To ask those of you with healthy marriages

[readytodropnow]

How do you make up when you fight?
Does one of you always do the same thing?
Is one person always the one to make the effort ?
Are you both forgiving or do you just get over it?

I don't think I could cope without a really good row now and again

How do you vent your frustrations?

Sometimes DH and I can diffuse what could turn into an argument by saying, "fuck off you twat" or words to that effect, and it makes us eye roll or swear back, or laugh. I know swearing at each other horrifies some people but it works well for us. And sometimes he or I are a twat/dickhead/knob-jockey.

We don't really fight. Just occasionally snap at each other then carry on as normal afterwards.

We don't really fight. We air our grievances and might get arsey if one of us is stressed but we don't get to a point where any making up needs to be done.

We don’t argue much to be honest. When younger I would be a bit more sulky but would always apologise in the end. DH is pretty laid back and would carry on as normal. Now after having our DDs, I have little energy for sulking !

Frankly it must be very wearing to have to "discuss grievances" and "listen" yada yada every time something annoys you.

Surely a "DON"T LEAVE YOUR F-ING SHOES WHERE I'M GOING TO TRIP OVER THEM AGAIN!!" delivers a message in a more cathartic way than, "Listen, dh, may we sit down and discuss the issue that I am finding problematic about your choice of location for leaving your footwear? I understand that you may differ in your opinion so I shall listen without interrupting and then you can hear me." Aagggh!

I'd have to go and hide if I thought that every time we were having a disagreement about something there would have to be an Important Talk. Sometimes talk is exhausting.... and leads to more being said than a short, sharp feisty heated exchange.

Horses for courses. I much prefer when DH says 'Honey, could you not leave your coffee cups all over the place' than him swearing and shouting.

See, I'd rather DH say, "pick your fucking socks up you twat" as it'll make me laugh Each to their own!

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat

What she said.

I'd be [scared emoji] if dh said, "Honey, could you not..." Sounds a bit menacing and like that OCD bloke in Sleeping with the Enemy!

Stop if he's saying it to make you laugh then that's not fighting is it?

Been married for nearly 18 years.

The person in the wrong apologises, even if it's you.
Never go to sleep angry.
Never hold back your feelings.

Like most on the this thread in long marriages (25 years plus for us) we have argued less the longer we have been married. We are more considerate, kind and appreciate of each other as the years have gone on. As a PP said, we thank each other for the things we do, even if it is 'expected' - the meal, the washing, emptying the bin.

When we do disagree, we always play the ball, not the person - we have never called each other horrid names or been cruel or said anything nasty - I think that is abuse, myself.

We tend to make up before bedtime, mainly because I am such a chilly soul and DH generates heat, I have to clamp myself to him in bed to get warm, which rather weakens your hand in a fight! I don't know - I think basically we both really want to make each other happy and to get along, so we try to be reasonable with each other.

It is definitely easier now we aren't in the white heat of a young family and have more disposable income, this is a lovely chapter in the unfinished story of our marriage.

It’s important to either of us a good atmosphere in the family. Neither can tolerate ill feeling for too long, we’ll have to do something about it to put things back to normal. When I am angry, I detach, disconnect and stop talking/ interacting I am so pissed off, I just can’t bring myself to speak to them. A lovely introvert feature. The OH knows the signs and makes repeated efforts to tease it out of me. It will eventually tumble out with tears etc and we will sort the way forward.

If he is pissed off, I repeatedly apologise and just be nice to him as much as I can. He calms down eventually.

It helps that we don’t get pissed off at the same time, so the other partner is more sensible and level-headed to sort it out. I guess you just need to exercise a fair bit of patience on either side and give plenty of slack to each other. Life is hard enough.

Stop if he's saying it to make you laugh then that's not fighting is it

He wouldn't be saying it to make me laugh, he'd be saying it because I never pick my socks up and it really pisses him off

How do you make up when you fight?

It happens very rarely but if we've gone off in a sulk we usually both want to talk it through after a while to understand each other's point of view.

Does one of you always do the same thing?
No.

Is one person always the one to make the effort?
No.

Are you both forgiving or do you just get over it?
We don't have a lot of conflict so there's not usually anything to 'get over'. But when there is, we forgive each other, I guess.

I storm off, he is expected to follow, after a 5 min argument the one of us who is in the wrong apologises, is expected to recognise and express why they were wrong and then brings a token of regret (6pack of coke, some daffodils, a big chocolate bar). Then we kiss and crack on with life.

This has been true for every argument ad Infinitum for 5 years. We have never gone to sleep angry.

We are both naturally very forgiving though (struggle forgiving ourselves more tbh)

How do you make up when you fight?
We don’t fight often at all.
Does one of you always do the same thing?
DH apologises!
Is one person always the one to make the effort ?
Yes DH!
Are you both forgiving or do you just get over it?
DH is forgiving. I forgive but don’t forget!

How do you make up when you fight? We chat through what happened, when we are feeling calm.
Does one of you always do the same thing? No
Is one person always the one to make the effort ? No we both make the effort to understand the other person's point of view - there is no winning, there's only figuring out what the misunderstanding was and how we can resolve it.
Are you both forgiving or do you just get over it? We are both forgiving and no one has to just get over it...that would lead to resentment, so we keep talking about it till we are both happy.

We’ve been married for 30 yrs this year and the last huge row we had was over 20 yrs ago , we have the odd disagreement but they don’t need ‘making up’ for as you just move on . We stopped having rows when his parents went NC with me , I can highly recommend it .

DP and I very rarely argue. We'll have slightly heated conversations every so often but that never lasts more than 2 minutes.

After a proper shouty argument we'll give each other breathing space for 30mins-1hour. There's usually wrong done on both sides, so we'll both say sorry. Then we'll hug and have a much calmer chat about whatever it was we argued over.

Neither of us hold grudges, and we always make the effort to not go to bed still feeling angry.

We usually get bored of it then start turning it into banter and have a hug

Oh, and when we do argue we never say anything to insult each other. No names calling, no swearing directed at each other, nothing nasty.

We have never had a fight. We might bicker or disagree occasionally, but never fight. I couldn't be with someone who fights. We have been married for 37 years.

We don't fight either. Even when we had a pretty large bump last year we talked it out. He acknowledged that he had really upset me but we didn't get angry and fight about it. Any bickering that starts due to life the other will be on that and we make time to bond. We just fit together.

I would like to see how that puts us on the path to divorce though. He has no problems telling me when an issue raises it's head and visa versa. It's called communicating.. I couldnt wait until I was ready to blow. I don't like feeling those types of energy to the point I have to dump it into someone else.