How to Fight with Your Spouse: 10 Proven Tips for Fighting Fair - 2025 Update

Unlock the secrets to fighting fairly in your marriage and learn how to communicate effectively with your partner. Join me, John Thurman, as I share ten proven tips to help you and your spouse handle conflicts constructively. Drawing from over five decades of marriage and insights from Dr. John Gottman's research, we tackle the common pitfalls in relationships where conflicts are recurrent and often unsolvable. Learn how to keep disputes private, prioritize solvable issues, and protect your children from emotional harm while building a more resilient and loving partnership.

Ever wonder why specific phrases can escalate an argument faster than a wildfire? Discover why words like "you never" or "you always" are best left unsaid and how staying on point can transform your disagreements into productive conversations. With actionable strategies, we'll explore how active listening and maintaining respect can bridge the gap between misunderstanding and connection. Plus, find out why taking a break during heated moments isn't just okay—it's necessary for conflict resolution. Equip yourself with the tools to differentiate between solvable and unsolvable issues, ensuring your energy is directed towards building a stronger, more resilient relationship.

Check out the article
5 Ways to Improve Your Relationship, Blog

Be sure to check out my website

Facebook Link

Tactical Prayer Guide Link!

Transcript

Fighting Fair in Marriage

John Thurman 0:00

John Thurman's Resilient Solutions Shortcast, season Four, episode Six how to Fight with your Spouse in 2025. 10 Proven Tips to Help you Fight Fair. Did you listen to that title? How to Fight with your Spouse in 2025. 10 Proven Tips to Help you Fight Fairly. Hey, I'm John Thurman and you're listening to John Thurman's Resilient Solutions Shortcast, and today I'm going to help you have a more resilient marriage by learning how to fight fair. Glad you're with me.

John Thurman 0:33

I know you and your spouse fight fair all the time, so this may not be for you, but it's probably for your friends, your neighbors and your relatives. Well, let's jump right in and talk about this. Thank you so much for joining me. Have you ever been at a party or a social event and you hear a couple say, oh, we never fight? You're right. I've been around long enough as a therapist, as a minister and as a husband of 54 years we're going to be married 54 years this August To know that when people say that they're just lying, most normal people fight and, unfortunately, a lot of us fight unfairly. August, this next year, my wife and I will be celebrating 54 years of marriage. Can you believe that? Oh, my gosh, and we have had our share of fights. We've bickered, we've had knockdown drag outs. Matter of fact, we've been to therapy several times and even did an intensive, because we just didn't fight well. Recent squabbles came when my wife was trying to talk to me about something and I was distracted by the bright, shining object known as an iPhone. It was kind of hard to listen to her when I was so busy scrolling and learning new truth from YouTube, because, after all, that is what we need to know about the known universe. We still struggle with this, but we've learned over the years how to fight fair, and today I hope I'm going to give some encouragement and some hope as I teach you how to fight fair.

John Thurman 1:58

Let me be serious here for a minute. If you're involved in a relationship where the fighting is unfair, where you're being brutalized verbally or physically or emotionally, you need to get some help, and if you're in fear for your life or personal harm, you need to leave. You need to talk to some type of professional, be it a therapist, be it a pastor, and get some help, because there is no excuse for violence in relationships. Bring you back to the current day. Today we're talking about normal couples who have normal circumstances that sometimes got out of control. I spent years as a clinical therapist and as I've gotten older I've moved kind of away from that model or modality to being more of an informed life coach who's spent a lot of time living life, being married, doing things right, doing things wrong and making corrections, and also being a study of God's Word, and my goal and desire is to help people have a more meaningful life, living through biblical principles. Well, let me share with you some fun facts about conflict, and when I read these it was just like a breath of fresh air. I'm like wow.

John Thurman 3:01

A few years ago I was in a class with Dr John Gottman and he was talking about how couples get conflicted and he shared a couple of things, and you can find these in his book Seven Secrets of a Successful Marriage. But his research discovered that 69% of couples' conflicts revolve around ongoing issues. In other words, the stuff you fight about today is the same stuff you thought about the first six months you were married. And his research went on to tell us that 96% of what we fight about doesn't have a solution or it's unsolvable. Now, by that he doesn't mean it's never solvable, he means that right now we don't have the tools, the skills, the communication capacity or the knowledge to solve some of these things. Instead, we just stay worked up about them and destroy ourselves trying to fix stuff that's not going to be fixed. One of the things he did say we can do is begin to be a little bit more thoughtful about what we're conflicted over and begin to consider what is solvable.

Keep it Between the Two of You

John Thurman 4:03

And today, as we talk about how to fight with your spouse, I'm going to give you 10 proven tips to help your communication deescalate, to help you to solve what's solvable and forget the rest. And I really want you to pay attention, because today I'm going to give you some tools that you can use, that can revolutionize your marriage. You can still fight, you can still disagree, but this way you'll do it better, you'll have better outcomes and more positive resolve and results, and you'll fight and discuss and disagree over stuff that really matters, that you can solve. By the way, I appreciate those of you that have acknowledged how you like me giving you practical lists to do things with. That means a lot to me, because in my work over the years, I've found now that if I can share a good list with people, they can pick two or three, and many times just a choice of two or three different ways of doing things can have a profound influence on positive outcomes. Dr Gottman says that if we can cut each other enough slack in relationships just to look at changing three to five percent of the way we interact, it can have a huge outcome down the road. So folks think baby steps, and I'm going to give you 10 proven tips right now. You're ready. These will be in the show notes, but I also want to encourage you to take a few minutes and read my blog. It's about a 10 to 12 minute read and I promise you can read these and reinforce them in your brain and maybe pick a couple.

John Thurman 5:24

Number one when you get worked up and need to fight, keep it between the two of you. Literally Fighting in front of the kids only hurts them. So just put your big man pants on, your big girl pants on. Have these discussions in private. By the way, you don't need to share stuff with your family either. I can't tell you how many times that I've had a husband or wife that they've worked up and they've gotten a fight and they've gone and told their mama rather than tell their dads. But the husband will go tell his mama, or the wife will tell her mama or her sister or his brother, and, before you know it, the whole family's worked up over this fight that the couple had the problem with. That is, nobody ever tells the family that they made up and got over it. No-transcript, old information and maybe sharing information about you that's no longer true, so keep it in the house. Keep it to yourselves. Okay, if you need a third party, talk to a pastor or a therapist. Number two stick to the topic at hand. This is so easy and, ladies, I could be wrong here and you can email me, and just don't send me hate mail.

Stick to the Topic

John Thurman 6:36

But it seems to me that y'all have this incredible capacity to remember stuff. I remember we were going somewhere one time and my wife goes well, do you remember that time that we went to Arizona? And I'm like, well, we've been to Arizona several times. I said, oh, yeah, well, what was it about? Well, do you remember you said this to me? I don't remember. I don't tell her that. I go well, sure, yeah, I remember we had a fight about something, didn't we? Hey, man, if something like that happens, let me tell you you were busted, because who would? She'll do, she'll go. Well, it was actually April the 12th. We were about a hundred miles from Phoenix. Winds were either south, southwest at eight to 10. Relative humidity was 12%. When you said this to me, don't you remember?

Stay Grounded

John Thurman 7:19

Well, guys, stick the topic hand, don't bring up old stuff. That's true for men and women. Don't go back and say, well, you remember this, you remember that. Stick to the topic at hand. Because what we do when we get worked up is we tend to kind of go on an emotional scavenger hunt, and it doesn't have any good benefits to it because we play oh hunt and it doesn't have any good benefits to it because we play oh, you hurt me, well, oh, I hurt you. We go back and forth and it's never a good outcome. You should always learn to maintain dignity and respect for each other's feelings and be able to stay in the room and keep your brain and your mouth under control.

John Thurman 7:52

Number three stay grounded. Address the issues at hand, not the symptoms. Now, if you're feeling overwhelmed or your heart rate's getting up, take a break, walk away. It is completely legitimate to break contact. I tell couples all the time if you feel like it's getting hot, take a break Now. Make sure you and your spouse talk about this ahead of time. But if you're getting heated up, take five or ten minutes just to physically walk away, catch your breath.

Avoid "You Never", "You Always"

John Thurman 8:18

The kicker is you need to come back and re-engage. So stick to the topic at hand. Stay grounded, keep it non-physical. Stay in the room. Try to keep your tone down and your animation a minimal thing. Do not let it get physical guys. Take a break, cool down and then re-engage. Leave the old grudges at the door. Matter of fact, the scripture says that bitterness is an absolute disruptor. If you've got bitterness over hurts and hang-ups and bang-ups, deal with it. The scripture teaches us how to do it. Confess your sins. If you need to talk to a pastor or a Christian therapist to deal with it, do what you have to do to deal with it. Stay grounded. Don't get physical.

Avoid Character Assasination

John Thurman 9:00

Number four and I see men and women do this one and that's the dreaded you never, you always. There is no fruit on that tree, folks. There is absolutely no fruit on that tree. Phrases like that are like opening up Pandora's box of badness. There's nothing good coming out of it. So if you tend to be a person that goes to the old standby. You never, you always drop it. Cool your jets, eliminate from your vocabulary because it doesn't do anything positive. Number five avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid character assassination. Hear me clearly here. I don't want you going all gladiator on your partner's personality, family or previous relationships. Focus on the argument, not the villains of the story.

Listen

John Thurman 9:43

Next, and ladies, once again, if you need to send me some hate mail, it's john at covertmercycom, but statistically, women tend to do this more than men. Quite frankly, we guys aren't sharp enough to do this, but I call it mind reading. Skip the mind reading acts. Have you ever blurted out? I know what you're thinking? Well, you really don't. You might think you do, but you don't. So just be careful, because if you do that, you have just been busted as a mind reader Instead of mind reading, as we talked about earlier.

John Thurman 10:15

With good communication listen to what they're saying, ask for clarification, make sure you got what they were trying to say. When you do that, everybody wins. It does two or three things. Number one it slows the conversation down and secondly, it shows that you genuinely care about understanding what your partner is trying to say. Plus, if you do this, if you really try to slow down and hear your partner out. You get five bonus points just for listening. Wow, who couldn't handle five bonus points?

John Thurman 10:46

Number seven stay on task. Let the task at hand be the task at hand. When you do that, everybody wins. It's not I win, you lose. And that's what happens when we tend to go off target or go off task, we talk around stuff.

Keep Your Actions Proportional

John Thurman 11:02

I want to tell you, when you stay on task, it's a win-win for everybody. It's not I win, you lose. This isn't an Olympic event or a sports match. This is life and you want to find ways to stay on task so you can problem solve together. Don't chase the rabbits, don't bring up old stuff. Remember, we've got we all have a ton of unsolvable issues. Solve what you can solve Moving right along. I want you to really think about this. And this is number eight Keep your reactions proportional. There's no need to bring heavy artillery to swat out a small fly.

Be Open and Honest

John Thurman 11:40

Most disagreements fall into two categories, as I've mentioned two or three times already. There are solvable disagreements and there are unsolvable. Really, do your homework and try to figure out what is solvable, because you'll burn a lot of energy on unsolvable. Really, do your homework and try to figure out what is solvable, because you'll burn a lot of energy on unsolvable. So, if it's at all possible, just try to avoid that. Okay, do what you can do.

Allow for a Dignified Retreat

John Thurman 12:00

Number nine be open, honest and accepting. Committing to openness, honesty and acceptance is like giving your relationship a nice cozy blanket. It really is. When you can do this, things are softer. You can even talk about difficult things. If you're trying to be open and honest and accepting and the key is accepting you don't come. Well, the Bible says the truth is going to hurt. Well, the truth sometimes hurts, but you don't have to deliver it with a hammer. When we try to be open and honest, it makes it easier to relax, to listen, to offer feedback and to even disagree, but you disagree civilly. When we try to do this, we create some safe space in our relationship for us to talk about tough matters in a way that's mutually honoring, that honors God, that keeps us in the room and helps us maintain self-control and maybe find some solutions to the problems. And then number 10, this is so important Always allow for a dignified retreat.

John Thurman 12:59

Every now and then. Things can get kind of heated and if you end the fight on a bad note, it just festers and gets worse. When you allow a dignified retreat, you keep the relationship from getting infected and going bad. Because you give space to problem solve, you give space to deal with the conflict in a way that's honorable. It's crucial to end every fight on a good note. You may not completely agree at the moment, but you want to end on a good note. And that may say I don't know that we've solved this yet, but can we agree to take a break and come back to it later? Or thank you for listening, recognizing when an olive branch is being offered and, by the way, it might look like an apology or a bad joke but give each other grace to step back from the disagreements without losing dignity. It's okay to agree to disagree without losing dignity. It's okay to agree to disagree. Or it's okay to realize maybe we can't get this solved right now, but allow a graceful retreat.

Ancient Wisdom

John Thurman 13:58

There's one scripture I like here, and this is from Ephesians, the fourth chapter, verses 30 and 31, where it says Paul says get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, slander and all types of evil behavior anger, harsh words, slander and all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Here's an action plan for you. Are you ready to improve your relationship? I want you to review this article and pick out two or three things that you can do to improve your communication and fight more fairly. There's nothing wrong with fighting in a relationship, as long as you do it right and you get some resolution. Cut each other some slack, extend each other some grace.

John Thurman 14:39

My name is John Thurman and I'm an author, speaker, therapist and a relationship coach that helps people become more resilient in their personal life, their relationships and in their faith. And if you'd like to reach out to me and share some of your concerns, you have a question. You can do that by emailing me at john at covertmercycom, that's j-o-h-n. At c-o-v-e-r-t-m-e-r-c-y dot com. To learn more about me, go to my website, johnthermannet. Hey, I am John Thurman. You've been listening to my podcast, john Thurman. You've been listening to my podcast, john Thurman's Resilient Solution Shortcast. Thanks so much for joining me today and remember this is a day that the Lord has made and I'll make a choice to rejoice and be glad in it. God bless, see you next time. Thank you you.