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My wife and I struggled with our relationship most of the time. It had to do with communication. I tried to instill the values of my Father and Mother and she had her Mother and Father whose values I disagreed with. There was a big difference in how we related to our respective parents. And our regard for our parents values slowly turned into a smoldering underlying problem.
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Early in our relationship, when her Father would call her, she would react in such an extreme way that I would think "this just can't be normal", and I would slowly begin to obsess over her behavior. It didn't matter what we were in the process of doing; maybe going somewhere during the day, or participating in something for fun in the evening. When her Father called, she would always retreat to the bedroom, crawl into the middle of our California King mattress and curl up in the fetal position and stare at the wall, as if she had just received devastating news of some sort.
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We fought a lot about her reactions, especially when her behavior got in the way of our day to day lives. But as time went on, we fought less and less. I learned that it was better to reach some sort of compromise regarding how "I" regarded her behavior. I had to become more "accepting". And I learned over time, that I wasted a lot of time fighting when I should have recognized the "fight" to actually be a NEGOTIATION and the result was always a compromise.
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I began to realize that all of the fighting actually equaled out to an INVESTMENT of our time in our relationship, where we were determined to compromise. And as time went on, we became increasingly comfortable with each other. But it took YEARS to get there. It takes years of being in a relationship. But in the end, it is worth it.
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So the lesson here is: Don't abandon ship, just because you and your spouse fight, even if you fight a lot. Your fights and the time spent are simply the investments you make in your relationship called ICC's or Increasingly Comfortable Compromise(s). And in the end, you will be living on that stored energy called "Comfortable Compromise". And you'll be sincerely happy you did!
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