My wife, Elysha, and I almost never fight.
I’m not sure if we’ve ever had a real fight. One of us may get annoyed with another over something small or trivial, but it’s almost always dealt with immediately or let go.
Address the frustration immediately, or love the person enough to ignore it and move on.
We’ve never raised our voices at each other, and neither of us has ever left the room in anger or frustration.
No slammed doors or peeling out in the driveway. No rolling over in bed, frustrated and fuming.
Disgusting. Right?
Or maybe more common than I think. I don’t know. Marriages are mysteries to those outside the union.
Either way, a recent survey of Americans in relationships asked couples which topics are most likely to spark arguments.
The key conclusion surprised me:
The most common topic of argument among couples is how they talk to each other.
They fight about fighting.
36 percent said that they at least “sometimes” argue about tone of voice or attitude
29 percent argue about communication styles — the two top sources of relationship friction.
These are the two most common sources of arguments, at least according to the study.
By comparison:
26 percent of arguments are about money
23 percent are about emotional needs
21 percent are about life decisions
21 percent are about household chores
Other notable sources of argument from the study include jealousy, driving, parenting, sex, and major purchases.
All come in at 10 percent.
Quite a divergent list.
Jealousy strikes me as the most pernicious item on the list, as it indicates a possible combination of a lack of self-esteem and a lack of trust:
A terrible double whammy of disaster for a relationship.
At the bottom of the list of reasons to fight are cheating at 4 percent and religion at 3 percent.
But the numbers I’ve provided are the combined average of men and women. When broken out by sex, women are far more likely to argue about tone of voice and attitude, and the widest margins between men and women are in quality time spent together (11 percent for men and 23 percent for women) and household chores (15 percent for men and 27 percent for women).
Even more interesting, men appear to be less likely to argue than women. While men tend to argue more about certain issues, the disparity between men and women on these topics is almost always just a point or two.
Nearly even.
By contrast, when a woman argues more, the gaps are wide and profound.
The largest gaps in which men exceed women are food choices (10 percent for men and 6 percent for women) and major purchases (11 percent for men and 8 percent for women).
Every other gap (of which there are few) is within two points.
However, the idea that women argue more might be an overgeneralization. Perhaps men are just as likely as women to argue or start an argument, but they find fewer sources for them.
It also probably says something about men (nothing good) that women are more likely than men to find a reason to argue about household chores and quality time spent together.
Either way, I’m here to report that not arguing in your marriage makes for a happy marriage. I don’t know why Elysha and I almost never fight, but here is my suspicion:
Marry someone who is obsessed with making you happy, and marry someone who you are obsessed with making happy, and that middle ground where arguments are both is decidedly small.
Finding that person might be difficult, but it’s well worth the search.
