0:00 - Introduction to Conflict in Marriage
1:37 - Win-Lose Conflicts: The Stakes
3:48 - Surface Issues vs. Deeper Problems
5:36 - Honesty in Conflict Resolution
7:48 - Dealing with Grievances
10:06 - Rules of Engagement in Marriage
15:48 - The Importance of Agreed-Upon Rules
18:09 - The Role of Rules in Relationships
20:53 - The Consequences of Breaking Rules
In this lecture, Stefan from Freedomain tackles the intricate dynamics of conflict in marriage, presenting a set of guidelines designed to foster constructive communication and understanding between partners. He begins with the premise that conflict is akin to a game with established rules, stressing the importance of adhering to these rules in order to maintain a healthy relationship. The significance of recognizing the nature of conflicts is underscored, distinguishing between win-lose scenarios, where one partner must prevail, and win-win situations, which allow for collaboration and mutual benefit.
Stefan provides illustrative examples to highlight the different types of conflicts couples may encounter. For instance, a situation arises when one partner insists on attending a dubious social gathering, framing this as a scenario in which one partner's safety and the relationship’s stability are at stake, necessitating a firm, decisive stance. Conversely, he discusses more mundane disagreements that often stem from underlying issues, such as household responsibilities or minor annoyances. In these cases, he emphasizes the need for partners to dig deeper, acknowledging that the surface-level complaints may be manifestations of deeper dissatisfaction or unresolved feelings.
The key to navigating these conflicts lies in honesty and clarity of communication. Stefan stresses the importance of expressing feelings authentically without resorting to blame or hidden agendas. He advises couples to avoid using trivial matters, like misplaced items or unwashed dishes, as a smokescreen for deeper frustrations. By encouraging a practice of open dialogue, where one can admit to feeling annoyed without attributing fault or seeking to escalate tensions, partners can engage in discussions that are more likely to lead to resolution.
Another crucial aspect discussed is the concept of integrity in communication. Stefan warns against the dangers of harboring grievances and then projecting these onto unrelated circumstances. He encourages couples to address their feelings swiftly and directly to prevent resentment from building over time. He advocates for a model of interaction in which partners prioritize honesty and humility, recognizing that emotions can be complex, and acknowledging when one does not entirely understand the root cause of their feelings.
In exploring the foundational rules that govern a successful relationship, Stefan highlights that agreements must be made and honored, comparable to the rules in sports or games. He argues that integrity and consistency in abiding by these rules generate trust, an essential component in fostering intimacy and love. He warns against the instability that arises when one partner acts unpredictably, cautioning that without mutual adherence to agreed-upon standards, relationships can devolve into chaos and confusion.
Ultimately, the lecture serves as a comprehensive guide on the roles and responsibilities partners bear in navigating marital conflicts. By committing to open communication, honesty, and respect for the established rules of engagement, couples can cultivate not only a more resilient partnership but also a more fulfilling and loving relationship. Stefan concludes with the reminder that relationships, like civilizations, rely on the ability to negotiate and abide by a set of rules, which form the bedrock of trust and shared commitment.
[0:00] Hey, everybody, hope you're doing well. Stefan from Freedomain, and I had a question from a live stream the other day, which I will attempt to do some reasonable justice to here. And the question was, what are your rules for fighting in a marriage? What are your rules for conflict in a marriage? Well, the first thing to understand about conflict in a marriage, and this is really conflict in any reasonable relationship, is that you have to play by the rules. Conflict is a game, and there are rules. Clearly, you wouldn't play chess with someone who just made up whatever rules they want, who threw the chess pieces at you, who put mercury in your drink or roofied you. You would not sit down and play chess. So a conflict is a game, a sport. You try to win, of course, but you have to play by the rules. So there are two kinds of conflicts in a relationship. The first kind is is when you know you're right and you have to win. And the second is you're not sure if you're right or not and you're open to some sort of win-win situation. So a conflict, for instance, where you know that you're right and you have to win.
[1:12] Is your girlfriend wants to go to some grungy party where there's going to be a bunch of lowlifes in a really bad section of town. So that would be an example of that is a win-lose and you have to win. And what I mean by that is if you don't win, then the relationship probably won't continue.
[1:37] To take a more extreme example, if your wife comes to you and says, hey, I want an open marriage. Well, that is a debate or a conversation or an argument or a fight or a conflict that you have to win and there is no compromise. You can look for a win-win situation if she's feeling lonely, spend more time with her, if she's feeling isolated, spend more time socially with people, if she is feeling starved of affection, find ways to bring more affection to the relationship. But if your girlfriend wants to go to a skeevy party with a bunch of thugs, and if your wife wants to open up your marriage so that you can sleep with a police station, well, then that's a fight and you kind of have to...
[2:23] If your wife or your husband, let's say your husband, let's flip it around a bit. If your husband has a friend who is bad for him, right? If your husband has a friend who is bad for him, if your husband's friend constantly gets him drunk, wants to take him to strip bars, enjoys doing, you know, coke off the hoodoo's girl's butt crack, well, then you've got to win that. And that's not a compromise situation, right? If every time your wife spends time with person X, Y, or Z, she's stressed, tense, unhappy, miserable, aggressive, unseated, unhinged, dissociated, whatever, then you're going to have to pry her out of that unhealthy relationship. And that's not a compromise situation, right? So there's win-lose conflicts, which are, I would say, to the death in that if you fail, the relationship is significantly jeopardized, right? So if your husband hangs out with some skeevy guy who offers him drugs and constantly wants him to get to get him to sleep with strippers, take him to strip clubs and get him lap dances, I mean, taking extreme examples, but you know, this is important.
[3:38] If your husband keeps going out with skeevy guy who tries to get him laid by strippers, then your relationship is not going to survive that, right? So that's really a fight to the death.
[3:49] So it's really important to know which you're in. now another kind of conflict is you and your wife are kind of annoyed with each other and you don't know why right so you'll have some surface story you know like i put my book down here and you've moved it again and you're always moving my stuff and well you never do the dishes and well why can't you put your laundry in the hamper and why do you keep bringing your muddy shoes into the room and into the room by the garage and he said let's call the mudroom is supposed to why don't you just eat them do do it outside and you know why do you keep eating the last peanut butter without telling me and you know whatever right like just little surface crap right that's obviously a sign of something more significant and deeper that's going on so in those situations the first thing to do is to recognize of course that you're not the the surface topic is not the actual topic right nobody gets that mad if somebody finishes the peanut butter nobody gets that mad if the there is a a pair of sweatpants on the floor by the laundry basket, right? It's unimportant, not worth fighting about, life's too short, that kind of stuff.
[4:52] So then you have to say, okay, well, the rules are don't lie, right? So if you're annoyed at your partner and you're picking at unrelated things, then you're lying. So if you wake up annoyed with your partner and you're just kind of looking for stuff to be upset about, well, that's a form of lying. Because if you wake up annoyed and then pick at your partner, you're pretending that you were fine and then whatever your partner did or didn't do put you in that bad mood. Whereas, in fact, if you wake up crabby with your partner, you're upset with your partner, or you're angry at your partner. Maybe you had a bad dream that's significant about your marriage or something like that. But if you say, no, no, no, it's about the laundry, it's about the peanut butter, it's about the towels on the floor, it's about you never putting your toothpaste back, cap back on the toothpaste tube, then you're lying and don't lie, right?
[5:37] So one of the rules of conflict is don't lie, right?
[5:40] If you're not willing to compromise on an issue, don't lie and say that you are. But if you're annoyed with your partner for some reason and then you pick at things, then you're lying. you're saying the issue is the laundry on the floor. It's not that I'm annoyed at you for some reason. Now, if you are annoyed at your partner for some reason, the rules of engagement are you say, I'm annoyed with you. I don't know why. I'm not saying it's you. It could easily be me. It could be any number of things, but I feel this annoyance towards you. I'm not saying you did anything. I feel this urge to make it about the toothpaste cap on the toothpaste tube, but I know that's not really it because the feelings predated that and I'm just looking for something. So I I don't know what's going on. I'm sure you haven't done anything wrong, or if you have, it's an accident, but I do feel annoyed. And then the rules are, okay, well, when did it start and what happened and how things been going? And is there anything else? Is there anything in your past? Is there like, you just have this curiosity about where the feeling started and what's been going on, right? It's all perfectly reasonable. And that's the rule. The rule is don't pick at the surface stuff and be honest. Because when you fight about the surface stuff, you're lying to each other, and because everyone's lying, the conflicts can never be resolved. A, because everyone's lying, and B, because you can't respect.
[6:57] That kind of way or to that kind of degree so you have to make the commitment to tell the truth in a conflict i'm annoyed at you i don't know why i'm not saying and and the honesty is the honesty is that feelings are not proof just because you're annoyed with your partner does not mean that your partner is objectively annoying in some fashion right and that's one thing so that the other rule of course is that feelings are not proof just because you're annoyed and And you've heard me say this a million times in call-in shows. I'm annoyed. I'm not saying you're annoying. I'm just saying my experience is of being annoyed. Maybe it's valid. Maybe it's not. But that's, right, we don't know for sure. If you know for sure why you're annoyed, then you should say why you're annoyed. So that is, honesty is really, really important. And humility, right? I don't know why I'm annoyed.
[7:48] Now, another rule that's important is don't hold on to grievances and redirect them to other things. So let's say that your partner, you were at some dinner and your wife kept correcting you on inconsequential things while you were trying to tell a story. Well, that's annoying.
[8:08] And if you find that annoying, well, you probably don't want to deal with it in the moment because you're at a social engagement. So you repress, not suppress, you repress your emotions. You say, I will deal with this later. And then on the way home, you can say, I felt a little annoyed at this. I think this is why. Tell me what you were feeling, what you were thinking, and so on. And you have that discussion. But you don't hold on for two days and then snap at her about something unrelated.
[8:34] Because that's lying, right? Right. So if you know why you're upset, then you should, as soon as reasonably possible, talk about the upset and what you feel and possibly why and so on, at least as a theory.
[8:47] So you have to have integrity and to be honest, right? If you're annoyed at someone, well, I mean, you can try and talk yourself out of it if it's just something minor. But if you remain annoyed at someone, then you should be honest about it and you should be honest about it as soon as possible because otherwise it spills out in unexpected ways and then you're kind of in the wrong well you've been mad at me about this for two days why didn't you say something and then the other person has to say then right to be fair i just found out about this i didn't know or maybe you didn't know but didn't say anything if your partner notices notices that you're annoyed or seem a little short-tempered then they should say are you feeling short-tempered i'm noticing this so just being honest in the moment the longer you let things fester it's like an infection. The longer you let things fester, generally the worse they become and the harder they become to determine the source of because it all gets muddied and murkied in the past. And of course, if you're mad at your wife for correcting you a bunch of times about inconsequential details while telling a story, if you're annoyed about that and you don't say anything about it, that annoyance is going to come out in other ways and you end up not actually getting to the root of the issue or at least it's going to take a long time and then your wife has a legitimate reason to be annoyed, which is, well, you were annoyed with me and you didn't say anything. And you picked at me about my cooking for three days. Like that's just also annoying, right?
[10:07] That's important. Now, you shouldn't get into relationships where the first one, the win-lose, fight to the death of the relationship stuff is going on. You should get all that stuff resolved before you get married. After you get married, then you have to have the commitment, no name-calling, of course, no aggression. You can get frustrated and so on. A little bit of raising voice is not the end of the world, right? But no yelling, no name-calling, no insults. You have to be ruthlessly honest if you're annoyed. Annoyed if you if you know why you're annoyed be be direct about it if you don't know why you're annoyed be direct about the fact that you are annoyed while also being honest about the fact that you don't know why you're annoyed it really all just comes down to having the basic rules.
[10:48] And like no yelling no insults no escalation no no dredging up things that you've already solved like you have to once you say something is solved then it has to go into the memory chest never to to be dug back out. In other words, if you work through some particular issue, then it can't come back later as a proof of anything, right? Because otherwise, then there's no point working through anything if it can just be dug up and resurrected and reanimated and regooled into the current discussion. And you'll find, very interestingly for me, and this has been the case, and I'm sure it'll be the case for you as well, you'll find that if you are annoyed at someone and you say, I'm kind of annoyed. I'm not saying it's your fault, but I am feeling annoyed. And if you do it in a non-aggressive fashion with the humility and honesty of saying, I don't know why, then you actually don't end up with escalations. You don't end up with things getting worse and snowballing.
[11:44] Because when you avoid conflict, then it just comes out in ways that are much more complicated and confusing and hard to figure out the source of. And then you just end up in this quagmire, this quicksand, which is generally a huge disaster. So yeah, know which fights are deal-breakers and have those before you get married. After you get married, all the fights, all the conflicts are to do with annoyances along the way, usually the result of misunderstandings or some sort of past issue that is interfering with the current productive relations and so on. If you are just relentlessly honest, then you're constantly defusing these bombs before they aggregate and end up going off in surprising ways. So really, really work on that. Just be honest. Honesty is a sign of self-confidence. Honesty is a sign of respect for your partner, that they can handle it. And you just have to be honest. To jump to conclusions and say, well, you pissed me off when you did this. And you were bad for it and so on. Well, there's a lot of complicated stuff in emotions and marriages. And once you marry someone and you say, I love you, then you cannot impugn destructive motives to them. Thank you.
[12:52] When you marry someone, you say, I do, you're saying, I love you for who you are. And then you can't just later, after you say, I love you for who you are, impute all of these negative motives. So that's another rule, which is don't hallucinate negative motives for people. Well, you just did this because you're spiteful about my success. And like, they don't impute negative motives because that's just a form of mysticism.
[13:13] And you don't have the knowledge and you'll never get confessions, even if they might be unconscious negative motives. you'll never get the confessions of that. If you attack someone for their motives ahead of time without any proof, well, would you like that in the court system? If somebody were to say, are you guilty of this without any kind of trial or without any kind of advocacy or without any cross-examination or anything like that?
[13:39] So a trial has rules, of course, right? And sports have rules and all games have rules and even war i mean has rules right i mean the rules around prisoners of war and torture and you know name rank and serial number all that kind of stuff so yeah don't don't break the rules man it's absolutely not worth it relationships are agreed upon rules a contract is an agreed upon rule right and games are agreed upon rules in tennis you get two serves in pickleball you get one right these are the agreed upon rules and you can't play the game called relationships called marriage called love called parenting if you can't agree on the rules and civilization is when we negotiate rules and then we stick to them right i mean if you use a credit card the rule is you pay the credit card bill and civilization can't function if people get the benefit of saying they will follow rules and then have the option to not follow rules. So the most foundational rule is that you have to have rules that you'd call the other person on, right?
[14:53] So if the other person says, oh, you did this because you hate my cat. And it's like, well, no, no, we don't make up motives, right? If you start raising your voice and say, no, no, no, we don't raise voices. Okay, right. If there's name calling, no, no, no, we don't. So you have to have these agreed upon rules. And that a relationship is the set of rules that you agree on in the same way that you would not play a game of chess for someone who could make up their own rules. You wouldn't play a game of hockey or tennis or baseball with someone who could just make up their own rules. And so a relationship is the rules. Like the game of baseball is the rules of baseball. The game of squash is the rules of squash, right? A gold medal is given to the fastest runner. That is the rule of the Olympics. You don't just make it up and say, well, I have the biggest calves, therefore I get the gold, right? That's not what people are training for. And that's not what they are entering the game for.
[15:49] And nobody would enter a game where the rules could be changed at will. And so when you have rules that you've agreed on, if you break the rules, you are ending the relationship. I don't mean if you slip up and you get called on it and then you correct, right? That's fine, right? If somebody says in pickleball, they try to take a second serve and they say, no, no, no, second serves are for tennis, not pickleball and squash.
[16:15] Oh, sorry, sorry. But if you want to play pickleball with people, which is one serve and you say, I'm going to take two, they won't play with you. They'll just be like, well, no, it's one serve, right? I mean, if you say in chess, the queen can move like a knight or the king can move four squares instead of one. Well, that's not chess, right? If you want to play chess with someone, chess is the agreed upon rules and a relationship is the agreed upon rules. And so if you go into a relationship with agreed upon rules and you break those rules, you are breaking the relationship, right? A relationship isn't proximity, it isn't sex, it isn't what's called love, it isn't any of these things. A relationship is the rules that you agree on. A marriage is the rules you agree on. What do you agree on? Well, we're going to put no others before us, before each other, and monogamy and love, till death do us part, and better and worse, sickness and health. These are the rules. These are the rules. And the marriage is the rules. That's what makes marriage different from being boyfriend girlfriend boyfriend girlfriend. There are no particular formal rules There should be rules that you agree on right? But when you were a kid, right? I mean.
[17:27] What did you always say? What was always the problem? The problem was you play tag and I touched you. No, you just touched my shirt. Well, that counts. Like you're just trying to agree on the rules. There's no game of tag where I saw you, therefore you're it, right? I mean, that's not touch tag, whatever, right? And so the rules are the game. The rules are the interaction. You can't interact with anyone without rules. I mean, you can't have a conversation with someone without following the rules of grammar and meaning and not both talking at the same time and using the same language. There are tons of rules, even just in having a conversation with someone. So civilization is rules and love is rules. And if you can't stick to rules, you can't have relationships. If you can't stick to rules, you can't have love.
[18:10] If you can't stick to rules, you can't have a marriage. Because rules and your willingness to stick to them is what generates trust. And you can't love if you can't trust someone. If someone is just random, and they're nice to you one day, nasty to you the next, they kiss your cheek one day, they scream at you the next, they massage you one day, they smack you across the face the next, right?
[18:31] Then you can't love that person because you can't relax enough to trust and their behavior is not predictable enough to be virtuous. Because virtue is excellence in consistent goodness, right? I mean, any blindfolded fool can hit a hole in one from time to time in golf or mini golf or whatever, but it's being able to do things consistently that is the mark of excellence. I mean, you've seen these guys who just throw a basketball from one end of the court to the other and sink it. Well, that's just an accident, right?
[18:59] So, consistency in virtue is sticking to the rules. And so you have to stick to the rules or you don't have a relationship. Rules are life. Rules are love. Rules are civilization. Rules are the free market. Rules are trust. Rules are predictability. Rules are civility. Politeness is a series of rules and standards. If somebody tells you a secret and you promise to keep the secret, you have to keep that rule. And if you really desperately want to tell the secret, then you have to get released from the secrecy in order to tell the secret. Because then it's no longer a secret. Yes, it's fine. You can tell Bob or whatever, right? So all of these things are really, really essential to understand. If you can't follow the rules, you can't have relationships. You can have proximity. You can have conflicts. You can have entanglements. You can have codependency. But you can't have a relationship and if you can't follow the rules you can't have virtue if you can't have virtue people can't trust you if people can't trust you they can't fall in love with you pair bonding occurs when you are certain that someone will follow the rules and again that doesn't mean perfectly right i mean every now and then everyone drifts a little bit over the speed limit but that's a little bit different from turning your will deliberately into oncoming I'm in traffic, right?
[20:19] So life is rules. I mean, our body has to follow particular biological rules. We have to get air, food, water, shelter. I mean, it's all rules, right? And people who say, I love you and are unpredictable are saying that they deserve the results of integrity while retaining the ability to commit fraud, right? So if a woman says, well, I love you and then acts randomly and expects you to love her, then she's defrauding you because she's acting in a way that can't be loved while demanding that you love her, right? So this is kind of fraud, right?
[20:54] So rules are just absolutely essential. If you can't agree on the rules, you can't agree on anything. If you can't agree on the rules, you have no particular interactions. You're just like a bunch of, you know, if you take a bunch of rubber balls and just throw them really hard at the ground and they just bounce randomly, well, that's your relationship. It's not predictability. There's no rules. There's no game. And it's fundamentally boring. I mean, imagine a game of chess where you could just make up whatever rules. There'd be no point playing. None at all. And so when the rules break down, the game breaks down, the love breaks down, the marriage breaks down, the life breaks down, and of course the civilization breaks down too. So we don't want that. Freedomain.com slash donate if you find this helpful. Thank you so much. Bye.
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