How to Fight Fair in Relationships

Conflict is one of the most misunderstood parts of relationships. Many couples believe that fighting is a sign something is wrong, when in reality, conflict is inevitable anywhere two imperfect humans share a life. The real issue is not whether couples argue, but how they argue. Done poorly, conflict erodes trust and safety. Done well, it can actually deepen understanding, intimacy, and respect.

War has rules, but marital conflict often doesn’t. We often treat conflict like a battlefield where anything goes, even though the goal should be connection, not destruction. These are rules for fighting fair—so conflict becomes constructive rather than damaging.

No abuse. I shouldn’t have to spell this out, but just in case, no physical, emotional, verbal, financial, sexual, or spiritual abuse. Heated exchanges between equals are different from intimidation meant to silence or control. If you wouldn’t want your child treated that way, stop now.

Don’t try to win. Nobody wins an argument, you either both feel heard and validated or you have both lost. Most conflicts are subjective, not objective, and 70% of couple issues are perpetual—they never fully go away so have to be managed every so often rather than resolved. The goal isn’t fixing your spouse but working to ensure you both leave feeling heard, understood, validated, and reassured. This requires doing a lot more listening than speaking.

Know your limits and reschedule when emotionally flooded. When emotions spike, our brains shut down and we go into fight, flight, freeze, or appeasing mode and the chance of it turning into a good conversation at some point becomes very unlikely. Learn your cutoff points and pause the discussion until you can both stay engaged and regulated, otherwise you are working with a functionally lower IQ and you are interpreting everything as a potential threat. It is important not to just throw up your hands and storm off but rather have a plan for when we can reattempt the conversation once our physiology has calmed down (One hour break to self-soothe, Tomorrow after work, etc.).

No triangulation. Keep conflict between you and your spouse rather than bringing others like friends or family members in to recruit allies to prove why you are right. Don’t argue in public, in front of kids, or vent to others. If you have a problem, talk to the person who can actually fix it or you risk feeling better after venting only to return to the same problems that still haven’t been dealt with.

Perception is reality. You can validate your spouse’s experience without agreeing with it. Arguing someone out of their feelings doesn’t work even when you are convinced they are overreacting. Accept influence and learn to see things from their perspective, and if you can’t then you probably haven’t shown curiosity and listened well enough yet.

Practice emotional repair. Take responsibility quickly and clearly for the part you have played in the conflict as soon as possible afterwards. Acknowledge hurtful actions, reaffirm you’re on the same team, and repair the damage instead of letting resentment pile up and going days without speaking.

Stay on topic. Address one issue at a time. Don’t bring up the past, interrupt, filibuster, or pile on new complaints. The goal is understanding, not overwhelming your partner - if you really want to be understood you have to break up what you are saying into bite-sized chunks and let them digest rather than turning on the fire hose.

Avoid negative generalizations. “Always” and “never” trigger defensiveness and rarely capture what you are truly trying to say so stick with this one situation. Share complaints without attacking the other’s character or identity. Criticism and name-calling are ineffective and corrosive. Share how you are actually feeling rather than your beliefs about the other person’s thoughts, feelings, or values. There is a big difference between “You have always loved golf more than me” and “when you chose to play golf on Saturday rather than spend time with me I was really hurt.”

Take personal responsibility. Stop blaming, comparing, and justifying. You are responsible for your own behavior regardless of your spouse’s choices and if you don’t own your decisions you can’t learn from them and make changes. Responsibility is not the same as self-blame - you don’t need to own other people’s choices, but wisdom comes from acknowledging your own. Growth happens when feedback is seen as an opportunity to become a better person, not an attack on who you are.

Be aware of core wounds. Past experiences shape how conflict is felt so learn your triggers and do the work to not let them derail productive conversations. It is important to handle each other with care and not purposely trigger your partner but you also don’t need to make your emotional reactions someone else’s responsibility. Establishing healthy boundaries may mean you need time to step away and calm yourself, but boundaries are never about controlling the other person.

Create a culture of appreciation. Research shows it takes five positive interactions to balance one negative one in our minds for us to continue seeing the other as a good person that is on our side. When appreciation and acknowledgement of the good you see in your spouse outweigh criticism, neutral comments are heard as intended instead of being automatically interpreted as attacks. You can’t always eliminate negative interactions as we are all flawed human beings but you can work to bolster up the other side with explicit and frequent appreciation.

Stay engaged. Stonewalling and emotional shutdown may feel like ways to protect the relationship from further damage but unintentionally signal disconnection or a lack of care. If disengagement becomes the norm, get help sooner rather than later—waiting years causes lasting damage, the same way ignoring health problems allows them to worsen.

Conflict is unavoidable. How you handle it determines whether your relationship grows stronger, explodes from constant control battles, or slowly falls apart because things are avoided and swept under the rug. Choose to have healthy conflict and the result is that every other area of the relationship has a chance for growth.

Healthy conflict is not about being perfectly calm, endlessly patient, or never getting upset. It is about maintaining respect, protecting emotional safety, and remembering that the person across from you is not the enemy. Couples who learn to fight well are not couples without problems — they are couples who know how to move through problems without damaging the foundation of their relationship.