The title of this blog may puzzle you a bit, after all, when do you have to argue? I would actually say, that in the healthiest of marriages – arguments are as much a part of it as holding hands, hugging and sharing meals together. Arguments do not have to be fights, in fact, the best arguments aren’t fights.
Arguments Can Be Mentally Stimulating
A good argument can be debating the merits of a novel or how to plan the garden out for the spring planting. A good argument can be a healthy debate over the merits of one spouse’s way of dealing with a problem versus the other spouse’s methods of doing it.
Arguments can be mentally stimulating when you are reflecting on how you both did things or when you are remembering events from different perspectives and disagreeing on how the situation went. My husband and I do this all the time. We take it a step further, sometimes debating what’s going on with our favorite characters in books, movies, television and more. We’ve even argued over the best way to prepare a meal.
Negative Connotations
Words like argument, disagree, argumentative and more all have negative connotations. When someone says, “Last night, my husband and I had an argument …” your mind, like many others, probably leaps to the idea that something bad happened. This is hardly surprising, considering our popular culture often begins murder mysteries and other mayhem with two people arguing over something. I can’t count the number of shows I’ve seen in the last week that featured an argument in their prologue.
But an argument is a tangible thing. An argument is your perspective of the issue at hand, just as your spouse’s argument is their perspective. In a court of law, the prosecuting attorney and the defense attorney both make arguments about the merits of their particular cases. While this may put them on opposing sides of an issue, it does not necessarily mean they are enemies or even bearing malice towards the other person.
That’s the Key to a Healthy Argument
In a marriage, arguments are healthy when malice isn’t a part of the equation. Married couples who argue well are not arguing to create injury or insult, but are actually sharing the passionate sides of their nature as they present their viewpoints, their opinions and in some cases, their desire for a potential outcome. If you accept from the get go that disagreement does not equate dislike or disrespect, then arguments can really improve the quality of communication between you and your spouse.
Have you had an argument recently?
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