my husband and i created the marriage ref

did you see jerry seinfeld’s new show, the marriage ref?   i’m not married  to jerry seinfeld, and yet the title to my post is still true!

approximately 20 years ago whenever my husband and i would have a discussion, oh let’s call it what it was a fight, and we couldn’t come to a resolution we would take it to “court.”  court was in session during lunchtime at our business.   to spice up the conversation we would present our cases to the 8 to 10 people that we ate lunch with and they would offer up the verdict on who was the winner in the case. there wasn’t a ref with final decision making authority, but there was a jury of our peers who had fun asking us questions and delivering the verdict.  of course, whoever won would have bragging rights and the other/loser would go into another tirade about how they were robbed!  i wouldn’t recommend this for everyone, and certainly not for the BIG arguments.  it was fun for our group and i think people looked forward to seeing a snippet of our behind the scenes life.  it was definitely fun to prepare our cases and present our evidence.

but for the BIG arguments, here’s my suggestions to you.  don’t air your disagreements in public or in private to your friends.  when we add others to the mix it’s much harder for us to keep our egos out of the picture.  our friend is gonna want to know what happened, or at the very least they’re going to ramp us up to continue the fight if it wasn’t settled to their satisfaction.

maybe you can’t relate to this fighting stuff at all.  some of our friends, 2 people to be exact,  say they never fight or even have a disagreement.  this i cannot understand.  my husband and i can have a pretty healthy debate over what restaurant we’re going to eat dinner at that night!

what i discovered in our BIG arguments though was that there was a lot of walking/stomping around, flailing of the arms and finger pointing.  i found that the more we argued the more animated we became, and then the hurt feelings increased.

the solution???  ready?  pen and paper handy?

OK, first make sure the kids are not going accidentally see this, i’m serious…kids shouldn’t see you fight.

walk to your closet if it’s big enough to fit the two of you, if not maybe the bathroom will do.  shut the door, sit down.  here comes the hard part,  hold hands and look at each other and have your fight.  i know it’s radical, but we’re talking about saving a marriage here!    it works!  it keeps you on track and it’s pretty hard to say the things you will regret later if you are looking into each others eyes and touching them.  touching them is key, so remember to follow the rules.  it’s also a little uncomfortable to be that close to your nemesis when you’re revved up, so you’re not going to want to drag the fight out.

let’s face it sometimes you just need to let off steam and a fight is a way to do it.  only me??  so before you have that fight make sure it’s really worth it.  try to figure out if it’s just been a bad day for you or your partner.  maybe it’s really about something from your past and something happens to trigger you and then you decide you’re just not going to take it any more.  usually the BIG fights are about a lot more than what you seem to be arguing about at the time.

my husband and i haven’t had to go to the closet for quite a long time now.  the stress level is less and i think we may have figured out what’s important enough to fight about and we also know when to let things lie.  saying you’re going to the closet is kind of like when your parents said they were going to pull the car over if you didn’t straighten up, it snaps you out of it cause the fun part is over and now the serious business starts.

Tagged as: marriage