Have you ever heard of the three F’s? Well, that’s okay I’ll tell you about them right now. Recently I had a discussion with my mother that resulted in an epiphany for me. We were discussing something that had to do with my husband and she asked me if he was going to mind something we’d done in the yard and I commented, well if he did, we’d have to fight about it and figure it out. She frowned and looked very concerned and when I asked what was wrong, she said that she didn’t like conflict and she didn’t like it when we bickered so if there was going to be bickering or disagreement, we shouldn’t do it.
Different Generations Maybe
Maybe it’s because we’re from different generations but I’ve never been a student of the appease them to keep them happy school of thought. In fact, I lean more towards airing our disagreements and grievances openly so that we can both know where the other is coming from and work out an equitable compromise. Sometimes things are more important to him than to me and we’ll go his way and vice versa.
I told my mom not to worry about it if we argued. In fact, I prefer to argue, bicker, disagree and debate with my husband than with any other person out there. I’m not afraid a fight will push him away or make him want to be elsewhere and I’m not worried that we can’t be happy if we don’t agree on absolutely everything whether we agree or not.
My husband and I do argue. We do bicker. We do disagree. We also laugh, debate, compromise and work together to solve problems. We try to be flexible when we can and we do our best not to trip over our own egos. I think if we agreed on absolutely everything without any need for discussion or debate we’d both fall over from boredom.
So What Does This Have to do with the Three F’s?
In my own roundabout way, I am getting there. The three F’s of marriage is what I told my mother that my husband and I have together. We have Friendship, Forgiveness and Fairness — you could also throw in that we have Family, Fidelity and Fun too. But the first three are the important three for us. Our friendship lets us enjoy the good and be there for each other during the bad. Our forgiveness lets us cope with our mistakes and our hurt feelings and even our bad judgment calls. Our fairness reminds us that we need the first two Fs to make it all work and even when the situation isn’t fair, we do our best to make it as fair as we can.
So that’s how it works for us – those three Fs let us disagree and they let us fight and they help us to reach compromises and harmony when we need to. Do you have the three Fs in your marriage?
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