Advice Applied
Don’t you just love it when you end up having to take your own advice? That’s not exactly what I had to do tonight, but I did get the chance to see if I was taking my own advice when conflict happened in my own life.
As I said in a previous post, arguing is never fun. It’s a healthy thing that happens in relationships, but it’s more a necessary evil than anything. An evil I experienced while walking home with my husband.
When we got home, I sat down to write a post about arguing and remembered that I already had. I opened the saved word document and read through what advice I had given. Though I wasn’t happy to have to apply the advice, I was definitely pleased to see I could take my own advice.
My husband and I never yell at each other. Voices occasionally increase a little in volume, but that is much different from yelling.
We didn’t interrupt each other.
I made a conscious effort to make ‘I’ statements and my husband didn’t make any ‘you’ statements.
Last but not least, I can’t tell you what my husband was thinking about, but I can tell you in all honesty that – while I cooked dinner and he worked on his computer – I reminded myself tonight was not the end of the world and certainly not the end of our relationship. It may seem silly, but telling myself that did a lot to calm me down.
So now you all know that I don’t just spout advice, I take it as well.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:05 am
We’ve been together 14 years and it’s included a lot of yelling. Not just raised voices, but yelling and plenty of “you” statements. But we make up brilliantly.
So I think it’s just finding what works for each couple. I’m a hothead, it takes a lot to boil me over but when I do, I’m raging mad. He’s more silent and you have to draw it out of him what is bugging him. But same thing, if he gets seriously mad, watch out.
The one argument advice I find the most annoying is where you are supposed to have the other person repeat back to you what you are saying. Like “Okay, what I’m hearing you say is…” That would drive me crazy.
I like to just keep it real. Be as respectful as possible in anger, but keep it real. And if once in awhile we say something to hurt each other, we’ll make up. We try to avoid that, hurting each other, put it happens. When you live together and spend as much time as we do together all these years, there are going to be times when each person isn’t at their best. And when you love someone, you forgive them for those times.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
It definitely is about finding what works for the couple, but there are so many people these days who grew up in a childhood where yelling just made everything worse that it’s good, at least in a new relationship, to try to make that effort to not yet.
That repeating back thing drives me annoyed as well. My husband and I have given it a go and occasionally use it for clarification purposes, but to use it after every statement…bah.
I guess my advice stems from that my husband and I are both sensitive. We’ve both been hurt, we’ve both come from an abusive background, so we try our best to keep in control and not hurt each other. We both have a hard time trusting, so working on the problem and not doing things that just make it worse is the way we have to go if we don’t want to both end up hurt and not talking to each other.