Dating & Relationships

How To Handle Your First Real Fight

posted on October 2, 2018 | by Jess Ciesla

In the beginning of (almost) every relationship, it’s all butterflies and late nights spent chatting about anything and everything. It’s perfect, right? We all wish that phase of a relationship could last forever, but unfortunately it just doesn’t. There’s a couple of different stages that occur in a relationship, and every stage is 100% normal. The first stage is infatuation. In this stage, you don’t see anything wrong with your significant other. It’s easy to turn a blind eye to something that might otherwise annoy you, because he’s just so dreamy. But in today’s post, I’m going to shed some light on the not so glamorous side of a relationship. Enter: the first fight.

Understand it & Make Sure it’s Healthy

The first fight in a relationship usually happens after the infatuation phase. It usually happens once you’ve become pretty comfortable with one another. This is when you start to see things that bother you. Maybe he never does the dishes, or maybe he stays out too late with his friends. These are things that you used to let slide, because you never wanted to start a fight. You feared losing him. But now that you’re secure in your relationship, you know he’s not going to leave you for no apparent reason.

So, you begin to get vocal about how you feel about certain things. And this can lead to arguments, because he’s also feeling secure in the relationship and isn’t afraid to tell you how he’s feeling. It’s kind of a funny logic, right? You both love each other and feel comfortable with each other, so you feel like it’s cool to start fighting. Weird, but usually pretty normal.

Fighting is a healthy form of communication. That is, if you do it in a healthy way occasionally. If you find that you and your partner are fighting every single day and the fights are intense, you may want to reconsider your relationship.

Recognize The Problem

Sometimes fights can be irrational. Maybe you’re yelling at your partner for leaving the garage door open, or blaring music while you’re trying to relax. You need to ask yourself a question: “Am I really upset that the garage door is open?” “Does his music really bother me that much?” You need to figure out the root of the problem. Chances are, it’s something completely unrelated.

Your anger might be stemming from jealousy or stress. Maybe you caught him checking out some girl while you were at the mall. It made you mad, but you didn’t say anything. (Jealousy is a real thing. Read my blog post on how to overcome it!) And his loud music triggered something. Whatever the case may be, discover the root of the problem first. Once you do that, you’ll be able to talk through your issues in a mature way.

Communicate

I’m not going to lie, I’m not the best at this. The silent treatment is something I used to resort to (and sometimes still do) all the time. And let me just tell you, it’s not the best solution. You need to communicate with your partner. There’s nothing worse than knowing something is wrong, but not being able to fix it because the other person won’t talk about it. The problem isn’t going to fix itself. The two of you need to hear each other out

Say You’re Sorry

Let it go. Say you’re sorry and move on. Don’t be that person that brings up a fight you had 6 months ago. If you love the person, sometimes you need to be the bigger person and apologize. My fiancé likes to say that you need pick your battles wisely. Some things are just not worth fighting about.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about major issues in a relationship. You should never ignore an issue that is incredibly important to you. However, if you’re upset about him checking out another girl, you should take a step back and ask yourself if it’s worth the fight. He didn’t cheat on you, he simply looked at another person passing by. Let it go.

The first fight is inevitable, ladies. If you’ve got yourself a good guy, it should be a breeze! Remember, you’re with your partner for a reason. Don’t let the small stuff bother you.

How’d your first fight go? Any advice for those who haven’t gone through it yet?