15 Moms on the Fight That Made Their Marriage Better

Everyone who has been married or in a long-term partnership knows that some level of conflict is inevitable. No matter how deeply compatible we are with our partner, living with and sharing a life with another person and all their quirks can be challenging sometimes. Adding kids and jobs and a global pandemic and all of the other stresses of modern life to the mix just increases the odds that on any given day, someone could be salty or snappish with the person they love the most.

And even though some fights are just annoying (does it REALLY matter if we put the cups on the bottom rack of the dishwasher and not the top?) and some fights can be deeply painful, there are also some fights that turn out to be major game changers for a relationship. There are fights that can help clear the air, fights that help one partner finally figure out how to clearly say what they want or need, and fights that maybe set a firm boundary or finally fix something that has been broken in the relationship.

We'd never encourage fighting for the sake of fighting — and we are definitely not OK with mean or toxic fights — but hearing these 15 stories of how a conflict changed a marriage for the better is a good reminder that a fight can sometimes lead to a really great resolution.

The Phone Fight

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"My husband and I used to bicker about my phone all the time. He's not a phone or social media guy, so it bugged him that I was scrolling all the time and he'd make little snarky comments about it. We finally had a big fight about it when he told me that he felt like I wasn't ever fully present with him because my attention was half on the phone. I agreed to try to have some better boundaries around when I use it. And, annoyingly, it turned out to be really good for my mental health to put my phone away for the night at 9 p.m. I was annoyed by his irritation with it but it turns out he was kind of right." – Lindsey T, Seneca, New York

The Push We Needed

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"We were basically on an endless cycle of having the same three fights: not enough sex, not enough money, too much of his mother in our relationship. One day we finally had a blowup that made us both realize we needed to get some support. It was the fight that prompted us to start couples counseling. We've been seeing a therapist for about six months now and it has really helped improve our communication." – Name withheld by request

The Move

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"When it became obvious that my wife's job was going to stay remote, we moved from the bay area in California to a suburb in Minnesota. The difference in the housing market meant that we got A LOT more house for our money, so we basically tripled the size of our house. We started bickering about chores and whether we should hire a cleaning service right away. The fight that changed things was when it finally came to a head and I was able to realize/admit that I just didn't like our new location or having so much house. The house was gorgeous but does a family of three really need 4,000 square feet? I also missed the energy of living in the city and not this super white, snotty suburb. We put the house on the market three weeks later. Now we're in the city again, in a 2,000 square foot house and I'm so much happier!" – Keely R, St. Paul, Minnesota

The COVID Crisis

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"After two years of dodging it, COVID got me and I was pretty sick (get vaccinated, people!). While I was sick, my husband was basically in charge of running the house and he had to ask me one million questions. Where is this? What time do the kids leave for school? How do I access our bank account? It was really annoying to have to be coaching him when I felt like hot a– and we ended up having a big fight about it. While it was terrible to be fighting when I was so sick, it was kind of the crisis we needed to finally address how super unbalanced our relationship was in terms of the invisible labor stuff. We both realized that if I ended up in the hospital or died, he wouldn't know how to keep our kid's lives running and that was a big wake-up call." – Janice V, Denton, Texas

The Sex Plan

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"I HATE fighting about sex. Hate, hate, hate. I was raised with really conservative values and talking openly about sex is still really uncomfortable for me. But we did have one fight about how our sex life changed after baby #2 that I'm glad we had. It helped me better understand that it wasn't so much the uncertainty about when/if we were ever going to have sex again (we were not doing it very often) that made my husband grouchy, but that it was about the fact that we weren't having much non-sexual touching either. His love language is touch and affection, and I'm committed to making sure I give him hugs and affection more often, even if it doesn't turn into a makeout session." – DeeDee R, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The Money Boundary

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"My husband has a big, generous heart. I love this about him, except when it comes to his deadbeat little brother. His brother is ALWAYS hitting him up for money and my husband always says yes. It was pissing me off and one month he gave him over $,1000 altogether and I WENT OFF. I told him that he can't keep enabling his brother like that and that the $1,000 he gave him could have been $1,000 in our kid's college funds. We were able to eventually work it out and set a money boundary. He can give his brother whatever he wants, but it has to come from my husband's fun money (we each get $300 a month for fun money) and not from family money. This way I don't have to know about it and he can be generous if he wants to." – Name withheld by request

The Girls Trip

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"I wanted to go on a girl's trip to wine country for my 40th birthday and was shocked when my husband didn't want me to go. After some heated back and forth, it came out that he was actually kind of worried about how much drinking was happening when my friends and I got together (cue all the wine mom jokes) and if that was a sign that I was maybe heading down a bad path (his mom had a drinking problem). We were able to talk through it and address the problem and it was good to have it finally come to the surface so he wasn't just worrying about it alone." – Becky P, San Diego

The Mother-in-Law Fight

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"I love and respect my mother-in-law. I do. But my partner and I had a pretty big fight when we first got married and got our first house. He gave her a set of keys without talking to me first and I got so mad. Family is great, but I don't need everyone all in our business or coming in and out of the house whenever, you know? The fight helped us start to figure out our boundaries for how much we'd let BOTH our parents have access to our home, our marriage, our kids. Boundaries are sexy, y'all!" – Ronnie R, Brooklyn Center, Minnesota

The Money Fight (Again)

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"When we got married, we both had a ton of student loan debt and some credit card debt too. We started off by keeping our money stuff separate and we'd transfer money back and forth to cover shared expenses. But we were always fighting about it (someone would forget to send the money or we couldn't decide what was a fair split on things). After one stupid but intense fight over splitting the cost of a kitchen repair, we finally figure out that keeping all our money stuff seperate just wasn't working for either of us. We've really changed how we do money since then, and it's helped so much in terms of getting debt paid down." – Manda W, Spokane, Washington

The Dog

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"He bought a freaking dog for the kids without talking to me (the stay-at-home mom) about it first. Hooooo boy. Let's just say we had a massive fight that led to some agreement about what kinds of purchases we can/can't make without the other person giving prior approval. Frank, the dog, is pretty cute but I was SO PISSED." – Rachael E, Des Moines, Iowa

Cake Smash

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"Honestly, one of our most important fights happened the night before we got married. We were at the rehearsal dinner and I heard my husband's groom's men teasing him about doing a cake smash in my face at the reception. He was saying he'd have to sneak up on me to get away with it. Well, I had told him VERY CLEARLY that there was going to be no cake smashes at our wedding. I hate that. It's so tacky and disrespectful. Later that night, I let loose and told him that we were going to be married and that his dumbass frat brothers don't get a say in what happens in our marriage, even at the reception, even if we've only been married 10 minutes. I told him that if he tried a cake smash, when I'd clearly told him it wasn't OK, we were not going to make it as a couple. For real. I think it helped set a tone for our marriage that when we are clear about a boundary, the other person needs to respect it." – Laurie S, Glendale, Arizona

The Flirt

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"One of our most important fights was after we'd gone out dancing with some friends. We'd both had a few drinks and were kind of flirting with other people and at one point my husband was grinding up on some random girl. We were both kind of annoyed at the other and the next day we had a good 'discussion' about what counts as flirting, what counts as cheating, where the line is when it comes to touching other people. I think it was helpful to be on the same page about how we interact with other people, even if we are now old and boring and never go dancing anymore. #momlife" – Sarah F, Houston

Body Talk

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"My body has changed since we got married and had three kids in five years. We actually got into a fight because I was making all sorts of joking (but not really joking) comments about how gross my body was or how I bet he wished I was still the string bean he married. He told me that he didn't like hearing me talk about myself that way, that he wouldn't want to hear anyone talk so meanly about his wife (including me), and that I needed to stop with the negative talk because our daughters were going to be listening. I was pissed at first but then it was the wake-up call that I needed to start doing some work on myself, so I could learn to love my body, even if I'll never be a size 10 ever again." – Name withheld by request

Oversharing Drama

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"I am SUPER close with my best friend and have always told her everything. Like, everything everything. My husband and I got in a fight once about the fact that I had told her about some issues we were having in our sex life. I didn't really think about it before this fight, but it helped me see that I should be loyal to my husband first in terms of not telling her stuff that he'd be embarrassed by." – Name withheld by request

The Strike

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"We had a big fight about the imbalance of how much housework we were each doing. We've had this same fight 500 times before. I finally snapped and went on a strike and stopped doing any of the chores I usually do. After three days of dishes piling up and no laundry done, I think I finally made the point that he and the kids have to do more. Since then, we've been more balanced about house stuff because he could see the work more." – Stacey V, Grimes, Iowa