Facts & Feelings– how to fight fairly.


It’s improbable that we’ll not have conflict in our lives. Instead of surrounding yourself with only people who agree with you it’s important to learn how to have difficult conversations– if you value those close connections.


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When I left my husband years ago, he told me something that has stuck with me even to this very moment. And I told him something that maybe has stuck with him. Who knows.

We had an imperfect relationship, like all others. Except that we didn’t know how to manage conflict.

Here’s what he told me–

“I need a woman who’s going to fight me.”

Here’s what I told him–

“I just want to be loved– and accepted for who I actually am, instead of having to fight because you want me to be a different person.”

We sucked at intimacy and conflict.

Looking back, I know why I sucked at it. I had so much trauma from my childhood especially around men who would shame me for just being me. What my survival brain learned is that you don’t fight. You freeze. And the truth of the matter is that my brain went totally blank in these types of situations. While he would rattle off time and time and time again how I had let him down (where did he store all that info?!?!) I could only sit there and take it. It was such a painful experience. Our conflicts were always the same– him hurling accusations at me and making stuff up that suited the moment and me just panicking and blanking. I’m not going to talk about him, because that’s his

I’m not saying that I was perfect by any means. There is always a need for conversation, apologizing and teasing out miscommunications.

But, something I have learned is that I shied away from fighting because of trauma. Not because I can’t handle disagreements. But the style of disagreeing– angrily aiming shots at me just doesn’t work for me. I can’t be as quick on my opponents. And besides that fact, who wants to consider their intimate partners or friends or family as opponents?

I’ve become really good at having difficult conversations because of running my startup, Cleveland Flea. It’s not because I liked them. They were still excruciating to my brain, but I cared deeply about the individuals that I worked with and collaborated with, so I had to find a way.

It wasn’t until this year that I found a way to do it while also caring for myself. Once I got clear on why my brain was choosing to freeze I was able to start working on that exact trauma trigger.

What I’ve come to is this– we will be in conflict. In our intimate relationships we can set boundaries with each other. Out in the world, it’s much harder. And online it’s nearly impossible.

Here’s my strategy for having fair fights– focus on Facts and Feelings.

  • First, it’s important to set ground rules. What’s allowed, what’s not

    • No interrupting.

    • Pausing before speaking.

    • Managing your OWN emotions.

    • No impatience.

    • No intimidation.

    • No accusations.

    • Pause to calm your body down if you need to.

    • Decide what you want to feel ahead of time.

    • Don’t go in with big emotion. It’ll take over your brain’s ability to be fair and kind. If you start getting heated, take a break.

  • Share your feelings.

    • Conflict is only a thing because feelings were hurt or boundaries were not respected.

    • When you focus on your own feelings, you create connection. You share what it feels like to be in your body. You own the feelings, but you do allow yourself to express what it feels like to be you.

    • “When you said [ ], I felt [ ].”

    • Understand what conflict will require from you emotionally and set yourself up for success. I need time to prepare.

  • Focus on facts.

    • Don’t use words like “always / never”

    • Don’t make shit up.

    • Recall incidents as close to the truth as humanly possible.

    • It’s ok to recall what you believed happened, but if you don’t 100% know it’s truth then you should reveal that.

  • Learn to say you’re sorry without feeling shame.

    • The word exists for a reason. Use it.

    • There is no world that exists where we will not hurt each other. Acknowledging that hurt and apologizing is aways available to us.

  • Own your side of the street.

  • Take ownership over your own words, feelings, thoughts and actions. That’s all you can control, anyway.

  • Your feelings are your own. If you’re feeling angry you have to manage your own mind, not move that anger out of your body by hurting someone else or saying something you’ll regret.

Maybe you can’t be in an intimate relationship with certain people. It’s ok to know this. It’s a bummer, sometimes to come to this conclusion. But any good relationship has rules and boundaries and standards and codes of conduct. If your partners won’t agree to any rules, you might want to rethink being partners.

We are strong beings– and we can handle really hard things.

But that doesn’t mean you have to.


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