Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Fighting (Story + Poll-ish)
How often do you and your DH fight?
I mean full on, drag out, screaming and yelling and slamming doors (more than once) so loudly that you wake your peacefully sleeping neighbor at 7:15 a.m. when she was JUST TRYING TO GET 10 MORE MINUTES OF SLEEP?!?!?!
Okay, I guess you can see where the "story" part is going. We live in an apartment complex. We've got some noise issues anyway (you can usually hear people though the floor, and sometimes through the walls if you're standing right next to the wall they're standing next to). But we hear my neighbors fight A LOT. They got married about 30 days after we did, and they were living together for at least a year before that. In the whole time we've known them, I'd say once every two-three weeks we can hear full-blown fights. (Don't worry, nothing domestic violence-y. I wouldn't be telling you all, I'd be telling the cops). They scream, they slam doors, one of them usually leaves for hours to return to more fighting. It's nuts.
But the rest of the time, they seem perfectly normal and happy. It's just strange to me because in five years, DH and I have NEVER had a fight like that. I'd say we've had maaaybe 10 really bad arguments total, and even if we raise our voices or cry or whatever, we've never left the other one for any period of time. We've definitely never woken our neighbors with repeated door slamming and yelling so loud you could hear it in the room farthest away from their apartment...
Which leads me to the Poll -- how often do you fight? And what kind of "fighters" are you? Silent seethers? Cry? All out yelling and door slamming?
Re: Fighting (Story + Poll-ish)
TBH, we've probably had 2 slamming door type fights when we were in a rebuilding stage (obviously before we got engaged). They were ugly, I'll admit it, but considering what we were going through, not all that unexpected. We never would have gotten engaged or married had we not worked through those issues.
Other than that, we probably fight maybe once every few months on a much smaller scale....little issues that build up and get blown out of proportion, like me not cleaning up enough, him working too much on the weekends, or me trying to get out of visiting the ILs.
Hmm, come to think of it, I think those are the only fights we've have in the past 2 years or so. lol
ETA: Our normal fighting style is not healthy. It usually starts with DH saying something passive aggressive, me getting flippant about that, him shutting down, and then me either ignoring him back or forcing him to talk, which takes a while. Essentially, one of us has to break. We never really learned how to fight.
We do try to abide by the "never" and "always" rules and not bringing up past events.
My Bio (wedding pics added 7/6)
My 101
I'll admit to slamming a door once or twice. I'm more hot tempered than DH so when I get really mad I'll usually go to the bedroom and calm down alone before we try to resolve things. We've never gotten to the point of screaming at each other like what you're describing.
Our old neighbors were the knock-down drag out 3am fighters complete with slamming doors, walls, screaming etc. We called the cops more than once on them.
We've been together 4 years, living together 3 1/2, and have never had that kind of fight. It's just not our style. We know we won't always agree on everything and sometimes just agree to disagree. Like Leigha said, we have certain rules we follow, #1 being "Be respectful". We came from very different families and are both rather stubborn but there is no need to insult each other because of it.
Rule #2 is "this is all optional" I don't mean that in a bad way but if he told me today that he was truly miserable with me, I would want him to go find something/someone to make him happy. If I was miserable with him, I would respect him enough to be honest about it. Again, it may sound a little extreme but it is kind of a reminder to ourselves of why we choose to be with each other and how lucky we are to have each other.
I have a pretty hot temper... and I grew up with my parents doing the yelling and screaming at each other, slamming doors, calling names, etc fighting - but they've also been married 30 years and are each others best friends and are perfectly happy.
DH on the other hand is a relatively relaxed person, kind of roll with the punches type. His parents never fought in front of him - they just dont speak to each other and complain about the other person behind their back. They've also been married 30 years though - not sure if they are really happy though as they dont ever do anything together, sleep in separate bedrooms, etc. but they love each other on some level.
DH and I decided we dont want to be like either set of parents - if something is bothering one of us, we need to work it out and not just ignore it. But I also dont want it to turn into a screaming match -- which has happened plenty of times -- in front of our future kids. I'm trying to work on my temper and not letting every little thing bother me, he's trying to work on letting me know when things bother him rather than just waiting until he hits his limit and blowing up at me.
It's not going to change overnight and we dont expect to never fight but we are trying not to fight dirty, take a few minutes to calm down so it doesnt escalate to screaming, and discuss things. Its gotten a lot better but when I get stressed, I slip up sometimes and take it out on him. I would say after 5 years together, we probably have one really big fight - where we are screaming and slamming doors, which turns to him attempting to storm out of the house and me crying, etc, once a year at the most. Its usually over as fast as it started too - we cool down pretty quickly and are generally fine within an hour.
Never has anything gotten even close to physical/violent/abusive and I have no fears that it ever will - its just yelling and hot tempers - luckily we dont live in an apartment building. I would say the one thing that helps us is that we both know this is forever and its going to take work, we'll fight, we'll get over it, and move on.
HomemadebyHolman
Follow me on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Married
BFP#2 2.5.11 (EDD 10.15.11) DS born 9.28.11 due to Pre-E
BFP#3 10.2.12 (EDD 6.12.13) MMC 11.24.12 @11.5w, had passed in 7th week
My Chart Recipe Blog
~All AL'ers welcome~
Weird. This is EXACTLY our situation. Except my inlaws not only live in separate bedrooms, they live in separate states (CT and FL). And yes, they're still married. Why? Good question. With all the dysfunction (the yelling, the name calling, etc), I'd pay to end up like my parents. At least they care about each other.
In ten years, Alex has raised his voice in my presence twice. I, on the other hand, am known for my, um, wide decibel range. I'm so much better than I used to be, but I still have some work to do. When I am stressed out, it can go from tears to screams in an instant. Poor Alex. It usually has very little to do with him, but he bears the brunt. My "blow ups" happen once every so often, but real deal fights occur once every few years. We had one this summer, so hopefully we get a vacation from crazy for a while. But the snarky, sarcastic, sassy discourse that dominates our lives? I wouldn't give that up for anything. In my book, if you stop caring enough to bicker a bit, you just might stop caring.
I survived the RoLex wedding and all I got was this lousy husband.
One&Only Palmilla - Los Cabos, Mexico
DH and I have been together 7 years and we have never had a fight like that. I think we've had a fight maybe 2 times. The last time was over a house he wanted that I thought was too expensive and I wouldn't really listen about it. I ended up crying and he felt so bad for the rest of the day that he ran out to get me my favorite cookies from a local bakery.
Growing up I never saw my parents fight, and neither did he, so I think that adds a lot to our non-fighting personalities. Of course, BIL and his wife get in fights over adding too much meat to a cheese dip though, so maybe that doesn't have anything to do with it.
Both of us have hot tempers, no lie.
My childhood was spent with a mother that was always yelling/screaming/slamming doors/crying/etc. She had/has a VERY short fuse. It wasn't/isn't fun watching her like that.
My dad is very mellow. Most of the time he just sat back and took the brunt of it. Sometimes he would stand up for what he believes in, but he usually lost the battle...and now they are divorced.
My husband's parents both have short fuses as well and I think that is where his temper comes from. He is fine, if everything goes according to plan, but if not, leave the room because there is a whole lot of cursing going on. Best to leave him alone for awhile.
I have been working on my temper and DH and I have been more openly talking for the past couple years, but before that...we had 1-2 screaming/ slamming door fights, but within an hour we were fine.
Now, something I am NOT proud to admit is that I have slapped DH in the face...only ONCE. He was drunk and being very selfish and I had just stepped on a broken beer bottle and gashed my heel open and it took forever to quit bleeding and it was on my right foot and I was supposed to come see him...and so on. I had talked to him on the phone 3 times when I was on my way back (at the time I was 4 hours away babysitting my nephew and riding with my brother who was coming home to visit the 'rents) asking him to "please only have a couple because I didn't want to drive over there because I didn't want to put a ton of pressure on my heel" he said he wouldn't and to call him when we were closer. To sum it up...I was really ticked off and he was drunk. No excuse, but it happened, we talked about it after he sobered up and he said he had it coming...we both apologized.
That was the worst though. And writing this out makes me feel like a total douche-bag again!
Hopefully that made sense...I am not a writer AT ALL!