as you know, i love hanging out with david. so much so in fact, that i’m willingly spending 24/7 with him. sharing both work and play time.

( for example, watch us hang out in our new MUSTARD ON MOVIES episode at the bottom of this post. )

come to think of it, i can’t even remember the last time one of us left the apartment without the other. oh yeah, david goes for jogs without me like 3 times a week. that’s about it for alone time.

does that sound totally unhealthy ?
i’m having a blast, and i don’t feel the need to do stuff alone at all. at least not yet, let’s see how i feel about it 6 months from now.

working together and spending all waking time together does mean that we can totally get on each other’s nerves of course. especially since our work is very intense, with long hours, and with very few ( if any ) days off.

and as soon as we get stressed out, the fights come running. annoyance, irritation, frustration. all the good stuff.

i’m not against fighting per se. i think it can be healthy and lead to a proper talking-it-out. realising things about ourselves and each other, that we’d never had done without them tempers flaring.

what i’m totally not having, is bad fighting. fights that leave you feeling drifted apart instead of closer together.
fights with meanness, name calling, passive agressiveness, stepping over those lines that people loving each other never should cross.

a good fight should be an air cleaner, not a pollution causer.

so here are my ideas on 3 things that can turn upsetting fights into makeup cuddles. let’s fight well – the gloves are coming off !

never crossing the line
like mentioned, the one thing in my opinion that by far is the most destructive when fighting, is the meanness and name calling. when someone crosses that line, it’s difficult to trust that person again. trust is one of the top most important things of all in a healthy relationship, and for trust to exist, there needs to be respect. when someone gets downright mean in a fight, going for the cheap shots, and treating you without respect, the trust will fly out the window.

you can yell. you can cry. you can slam doors. showing your own frustration is fine. but turning that frustration into disrespect and cruelty is never going to fly if you want a happy couple situation.

in our ten years together (!) and during our probably hundreds of fights, we’ve never ever gone there. that means, whenever we fight, i never doubt that david loves me, and that he isn’t trying to at all hurt me. which makes making up so much easier.

timeout !
people often say that they do shitty things in the heat of the moment. we all behave badly when we’re in heat, so to speak. i like timeouts.
as soon as we feel that a fight isn’t going anywhere, that we’re stuck, and the blame game is like a merry-go-round – why not take five ?

usually five minutes is all you need to cool off, get your head together, and remember that you love that person in the other room. that you want things to work out, and that you too should take part of the blame too. it always – and i mean always – works for us.

we need to talk
as soon as we’ve chilled a bit, it’s time to talk it out. a fight isn’t turned into something good unless you’re wiser because of it. so to understand our own and our partner’s reaction to the fight is crucial in my opinion.

what happened ? and why ?

in my experience, the mega big fights usually have very little to do with the reason we tell ourselves and each other. more often, they’re about something deeply personal. a clash of intimite insecurities or wounds. so figuring out the fears and scars of our partner and of ourselves, is a beautiful way of making fighting worthwhile.

fighting isn’t fun. it’s quite horrible actually. but if we’re forced to have them, we might as well make the best of it !

love // jenny

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stay a while and hang out with us  !
a brand new MUSTARD ON MOVIES episode is out – this one is all about our TOP 5 new york movie moments.

check it out !