Love to Fight and Fight to Love

Fighting, done well, benefits relationships. Long-term relationships don’t survive because of great date nights or spectacular holidays. They don’t endure because people have good friends (although community certainly contributes to relationship stability). One of the biggest factors in a long-lasting relationship is knowing how to fight. According to a paper published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, when partners can express anger to each other in healthy ways, they build certain qualities and abilities. The qualities-such as compassion, empathy, and patience-help you understand the challenge. The abilities-like communication, listening, and understanding-help you solve equal or greater challenges in the future. While expressing anger has value, I must add that there is a difference between conflict and abuse. Abuse is stressful, but it is not the positive kind of stress that makes us stronger. Physical abuse, threats, force, control, and manipulation are not love. Nothing productive or positive comes from diminishing another person. If your partner is physically hurting you in any way, that is not acceptable. Beyond that, there are areas where you may have trouble drawing the distinction between conflict and abuse. If you’re in an abusive relationship or aren’t sure, I urge you to seek professional help. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1.800.799-SAFE (7233).