It's one of those nights that every long-term relationship faces. The day has been a bummer of marital miscommunication, and now I'm sitting on the couch, my thumbs flying as I draft a text message filled with feelings. It makes me sad when you do X, I wish you'd remember to do Y, I feel underappreciated when I'm the only one doing Z. The person who'll be on the receiving end of this text is my husband. Yes, my husband — the person who happens to be sitting 4 feet away from me on the other end of the couch.
No, I don't have laryngitis, and I'm not giving my husband the silent treatment. What I'm doing is gearing up to have a fight with the person I love the most in the way that works best for me.
My husband and I have been married for nearly 18 years, and in that time, we've had the usual struggles with how to best handle conflict. Like a lot of couples, we have different communication styles and approaches to dealing with conflict. I'm a conflict avoider who struggles with getting overwhelmed when fights go on too long. My husband grew up in a household that thrived on debate and loves to have long conversations where we dissect every nuance of our current quarrel.
Talking about feelings is hard, especially when we are fired up.
Although my husband is super comfortable talking about feelings, I'm still the product of a family and culture that told me that my job is to be nice and being nice doesn't include getting mad. I was raised to not take up too much space and to not talk too much. I've always struggled with expressing myself when I'm sad, mad, or frustrated.
I've literally never yelled at my husband (I'm not saying this is a good thing) because I struggle to find the words when we're in conflict. I'm also an internal processor, so I need to think for a bit before I respond. As it happens, my husband is an external processor, who needs to talk through things out loud as he is thinking about them.
My difficulty expressing myself means that I get silent, and when I'm silent, my husband sometimes responds by talking more because he isn't sure I understand his perspective. This can result in some major conversational imbalances that leave both of us frustrated.
Through trial and error, we eventually figured out a better way to fight.
I don't remember the conflict that first led me to send a text or email to explain my feelings. Writing has always been a way I process my feelings, so it probably felt pretty natural to send my husband a message when I was feeling like we had an issue we needed to sort out. What we came to discover was that these written fights turned out to be a better form of conflict for both of us.
What my husband wants most, both when we are fighting and when we aren't, is to know how I'm feeling and thinking about things. What I want most when we are in conflict is time to reflect. I need emotional space to think through what I want to say without getting overwhelmed by my husband's quick responses to points I make. (It turns out that there are downsides to marrying a former high school debate team champion.) When I send an email or text and he responds in kind, we both get what we want and need.
Fighting in writing also helps fights end more quickly.
When we deal with conflict in writing, it usually seems like we get to resolution sooner. Part of this is because writing makes it harder to say something I don't mean. I'm able to cool off and not respond with something mean-spirited because I'm mad. I write and I reread and I delete before I send something. My thoughts are more organized and I can include both my feelings, my interpretation of the conflict, and the resolution I think makes the most sense.
Because I'm not getting interrupted, I can say more. My husband basically gets the beginning, middle, and end of the fight all at the same time. Because it takes some time to draft a communication, we're both more calm, so he can read it with a more open mind. By the time he writes me back, I've had enough time to internally process and figure out how I might have contributed to the conflict and if I owe him an apology.
It turns out that both fighting AND apologizing are easier for me over text or email.
Conflict is inevitable, but that doesn't mean every fighting style is created equally.
The longer I'm married, the more certain I am that every couple needs to figure out what makes their marriage work for them. Some couples may enjoy verbally sparring with each other. Some couples can handle yelling and some drama when they are mad. But for people like me, who start to shut down when voices get raised and who go a little blank when faced with the anger of someone they love, written fights can be a game changer.
We aren't perfect, and we still have bad days when one of us is too quick to snap at the other one or when a fight suddenly blooms out of nowhere. But one of the ways that my husband shows me he loves me is by asking me if I want to send an email when it seems like trouble is brewing or I'm in an off mood.
He knows that I'm still figuring out how to be more comfortable and confident saying what I think when we are fighting. He knows, I hope, that I do want to know his feelings too, but that it's easier for me to "hear" them when I read them instead. He knows that, bottom line, written fights feel easier for me.
And how does he know that? Duh. I wrote him a letter!
