How a married couple solves their conflicts often determines whether their relationship crumbles or holds firm. But a big part of preserving long-term connection also requires a great deal of working with yourself; people need to drop false beliefs and dysfunctional habits if they want to spend the rest of their lives with someone.
But Reddit user u/Throw_A3632ESD4 thinks her husband hasn’t (fully) realized it yet. Recently, the woman made a post on the subreddit “Am I The [Jerk?]” about a particular problem they’ve been having. You see, while she has no problem being the sole provider for the family while her husband stays unemployed, u/Throw_A3632ESD4 doesn’t like the fact that he’s spending over $80 a month on streaming services when the money could go to their children, who constantly need something.
But after OP tried to communicate this to her partner, he got really emotional and shifted the blame onto her, criticizing the woman’s own spending habits. Continue scrolling to dive deeper into the situation and tell us who you think is in the wrong and why in the comment section below.
Image credits: Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Throw_A3632ESD4
Psychologist Amie M. Gordon, Ph.D., said that every couple has at least one recurring conflict. To find out which are the common ones, Gordon ran a study with 100 cohabiting couples, where each partner rated the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with their significant other on 15 different topics.
“Family relationships had the highest percentage of people who reported always disagreeing (3%), but at the same time, most people reported almost or always agreeing about family (58%),” Gordon explained her findings. “Religious matters and finances were also topics that had higher percentages of disagreement (2.5%). But like family matters, religious matters also had the highest proportion of people who reported they always agree with their partner (37%). It seems that for a few people, matters related to family and religion are recurring issues, but for many people, they are rarely, if ever, a source of disagreement. Overall, the top three issues that people in our study tended to report disagreeing about the most were communication styles, conventionality (the proper way to act), and sex, followed closely by chores and finances.”
Gordon said that other researchers had similar results. “In a larger one-time study of over 1,000 participants, communication was selected as the most common source of conflict, along with habits, chores, and finances. More than a third of the sample also selected decision-making, quality time together, sex, and screen time as top sources of conflict.”
“[But] with checklists, the top sources of conflict might depend on which topics are included in the list. Instead of giving people a checklist, researchers have also tried just asking people what they fight about. A group of researchers (Lopes et al., 2020) surveyed individuals to identify common reasons for conflict and found eight main areas: Inadequate attention/affection, Jealousy/Infidelity, Chores/Responsibilities, Sex, Control/Dominance, and Future Plans/Money.”
Couples throw a lot of time, money, and energy into learning how to communicate better with the belief that if couples can figure out how to communicate well, they can tackle any issues that come their way. After all, communication is consistently reported as a top source of conflict.
Relationship coach Jessica Brighton thinks that talking it through is pretty much the best thing partners can do when they enter a disagreement.
“The key to a resolution becomes communication and the concept of picking your battles,” she told Bustle. “You need to have an extensive conversation to discuss your feelings and where each of you stands on the issue. If you determine that you are still unable to find common ground, then a compromise and agreeing to disagree may be your best plan of action.”
Brighton noted that nothing is perfect, but it’s necessary to focus on the positive and reframe your outlook if you want to stay together.
“We all have to deal with negative issues and unpleasant situations in the other avenues of our lives,” she said. “Why deal with one more in your personal life? If you determine that the positives in your relationship outweigh the negatives, I suggest you embrace the positivity and happiness that your relationship brings you and focus less on the one negative issue.”
So I hope u/Throw_A3632ESD4 and her husband will find a way out of this feud.
Some people think the husband is to blame
While others say they both could do better
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