By Carrisa from And So She Blogs

My husband Thom and I have been married almost four years. We’ve been together a total of eleven years. To this day, we’ve still not had a single fight that involved name calling, the throwing of things, or screaming. Most couples I know look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them this. It actually makes me kind of happy to see them so puzzled. Even at our worst, we’ve never resorted to childish or petty behavior. I contribute this to two things:

1) My parents never fought in front of me or my sister. That’s not to say they didn’t fight because I’m sure they did. They divorced when I was 20 so I know there was fighting. I just never saw it or heard it.

2) I am one of the least confrontational people on the planet. This is not a quality that I particularly love about myself as it makes me prime door mat material. However, it’s how I am and I haven’t been able to change it much over the years. So because I have such a hard time coming right out and speaking my mind, it has forced me to take a different approach to things in life.

-Think before you speak. I never want to be the person that has to go back later and apologize for saying hurtful things. So instead of yelling at my husband and calling him names, I take a step back and I try and cool my jets. Sometimes this means an hour long crying session in my bedroom. Sometimes it means a walk around the block. I wait until I can be as level headed as possible before confronting the issue. I don’t think this is something my husband was used to, but it is something he has learned to adapt to because of me.

-Am I really upset at my husband or am I upset about something else and am taking it out on him? I hate to say it, but this is the case quite often. Keeping things bottled up inside and waiting until he does something to set me off isn’t fair to him. He’s not responsible for the stress at work or the pain caused to me by another human being. He’s just simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. And it’s not fair for me to take it all out on him. I can’t always control my mood, but I can control how I speak and act to him.

-Did he do this to intentionally hurt me? Often times what comes across as thoughtless or hurtful, isn’t that at all. It’s just simply a case of him being a man and me being a woman and us getting our wires crossed. While my feelings might be hurt, I surely won’t get my point across to him by acting immature or name calling. He’s way more likely to listen to me if I can sit down with him face to face and talk about why I’m upset rather than attack him.

It takes a long time to break bad habits. Trust me I know. And I fear that there are some I will never break. However, when it comes to my marriage, I want to do everything possible to build up a strong foundation for me and my husband. He deserves the best wife I can be and I deserve the best husband he can be. So if I can strengthen our marriage by not fighting, but instead having calm and rational discussions… then I think that puts one step ahead in the game. The game where the object is till death do we part and not till divorce do we part.

Do you have any tips that you use to keep the fighting to a minimum?

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