Is there a difference between fighting and bickering? I really think there is. I equate fighting to be dealing with “big” issues. You know, things like raising the children, how money is spent and so forth. But I equate bickering with the “little” stuff, such as leaving the cap off the toothpaste or who gets to drive.
Fighting means you have some serious issues to deal with. This requires a lot more work, perhaps even some counseling to get through it. These are issues that took time to build up and will take time to solve.
However with bickering, you can solve it in an instant. That’s because you are bickering over things that in the long run really don’t make a difference.
So what do you bicker about?
Thankfully our days of bickering have drastically diminished. Early in our marriage we bickered a lot. Well, we also fought a lot but even after that finally settled down, the bickering remained.
You tend to bicker about pet peeves. I will confess the one thing I do that has caused quite a few bickering moments. It is the way I keep my van. While my house is always clean, neat and organized, I have never been able to keep a clean van. It used to drive my husband nuts. We would get into some serious bickering matches over it and sometimes he wouldn’t even talk to me because of the way the van looked.
While the best way to solve this dilemma is for me to just start keeping a clean van, my husband has chosen the selfless way and has accepted this is just part of me. He has chosen to not make a big deal out of it. After almost 20 years of marriage, he realizes that although he would prefer I keep the van neater, it isn’t worth arguing about.
Now there are also things about my husband that we used to bicker about and guess what? He hasn’t changed those things either but I have also made the decision to not focus on them because in the long run they really aren’t significant.
Bickering over the small stuff is a waste of time. Think about the things you bicker with your spouse about and determine that you won’t allow these little things to drive a wedge in your relationship.
So now you get to tell me…what things do you bicker with your spouse about?
Related Articles:
Banning Interracial Marriages?