fall asleep alone most of the time, but I struggle to get to sleep and I sleep very lightly, on high alert for a child’s nightmare, a break-in, a fire, zombie apocalypse… The usual. So I might be asleep, but the second he steps into the room: Ding! Mum’s on duty. It can take me hours to get back to sleep, while he’s happily snoozing. And that, my friends, is enraging.

So most of the time I stay up with him. Sometimes til one in the morning on a work night. And then I lay in bed anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour and a half, trying to shut my brain off so I can sleep. I’m consistently slaughtered and grumpy.

This continues in cycles, always ending in the same fight. And I’m a Taurean, so I win those fights every time. We make up, and he agrees to come to bed at a reasonable time. Which he does for a month or so. Then the time creeps later and later until I’m going out of my mind again, and we start over.

Sometimes I remind myself that if he wasn’t a night owl, we wouldn’t have a relationship. It was him staying up until dawn day after day so that we could talk during our LDR. When he couldn’t, I got up at 5 am to talk to him, perfectly fine with going to bed grandma-early to make it work.

Grateful or not, I’m so tired. The goddesses take so much out of me, and my anxiety gets the rest.

Currently, we are trying something new: One night a week is “early bedtime” day. Even if he’s not tired, he has to come to bed and let me sleep. He can play games on his phone with no sound if necessary, but his body is in the damn bed, and I’m unconscious, and it’s beautiful. Some weekends the kids let me sleep in, too. Occasionally I wake up refreshed. The joy is indescribable. I don’t recognise myself!

This new thing probably won’t work. We’ve tried lots of things over the years to meet my need for rest and his need to blow apart monsters. But hey, I like having a plan.

I’ve come to the realisation that I like the comfort of knowing what our fights will be about, too. We know what sets each other off and what to say or do to avoid the anger and tears situations. For example, he’s stopped trying to have big conversations with me after 6 pm when I don’t have any shits left to give, and I’ve learned to say “I’m being a dick because I’m tired, I’ll get back to you in the morning.”

Neither of us will ever be perfect, but when we see the other person trying, it sure helps. Like, I’m never going to stop swearing, but I can make an effort not to do it around him, right?

Anyway, because I’m an advice columnist in my other job and have lots of experience in making my point without breaking my marriage, I thought it might be fun to make a list of tips to help you in your arguments. (Disclaimer: you both have to work on it. If one partner doesn’t give a flying batpoop, the other(s) can’t magically make it all better.)

• Start with “I” not “You”. “I feel…” sounds a lot less like an attack. For example, “I feel like I’m not being valued when I fold your clothes neatly but you don’t put them away,” makes better progress than, “You leave your clean clothes laying around until they get so dirty I have to re-wash them.” Another example: “Let’s have a shower together, I can wash your back for you,” is less offensive than “You stink, come for a shower.” Arguing is one instance where it’s okay to make it sound like it’s all about yourself.
• Provide examples. “I’ve noticed you acting weird, is everything okay?” is very vague and doesn’t encourage a person to open up. Be specific. “I’ve asked you three times why you’re late on Wednesday nights and you always look at your shoes and say you need to poop,” will bring the exact situation to mind. Another example: “Your family say horrible things to me, and I feel abandoned because you don’t speak up,” sets the scene, but “When your mother makes comments about my breastfeeding, can you please ask her to can it?” is more likely to have results.
• Bring your proof. If you are arguing about something external and fact-based, have your sources ready. Prove that solar panels will save the family money in the long run, or that home-birth is safe for low-risk women, or whatever the subject happens to be. Warn your partner in advance that the discussion is coming and that they, too, need to do their research or prepare to forfeit. Facts win over opinions.
• Argue one topic at a time. Yes it really grinds my gears that Dear Hart buys the giant not-even-vegan Costco devil muffins, then leaves them in the house while he goes off to work and I can’t stop myself eating them, but bringing that up when I’m trying to find a nice way to say that his facial hair is a turn-off won’t help either of us.
• Don’t argue when you’re compromised, or at least admit that you’re compromised. Listen, I’m firmly on team “don’t go to bed angry” and I recognise that some conversations can’t wait. You give them the time they need even if it’s 2am on the first day of your period and you have the pox. But if it can wait until you’ve had a cuppa and your kids aren’t crying, let it wait. If it has to be hashed out now, admit to yourselves and each other that you’re not at your best, and give some extra kindness.
• Ask for a do-over. Sometimes things come out my mouth all wrong, and I hear in my words horrible things that sounded okay in my head. When I was young, I’d have stood by those insults till the death. Now I rush to say “let me reword that!” The sting might still be there if it was really bad, but your partner can see you trying to improve.
• Pick a different medium. There are topics I physically can not talk about. They are too emotional, and I’m so choked with sobs that I can’t articulate how I’m feeling or my reasoning. So a phone call isn’t the best medium for me to use when that discussion comes. Beyond that, some people are garbage at confrontation. When Dear Hart and I first started living together, I didn’t know how to talk to him about important things – even positive things. We’d dated online for years when video calls were still new; our relationship was text-based. So we wrote letters to each other and left them in a box on the kitchen table.
• Remember you’re on the same team! Remind each other if one of you forgets. Even in the worst of times, your partner is not the enemy. It’s you together against your problems.

And that’s it.

There’s a good chance this list is garbage. We have been having the same predictable tiffs for over a decade, after all. Maybe I should be asking you for tips! Let me know in the comments or over on Facebook what you’d add to this list. What helps you hold your marriage together against the odds?

Miriam Cumming writes as advice columnist Miss U at Loving From a Distance. When she’s not telling people to talk to their partners, she writes dysfunctional fictional relationships and plays with stickers.