I didn’t say it was universal. Obviously there are people who never argue, I just don’t think it’s the norm.
Any attempt to verbally resolve a disagreement is an argument. That’s what the word means. A debate is an argument. Lawyers argue their cases in front of judges. That doesn’t mean the lawyers are fighting or screaming at each other.
I think we just have a semantic disconnect here.
I have to disagree (but not arguing). If someone says “My wife and I had an argument last night, and I had to sleep on the couch,” he’s not referring to a simple difference of opinion.
I think the legal or debate-related definition of “argument” is different from common usage.
Not really. Anyone I know would use the term “fight” if they ended up on the couch. I’ve never used the word “argument” to mean anything other than a discussion of a disagreement.
That’s true, but one could also say, “My wife are having an argument about whether to paint the house pink or blue,” and be referring to nothing more than a spirited debate.
Like enipla and his wife, we don’t even disagree several times a week. No, I don’t consider “arguments” to mean “gigantic fights” - arguing in the context of a relationship, to me, means back-and-forth between two or more people with an element of anger. If there is no anger, it’s just a discussion. It’s the anger that makes an argument to me. I’m guessing other people involved in this discussion don’t have the same definition. Just a discussion doesn’t make my stomach clench and my pulse go up and my palms sweat.
My talking with my husband escalation ladder:
A. Just sitting and chatting. May not agree on everything, like where to go to dinner, but no big deal.
B. Discussion with disagreement - for example, which Captain is better, Kirk or Picard. Both entrenched in our position, but making good arguments on both sides. No anger involved.
C. Argument - tempers start flaring, things from the past may start showing up. Probably settled in a hour or so, no lingering bad feelings.
D. Full-on fight. Anger, entrenched positions, bad feelings created that may last days.
In ten years, I think we’ve made it to D once. We aim for not hitting C even, but getting things settled before anger comes into play.
I’ve been known to use “I don’t want to discuss it right now,” which means “I don’t think I can discuss this rationally so please drop it until I have time to calm down.” I try very hard to avoid letting any situation get to the point where I’m raising my voice (something I think I’ve done twice in the last five years). My ex and I would bicker over things and I’d repeat myself a lot, but we never really had any knockdown, dragout fights.
The current SO and I haven’t had any disagreements crop up yet, although we occasionally have deep dramatic discussions about the relationship at large.
Mr. Neville and I are currently having an argument about whether Shanghai is a bigger city than New York (I say it isn’t, he says it is). We once had one about whether Hayward was part of Oakland or not (I won, I said it isn’t).
My wife and I basically do the silent treatment in all cases of disagreement. Fester and boil until we just sort of forget about it after a while. I do NOT recommend this method. We’re working on learning to communicate better.
Yeah. To be honest I find those that never argue a little bit creepy. I don’t really mean to be insulting, not saying this is true by any means, but always felt if a couple never argued one of them was a doormat.
I would say that most of the arguing in this relationship is me. I’m a curmudgeon for the most part and very cynical while my wife is somewhat naive and overly optimistic. That in itself causes a few arguments.
My parents have a great relationship, been married 35 years or so, are still together and have never had to have counseling or anything. They argue. I’ve always been told it is perfectly normal to argue and fight, and as many marriage counselors out there as there are, it isn’t hard to believe that the majority do argue regularly. What gets me is I never even heard of people being together for so long and NEVER arguing (and argument doesn’t require raised voices you know) until I joined SDMB, and then those people acted like it was abnormal for couples to fight. :rolleyes:
edit: ah, I see that people probably do argue, they just redefine the word “argue” to mean “fight verbally.” Which simply isn’t true. A debate is an argument.
Good thing you don’t work for Merriam Webster.
Uh, you do realize you can solve this rather easily by looking it up online!? It is a discussion that has a factual answer and isn’t even opinion based at all. You could have different opinions on which part of the fact matters (population vs square miles vs population density, etc).
Meh. In my case the spouse and I, for the most part, take on the same world views. Some minor difference and piddly nonsense, but nothing worth arguing about. Seriously, what is there to argue about? Money? Not an issue, we have that figured out. Politics? Barely. In the rare instance we’re not on the same page, we can have a discussion if we care to, but the objective is no to change the other person’s mind; it’s to understand how the other person arrived at that point view. We’re both (what I perceive to be) reasonable, intelligent adults, and we’ve come to our own conclusions by our own methods. Ever try getting grown ups, reasonable or otherwise, to change their minds? Yeah, how’d that work out for you? In some very rare cases one of us will say, “Hey I never thought of it that way,” and come closer to the other side, but that’s never the intent of the conversation. It really is simply, “I would like to know your thought process about this.” Argue about raising the kids? N/A, no kids here. What to eat for dinner? Who cares? Whoever’s the pickiest, pick something and let’s do it. I seriously have nothing to argue about.
My wife and I have some “off limit” discussions. Religion for one. She grew up in southern Missouri in a small town and was, while claiming Non-denominational, were essentially Baptist (which is what I grew up). However I’m sort of an agnostic Diest (the possibility of a god, but not the Christan view) and two of the things I detest about Christianity is the concept of Hell and the whole “worship” thing. Oh, also we cannot discuss general biology (she is a PT, so we can discuss kinesiology or something), as she is basically a creationist.
The we never argue (although I apparently have the same brother-in-law as you).
We hashed out most of our disagreements and all our arguments the first year or so.
Regards,
Shodan
As one of the couples that rarely argue, I can tell you that it isn’t because we’re better human beings or anything; we just have a different set of priorities. When tempers are getting short, and we’re getting frustrated with each other, we both make the decision to leave this alone and stop escalating. Our priority is to have a marriage where we don’t scream at each other in anger. Your priority may be to clear the air and get everything out and over with. I’ll say one thing for our method; there are very, very few things that couples fight over that are truly worth fighting over once the anger has cooled off.
When my husband is stressed, he gets very irritable and even tries to pick fights. When he’s in that mood, the whole household walks on eggshells. And I can do that, up to a point…then I start getting pissy. I’ve been a doormat most of my life, so I’ve got a lot of repressed anger, baby. We have brief, heated conversations, and then go back to The Silence You Could Cut With a Knife. The argument is over when one of us makes some comment to the other on a neutral topic.
It’s actually kind of debatable (the answer is different if you count the metro area vs the city proper, even if you agree that population is the right thing to measure). After the argument, I did look it up, and I was right 
Mr. Neville conceded earlier.
We didn’t think to look it up at the time we were having the argument.
The Hayward/Oakland one took place when we were dating, back before everybody Googled stuff like this. I think he had dialup at his apartment, and getting online often involved a one hour wait.
I went from a marriage where we never argued to one with someone who loooooves a good argument. Comparing the two, hands-down, the second marriage, where we argue, is the one with much better communication.
When I first started getting serious with the second Mr. Athena, the arguments we had really took it out of me; looking back, I realized that I just had never learned how to have a serious, in-your-face debate. Mr. Athena would make a good lawyer. He can argue a point that he might not even believe and end up winning. I think that learning how to argue with him has really strengthened me in a lot of ways; I can make my point in a disagreement at work and not end up shaking and crying the way I used to. I’ve realized it’s OK to disagree with someone, even vehemently, and not let it ruin my day.
I talked to a therapist about marriage arguments once, and the analogy he used was that arguments are like sand paper; they are rough, but ultimately they smooth down the edges.
My first marriage was definitely one where we both just didn’t mention things that we disagreed on or bothered us. We didn’t really communicate, but we got along. I think a few good arguments early on in the relationship would have done us some good.
I swallow a lot of the crap with my SO. I dunno, I am patient for the most part. Most of our fights are cultural/crap from her past/patience oriented. Meh.