A Funny Thing That Happens in Relationships

My husband and I have been married for almost 11 years with 2 kids. All of our friends are in similar scenarios, and a couple of years ago, we went on a couple’s trip to Napa Valley.

It was a day we had rented a van with a driver and he had planned an amazing itinerary for us. We could all drink and relax, and no one had to drive. It was a great day and we were all having the best time. At our last stop, one of our couple friends got into a small tiff. It wasn’t a big deal, but by the time we were back on the van and heading back to the hotel, they were screaming and cursing at each other. There was no where to go and no escaping it. It was absolutely horrible. However, unfortunately not out of the ordinary for these 2. They don’t care whose around and who is uncomfortable by their behavior.

The fight went on and on that night, to the point where they ate dinner separately. The next morning however, they were acting like nothing happened.

My husband and I actually considered it a cautionary tale. We made a vow not to ever do that in front of people, no matter how mad we get.

I read that excerpt in David Sedaris’ voice from hearing him so many times!

We’re about to move in together and one of my greatest fears (both of us coming from divorced families) is the familiarity. What a sweet way to think of it – I’ve loved reading all the comments! I recently visited him at his office to meet for lunch and all his coworkers made a point to tell me how awesome they think he is or tell a personal story of how he helped them out at one point. Such a wonderful reminder of the caliber of person I’ve been lucky to find.

My husband and I have a code word. If he says something inappropriate, a topic is brought up that we don’t want to discuss, if we both want to leave a gathering but it isn’t time yet, pretty much anytime we are in the company of others and we go borderline not-perfect, we say, “CACTUS!” and the other person gets in line. It always works.

The first few years that my husband and I were together, we were so in love that I thought our bickering was witty banter. I wouldn’t hesitate to go after him for something in front of our friends. I thought it was funny and charming. It makes me blush now to think of it. It took me years to realize that no one outside of the relationship wants to see that. I felt like I was showing how much I loved him by returning to our well worn disputes. It was a familiar, comforting place for us. But our friends didn’t understand that. To them it was just uncomfortable and weird. I have resolved not to do it any more (with moderate success)

This is so true! I love it. My husband and I have known each other for 10 years, been together for 8 and married for 3. We have a close friend who’s been in our lives that whole time and sometimes around her, we totally “slip up” and snap at each other in a way we normally don’t in public! It’s always slightly awkward and funny to realize we’ve swiftly departed “we’re just three friends hanging out” mode and entered “uh, is this turning into a marital dispute that you need some privacy for?” land. As David Sedaris says, she knows too much…

This could not be any more true. My husband and I have created our own little world, with our own dynamic. We enjoy just being around each other when work keeps us busy or laughing about our own inside jokes. Of course, we sometimes take our dinner choice a little too serious or sometimes he would roll his eyes when I take a little too long getting ready in the morning. So what?
I also really like listening to his stories. And I would listen to them a thousand times more when he tells his friends. It makes me so happy to see him happy doing exactely that.

My husband and I have been together for 15 years, and our interactions have evolved so much of the years. I assume it’s a combination of maturity (35 is MUCH different from 20) and having already hashed out the big things, but we used to have huge blow out fights every couple of months, and now we only bicker. From reading through some of the comments, it sounds like people are confusing bickering with being mean. When we bicker it’s like releasing a valve and letting out a bit of steam so things don’t blow up. It’s just clearing the air. We are very direct, sometimes testy, but not mean or insulting. It’s usually the result of stress or fatigue. Sometimes when I get very cranky he will ask when I have eaten last, and many times that’s the culprit. With three kids and very demanding careers we sometimes have to let out our feelings and we do it with each other. It’s really a safe space to express yourself, once you learn how to do it correctly. It’s the same thing as after school restraint collapse…where kids behave all day at school and are wild and break the rules and don’t listen at home. They aren’t being “bad” they are releasing the energy they’ve bottled up inside. It really is an intimate bonding exercise as long as you keep things civil.

I wish I could understand why we always feel this need to compete about “Who is happier” when meeting with another couple. WHY is that, why do we need the others in order to understand in which happiness state we actually are (if they are happy, we get anxious if we are happy enough, if they are unhappy we celebrate that we are “far better off”? This need to compare is so awful and yet I cannot fight it, either…

My husband and I are both litigators, so while we don’t really fight for real, we “fight” a lot (all in good fun because it’s just part of our natures). Whenever we are heading to either of our parent’s house I tell him, “now you have to pretend like you REALLY like me for the next # of hours”. Lol.

My general rule about relationships, after wasting too many precious years fighting constantly in an unhappy/unhealthy one, is this: If you spend more time during any given week being disappointed by your partner than you do being pampered by them, it’s time to end it and move on. Full stop.

Life is short. True partners exist. There’s no reason to settle for anything less.

I love the quote from Sedaris! My fiance’s first language is Spanish and he still makes grammatical mistakes when speaking – I correct him without even thinking about it ALL. THE. TIME. Whenever we are with friends or family, I always stop myself because I worry he will be offended/embarrassed with my correcting him in front of other people but I just can’t help it!!

David Sedaris is hilarious. We discovered him years and years ago on NPR, on This American Life. The Christmas Letter, omg.

We got to see him do a live reading a few years back, and truly, laughed so hard it hurt for days afterward.

If you get a chance to see him, you won’t be disappointed. His books on audio are also wonderful, because all read by him. He has such a whiny, wry, sarcastic voice…. So so funny. He’s a national treasure imho.

It depends on who we are with, I think, and the dynamics of that relationship. And we have been married so long that we definitely have cooled on the bickering. I’ve begun to believe that most marriages just recycle the same two or three arguments and we are no different. I found we bickered more when our son was small and now, the bickering picks up in stressful times. I’m not prone to bickering bc I grew up in a house without it but my husband grew up in a house where arguing was the norm. I think there are benefits to both styles.

I am just about to move in with my boyfriend. We are looking for something that would fit our tight budget, so probably a closet judging on affordable apartments in London. We never fight. Maybe it is because we have only been together for under two years, but we rarely even get annoyed with each other or disagree. But I am still very nervous about moving in together because there will be no escape. However, it is comforting to read that all couples go through that and nobody’s perfect – but everyone pretends to be!

My boyfriend and I were young teenage sweethearts – we dated all of high school, moved in together at 18, and are still living together at 28 (still not married though, ha!, just not interested yet). It’s surprising to even me how we’ve grown together – we’ve totally evolved as people, several times even, but luckily it’s been mostly together rather than apart. We know each others stories because we’ve lived them together. Sometimes it does get boring and I relish our weekend friend time, but sometimes we still surprise each other… for instance, he didn’t know I played soccer as a kid until a week or two ago! Anyways, I love these relationship posts, keep them coming!

We disagree on occasion in front of family or close friends, but in general keep it limited to good-hearted teasing. As much as it might sound sanctimonious, it’s really important to me and my husband to build each other up in front of others (and privately, of course), not the other way around. We have a few friends/family members, wives in particular, who constantly complain about their spouse directly in front of them. It’s said in this sort of classic anti-men/husband/Dad way that seems unfortunately common, especially on TV, if that makes sense. It always makes us cringe. I can’t help but feel that showing a total lack of respect for your spouse in front of others is a pretty easy way to pave the road to divorce.

There was one time after my husband had surgery that he was totally miserable, I was stressed, and we more or less let it fly in front of my mother-in-law. I just couldn’t help it. It was pretty awkward. Lol

It makes me very, very uncomfortable when other couples bicker around me. My former roommate/friend (yes, she’s a former of both) would berate her boyfriend in front of us and I would just squirm because she was being so mean to him and he was just taking it.

It could have something to do with me being a child of divorce, the fact that this bothers me so much, but I just feel that if you can’t treat your partner with respect IN FRONT OF YOUR FRIENDS then you should probably take a closer look at your relationship. I shudder to think how she acted towards him when they were alone.

My husband and I don’t really bicker, but we also are still newlyweds at 9 months married, and no kids yet – few triggers to be annoyed by! We did premarital counseling and have worked on our communication so we try to talk to each other when we’re feeling hurt and fix the problem together. My instinct is to bottle it up but he’s really good at telling when I’m upset about something and asking me what’s going on. I am quite sensitive to criticism so it can take me a while to process when he tells me I’ve done something that he didn’t like! But I’m working on it :)

I can’t imagine ever pretending to be perfect with my husband, I think he’d laugh at the thought of it! We don’t intentionally fight in public (or anywhere, fighting is the worst) but it is part of life, it can be done in a healthy way, and in an age where so many of us are trying to be more authentic I’m okay with people seeing it.

Most of our friends have heard our regular banter: “Oh he orders that beer so he won’t have to share with me! The same reason she ordered the anchovies!” Some close friends have even heard real fights, and I don’t feel any sense of embarrassment over that. In fact, we’ve become closer to them and have grown because of it.

Many summers ago, a sweet friend saw my husband and I on the cusp of an argument. She sent us both into the air conditioning with a snack and a water bottle, and it was wildly effective! Because we’re all basically toddlers! She later told me half the fights in Florida can be blamed on the weather, which I still think about when normal human crankiness starts to escalate. That is a lesson we might not have learned as a young couple if we were putting on a front of perfection.

My husband and I discovered that we tend to bicker more on trips. Something about the constant coming and going and adjusting plans can make us anxious and want to take it out on one another. After a particularly awful bickering match that resulted in tears, we created a ritual. At the start of each trip, we verbally commit to trying our best to get along. We even created a “safe word” to use whenever we sense an argument arising. When the safe word is used, we both have to say something nice about the other person. It sounds ridiculous, but it always works! We have even started using the same strategy for other stressful situations like picking out furniture or apartment hunting.

We’ve been friends for eight years, together five, and married almost four. We have two young children. We do occasionally bicker about the same old things—I wouldn’t be afraid to do it in front of those friends closest to us but I think anyone else would feel awkward. Although there’s a fair amount of stolen kisses and butt pinches to even things out.

We try our very best to make sure that bickering doesn’t point to a larger problem that deserves a true and gracious conversation. When it does, we go for a long walk and try to keep it together—but I have been known to throw up my hands on the sidewalk (no yelling, though.) I’m sure anyone passing by could figure out what’s going on, but I love those walks, because we cover miles, literally and figuratively. And we always return home together.

I’ve been with my husband longer than I haven’t, which is crazy (met at 20, 23 years together). I know all of the stories. I’m in a lot of them. I am better at telling the stories. We speak in code, usually some derivative of a movie/Friends reference. If we weren’t together, no one would understand what the heck I am talking about. He’s like my parachute.