Arguing Differently

This may come as a shock to you, dear reader, but in the Grumpy Household, we sometimes grump at each other. Some grumps are minor, and get resolved pretty quickly. This is pretty normal for all households I think, and is not the focus of this post. The real problem comes with the Big Grumps.

We had one of these recently. It… wasn’t pleasant. Of course, they never are! We took a bit of time to get to the bottom of what had caused it (TL;DR - I’m stubborn). But during the course of a couple of days of rumination on the whole affair, something relatively profound struck me. Effectively, we’ve been holding it wrong the whole time. We’ve been arguing incorrectly!

How Can I Be Holding It Wrong?!⌗

Despite the name of this website, I’m not grumpy 100% of the time (my Grumpy SLA ranges from 96-99.9999999% uptime). In those non-grumpy moments, I’m trying to get better at, for want of a better phrase, “listening behind the words”. Trying to understand what someone else actually wants or means, rather than base my understanding of the situation solely on the words that they just used. I think most people tend to find it difficult, it’s a hard skill to come by. I think I got much better at this after separation and divorce, where words were often used in anger rather than for practical purposes.

Most of the time, this works pretty well. I can understand what people want, even if the words don’t quite match the feeling. But in the midst of an argument, the ability just… vanishes without a trace. I assume that words mean only what they mean in a literal sense. Grumpy Metal Girl says that when I do this, I’m using my “compiler brain”¹.

Of course, in an argument, you rarely have the composure to speak clearly, so you blurt things out. The blurtings then get taken literally, and often just add fuel to the fire. It’s a nasty downward spiral, which it’s definitely best to avoid.

Talking? What’s That?⌗

One of the things that has kind of slipped by the wayside recently is actual conversation. Not just normal boring stuff, but talking about the things that actually bother us. Sometimes, it just seems easier to not saying anything at all, and we all know how that turned out (badly!). Things certainly work better when you communicate more openly, more often. That stops things from festering and becoming more problematic than they should be. Again, super obvious stuff, but it’s easy to forget about it with a busy gig/music/work/child/gaming routine.

Moar Arguments! MOAR! MOAR!⌗

More arguments? Am I drunk²? Isn’t this whole essay on How To Better Your Life about arguing better? Why yes, yes it is.

This was the big realisation that hit us after Grumpageddon - we’re better to have smaller arguments more often. When this happens, things don’t have a chance to fester for long, which means they don’t affect you as much. The actual arguments themselves are more like heated discussions rather than full-on nuclear weapon exchanges, but with less fallout. It’s like opening a release valve more often, rather than letting the pressure build up to unmanageable levels.

This was a technique that we unconsciously practiced for a long time, but had drifted away from. Combining more frequent pressure releases with more open communication is a great way to defuse the grumpiness before it becomes too problematic.

So What Am I Trying To Do Differently?⌗

While it’s difficult to remember to do these things when arguing, here’s what I’m trying to remember in the heat of battle:

• Just because someone said something hurtful or angry doesn’t mean they really think that. You should assume that they have the best intentions. Try and take a deep breath, count to 10, then work out what was behind the words.
• Put myself in their shoes. Super hard to do, but there’s a small possibility that they may think differently to me, and have a different (non-verbalised) take on the subject of the argument.
• Not raise my voice. This one’s a low bar to overcome, so it’s surprising how often I trip over it and smash myself in the face.
• Just talk out more. With a busy lifestyle, it’s easy to not see each other all day, even when we’re sitting right next to each other. Constant phone calls and headphones for blasting icy-cold metal if we’re both WFH can mean that we just don’t talk. We need to make more effort to actually, you know, talk.

These are all things that will time to properly sink in as default behaviour, but should eventually lead to a less Grumpy household, which can only be a good thing.