Why It’s Good To Fight

I used to be really afraid of fighting, any sort of confrontation really. Whether it was at work, family drama, mini friend betrayals, or in my romantic relationships, the very faintest sign of confrontation could, and still does, send me into temporary paralysis.

No joke. At my very worst, I am unable to speak, make eye contact, or move. Maybe I have tears silently rolling down my cheeks, or perhaps a cold stare has clouded my expression. Either way, it’s suffocating to be trapped inside the escape room of your own mind with only your feelings to help get you out. My feelings, in particular, are rarely any help. We’re not exactly on the most intimate terms. Even after thirty years, we’re just now starting to get to know one another.

I didn’t grow up in a yelling house. My parents rarely, if ever argued in front of me, let alone violently. Sure, I screamed my little hormonal heart out to my calm, rational parents as a teen, but that was perhaps the apex of my emotional range to date. So maybe this is why I shut down in times of confrontation; I just never learned that skill set. I never developed a thick skin for such things.

But, as it were, I live in the real world, which is chalk full of arguments, confrontation, tension, and fighting.

I’ve had to sit in my boss’s office while he very cruelly told 23 year-old, creative writing degree holding me how shitty I was doing building a website in a made up role with no job description, and that he had to fight for me to keep working there.

I’ve had to man up and apologize to a close friend for not inviting her to my birthday getaway after a string of texts telling me that she was hurt.

I’ve had to stand in the doorway to my bedroom while my ex-boyfriend punched a hole into our closet door in a fit of rage over something I couldn’t possibly remember.

Every single time, I close up like a little clam, making a pearl of feelings from the irritating sand of anger thrust in my face.

I’m getting better. I’m getting better at fighting. I’m getting better at not shutting down. I’m getting better at making pearls of feelings quicker and sharing their vulnerable fragility with other people, instead of keeping them in a locked treasure chest to which I don’t even have a key.

“You don’t really feel your feelings,” my new therapist told me last week. “You find lots of distractions instead.”

“THIS I WHY I AM HERE,” I replied…maybe not in all caps. But it’s definitely how it felt. This is genuinely why I took the plunge into expensive self-discovery. My feelings have always remained a mystery to me, but their lack of regular appearance has always put me at a disadvantage in a great many ways, most notably during confrontation.

So, here we are. My feelings and I. We’re just starting to get to know one another and, as a result, I’m not as paralyzed. I’m not as stuck. I’m not as afraid of fighting as I used to be.

This became the most clear to me when a friend in a newer relationship became worried over a potential first fight. My knee jerk reaction surprised me. I didn’t go into a tirade about how fights make me want to crawl inside an emotional bomb shelter. No, in fact, I defended it!

Fighting isn’t bad, I said. It’s not the argument that matters, but how you recover. The work that you put into getting out of the fight is where relationships are made. Without fights, there is no substance; there is no love.

If you didn’t like my pearls of feelings metaphor, maybe you’ll dig this one:

Think about weight training. I know it absolutely sucks. But think about the mechanics of what it’s doing. Every rep you take with that ten-pounder is making a tiny tear in your bicep. You have to make those tiny rips because the magical work your body puts into repairing the holes is what is actually building the muscle to be better and stronger.

Every time you argue with your partner, mother, sister, friend, boss — whomever — you’re tearing a hole in your relationship, and it’s OK. The process of working it out, listening, sharing feelings, crying, and trying to understand one another is what contributes to a solid foundation, and allows the relationship to grow stronger.

There’s no end to how much you can grow, which means there will be no end to the amount of fighting, or the number of opportunities you have to repair and strengthen. So, I guess…get used to it?

Fighting can feel scary, especially when it’s new to the relationship and you don’t have the experience or communication skills to feel secure that even though it sucks in the moment, there is faith in each other that ultimately you can put it all back together in a better way and move past the muck.

Fighting is still scary for me because I am still physically paralyzed by confrontation and often shut down in the middle of it all. But, at my best, I can find a way to access my feelings enough to explain my perspective, why someone’s actions hurt, and actually be receptive to hear another.

But even though I still see myself at my worst, I always know that what’s waiting for me on the other side of it all is worth the fight.