holy crap.. what an eye opening test I just took! As I answered honestly I realized some faults I have with arguing. I'm going to need to really work on some of these.
Arguing Style Testthis is a 5-never / 4-rarely/3-sometimes/2-often/1-most of the time
1. Even if I don’t intend to, I raise my voice when I get upset. 3
2. I refuse to be the first one to apologize after a fight. 3
3. When I argue with others, I allow old grudges to resurface. 2
4. After an argument, I am left with bitter feelings. 3
5. When I argue with my partner, we end up fighting over something completely different than what we started with. 3
6. I swear at my partner when I get upset. 3
7. I focus on finding a solution that will benefit both of us. 4
8. When my partner makes a valid point, I let him or her know that I agree. 2
9. When arguing, I focus my criticisms on what I think my partner has done wrong, not on him or her as a person. 4
10. When I realize that I was wrong, I admit it to my partner. 1
1 Completely true/ 2Mostly true/ 3Somewhat true/false /4 Mostlyfalse / 5Comp false
11. When we fight, I feel like I need to win. 3
12. I get defensive when my partner tells his or her side of the story. 3
13. When arguing, I prefer bringing up all the issues that are bothering me, rather than resolve them one at a time. 2
14. I tell my partner what s/he needs to do in order to fix her/his problems. 2
15. During an argument, I attack where I know it hurts. 4
16. When I am really hurt, I focus my attack on something I know my partner really cares about. 4
17. When I feel that my partner's arguments are not making any sense, I try to show her/him how ridiculous they are. 4
18. I get so furious during arguments that it is difficult to think straight. 4
19. When arguing, I bring up old issues that have already been resolved. 2
20. When we argue, I point out my partner's character flaws. 2
this is a 5-almost never/ 4-rarely/3-sometimes/2-often/1-most of the time
21. When we argue, I attempt to find common ground before exploring the differences in our opinion. 4
22. When arguing, I ask my partner for her/his side of the story. 2
23. When the argument gets heated, I suggest a temporary cease-fire, a break to calm down. 3
24. Our arguments solve the issues we fight about. 4
25. When the argument is over, we make up right away. 4
26. I suggest several possible solutions to the problem. 3
27. When we argue, I focus only on one topic at a time. 4
28. I follow up with my partner after an argument to see if he or she is still happy with the outcome. 5
29. If there is something that bothers me greatly about our relationship, I let my partner know. 2
1 Completely true/ 2Mostly true/ 3Somewhat true/false /4 Mostlyfalse / 5Comp false
30. I encourage my partner to tell me what is bothering him/her about my behavior.4
31. I rephrase, in my own words, my partner's complaints to make sure that I understand correctly what s/he is saying. 4
32. I assure my partner that our relationship is stable despite the fight. 3
33. I validate my partner's feelings, even if I don't agree with her/his arguments. 3
34. I am understanding when my partner becomes emotional during an argument. 4
35. I feel that there can be a right way and a wrong way to fight. 1
36. I believe that my partner and I come out better people after a fight. 4
37. I think that sometimes it is necessary to fight. 3
38. My partner and I have talked about the way we fight. 4
39. I view arguments as a means to learn and grow. 4
40. I believe that, in general, arguments and fights are bad for relationships. 2
41. I believe that it is healthier to fight than to bottle up negative feelings.2
42. After an argument, I feel relieved to have gotten everything out in the
open. 2
43. I make an effort to understand my partner’s arguing style. 5
SCORE 39
Unfortunately, you usually don’t engage in arguing behaviors that could help end a fight quickly and satisfactorily for both parties. This likely draws fights out longer than necessary because of misunderstandings. By listening carefully, rephrasing what is said, looking for solutions and apologizing, you can begin to communicate more effectively with your partner. These tactics can serve to reassure your partner that you’re working together towards a common goal. Couples who rely on positive tactics when fighting improve their overall satisfaction with their relationship and are more likely to stay together.
Arguing is an indication of wanting to communicate something, usually something close to one’s heart. While many issues can be resolved through peaceful discussion, other conflicts can provoke anger, defensiveness, resentment and other strong emotions. In a long-term relationship, it is nearly impossible to avoid hurt feelings, misunderstanding and conflict. A couple can slip into old inefficient patterns every time they start arguing about an important issue. Thankfully, everyone can learn how to communicate and solve conflicts efficiently in order to achieve mutual understanding, fulfillment and deep intimacy.
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When Your Partner Isn't PerfectDepending on what kind of lens you are looking through, a flaw is a flaw only when you want it to be.
What if my partner is flawed? Everyone asks this question at some point. Really, it's hard to avoid. After the romance is long over and the business of life settles in, we start to see things that annoy us. The way he eats peanut butter straight out of the jar, the way he snorts when he laughs, even the way he walks or talks or keeps his office.
Ooh, it's so irritating. Once considered cute, these quirks are pushing you to the door. You want to call it quits unless someone changes.
The "flawed" partner is not to be confused with a bad partner. What is the difference between the two? Sure, there are partners who are hurtful - the angry, the self-destructive, the physically violent and verbally abusive. A bad partner thinks you are the cause of all his suffering. A bad partner blames and generally mistreats you. He is depressed/stressed/in trouble financially because of you, etc. Granted, a bad relationship is a bad relationship, and you know when you are in one. So please, do yourself a favor and get out now.
Now, back to the "flawed." Let's start by example. You have a partner who is very forgetful. He forgets to pick up the kids. He forgets his doctor's appointment. And he forgets your lunch date. For goodness sake, he even forgot to pack his clothes for that important business trip—clothes that he neatly stacked on the bed but didn't put in the suitcase.
How could he possibly love you if he forgets everything so easily? You are at your wits end and you're ready to leave unless he changes. Let's look at this from different points of view. From anger: He must be an idiot. This is such an important business trip and he plain forgot his clothes. If it weren't for you, he would have gotten fired by now. How could he be so thoughtless?
Now it's time to try another viewpoint, suggests Byron Katie in her book, I Need Your Love-Is That True? (Harmony, 2005). From compassion: You noticed something very funny: your partner left his clothes neatly stacked on the bed. Well, you hand him the clothes. Without your goading, he feels pretty stupid on his own. Then again, he needs new clothes anyway.
It's easy to point the angry finger of blame and say: "he needs to change." But anger only clouds the real issues. Whether or not you end up leaving a relationship, it's better to make decisions when you can see clearly.
Depending on what kind of lens you are looking through, a flaw is a flaw only when you want it to be. Here's the important part: Instead of trying to work on your partner and change him, work on yourself first. You'll probably discover that his flaws are not so flawed. You'll also see that the person who needs to change is you.
So stop working on him and start working on you.
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The Art of the ArgumentHow to fight clean—and have a productive argument, not a pointless row.
Why Can't You Shut Up? How We Ruin Relationships—How Not To
By: Anthony Wolf, Ph.D. (Ballantine)
The Promise
Fight clean: Disagree without bickering, sniping, yelling, rehashing or destroying your relationship.
One of the greatest threats to satisfying relationships, says Anthony Wolf, a practicing clinical psychologist, is our overwhelming need to be right when we disagree. This innate characteristic, which he defines as our "baby self," can damage or destroy relationships, especially with those closest to us. In his latest book, Why Can't You Shut Up? How We Ruin Relationships—How Not To, Wolf shows how we go wrong: by not letting go when we're not getting our way.
The Test
I decided to try out Wolf's theories on a recent dispute with my wife. Our children, ages 7 and 10, love watching television. If allowed, they'd sit in front of the set until their brains melted. While I try to get them to stick to time limits, my wife is more lax about enforcing these rules. I worry they're becoming TV addicts and she thinks I should cut them some slack.
But then she started letting them watch American Idol, which meant they stayed up past bedtime two school nights a week. Rather than a levelheaded conversation addressing this particular difference of opinion, the disagreement escalated into a nasty spat that dragged in other conflicts and past grievances. Filled with righteousness, I wanted not only to prove her guilty of this offense, but also of other outstanding crimes and misdemeanors, such as covert adjustments to various household budgets, using her car as a moving trash bin and helping the kids think of chocolate as a kind of daily vitamin.
Wolf's advice is to stay on subject. This was about our children and TV, not whether she overindulges them or I'm too strict or who needs more therapy. So we both had to resist claiming who was right and who was wrong, which he says is a lose/lose situation.
When my wife and I focused on the issue at hand, we realized we're both concerned about the kids turning into tube zombies. We agreed to have them watch most of their favorite programs on TiVo, eliminating commercials and cutting viewing time by 25 percent.
Wolf also says it's not always necessary to resolve an argument, but that it must end—that is to say, it's essential to let it drop. My wife and I both had to let go of the tempting but unproductive desire to get in the last word. Instead, we made sure that we each got to speak our mind. After that, the discussion was over.
While we haven't totally resolved this issue, we've had our say, listened and then disengaged. Wolf reminds us that successful arguing isn't about being right as much as feeling all right about the outcome.
The Verdict
Wolf offers helpful insights (along with wry humor) on managing our closest relationships. Although there aren't any major revelations, you can't really argue with such practical advice.
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Great ExpectationsHas the quest to find the perfect soul mate done more harm than good? Psychologists provide insight into how the never-ending search for ideal love can keep you from enjoying a marriage or a healthy relationship that you already have.
By: Polly Shulman
Marriage is dead! The twin vises of church and law have relaxed their grip on matrimony. We've been liberated from the grim obligation to stay in a poisonous or abusive marriage for the sake of the kids or for appearances. The divorce rate has stayed constant at nearly 50 percent for the last two decades. The ease with which we enter and dissolve unions makes marriage seem like a prime-time spectator sport, whether it's Britney Spears in Vegas or bimbos chasing after the Bachelor.
Long live the new marriage! We once prized the institution for the practical pairing of a cash-producing father and a home-building mother. Now we want it all—a partner who reflects our taste and status, who sees us for who we are, who loves us for all the "right" reasons, who helps us become the person we want to be. We've done away with a rigid social order, adopting instead an even more onerous obligation: the mandate to find a perfect match. Anything short of this ideal prompts us to ask: Is this all there is? Am I as happy as I should be? Could there be somebody out there who's better for me? As often as not, we answer yes to that last question and fall victim to our own great expectations.
That somebody is, of course, our soul mate, the man or woman who will counter our weaknesses, amplify our strengths and provide the unflagging support and respect that is the essence of a contemporary relationship. The reality is that few marriages or partnerships consistently live up to this ideal. The result is a commitment limbo, in which we care deeply for our partner but keep one stealthy foot out the door of our hearts. In so doing, we subject the relationship to constant review: Would I be happier, smarter, a better person with someone else? It's a painful modern quandary. "Nothing has produced more unhappiness than the concept of the soul mate," says Atlanta psychiatrist Frank Pittman.
Consider Jeremy, a social worker who married a businesswoman in his early twenties. He met another woman, a psychologist, at age 29, and after two agonizing years, left his wife for her. But it didn't work out—after four years of cohabitation, and her escalating pleas to marry, he walked out on her, as well. Jeremy now realizes that the relationship with his wife was solid and workable but thinks he couldn't have seen that 10 years ago, when he left her. "There was always someone better around the corner—and the safety and security of marriage morphed into boredom and stasis. The allure of willing and exciting females was too hard to resist," he admits. Now 42 and still single, Jeremy acknowledges, "I hurt others, and I hurt myself."
Like Jeremy, many of us either dodge the decision to commit or commit without fully relinquishing the right to keep looking—opting for an arrangement psychotherapist Terrence Real terms "stable ambiguity." "You park on the border of the relationship, so you're in it but not of it," he says. There are a million ways to do that: You can be in a relationship but not be sure it's really the right one, have an eye open for a better deal or something on the side, choose someone impossible or far away.
Yet commitment and marriage offer real physical and financial rewards. Touting the benefits of marriage may sound like conservative policy rhetoric, but nonpartisan sociological research backs it up: Committed partners have it all over singles, at least on average. Married people are more financially stable, according to Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago and a coauthor of The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier and Better Off. Both married men and married women have more assets on average than singles; for women, the differential is huge.
The benefits go beyond the piggy bank. Married people, particularly men, tend to live longer than people who aren't married. Couples also live better: When people expect to stay together, says Waite, they pool their resources, increasing their individual standard of living. They also pool their expertise—in cooking, say, or financial management. In general, women improve men's health by putting a stop to stupid bachelor tricks and bugging their husbands to exercise and eat their vegetables. Plus, people who aren't comparing their partners to someone else in bed have less trouble performing and are more emotionally satisfied with sex. The relationship doesn't have to be wonderful for life to get better, says Waite: The statistics hold true for mediocre marriages as well as for passionate ones.
The pragmatic benefits of partnership used to be foremost in our minds. The idea of marriage as a vehicle for self-fulfillment and happiness is relatively new, says Paul Amato, professor of sociology, demography and family studies at Penn State University. Surveys of high school and college students 50 or 60 years ago found that most wanted to get married in order to have children or own a home. Now, most report that they plan to get married for love. This increased emphasis on emotional fulfillment within marriage leaves couples ill-prepared for the realities they will probably face.
Because the early phase of a relationship is marked by excitement and idealization, "many romantic, passionate couples expect to have that excitement forever," says Barry McCarthy, a clinical psychologist and coauthor—with his wife, Emily McCarthy—of Getting It Right the First Time: How to Build a Healthy Marriage. Longing for the charged energy of the early days, people look elsewhere or split up.
Flagging passion is often interpreted as the death knell of a relationship. You begin to wonder whether you're really right for each other after all. You're comfortable together, but you don't really connect the way you used to. Wouldn't it be more honest—and braver—to just admit that it's not working and call it off? "People are made to feel that remaining in a marriage that doesn't make you blissfully happy is an act of existential cowardice," says Joshua Coleman, a San Francisco psychologist.
Coleman says that the constant cultural pressure to have it all—a great sex life, a wonderful family—has made people ashamed of their less-than-perfect relationships and question whether such unions are worth hanging on to. Feelings of dissatisfaction or disappointment are natural, but they can seem intolerable when standards are sky-high. "It's a recent historical event that people expect to get so much from individual partners," says Coleman, author of Imperfect Harmony, in which he advises couples in lackluster marriages to stick it out—especially if they have kids. "There's an enormous amount of pressure on marriages to live up to an unrealistic ideal."
Michaela, 28, was drawn to Bernardo, 30, in part because of their differences: She'd grown up in European boarding schools, he fought his way out of a New York City ghetto. "Our backgrounds made us more interesting to each other," says Michaela. "I was a spoiled brat, and he'd been supporting himself from the age of 14, which I admired." Their first two years of marriage were rewarding, but their fights took a toll. "I felt that because he hadn't grown up in a normal family, he didn't grasp basic issues of courtesy and accountability," says Michaela. They were temperamental opposites: He was a screamer, and she was a sulker. She recalls, "After we fought, I needed to be drawn out of my corner, but he took that to mean that I was a cold bitch." Michaela reluctantly concluded that the two were incompatible.
In fact, argue psychologists and marital advocates, there's no such thing as true compatibility. "Marriage is a disagreement machine," says Diane Sollee, founder of the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education. "All couples disagree about all the same things. We have a highly romanticized notion that if we were with the right person, we wouldn't fight." Discord springs eternal over money, kids, sex and leisure time, but psychologist John Gottman has shown that long-term, happily married couples disagree about these things just as much as couples who divorce.
"There is a mythology of 'the wrong person,'" agrees Pittman. "All marriages are incompatible. All marriages are between people from different families, people who have a different view of things. The magic is to develop binocular vision, to see life through your partner's eyes as well as through your own."
The realization that we're not going to get everything we want from a partner is not just sobering, it's downright miserable. But it is also a necessary step in building a mature relationship, according to Real, who has written about the subject in How Can I Get Through to You: Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women. "The paradox of intimacy is that our ability to stay close rests on our ability to tolerate solitude inside a relationship," he says. "A central aspect of grown-up love is grief. All of us long for—and think we deserve—perfection." We can hardly be blamed for striving for bliss and self-fulfillment in our romantic lives—our inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness is guaranteed in the first blueprint of American society.
This same respect for our own needs spurred the divorce-law reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. During that era, "The culture shifted to emphasize individual satisfaction, and marriage was part of that," explains Paul Amato, who has followed more than 2,000 families for 20 years in a long-term study of marriage and divorce. Amato says that this shift did some good by freeing people from abusive and intolerable marriages. But it had an unintended side effect: encouraging people to abandon relationships that may be worth salvaging. In a society hell-bent on individual achievement and autonomy, working on a difficult relationship may get short shrift, says psychiatrist Peter Kramer, author of Should You Leave?
"So much of what we learn has to do with the self, the ego, rather than giving over the self to things like a relationship," Kramer says. In our competitive world, we're rewarded for our individual achievements rather than for how we help others. We value independence over cooperation, and sacrifices for values like loyalty and continuity seem foolish. "I think we get the divorce rate that we deserve as a culture."
The steadfast focus on our own potential may turn a partner into an accessory in the quest for self-actualization, says Maggie Robbins, a therapist in New York City. "We think that this person should reflect the beauty and perfection that is the inner me—or, more often, that this person should compensate for the yuckiness and mess that is the inner me," says Robbins. "This is what makes you tell your wife, 'Lose some weight—you're making me look bad,' not 'Lose some weight, you're at risk for diabetes.'"
Michaela was consistently embarrassed by Bernardo's behavior when they were among friends. "He'd become sullen and withdrawn—he had a shifty way of looking off to the side when he didn't want to talk. I felt like it reflected badly on me," she admits. Michaela left him and is now dating a wealthy entrepreneur. "I just thought there had to be someone else out there for me."
The urge to find a soul mate is not fueled just by notions of romantic manifest destiny. Trends in the workforce and in the media create a sense of limitless romantic possibility. According to Scott South, a demographer at SUNY-Albany, proximity to potential partners has a powerful effect on relationships. South and his colleagues found higher divorce rates among people living in communities or working in professions where they encounter lots of potential partners—people who match them in age, race and education level. "These results hold true not just for unhappy marriages but also for happy ones," says South.
The temptations aren't always living, breathing people. According to research by psychologists Sara Gutierres and Douglas Kenrick, both of Arizona State University, we find reasonably attractive people less appealing when we've just seen a hunk or a hottie—and we're bombarded daily by images of gorgeous models and actors. When we watch Lord of the Rings, Viggo Mortensen's kingly mien and Liv Tyler's elfin charm can make our husbands and wives look all too schlumpy.
Kramer sees a similar pull in the narratives that surround us. "The number of stories that tell us about other lives we could lead—in magazine articles, television shows, books—has increased enormously. We have an enormous reservoir of possibilities," says Kramer.
And these possibilities can drive us to despair. Too many choices have been shown to stymie consumers, and an array of alternative mates is no exception. In an era when marriages were difficult to dissolve, couples rated their marriages as more satisfying than do today's couples, for whom divorce is a clear option, according to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
While we expect marriage to be "happily ever after," the truth is that for most people, neither marriage nor divorce seem to have a decisive impact on happiness. Although Waite's research shows that married people are happier than their single counterparts, other studies have found that after a couple years of marriage, people are just about as happy (or unhappy) as they were before settling down. And assuming that marriage will automatically provide contentment is itself a surefire recipe for misery.
"Marriage is not supposed to make you happy. It is supposed to make you married," says Pittman. "When you are all the way in your marriage, you are free to do useful things, become a better person." A committed relationship allows you to drop pretenses and seductions, expose your weaknesses, be yourself—and know that you will be loved, warts and all. "A real relationship is the collision of my humanity and yours, in all its joy and limitations," says Real. "How partners handle that collision is what determines the quality of their relationship."
Such a down-to-earth view of marriage is hardly romantic, but that doesn't mean it's not profound: An authentic relationship with another person, says Pittman, is "one of the first steps toward connecting with the human condition—which is necessary if you're going to become fulfilled as a human being." If we accept these humble terms, the quest for a soul mate might just be a noble pursuit after all.
