It starts with misunderstanding of the nature of a love relationship. When we attempt to exert power over a significant other, be it a spouse, a parent, a child, etc. any attempt to exert your will, say in an argument, will be seen as an assault on the relationship. It puts that relationship at risk, for anything that diminishes the significant other, diminishes the relationship as well. And to the extent that one is successful in exerting your will, meaning that the extent to which the other submits, it is to that extent you have, paradoxically, lost.
Mastering the Art of Losing
Arguing in a love relationship is about obtaining what you want from your relationship, and that requires a strategy. And strategies require the establishment of priorities.
So what is it we want from out relationship?
First, I think, we would want to love and be loved, do we not? We want to be happy, and above all we would want to feel secure. We want to grow, to discover. The love relationship is the garden in which we plant, cultivate, and harvest the most precious of crops, ourselves, and in which your significant other is provided the same rich soil from which to grow and to bloom. If this is what we want, only a fool would diminish it by attempting to control the relationship, for control and love are at odds with each other. One kills the other.
Say she wants to go to a concert to hear an orchestra play her favorite music, but you hate symphonies and above all you see it as a waste of your precious time. Someone with even the simplest of minds can understand that by putting one’s complaints on ice through a two hour symphony, one that will bring joy to the significant other, is a pretty small price to pay for joy, is it not? Where can you buy it cheaper? Is it not better to go to the concert than to bring on a battle over it, to bring into the relationship an ugly and uneasy rankness that will later require a plea for forgiveness?
If the art of argument in the love relationship is about obtaining from that relationship what one wants, then a psychic law comes into operation, a law as elementary as “what goes up must come down.” Simply put, when opposing wants collide, the true art of argument must appear on the scene like Batman descending on his magical cape to preserve the peace.
And to become an expert in that art seems to me to be one of utmost importance. To find common ground, it is not necessary to always stand one’s ground. As it may pay you to follow a rather simple rule: To excel in the art of the domestic argument and thereby obtaining what you want, while preserving the peace: one must oftentimes master the art of losing.