DAY 11: First Fight

This afternoon, Brandon and I had our first newlywed fight. I suppose this was bound to happen sooner or later. It was totally stupid and not about anything important but seemed to be the result of some pent-up stress. Fortunately, we got over it almost as quickly as we'd started it.

Brandon and I have always been good at communicating with each other. I think this must be the result of having spent five of our first six years together doing the long-distance thing. We learned how to really talk and - more importantly - really listen to each other, because so often, our conversations were all we had. But now that we live together, I think we sometimes take for granted the power of honest, straight-forward communication. Had we tapped into that power today, we could have avoided the whole misunderstanding.

That is not to say, however, that I shy away from fighting. I think fighting is a necessary part of any relationship. And I think that, if there's something that needs to be battled out, we should break out the weapons and go at it. Brandon hates this about me! He thinks fighting only makes us say things we don't mean and will eventually regret (which, I'll admit, is often true).

A few years ago, Brandon and I were planning a road trip up the east coast. We knew that our trip might prove stressful at times and therefore implemented a no-fighting policy for the duration of the vacation. The rules were simple:

1) Person A should find a way to communicate calmly and positively what his/her want, need, or feeling is.
2) Person B should find a way to respond calmly and positively to Person A's want, need, or feeling.

In this way, we went about our 12-day, 1500-mile road trip without one single argument. And it wasn't because we agreed on everything that happened along the way. It was because we made this very conscious effort to simply communicate. So, the morning Brandon got me a Sausage McMuffin instead of an Egg McMuffin (which I discovered only after we'd driven quite far from the McDonald's), I calmly said, "Brandon, when you have a chance, can you please turn the car around and take me back to McDonald's?" And, because I'd asked so nicely, he did. And I got my Egg McMuffin.

That day, I got what I wanted by communicating my needs, rather than shouting about them. Now that I think about it, maybe Brandon's right about fighting after all.