How to Fight in a Relationship

This posting continues a four-part series on improving your relationship to improve your children's well-being. Go here for the first post, "Your love life, your child's happiness."

Parents fight. A couple necessarily involves two completely different individuals with different experiences and world-views, whose needs are often in conflict. But how we fight and how we resolve our conflicts can have a huge influence on our children's health and happiness. A substantial body of research shows that conflict between parents, whether or not they are married, puts kids at increased risk of all sorts of problems: depression, anxiety, disobedience, aggression, delinquency, poor self-esteem, antisocial behaviors, trouble sleeping, academic under-achievement, and low social competence-even health problems. Suffice it to say that fighting with your co-parent is not a "happiness habit" for your kids.

This post is for both married and unmarried parents: the negative impact of divorce on children is determined more by the level of conflict between parents before, during, and after a break-up than by the actual break-up itself. And if you aren't yet motivated to improve the way you fight, consider this: the way you fight with your co-parent is how your teenager is most likely to fight with you. So if you resolve conflicts by becoming angry, so too will your adolescent. On the other hand, if you engage in more constructive problem-solving, your teen is likely to mimic that as well.

So here is a quick lesson, based on decades of research, in how to fight with your co-parent in a way that won't scar your children. As with most things, we parents are modeling important things for our children when we fight with our beloveds (or ex-beloveds). Conflict is a part of life, and so exposure to it can actually be an important lesson in emotional literacy for kids if it is handled in the correct way.

Here are three healthy things, according to researcher John Gottman, that couples in stable marriages do to resolve conflict positively. Remember, what is good for your partnership is also good for your kids.

(1) Sugar-coat your complaints a little bit, like you would with a good friend whose feelings you don't want to hurt. (Gottman calls this the "soft start-up".) I'm a big fan of directness, so I do this one wrong all the time. But my direct but, ahem, emotionally charged complaints aren't good predictors of a successful marriage, so I must change my erring ways. Last night Mike revealed that he scheduled a business trip in the middle of what was supposed to be our vacation. Real-life marriage DON'T: I said, "What were you thinking?! Don't you care enough about us to have our vacation on your calendar?! What do I have to do, keep your calendar for you? Do you really expect me to be your secretary?!?" It was ugly, and-shocker-the conversation didn't go well. I should have softened my start-up: "Uh, Mike? Come look at the calendar and check out when you scheduled your trip to Boston. Did you realize that trip conflicts with our vacation?" probably would have done the trick.