My bottom lip begins to bleed from how hard I’m biting on it; I can taste the bitter metallic tang on my tongue as I hold my phone slightly away from my ear. The frustration is rising in my chest as we both start yelling over each other, as if speaking louder would make the other surrender. I don’t intend on surrendering and neither does he, but we continue to yell anyway.
His voice is so loud that I quickly double-check that I didn’t accidentally hit speakerphone. I didn’t. I clench my fingers around my steering wheel as I sit in my parked car in the driveway, not wanting to let my family hear how cruelly we are speaking to each other.
Rational thought was abandoned a long time ago.
I can’t understand what he is saying because we are both shouting as loud as we can until I feel the painful, flat tone of an abruptly ended phone call resonate through my body. The screen lights up against my cheek. I slowly unlock the car door and climb out, letting my lip wobble briefly before taking a deep breath and collecting myself as I walk up to my front door. This feeling is not new to me.
We have become exceptionally good at fighting over the past few months.
In hindsight, I can’t remember what we were fighting about; I can’t remember how long it took us to forgive each other. However, what I can remember is the feeling of violent fury that engulfed us that afternoon. Annoyance and exasperation had slowly morphed into deep rooted resentment – we fought every day. These are the moments that I began to understand the important differences between a fight and an argument.
Fighting is rooted in the fact that the individuals involved are trying to prove the other wrong; they are competing to be more "correct" than the other. Fighting is draining. Fighting sounds like bitter insults and manipulation to crush your partner's spirit and tear them apart. People fight to win. I was fighting to win.
We both were.
Arguing is how two individuals who disagree honestly and respectfully work together to communicate and come to a solution. Arguing feels like a conversation (albeit perhaps a more involved one) and sounds like a compromise. It feels safe. Neither party is catering to “defeat” their partner.
When you meet someone who knows how to argue well, it changes the entire dynamic of your partnership. The way you interact with each other involves a mutual agreement to always tackle disagreements with compassion and understanding. It becomes much easier to be vulnerable with a partner who you know will not tear you down for disagreeing with them.
It is through arguments and the compromises made through them that we grow in ourselves and our relationships with family, friends and significant others.
Through that relationship, I learned how important it is to me to have a partner who knows how to argue well. As I’ve moved to college, I’ve met people who I know can disagree with me and vice versa without making me feel overwhelmed or resentful. Don’t get me wrong - we are allowed to feel angry with people whom we interact with as anger is a healthy part of growth in safe relationships.
However, anger and rage are very different things.
Whenever anger shifts into rage, we need to actively disengage from the conversation or relationship until both parties can engage in a healthy, constructive discussion without tearing the other down. This is so much easier said than put into practice as disagreements can often be personal and delicate – but it is important that we continue to try to interact in a healthy manner.
Argue, not fight.
The best relationships, I believe, are rooted in the ability of both people to disagree without aggression or hostility. At the end of the day, we are all trying our best to love the people who are most important to us.
