Good and Bad Fights for Couples
A good fight for couples always ends with improved understanding. A bad fight never gets to this point. Like an annoying scene in a movie, it never gets to an emotional place where something deeper happens such as a real change in values or insight among the antagonist lovers. It just drags on without end and the antagonist lovers eventually retreat until they gather enough emotional strength to come back for another round or just walk away in complete despair. Too many bad fights can lead to relationship breakup or spiral towards abusive relationships.
The one thing that always leads to bad fights is low self-esteem, that is, when each person is extremely vulnerable and the other does or says things seen as highly threatening by the other. When there isn't enough self-esteem on either side, the couple gets sucked into a bottomless pit of malicious behaviors, insults, accusations and, worst of all, analyzing the other's behavior. If at least one of the antagonist lovers doesn't have enough self-esteem to cushion the other's mischief, the fight becomes hopeless. Now by enough self-esteem we mean not a tremendous surplus, but just enough to hang in there while the other person is impossible to deal with. Whenever there's an acute shortage of self-esteem on both sides at once, the couple always gets into serious trouble, like Franki and Aaron.
Aaron
You think I didn't know you were faking it!?
Franki
(Contemptuous)
Right, you know everything. You always know everything. There isn't a fucking thing in the world you don't know!
Aaron
I know goddamn well when you fake an orgasm! It's what you do best, isn't it. Get 'em all hot and bothered, then hightail it out of town while you're ass is still there in the sheets.
Franki
You know, you missed your calling. You should've been a court psychiatrist who analyzes criminal behavior and makes sentencing recommendations. Must be pretty hard for you, always analyzing and judging everybody.
Aaron
You've always been a no brainer. You get in there, do your little seductive thing, then bug out like a coward. Not just with sex but everything else. The only time you ever stick around is after you've fortified yourself with a half dozen Scotches.
Franki
That's why you married me, isn't it, to prove you could upgrade the poor little lush, show her a better life. You really get off on it, playing Professor Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle.
Aaron
(Sarcastic)
Higgins had a lot more to work with.
Franki
(Laughs)
As always, the man's absolutely right. Eliza was smart enough not to marry a constipated asshole like Higgins, a lot smarter than me.
Aaron
(Smug)
What you really mean is Higgins knew better than to get in any deeper with her.
Franki
You constipated shit! What I really mean is that I should never have gotten in any deeper with you and your obsessive need to upgrade every woman you get emotionally involved with because you see them as your deficient mother.
Franki and Aaron have had at least a dozen versions of this same fight since they got married. What are they really trying to get from one another? If we take a closer look at their accusations, a clear subtext can be found. Aaron accuses Franki of always withdrawing from him emotionally, while Franki accuses Aaron of never acknowledging anything good about her and judging her harshly. Franki's defensive style in dealing with Aaron is one of withdrawal whereas Aaron's defensive style in coping with her is one of withholding.
Franki's need to be judged favorably stems from the fact that she was an illegitimate child, the result of an affair her mother had years ago, and was always made to feel like a second class member of her family by her stepfather. Aaron's hunger for closeness stems from his mother's deep resentment of him because he was favored by his grandmother who gave him more affection than she ever gave his mother. Furthermore, Aaron never knew his real father.
What Franki and Aaron need to do is create a good fight that serves to reveal his need for closeness and her need for respect. What would a good fight look like between them?
Aaron
I'm not saying you actually were, but it felt like you were faking it. And something snapped inside me. I had to get the hell away from you. It was unbearable.
Franki
I guess if you'd stayed you'd have strangled me.
Aaron
Oh no, never that! I had to get away because I couldn't bear the feeling of not being wanted, like it didn't matter if it was me or somebody else inside you.
Franki
You know, when you first wanted to have sex, I got this feeling you just had to have it and it didn't matter much whether it was with me or somebody else.
Aaron
No, with you it's never just for the sex.
(Long pause)
I never told you this but I always watch you doing stuff around the apartment, like when you sit at the dining table grading your kids' work books, preparing the next day's lesson. I sneak looks at you from the sofa as you work the papers, Anastasia purring on your lap. In those moments my heart swells up. I feel this hunger for you. It scares the hell out of me.
Franki
(Might take his hand)
If you could just take it slower when we make love, not move so fast. Then maybe I could really be there, make you feel welcome. It's always been so hard for me to be there, with anyone.
A few weeks later, Aaron writes Franki the following poem for her birthday:
Fresh from her afternoon nap,
She'd sit at the dining table,
Grading her children's work books,
Preparing the next day's lesson.
I'd sneak looks at her from the solitary sofa,
Bewildered, wondering at her simplicity,
As she worked the children's papers,
Anastasia purring sweetly on her knees.
It eluded me how she attained such pure felicity,
That sweet, delicious, gentle girl,
Now become my revere.