Couples: Here's How To Argue

While couples argue, they fight against their love. They relate with one another as adversaries, turning passionate loving into passionate loathing. And yet, while it involves sorrow and pain, even the most heated shouting matches can serve as a healthy and necessary catharsis for the relationship to grow.

When couples argue they can relieve themselves of the pent up frustrations and resentments that are bound to build in any meaningful, long-term relationship.

Healthy couples are willing to do the hard work of improving their relationship. Unhealthy individuals resent having to work hard. The hardest work in a relationship may be going through a painful argument. But while the argument itself never solves their problems, if the couple is willing to let go and move on, the strength and depth of their love then grows.

When healthy couples argue, they do not hold onto resentment. They do not continue blaming their partner. They allow their love to resume.

When unhealthy couples argue, they hold onto their hurt out of fear that typically stems from early childhood emotional injury.

One major sign of unhealthy couples after they argue is expressed by the following: "If I can't forgive you it is because your actions are unforgivable. You have treated me worse than I have treated you. I don't trust you because you are untrustworthy."

One major sign of healthy couples after arguing is expressed by this attitude: "I recognize that my perception of you is not the true you. As long as I hold onto my resentment and distrust of you it is myself that I injure."

Couples who don't argue are stuck in unhealthy passive-aggressive patterns. Their resentments remain with them, blocking their love's flow.

Because all human beings have a dark and a light side, occasional angry arguing is to be expected as a natural concomitant of human intimacy. Couples who do not argue, and couples who do argue but who do not let go of their argument, display a fear of true intimacy that prevents their healthy, growing connection.

By venting their dark feelings and then moving on, open to love's flow, healthy couples soon return to loving closeness and even experience more satisfying intimacy on a deeper level. This is how intimate relationships grow. Healthy couples argue, even though arguing hurts.