JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

The Right Way to Argue

by

Daniella Cassano-Mohammed
2096 days ago
20191030

Ar­gu­ments oc­cur even in good re­la­tion­ships. Find out how to have a healthy ar­gu­ment with your part­ner by learn­ing these handy tips.

If I had mas­tered the art of ar­gu­ing a cou­ple years ago, I think many of my re­la­tion­ships (even with friends and fam­i­ly) would be in a dif­fer­ent place right now. I am over­ly emo­tion­al and it seems that the old­er I get, the more I wear my heart on my sleeve.

Many of us are like this, as soon as a con­fronta­tion oc­curs we get de­fen­sive and ei­ther turn in­to a Tas­man­ian dev­il, break­down in­to a pud­dle of sad­ness or we do not re­act at all. None of these re­ac­tions bring the best re­sults or so­lu­tions to the re­al prob­lems. Ar­gu­ments are in­evitable and the soon­er you learn to han­dle con­flict in the cor­rect way, the hap­pi­er your re­la­tion­ship will be­come.

Ar­gu­ments bring about pain, re­sent­ment and dis­cord in every house­hold and let’s face it, some of us Tri­nis hold a very pas­sion­ate na­ture or (for lack of a bet­ter term) we tend to have a “hot mouth”. That mouth of ours can get us in trou­ble at times, en­cour­ag­ing us to of­ten say things we don’t mean in the heat of an ar­gu­ment. We call names and even use ob­scene lan­guage to get our points across. What do we re­al­ly ex­pect to gain from that sort of be­hav­iour? If you call the love of your life, every bad name in the book when an­gered, how can you even face that per­son af­ter? Love is sup­posed to be kind, so, the pat­tern of think­ing it is ac­cept­able to de­grade your part­ner just be­cause you are ar­gu­ing, must stop as soon as pos­si­ble. You can­not take back what is felt af­ter hurt­ful words are said, so do not re­sort to name call­ing, la­belling and the con­stant throw­ing back of past bad ex­pe­ri­ences. So, how can we move for­ward to have health­i­er dis­cus­sions and re­solve ar­gu­ments?

Take a 10-minute time­out.

Say, “I love you and I just need 10 min­utes to calm down,” es­pe­cial­ly if the con­flict is be­gin­ning to get hot and low blows are be­ing made. Take that time to think and al­low you and your part­ner to calm down. Tru­ly think about the is­sue at hand and how it can be ef­fec­tive­ly re­solved. Some may al­so de­cide to take a walk or a gym work­out to help their frame of mind - that is ac­cept­able once the con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ues and is not ig­nored for a long pe­ri­od of time.

Learn how to make re­quests in­stead of com­plaints.

Some­times, the prob­lem and the rea­son you aren’t re­ceiv­ing the de­sired re­sults is not what you are ask­ing for, but how you are ask­ing for it. Be care­ful with your tone and in­stead of spew­ing or­ders at your part­ner, make sug­ges­tions in a lov­ing voice. For in­stance, “You nev­er do the dish­es, I swear you are the worst!” can be turned in­to, “ Hey babe, can you help do the dish­es to­day? I would re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate it.” Words make a huge dif­fer­ence if used cor­rect­ly. Some­times you need to sell the hon­ey if you want to gain the sweet­ness.

If the same ar­gu­ment is oc­cur­ring over small mat­ters then you need to root out the big­ger prob­lem.

Why does your part­ner bick­er at the same time every day or why do they al­ways have a prob­lem with a cer­tain per­son in your life? Maybe they need time to un­wind af­ter work and you are ex­cit­ed to talk their ears off...noth­ing 15 min­utes of qui­et time can’t fix. As for the per­son they seem to dis­like, have a con­ver­sa­tion sim­ply lis­ten­ing to their thoughts and con­cerns. Cou­ples should have din­ner at least once a week or set aside a small amount of alone time to talk about life.

Learn how to say sor­ry!

I know this is hard but trust me, com­pas­sion is con­ta­gious. Be­ing “wrong and strong” on­ly makes your part­ner hold feel­ings of frus­tra­tion and hate to­wards you. Grow up and learn to be ac­count­able for your wrongs, apol­o­gise and en­sure it is heart­felt. Do not give a piti­ful apol­o­gy that ap­pears to be mean­ing­less and forced. Even if the per­son is wrong and you may have said some­thing hurt­ful dur­ing the ar­gu­ment, be the big­ger per­son and apol­o­gise for say­ing the hurt­ful com­ments. Maybe that will change the tone and mood and they will fol­low suit by ad­mit­ting their wrongs. Lead by ex­am­ple if you want to open the door to change.

Feel­ings and emo­tions are a tricky thing to con­trol when ar­gu­ments oc­cur but with time, pa­tience and prac­tice, on­ly im­prove­ments should be on the hori­zon. Love and re­spect your part­ner even on tough days. don’t al­low an­gry words to taint hap­py hearts.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored