Look, I want to say something to you that might feel counterintuitive at first. Come with me on this.
The goal is not to resolve your fights.
I know. I know that sounds crazy. You came here because you want to stop fighting, or at least stop feeling like you’re stuck in the same loop forever. And I hear that. But here’s what I’ve learned in 16 years of sitting with couples: the people who are chasing perfect resolution, who are trying to figure out the right communication technique to finally win the argument about the dishes or the money, they’re missing the entire point of what’s happening between them.
Here’s what I actually see when a couple fights. Two people who love each other so much that the other person genuinely has the power to scare them. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. If you love each other, you’re going to frighten each other. Regularly. For the rest of your life. That’s not a sign something is broken. That’s a sign something real is happening.
What you’re describing when you say “we never resolve our fights” is almost certainly this: you two keep trying to solve the logistical issue on the surface. The dishes. The money. Who said what to whom. And every time you do that, you’re grabbing what looks like a can of water to throw on the fire, but it’s actually gasoline. Because the logistical issue is a red herring. It’s the trigger, not the wound.
The real fight is almost always something like: “Do you see me? Are you there for me? Am I enough for you? Am I too much for you?” Those are the questions underneath every single argument you’re having. And you cannot solve those with a better argument or a cleaner communication strategy.
So what does actually work?
The magic, and I mean this, the genuine magic of a relationship is not in the avoiding of the fight. It’s in the repair after it. A good relationship goes from good to bad, then bad back to good, then good to bad again, for the rest of your life. That’s not failure. That’s the relationship doing what it’s supposed to do.
What needs to shift is not your ability to debate better. It’s your ability to recognize, at some point in the middle of the mess, that you are both hurting. Both of you. At the same time. Because you love each other. And when you can get to that, even a glimpse of it, when one of you can say out loud or even just signal, “I see that we’re both in pain right now,” something shifts. The nervous system comes down. The two alligators who were threatening each other get to become two small, frightened creatures who just need to be close again.
That moment of coming back to each other? That’s the proof of work of love. Not the absence of conflict. The return to each other after it.
So I want to ask you something, and I want you to sit with it: in your fights, what are you actually scared of? Underneath the argument, what’s the real fear? Because I would bet everything I have that if you can find that, you’re already halfway home.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: How to Stop Fighting and Start Communicating in Your Relationship
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