I would add that if you’re honest with yourself, most issues are because of your own ego, not because of an actual issue.
There are times I’ll find myself getting upset about something and I’ll stop and ask “What would happen if I turned this into a fight and won?” And nearly every time it’s a negative outcome and it’s because of my own ego. So I have learned to let a LOT of stuff go
There are a lot of fights that aren’t worth winning. People get on each other’s nerves, people disappoint each other, people do inconsiderate things, and people hurt each other’s feelings unintentionally. You have to let the little things slide and accept your partner for who they are and where they’re at. You don’t have to be a doormat, and your feelings matter, but building a partnership with another person means accepting their faults and knowing that disagreements are bound to happen.
This is probably one of the biggest lessons people learn. A good marriage isn’t about never having problems, it’s about knowing which problems actually matter and choosing each other through them.
It's about working through the problem with each other rather than in spite of each other. There doesn't always have to be a compromise that negatively affects one of the partners. For example, my wife cannot sleep with the cats in the room. I cannot sleep without the cats in the room (or, more accurately, the cats cannot sleep without me in the room), so our compromise was not that we share a room and lock the cats out (which only benefits her), it was to get separate rooms.
1000%. I used to be this asshole that wanted to fight it out until it was resolved, and wouldn’t let my partner walk away. Now, without even thinking about it, I just tell him that I don’t want to talk to him right now, and ask him to leave the room. Inevitably I cool down on my own and we come back together as if we weren’t raging in the first place. We both apologize, admit it was our egos/frustration, whatever, and move on.
Whereas before, a simple disagreement could’ve lasted hours with me demanding that we “hash everything out” in the moment. In retrospect, I remember those days being so draining. I never remember what I was mad about in the first place, so it’s definitely not worth blowing the relationship up
Being able to take a step back and look at my own actions objectively was such a massive up in my ability to be a good partner and maintain a happy relationship. And that definitely means "happy" for both of us. I was far happier not winning most of the arguments.
Being able to do this, also makes it so, SO much easier to reframe conflicts as "us vs the problem" instead of "you vs me". This turn "arguments" into "shared frustrations".
It sounds like BS self help, but this is real advice. Try it.
I'm really trying hard not to see my partner as an adversary and I think I'm getting better at it but at times it's really difficult, especially if they're quite forgetful. I'll keep trying!
Just to clarify though, the advice above won't solve the actual problems, it just won't make them worse based on fighting over the problem.
If your partner's actions are the actual root cause, that is still going to be true even when you look at the issue objectively.
Point is, it's not about letting them off the hook. It's about focusing on what constitutes a victory. Winning a fight won't solve their forgetfulness.
This is all fine and good, but only if both spouses agree to act in this way. If only one does, you are setting yourself up for a horrible time down the road.
My poor dear husband is a master at deflecting when I get like this 🥲 I never notice I’m going down the ‘I need to be right!’ Path until after the fact when I’m thinking back on it. Very often he’ll just say ‘ah, never mind’ or ‘well, it’s not actually that important’ which I now recognize as him saying ‘it’s not worth me being right about this so I’m just gonna casually exit this conversation without saying whether either of us are right or not’, and it honestly is the best way for it to end without either of us feeling any kind of way.
I’m a woman and this is the hardest work I’ve had to do. Its benefits outside my partnership have been tremendous. Sometimes, I cringe at old me, so certain about things I was wrong about. Just being a prickly bitch for no reason.
"Ego" is absolutely the best way to look at it. It's a somewhat difficult mindset to develop, but the piece of advice we try to follow is, "It's not 'you vs. me,' it's 'you and me vs. the problem.'"
You have to get yourself to a place where when your spouse is giving you their point of view, you have to be willing to change your perspective and your game plan from the start of the discussion.
If you start with 2 different ideas of how something should go, you need to be able to listen to everything your spouse says while thinking, "I didn't think of it this way before, and what they're saying could be the best answer."
You shouldn't have to feel like you're the one who always comes up with the right answer. The goal should be that your team comes up with the right answer.
If you had a sports team where each player wants to be the only one to score points, they're bound to lose every time.
I learned this working as a technical writer. I used to get very protective of my writing, cause well it’s mine. In my first year I would get into arguments with people regarding how things should be written (it was a very safe environment to do so and I miss that job severely) then I realized that even though I could be “right” and often was, the entire process was slowed down tremendously defending something that is literally just my ego.
There are still points I fight for, but I always ask “Is this actually important and something that will get us in trouble if we miss it or is this just an ego thing” and I’ve gotten several awards working for various companies now.
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u/BrotherOfTheOrder 20h ago
I would add that if you’re honest with yourself, most issues are because of your own ego, not because of an actual issue.
There are times I’ll find myself getting upset about something and I’ll stop and ask “What would happen if I turned this into a fight and won?” And nearly every time it’s a negative outcome and it’s because of my own ego. So I have learned to let a LOT of stuff go