Is it even worth the fight? To be sure, fighting is painful and it may seem like no good can come from it, but the answer to the question is and emphatic “Yes!”
When a fight erupts, it signals something is going on beneath the surface. It is important to wade through those treacherous and murky waters to get to the heart of the issue. If we just “pick our battles” or say it’s not worth it, we are missing out on gaining intimacy with ourselves and our partner!
There are benefits to “going there” . . .
Talking about it gives us a platform to process our feelings. Often, we feel a glob of feelings (maybe even very intense ones!), but we don’t even know what all is packed in there. By having to verbalize our feelings to another person, we are forced to identify, get in touch with, and make sense of them.
Have you expressed feelings before and had something come out that you didn’t expect? The process of verbalizing is important to getting in touch with our feelings and understanding ourselves better!
We get feedback about ourselves when we share our feelings. Ideally, we should be able to get constructive feedback to help us make better sense of ourselves and our feelings. When we understand ourselves better, we can do better. If we are reluctant to share what’s going on inside of ourselves, however, we can’t really grow into the best person we can be.
We have an essential need to be heard and understood. There is something so very primal about the need to be heard – and understood. We all want to feel “normal” or “okay” in this crazy, confusing world. When your mate truly sees it through your eyes, with all of your wounds and your life experiences, it touches the heart so deeply. It is very healing for the one with the feelings, more importantly, it creates a bond of intimacy and lays positive groundwork for more.
Expressing our feelings is essential for resolving conflict. When feelings go unexpressed, conflict goes unresolved. Wounds are left open, resentment is created, tension mounts, and a wedge is formed. The issue becomes a ticking time-bomb. You cannot have a healthy relationship if you don’t know how to resolve conflict! Every couple is going to have plenty that they don’t agree on, if they are skilled at resolving those differences, love and intimacy can flourish. If they just “get over it”, sadly, it will eventually hit the fan because stuffed feelings are going to find a way out – and it is usually sideways and ugly!
Truthfully, most people are not mature enough to be able to either express their feelings in a healthy way or to hear their partner’s pain. (Hence, the incredibly high divorce rate!) We absolutely can learn how express, hear, understand, and grow, but we must be willing to be uncomfortable in order to do it. For most people, it would take a lot of convincing that it is worth the fight, but I can assure you, if you are a willing student and keep working at it, you will eventually agree that it most certainly is worth the fight!
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