How frequently do you fight with your spouse/SO?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve found we fight anywhere from once every two weeks to four weeks. It’s irritating because it’s usually about the same stuff - a) cleaning or b) something one of us said offhand that the other person read too much into.

B is probably the most common - in fact, we just had another one of our “discussions.” The most irritating thing is that such situations are inevitably sparked by a completely meaningless comment either he or I made. It’s very annoying and tends to mushroom into something of far larger proportions than it ever should have been. It also turns out to be an utter waste of time because the person making the comment explains that it meant nothing, the other person’s still upset, additional, repeated explanations become necessary, and so on and so on until finally you’ve lost an hour or two that you could have spent having sex, talking or doing something else more enjoyable/useful. And the worst thing is that it just comes back again a few weeks later - the only difference is that next time it’s a different comment.

Anyway, I’m curious about other dopers - how frequently do you get into arguments with your SO or spouse and do you find they tend to be about the same damn thing or does it differ each time?

2

I haven’t really fought with my boyfriend yet, and we’ve been together two and a half years. We’ve had a couple of moments of frustration with one another, but nothing I’d actually call a “fight”, with yelling or accusations or insults or leaving the room in anger.

It worries me a little, actually, because it seems like it’s normal to fight. Are we keeping things inside too much? I don’t think so, but maybe the test will come when I move in with him next month.

3

It’s funny. A common denominator I’ve had with all my past GF’s is that we’ll argue about something, come to a compromise or a solution to said something and that should be the end of it right?

Nah.

Then two weeks later when we’re arguing about something completely different that has absolutely nothing to do with the FIRST something; she’ll throw THAT (the first something) in my face again as well!

It drives me batshit I tells ya’!

I’m a bad person to ask this because all my relationships with women have failed. But I will say once I get up to about three serious arguments a week, I or she will end it.

4

On things within the relationship? Maybe every other month, give or take depending on the general stress level of the participants. Usually when it’s due to stress though one of us manages to figure it out and wind the thing down. Yes, they are almost always about the same topics. I could narrow it to two or three topics (division of labor, and finances/where we live, which could be either one or two topics depending).

Politics or art? Arguments there are a daily, ongoing battle. More of a debate usually, but sometimes voices get raised, and we give each other the cold shoulder for about 10 minutes, by which time we’re ready to make fart jokes together again.

5

My husband and I have been married 10 years, and the worst we do on a semi-common basis is we’ll get grouchy at each other and kind of sulk, then we’ll feel bad about that, and kiss and make up. Otherwise over important issues, the person who’s in the wrong pretty much knows it, and the other will do some gentle explanation/a mild lecture/a more serious lecture.

6

This** Nashiitashii** and I. Together 5 years on monday, and due to be married next year. I hate fighting, and rarely care enough about anything to pick a fight over it.

7

About every month, right when I get a visit from the hormone fairy.

8

I have never fought with my wife. Nor she with me. We’ve never raised our voices to each other. We’ve never felt a reason to.

We’ve been married for 20 years next week & went together for about 5 years before that.
What the OP describes is scary. You already both know you’re prone to mis-reacting. So after the first few times this has happened, why the ongoing knee-jerk assumption the other party is trying to cause trouble?

I always assume my wife means well, and if something she says sounds off key or trouble-making, I assume I misunderstood her intent or misheard her words. A couple sentences later that’s borne out by the facts. Issue over long before it begins. She does the same for me.

To be sure, there are jerks in the world that nobody could get along with. My advice: don’t marry those people.

9

The good news is that you recognize that. If I suggested any such thing to my wife, that in itself would cause a fight. :smack:

10

In 20 years you have never had an argument with your wife? :dubious: About anything? Do you have children? I don’t mean to question you, but even as a psychologist I’ve never heard of two people never disagreeing or having an argument. That’s very cool I must say.

My wife and I pride ourselves on being very open and communicative with each other, we talk everything out, and on the rare occasion when one of us doesn’t think the other is quite getting what the other is trying to convey, we still work it out in one form or another. We defiitley have our arguments and on occasion things get loud - but never disrespectful. She doesn’t like it when I leave magazines on the couch, and I can’t stand it when she puts dishes in the sink when the dishwasher is 18 inches away from the sink. Nothing cosmic, but we do have our moments :smiley:

11

We don’t get in fights. I’m not the fighting type. My parents used to fight when I was young, and the memories still haunt me. So I don’t do it.

But we (obviously) have disagreements about some things. We just work them out.

12

We’re coming up on our tenth anniversary in May, and like a very few others, we’ve never had anything that could be construed as a fight. We don’t bicker or argue, either. No raised voices, nothing. We both come from a long line of really picky, hard-to-please people, and I guess we figure that the buck stops here. Living without fighting is really nice.

We get along really well, and we can read each other. We can both get into a mood over something else that happened, like at work, but we don’t do things to upset each other. I can see no point in behaving badly toward the one person whom you want to keep loving you to the exclusion of all others!

13

Married 10 years. We had a ‘fight’ once. I think this was before we where married. We had a party to go to and I had been home that day drinking beer and working on a home remodel. I was tired, but proud of what I had accomplished. I misunderstood her and thought she said not much got done (which would be VERY inconsistent with her).

We sometimes have small misunderstandings. More like WTF moments. Recently the words ‘billing’ and ‘building’ got mis-heard. I was talking about the ‘building’ (hospital for minor surgery she had to go to) and she was talking about the ‘billing’ for the surgery.

She was sure that the billing would be different from the previous surgery (she was right).

While I was sure that it was in the same building as the previous surgery (I was right too). Since I was driving, and was going to play nurse for a while, I wanted to make sure of where we were going.

Kind of funny. Took us a minute to figure it out. It surely wasn’t a fight or an argument. Just a WTF? We’ve never raised our voices. That just isn’t done.

14

Relatively little - maybe once every month or so. We got most of that out of the way in the first year or so of marriage. We more or less figured out what were the hot-button issues, came up with some solutions, and now it is mostly just when one or the other of us is cranky or over-tired or some such.

YMMV.

Regards,
Shodan

15

Married for 5 years - we fight about three times a year. By “fight” I mean we have a situation where we are both pissed off at each other and don’t talk beyond basic necessities for a day or so. We have never had a knock-down, drag-out screaming argument, and god willing, we never will. I grew up in an environment where I used to sit in bed with my sisters and listen to my parents breaking things and yelling downstairs; he grew up with a dad with an Irish temper; I don’t think either of us have any interest in doing what they did.

16

Glad to see we’re not as weird as I thought. My boyfriend and I have been together a little over two years, living together for almost half of that time. We have yet to have anything close to what I’d consider a real fight.

We had one playful argument over whether or not to put olive oil in boiling pasta. Nobody was overly excited about it, well I was kind of excited that we were finally having a disagreement but we both kept laughing about how silly it was so that hardly counts as a fight.

We had one other non-fight, not an argument per se but just a really awkward conversation about furniture rearranging and decorating after he’d moved in. There were elements of gender bias (I’m the girl, so you should just listen to me because I automatically understand that posters don’t match the living room decor, for instance) and space-sharing stuff (whaddya mean it’s my home too but you don’t like any of my stuff.) It felt like the type of conversation that could have become bickery, though, so we both sorta recognized that and were careful not to jump to conclusions or get snippy.

I realized later I really appreciate simply being asked “Why do you think that way?” and hearing it as the actual question, not the loaded “OMG, you’re so stupid, I can’t believe you want X instead of Y!” like I would have in previous relationships. I think that’s why we don’t fight, it’s not that we’re not passionate about things but that we start from a benefit of the doubt place and don’t presume malice.

We’ve had discussions, not a euphemism, about division of chores, how to handle my son, money issues, etc that could have become arguments but instead are more like an exchange of "here’s what I need, is that okay? and “I can handle some of that, and how about this?” and no drama ensues.

We were both single for a long time and both place the relationship and one another’s happiness as a high priority, it’s easier for me to give a little or a lot sometimes when it’s something that’ll make him happy and won’t kill me. I have a lot of friends who’s relationships are constantly combative, it’s one longassed power struggle and everything is an opportunity to cut the other one down. I don’t ever want hostility like that in my home, and he feels the same, so we go out of our way to be considerate.

17

Us, too. We met in our 30’s. I give in to my husband, and he gives in to me. Our egos aren’t dependent on being right - we’re more interested in being happy, which it seems to me that a lot of couples forget.

18

Previous relationship: maybe two-three fights a year at most.

Current relationship: two-three fights a month. About 50 % hormone-induced, I guess.

19

Yelling fight? So far, once in 7+ years.

Minor disagreements where one of us (almost always me) will sulk for 10 minutes until I’m massaged into happiness again? Maybe once every 2-3 months.

20

Hoo-boy. My ex and I? Like crazy.

I* really * shouldn’t elaborate on a public message board.