Making up after fighting: 10 Proven methods to get you back on track
No one wants to fight, but they do anyway. Understand why and what you can do about it.
Fighting can be broken down into two parts—attacking and defending
Attacks can be obvious and stupid (high school style attacks) like saying, “You’re stupid.” And attacks can be sophisticated (my spouse is a lawyer kind of attack), like “There are better ways to do things and if you had consulted with me first, this might never have happened (i.e. “Your too dumb, so you should have checked with me first”). Defending involves either giving reasons for your actions or counterattacking.
The goal of fighting is to prove the other person wrong
The goal of both attacks and defenses is to prove the other person wrong. Making up will need to deal with that central issue. You don’t need to be wrong in order to make up, but you will have to stop trying to prove your partner is wrong or else the fighting will just continue. Before relationship coaching, some of my clients were fighting so often that their relationship did not have time to recover between fights. This led to a gradual decline in their closeness that they did not know how to recover from. By making up as soon as you can, you help to prevent a decline in closeness from happening.
Making up after fighting will become unnecessary when either partner learns how to deal with attacks
Many people think that fights will end when their partner changes his or her ways or when the current issue is resolved. Unfortunately, that only stops fighting until the next issue comes along. The solution to ending fighting is not in solving all the issues. Differences are a part of life and are inevitable. Fights can be stopped completely by either partner learning how to respond in a way that builds up the relationship rather than tear it down. Then, no matter how hard one partner wants to fight, the responses of the other partner prevent that from happening.
If you have an occasional fight, that's alright
It happens to the best of us. The real measure of a good marriage or committed relationship is not whether or not there are fights, but how long it takes people to make up. If it takes hours, there are moderate problems. If it takes days, there are severe ones.
Here are 10 things that you can do to make up sooner and get back on track:
1. Decide that the relationship is more important than being right—One way to do that is to ask yourself whether proving yourself right is more important to you than having a strong connection with your partner. While it is important to do the right thing, it is often not necessary to prove that to our partner.
2. Don't attack, defend, or explain—Don’t start to give reasons for why you were fighting or you will restart the fight.
3. If you were wrong, admit it--Admitting when you are wrong will help to build respect and ease tension. Even if you were right about the topic, you may have been wrong in the way you behaved. For example, simply saying, "I'm sorry. I should have listened to you more patiently without losing my temper," can go a long way toward reconciling.
4. Make sure you have calmed down after your argument—Don’t try to make up in order for your partner to calm you down. Calm yourself down before you make up. Taking a walk, talking to a friend, or listening to soft music are all good ways to calm down.
5. Be mature, even if your partner isn't—In every relationship, one partner is more mature than the other. It’s either going to be you or it’s going to be your partner. If you are the more mature one, don’t let your partner’s lack of maturity bring you down. Let your maturity help to bring your partner up.
6. Restart communication by helping your partner to be right—If your partner had some good points during the fight, say so, but don’t attack or defend. Your partner may reciprocate, but don’t count on it. Don’t ask, “Didn’t I have some good points too?” unless you want to fight some more.
7. Deal positively with continued verbal attacks following an argument—Your husband, wife, or partner may not be good at calming down and continue to shoot comments at you. Don’t fan the flames. If you don’t know how to deal with attacks, then at least don’t participate. Your spouse may be upset because you are not continuing to argue, but that’s OK. Arguing more just does more damage.
8. Take responsibility for change after an argument—Do your part to work on whatever valid criticisms your partner had of you, even if your partner does nothing. This is not compromising your principles. If the criticisms were valid, then changing will earn you respect, not lose it.
9. Reaffirm your desire for a good relationship after an argument—Keep it positive. “I don’t want to fight with you and have a bad relationship,” is negative and invites more attacks. “I love you, and I want to have a good relationship with you” is positive.
10. Don't rush your partner to reconcile—Making up is opening the door to reconnecting. It is a loving invitation to reconnect. Be patient until your partner is ready to come through that door and reconnect with you. Allow your partner to have space if that is what he or she needs. For some people, men especially, that is the only way they know how to calm down.
Being the one to initiate making up after fighting can be very hard, but it can also be very rewarding
If you have done well, then although it was very hard, you have been able to find some truth in what your partner has said, given honest appreciation, and given positive messages of love and desire for the relationship. If your relationship is still on solid ground, it is likely your husband, wife, or partner will respond positively and is quickly warming up to being with you again. If this doesn't happen, it could be a sign that there are bigger issues than the one you had a fight about.
Sometimes trying to make up after fighting doesn’t work
If your relationship has had many battles and you and your husband, wife or partner have become very distant, then you both may have gotten to the point where you do not respect each other. Then, when you try to communicate, the built up resentment and lack of respect can easily set off more fighting, even when what you are trying to say is essentially good. It's possible to hit a point of "no-return," where nothing you do seems to be effective in making up and getting back on track. About half of my clients have hit this "point of no return" when they start relationship coaching. At the point of no return, one of the partners generally starts thinking of ending or leaving the relationship.
When your husband, wife, or partner says it’s too late
If your spouse or partner has internally decided to pull out of the relationship, he or she will resist reconciling. It's important that you don't accept that message as written in stone. Reconciling can still happen. If your partner does not want to make up, don't argue about it, and don't freak out. And, if you want to save your relationship, never agree that you should break up. You have no idea how firm of a decision that is in your partner's mind. Saying that also think you should end the relationship may push him or her into a more certain decision to do just that. Once the words are out of your mouth, it's too late to put them back and the backpedaling can be really hard.
What to do when you have done a lot of damage and your spouse wants to end things
If you are wrong and you know it, and if you have repeatedly been doing damage to your relationship, there will be a real reluctance on your partner's part to make up. Apologies and promises are likely to sound empty, no matter how much you intend to change. At this point, it is very important to show your partner how serious you are about change. Join a support group, get into counseling, go to counseling together, or get relationship coaching. Not being able to do such things would just signal to your partner to expect more of the same. And, from his or her perspective, that would be a reasonable assumption. People who have tried repeatedly to change on their own need help. Admitting that to your partner and getting help can delay your partner's plan to end the relationship, giving you enough time to build trust before it's too late.
Learn to see your husband, wife, or partner clearly
We have a choice about how we see our partner. It's important for us not to see our partner as trying to do something bad to harm our relationship. No one intentionally tries to have a bad relationship. Instead, we can more realistically see our partner as trying to make his or her life easier, or happier, but in a way that happens to hurt the relationship. Our spouse or significant other, just like ourself, has only learned limited ways to take care of him or herself and sometimes does harm, even though it is not his purpose. Despite all the angry words and stupid mistakes, he needs love and attention, just like us. His ability to cope may be almost fried. Continuing to respond well, on our part, can ease the tension and restore his ability to cope so the relationship can improve.
Grow love in your heart
Seeing your partner as a fallible human being and not as an enemy will increase your ability to have compassion rather than anger, and will allow love to continue to grow in your heart-- even if sometimes all you get is from your partner is the "angry face." Loving someone never has been easy, but it brings many rewards. Love gives meaning to our lives and fills up any emptiness we feel.
If your attempts to make up don’t work, don't get discouraged.
Some problems are very difficult to overcome. Your partner or you may have excess baggage that the other doesn't know how to deal with. There may be a backlog of previous hurts that still haven't healed. And forgiveness may be needed, but perhaps neither of you know how to do that. If you don't know how to get back on track from where you are now, don't try to fight your way to a better relationship. No one can fight their way to a better relationship. Instead, get help with making up. Sometimes it only takes a session or two and sometimes it takes more, but help is available. There is no need to live in a battlezone. You and your partner are meant to be on the same side.
