Not that this is nsfw territory, you could have asked this anywhere, and we’ve never argued over anything sexual.
I wanna say the last time we had an actual argument, as opposed to talking something out, it was about smoking. I was trying to quit, and was grumpy as fuck all. This placed strain on even the most minor of things, so we were both stressed as hell.
The argument was after she brought me a cigarette and stated I had my ass on my shoulders, and I needed to either have a damn smoke, or she was going to lose her shit. Paraphrased, she said it much nicer than that.
But, my rebuttal was about the difficulty added to the process of quitting when you’re in the same room and bed as someone that isn’t quitting.
It was this whole thing. The details are none of anyone else’s business, but it did get loud and heated. The conclusion was that I would seek medical assistance in quitting rather than trying to get through it by cutting down and then quitting entirely.
I did eventually quit, as did she. That was before covid that we argued, maybe 2017? Could have been earlier than that, I’m not good at tracking time. We quit in 2020ish. I quit then, she struggled for a while after. I went with chantix, she tried doing what I had done, only using vaping as her stopgap for tapering off.
Since then, nothing has come up that wasn’t resolved in a mutually respectful and controlled way. Intense discussions, absolutely, but not getting all het up and going at it.
It helps that I fucking hate arguing, and I was old enough when we met to have experience under my belt, and some good therapy. She hates arguing too, but was raised with arguing as the default, so didn’t have the same tools to keep herself centered and on track when dealing with conflict. Back before I had done therapy I was way worse about letting emotion drive my mouth.
I’m not saying we never get angry, or disagree. We do. But we just don’t let it get in the way of the love and mutual respect. So it never turns into an argument.
It also helps that we had plenty of time before we were in person to hash out a lot of issues. We’d an agreement on how to handle disagreements about the usual chaotic issues; money, kids, that kind of thing.
Take something like prioritizing household resources. Maybe I’m in favor of repairing a toilet, she’s in favor of repairing a door to a bathroom. Both function, but to a bare minimum. They both take extra effort to make viable, and the repair is going to be roughly the same cost.
We’d sit down and just talk, explain why one or the other makes more sense as the priority. In this example, I’d likely talk about the chances of future repairs if the toilet isn’t fixed first. She might argue that the door not closing well makes the room colder, and thus encourages the water being hotter, which costs more energy.
We’d price out things, see if there was a clear path to one being faster than the other, if we can do the work or not, etc.
If we can’t find a reason that one is better than the other, we just agree to fall back to picking one arbitrarily. Flip a coin, play a game for who decides, whatever.
That’s the basic process, and an example of a real disagreement (though we figured out that the toilet was a higher priority because of what was wrong, and didn’t need to go further).
Damn, I’m not sure.
Not that this is nsfw territory, you could have asked this anywhere, and we’ve never argued over anything sexual.
I wanna say the last time we had an actual argument, as opposed to talking something out, it was about smoking. I was trying to quit, and was grumpy as fuck all. This placed strain on even the most minor of things, so we were both stressed as hell.
The argument was after she brought me a cigarette and stated I had my ass on my shoulders, and I needed to either have a damn smoke, or she was going to lose her shit. Paraphrased, she said it much nicer than that.
But, my rebuttal was about the difficulty added to the process of quitting when you’re in the same room and bed as someone that isn’t quitting.
It was this whole thing. The details are none of anyone else’s business, but it did get loud and heated. The conclusion was that I would seek medical assistance in quitting rather than trying to get through it by cutting down and then quitting entirely.
I did eventually quit, as did she. That was before covid that we argued, maybe 2017? Could have been earlier than that, I’m not good at tracking time. We quit in 2020ish. I quit then, she struggled for a while after. I went with chantix, she tried doing what I had done, only using vaping as her stopgap for tapering off.
Since then, nothing has come up that wasn’t resolved in a mutually respectful and controlled way. Intense discussions, absolutely, but not getting all het up and going at it.
It helps that I fucking hate arguing, and I was old enough when we met to have experience under my belt, and some good therapy. She hates arguing too, but was raised with arguing as the default, so didn’t have the same tools to keep herself centered and on track when dealing with conflict. Back before I had done therapy I was way worse about letting emotion drive my mouth.
I’m not saying we never get angry, or disagree. We do. But we just don’t let it get in the way of the love and mutual respect. So it never turns into an argument.
It also helps that we had plenty of time before we were in person to hash out a lot of issues. We’d an agreement on how to handle disagreements about the usual chaotic issues; money, kids, that kind of thing.
What kind of disagreements do you have that get resolved respectfully?
Take something like prioritizing household resources. Maybe I’m in favor of repairing a toilet, she’s in favor of repairing a door to a bathroom. Both function, but to a bare minimum. They both take extra effort to make viable, and the repair is going to be roughly the same cost.
We’d sit down and just talk, explain why one or the other makes more sense as the priority. In this example, I’d likely talk about the chances of future repairs if the toilet isn’t fixed first. She might argue that the door not closing well makes the room colder, and thus encourages the water being hotter, which costs more energy.
We’d price out things, see if there was a clear path to one being faster than the other, if we can do the work or not, etc.
If we can’t find a reason that one is better than the other, we just agree to fall back to picking one arbitrarily. Flip a coin, play a game for who decides, whatever.
That’s the basic process, and an example of a real disagreement (though we figured out that the toilet was a higher priority because of what was wrong, and didn’t need to go further).