Don’t be nice. Don’t fight. Wrestle.
Couples often think that what they need to do is stop fighting, calm down, and then figure out how to communicate better. That all sounds good, right? Except it’s not usually helpful. Often enough, the thing you’re upset about is a real thing–an issue that any reasonable person would be upset about. And if you think that your biggest problem is your anger and the need to be calm–or worse, be nice–then you run the risk of letting go of something important to you. Your relationship might look and feel peaceful, but really it’s just more tense, more anxious.
And you still didn’t get what you want!
So, don’t be nice. Don’t fight. Wrestle. This is my new favorite verb in my work with couples. I’m tempted to have bumper stickers made: “The couple that wrestles together stays together.” Let’s open up the metaphor: when two people are wrestling (literally), they aren’t fighting, but they’re not just smiling and holding hands, either. They are engaging one another in a powerful interaction that draws upon their strengths. They are using body, mind, and spirit to grapple with one another. The same is true for good and lasting change in relationships. If you’re “wrestling” with your partner, that means you are drawing upon your strengths, your gifts, your body, mind, and spirit, to be emotionally close to your partner, to engage your partner, and to wrestle with your partner through difficult issues.
If you’re just fighting, then it’s not pretty, and it’s mostly just noise and smoke and frayed nerves. There might be moments in the fight when you feel good, but it’s usually a ‘wicked’ kind of good–the shallow satisfaction of having gotten off a good retort, a stinging zinger. And if you’re just being nice and avoiding the hard issues, well, I don’t need to tell you how unsatisfying that is.
But if you’re wrestling, you’re doing hard work and you’re pushing yourself into your own anxious space, but you’re also doing this from a position of strength. When you’re wrestling, you’re not just pushing your partner to engage with you, you’re pushing yourself to take all of this seriously–your partner, your relationship, and yourself. And when you take it seriously, seriously enough to wrestle with it (or wrestle with yourself!), that’s when you begin taking your relationship to the next level. That’s when you begin finding deep satisfaction and happiness in your life with your beloved.
