3 Legit Reasons It's GOOD To Be The Couple Who Fights

There's something wholesome and good to be said for couples that never ever fight with each other — I just don't know what it is. That hasn't been my experience so I really can't say whether that makes any particular love affair better.

My guess is that couples who never argue or have it out are probably building up a good head of steam inside themselves. Human nature — even for the most zen among us — seems to dictate that we speak our minds rather than bite our lips. The world doesn't move forward on the backs of lip biters.

Progress and a better tomorrow are usually the direct result of somebody somewhere raising a bit of Hell about an opinion that they hold. 

The same sort of thing would apply to love. Thing is, as beautiful and worthwhile the old idea of two people coming together as one is, it still pretty much goes against the very grain of what makes every individual tick. 

See, we're all designed and built to survive. And when you consider that very basic scientific fact, you might get the gist of what I'm talking about. Still, everything has its limits, and couples who only fight or who always fight are probably way past the point of healthy back-and-forth release.

That's the complexity of love: We each have to make up our own minds about how much challenge or resistance we want to take from our partners, or how much we really need to dish out. But here's why it's actually a good thing to be the couple who fights.

1. You don't have to play emotional hide and seek.

There's nothing worse than having to deal with a partner who hides their feelings. I'm serious; it's a sh*tstorm. I've been there and I've even been that way at times. I suspect there are many people who manage to maintain peaceful, quarrel-free relationships for years or decades — hell, even forever sometimes — but are dying inside from the sound of their own silence.

A lot of who we are is a result of how we were raise and the environments and parents we grew up with. But when you start to apply that theory to wondering why or how certain couples never argue or hash out their frequent differences with a bit of old-fashioned civil combat, it enlightens the mystery.

A lot of people bury their heaviest emotional stuff down so deep. They might even have a level of emotional stuff they're willing to expose to their partners just to satisfy the demand for such a thing but the real stuff — the darkness and the blues and the fears and the desires — is kept hidden away like emotional buried treasure.

And guess what? Although people like that may seem docile and content on the outside, they're often the ones who end up hurting their partners the most, stringing them along for years, until one day they simply can't contain all the proverbial steam they've been building up for so damn long.

By then, their discontent is all that's left — a discontent which you had no clue about. Everything was peaches and cream, baby. Until the day it all exploded. Is it better to have occasional arguments across the years than one first and last epic ending to it all? Hell yes.

2. You move forward in your relationship when you don't hold back.

I wouldn't put arguing with your partner or spouse at the top of the list of ways to continue getting to know each other. But at the same time, maybe I should.

I was raised in a loud, brash family where people were more likely to holler in your face than bite their tongue for the sake of fake peace. We were chaotic and dysfunctional in ways that would make a lot of these modern Pinterest-y couples flop down on the floor and chuck us their wallets.

That kind of raising made me a little crazy. I'm no super-catch in a lot of departments and it wouldn't take you long to figure that out on your own. Still, one thing's for certain: My family loves each other in deep, unbending ways that a lot of families will never know.

We fight. We disagree. We judge and snark and poke fun at each other, but we never hold back. And our bond is as powerful and fulfilling as it was on the days my brother and I were born. I've learned a lot about what matters most about love from them.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that my semi-mad childhood is a sure-fire way to look at romantic relationships. However, there's a lot to be said for the honest, heartfelt back-and-forth that was a constant part of my childhood. It made me understand I never had to keep things inside. It made me confident that honesty with the people I love the most would never cause them to turn their back on me.

And in some strange way it made me feel like every stupid argument we had, we'd get over it no matter what. We had to — and we'd love each other a little bit more because of it.

3. You learn to trust much quicker.

There are two kinds of arguers in this world: the typical ones who have to win every meeting of minds and have to feel validated that all their points were made and accepted. They're the majority of arguers and the reason most couples don't associate arguing with a healthy relationship.

The other kind of arguers are those who can argue the hell out of something (without throwing sh*t or turning nuts) and fifteen minutes later, let it all go. Neither person gets any kind of crackhead high off of being right. Nobody gloats or pouts or pisses on anybody else's toothbrush.

The argument itself is a meditative unleashing of all the uncertain winds that have been whipping around in our heads for a while. The clash is just a formality, a reason for the catharsis, a freeing of the pent-up everyday ticked-off bullsh*t feelings we all build up every couple of weeks. We're human. We get down. We want everything to be different. We wish we were better. We thought there'd be more by now.

It's natural for us to want to lash out every now and then. It's not unusual to have this unconscious need to poke your partner a little just to make sure they still have your back. And I hate to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway: The very best arguers are the very best forgivers, and the very best forgivers are the very best at trust.

Which leads me to my final point, so walk away with this if nothing else: The best arguers are the best forgivers and the best forgivers are the best trusters and the best trusters are having the hottest sex on Earth.