Five Tips to Fight Less and Love More

By Laurie Puhn, J.D., a Harvard-educated family lawyer, family and couples mediator and television personality.

The holiday season is back. With family gatherings, high expectations and the pressure to make everyone happy, December can be the most stressful month of the year. How can we keep our cool and make sure our marriage stays strong and our children see the best in us during this challenging season?

As author of the new book “Fight Less, Love More: 5-Minute Conversations to Change Your Relationship without Blowing Up or Giving In” (Rodale, Oct. 2010), I offer you five simple tips to keep peace in the family and make your love connection grow. You might be surprised to find that I am not going to tell you to talk more as many experts insist; instead I am going to show you how to use just a few minutes a day to talk better.

1. Pick the Right Battles. Your spouse comes home from work drenched from the rain because he forgot an umbrella. You told him to take one that morning after you heard the weather report. Before you start criticizing him while he’s soaked, ask yourself this wise question, “Does this affect me?” In this example, it doesn’t. He arrived home drenched, not you. So don’t pick that battle. In the future, when your spouse makes a mistake and it doesn’t affect you, rather than using a “fight line” like “I told you to take an umbrella, you should have listened to me!” use a compassionate love line like, “You’re all wet. Do you want a towel?” And, if you find it hard to say those words, just say nothing.

2. Give a Character Compliment. In researching my book we did an on-line survey and found some interesting results that can help us understand how to have a better marriage. There is a specific type of compliment that people want to receive. When we asked individuals “Would you rather your mate compliment you for being kind or good-looking?” the result was that 84% said “kind.” The lesson: find daily opportunities to compliment your mate’s character (such as his/her generosity to a friend, compassion to a relative, etc.). Offer up character compliments to your children, too. Share this research study with your family and ask them to join you in a character compliment challenge.

3. Avoid Premature Arguments. My clients are smart people, who often have dumb arguments with their spouse. One type of these unnecessary battles is so common that it threatens almost every relationship. I call it the “premature argument.” Look out for those times when you and your mate get into a brawl about a decision that doesn’t have to be made for weeks, months or years, such as where to go for Christmas Eve… the following year, or who to invite to your 10-year anniversary party when you’re only married eight years. When you realize you’re arguing about something prematurely, stop yourself and say, “Hey, we’re having a dumb argument. Let’s stop talking about this now and continue the conversation when we have more information.”

4. Follow-Up. A little bit of remembering shows a lot of love. If you know your spouse has an important meeting, doctor’s appointment, job interview etc., be sure to follow up with your mate that day. Call, email, text or ask in person, “How did it go?” This sends a clear message: I care about you and you are important to me. Make it a habit to do this whenever something unique happens during your mate’s day. And if you seldom have anything to follow up on, that’s a telltale sign that you don’t know or care about what is going on during your mate’s days. So start asking, listening and remembering. It’s also a great idea to follow up on your children’s daily activities. But be sure to teach them to reciprocate and ask you about your day too.

5. Disagree without Being Disagreeable. An easy way to start a fight is to quickly jump in to say “You’re wrong” or “That’s a stupid idea!” Meanwhile, a better, more loving way to make the same point is to use a wise question. The moment you know you disagree with what your spouse said, stop and ask the powerful question, “Why do you think that?” Listen to the answer (you may uncover some new information to alter your opinion), then feel free to disagree without using judgmental words. By holding your tongue and listening first (even if it’s only for a minute), you show respect. And when your children overhear you, they learn an important lesson about how to turn a disagreement into a conversation.

The values we hold dear to us–respect, appreciation, compassion, loyalty and companionship–are fostered or destroyed every day by our word choices and actions. If you resolve to use these five simple communication tips, you will discover that your love will be stronger and better than ever.

Four Tips to Help with Conflict Resolution

Having a successful marriage means learning some skills that differ from the skills you need for most other pieces of life. You are in the business of building, maintaining, and protecting a relationship. In many instances in our lives, we are protecting our own interests. In marriage, we sometimes have to put aside what might be our first choice in order to keep the relationship in good health.

1. Know the distinction between difference and disagreements.

You can differ with your spouse without having a disagreement. You can vote for different presidential candidates, prefer different restaurants, or have different favorite movies. These differences do not necessarily impact your relationship, because you can act on your own to satisfy your preference. But if you differ about whether to live on the East or West coast; or if you differ over whether or not to buy a house, then it is hard to go forward without resolving that difference.

2. Differences become disagreements when space is limited.

Since in marriage you join your lives and commit to staying together, then your choices of some basic issues become matters for joint decision-making. Not only is your physical space limited, but your psychic space is limited, too. How do you feel about having company on Saturday evening? How do you feel about cleaning up the house Saturday afternoon in order to have it ready for company Saturday evening? It’s “our” decision, it’s “our” company, and it’s “our” space to make ready. We may have different needs for socializing, different desires for time use and different standards for tidiness, all of which have to be negotiated for this one event.

3. When disagreements heat up, they become conflicts.

There is a bodily reaction that happens when you are in a conflict. Your pulse rises, your breathing speeds up, and you often get sweaty palms. Your body is sending adrenalin into your system, because it believes you are in danger. It is preparing you to fight.

This reaction happens faster in some people than others, but whenever it happens, it drives the ability to come to a reasonable solution right out of the picture. The fight instinct drives away the learned response to compromise every time. When you’re ready to fight you cannot feel your love for your partner; therefore, the conflict takes place in a dangerous zone, without the caring that normally characterizes your interactions with one another.

At this point you must make a choice. Either you can resolve the conflict and come back together feeling good about each other and your relationship, or you can come away feeling embattled and resentful, and it will make your relationship more difficult, at least for a while.

4. Conflicts are resolved more easily when you can cool off first.

Making the choice to back away from a fight until you can talk calmly – while taking a huge amount of discipline – can reap big benefits for your relationship. The only way to win an argument in a marriage is for both partners to come away feeling that they were heard and respected.

Helpful books:

The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman

The Other Side of Love: Handling Anger in a Godly Way, Gary Chapman

You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship Into a Compassionate, Loving One, Steven Stosny

Love and Anger in Marriage, David Mace

Article taken from FOUNDATIONS Magazine

"For Your Marriage" - An Initiative of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops

We wanted to share this great resource that can be used in conjunction with Retrouvaille, and in fact lists Retrouvaille under their support section.

Are you ready to give your marriage a Fall "tune up" or "cleaning"???
Many times as the seasons change we think of all we have to "do" physically to those "things" that seem to demand our time, attention, efforts and maintenance....Houses that need paint, driveways that need sealing, cars that need tune ups and tires, yard that need raking and gardens that need tilling - the list goes on & on and you GET the point...

Here is an enormous resource filled with targeted information and helpful articles to give your relationship in marriage a "jump start" this Fall. It is packed with many items of interest which may assist you and your spouse in finding the "tools and utensils" needed for "house cleaning"!

Every topic from finances, to sexuality, to even empty nesting is on their homepage!

This month in particular, we found this article which is a featured story by Sheila Garcia quite helpful in our own marriage journey through the "seasons".... the points Sheila makes are so important especially BEFORE the holiday season is upon us as couples....

Click or paste the link below to read -
"Try a Five-Point Tune Up for Your Marriage"

http://foryourmarriage.org/try-a-five-point-tune-up-for-your-marriage/

We have also enjoyed reading the "Virtue of the Month" with this month's being "Kindness"...
http://foryourmarriage.org/try-a-little-kindness/

Please visit the "For Your Marriage" site often - and find insights and new ideas to rekindle and give a boost to your marriage!


Happy House AND Heart Cleaning Everyone!

Annual Retrouvaille Retreat Reflections - August 2010...

The 2010 Retrouvaille of CT Retreat was held on the Vigil of the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady.
There was no better place to worship, reflect, fellowship & celebrate amongst our Retrouvaille "family"at the location of the Clelian Center in Hamden, on Mount Sacred Heart.

The Butterfly bushes were in full bloom - and the yellow monarchs, a true symbol in God's creation of "hope and healing" were plentiful and "friendly". They appeared to beckon us on the path of the Stations of the Cross on the Mount.

It was a lovely day and our hearts were full of the beauty of such a holy place...Mother Clelia's quotes were even pertinant to our retreat theme as we read them on our walk amongst the lovely roses and flowers as well as religious statues.

We explored through the presenting couples throughout the day - "Our God Given Humanity" - the good, the bad, & the holy... The couples shared emotional moments of affirmation, joy, laughter, sorrow, tears, relief, connection and love.

At the end of the day we were all filled with a grateful spirit for all we had come away with and offered up that appreciation to the Lord in a celebration of the Mass, lead by Fr. Jonah.

The next day in reflecting and discussing the retreat and our Retrouvaille of CT group in a broader sense - my husband shared this thought with me that was just so simple and yet so profound I felt it needed to be shared here on the group's blog....

"What is so powerful and such a uniting force is that this gathering of individuals and married couples starts with something lacking in most of our society & our world today...it is the very starting point at which the healing, repair, recovery and thriving of a marriage has to begin...with the virtue of "humility in heart" and we are ALL on an equal footing here at Retrouvaille because we all KNOW and have been brought there by whatever has happened to us. What matters is that we are there together at that starting place..."

Once that place is reached it is like the "seed that with the "Son's" love in the spring becomes the rose"... (lyrics from the Retrouvaille theme song)

We were all symbolically & physically given these "seeds" as a token at the conclusion of the Mass, along with the words above to take away as a reminder the very essence and spirit of beginning anew and "rediscovery" in our marriages.

Many thanks to all who hosted, presented, labored, provided & prepared meals/snacks and participated in this year's Annual Retrouvaille Retreat!

Do you have a second? Or a minute or two?...

Here are some little ways that you can work on things with your spouse that don't take very long but can be a great boost to your relationship and enhance the Retrouvaille dialogue work that you both do to support the relationship!


IF YOU HAVE 10 SECONDS…. This is called - "Hit pause". This will come in handy the next time he’s/she's really bugging you. Say, when he’s/she's dawdling, making you late again to visit your mother. Before one righteous word flies out of your mouth, FREEZE.
Just watch him/her for 10 seconds. Visualize yourself in his/her shoes. Visualize your spouse the way they looked the first time you fell for him/her. Pause the action. (In email terms, it’s a kind of a Save As Draft so you don’t actually send the inflammatory message).
Ten seconds gives you time to reflect and discern what otherwise would not have entered your mind...like “Oh, he’s/she's very uncomfortable with my family,” or “Hmmm, he’s/she's been whipped at work and needs to be in control of something (pathetic as his/her choice may be.)” It might occur to you that “a few minutes late” isn’t worth a fight. This pause or mini-reflection will help you regroup your emotions and curb impulsive or reactionary behavior and speech.



IF YOU HAVE A MINUTE… This is from a great article in the current Scientific American Mind by Robert Epstein (do it with your husband/wife):
Embrace each other gently and gradually synchronize your breathing with each other. Just stand there inhaling and exhaling together, as if you were one being. A minute or two of this, apparently, lowers your inhibitions—and that can help couple's reduce the "distancing" in mind and or body that exists between them and re-bond.



IF YOU HAVE 2 MINUTES…
Jot down three things he’s/she's done lately that you appreciate (OK, one?).
Send the list as a note to him/her in an email at work. Or slip it under his/her coffee mug in the morning. Or just casually mention, “You know, I dug the way you handled that surly waiter the other day.”
Yeah, it may seem a tad corny, but experts say it really works. Certainly, if there’s one thing the research on happy long-term couples shows, it’s that they figure out how to accentuate the positive with praise!
“When you say or list what you appreciate in him/her, it brings those things more to the forefront of the mind,” says Gail Saltz, MD, Today Show commentator and author of The Ripple Effect: How Better Sex Can Lead to a Better Life. “It also prompts him to say what he/she really appreciates about you.”


IF YOU’VE GOT 5 MINUTES… Try a daily "forgiveness ritual", suggests Sharon Salzberg, a revered spiritual teacher and cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. It's like a little "shot of immunity" to prevent you from fighting - it can create a safety zone in your relationship.
Find a quiet spot to sit, and let these phrases go through your mind: If I have hurt or harmed you, knowing or unknowingly, I ask your forgiveness. If you have hurt or harmed me, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive you. “You’re not saying, ‘It's all right that you did that,’" Salzberg explains. You’re just opening up your mind to ideas like, "I let go of seeing you solely as the perpetrator; I understand the conditions that led to that action,” and, “I am not identifying myself only as the person who was hurt; I’m bigger than that.” You may even realize, “I have to let go of unrelieved anger to have any space for love to grow.” See if 5 minutes a day doesn’t warm up the love dynamic. For a real intimacy boost? Get him/her to do it too.

The power of forgiveness...

Revenge is not a Christian response, but forgiveness is.
We are to forgive seventy times seven times.
For those who find the statement "forgive and forget" impossible, then try this one; "Forgive and remember without bitterness".
How wonderful it is when we find people offering forgiveness in response to something we have done against them..Trust in God.

Path of Descent - (from the Retrovaille Share List 2/14/10)
Question of the Day:
With whom do we share our love?
Jesus commanded us to love, so we know it is not just a feeling, since
you cannot command feelings. Love is a decision.
Jesus did not say:
When you get healed, love;
When you grow up, love; when you feel loving, love,
When you get it together and have dealt with all your
mother/father/husband/children wounds,
then you are able to love.
No, the commandment for all of us is to LOVE now.
I think we know the love of God is within us when we ourselves can "do
love" much more than when people tell us we are loveable. (That just feels
good!) We can always disbelieve the second, but the first is an
unexplainable power from Beyond ourselves. We know we are being used.

Adapted from "Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction"