How Much Fun Can It Be To Not Win The Fight!

Have you ever looked back at a fight you had just had with your husband or your wife, or your boyfriend or girlfriend and thought well, that was really stupid? Have you ever looked back at it and couldn’t even remember what had started it?

Don’t answer that. Of course you have. The truth is - most fights we have with our partners are over nothing. And yet, once the fight starts, it can be like wild fire, can’t it? Something triggers us, and…off we go!

But what if we could catch ourselves at the very moment when that trigger is about to get activated and – turn it off? Not bite, not take the hook?

Now I am an Aries, and we Aries are ruled by Mars, a warrior planet. I can go to war at a drop of a hat. I have to work at not fighting back and when I don’t it is a real achievement, trust me on that. I would pick a good fight over a silent and hostile withdrawal any time. (Yes, I know these are not the only options.) And yet. Let me tell you, it is pure magic what can happen if you don’t take the bait.

Once, clearly by the grace of God, I had an astonishing experience. Here is what happened one night.

My husband got angry about something. And when he gets angry all hell breaks loose. Do you see the problem we have? This is the one difficulty in our marriage. When we are having a fight…well, let’s just say it can be really hard to stop it.

So there he was: anger way out of proportion, arms flying…you’d think the end of the world was near and I was Enemy of the State.

And in this very moment, when normally I would jump right in, fill with indignation, get furious at “unjust accusations” … something else happened to me instead.

Something that had never happened before.

I found myself 10 steps removed. Like watching a comedy act brilliantly performed right in front of me. It was simply good theatre, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with me.

And it was funny. So funny that I had to use all my will to keep myself from laughing out loud. (I didn’t want to hurt my husband’s feelings. I didn’t want him to think I was laughing at him.)

Well, as you can imagine, I could only hold it for so long and eventually I simply burst out laughing. My husband fell silent as if stopped in his tracks. There was a flicker of confusion in his eyes. A pause.

Unable to stop, I kept on laughing, covering my mouth, whispering “I am sorry, I am so sorry, I am not laughing at you, it is just so funny… .”

And guess what happened next??!!

In the next second – we were both laughing! Looking at each other – and laughing so hard. Rolling with laughter, tears in our eyes, in stitches, on the floor, then in each others arms, laughing, kissing, laughing some more… .

“I don’t know what came over me,” my husband was saying wiping his eyes, still laughing.”

“It doesn’t matter, it was too funny,” was all I could say.

And that was it. The storm had passed. We were happy again.
We turned off the lights, curled up in each other’s arms and fell asleep without another thought. We never talked about what had started the fight. What did it matter? The only thing that mattered was that we loved each other.