Friday Freebie: You Wanna Fight?

wsj.com

Last week, we started reading Gretchen Rubin's book, The Happiness Project in my freshman seminar. Yesterday's chapter focused on the author's goals for improving her communication with her husband. All of my students are traditional students, straight out of high school, so needless to say, none of them is married. Still, they quickly acknowledged that the chapter had much to do with not only romantic entanglements, but relationships in general.

We talked about a lot of things, but one idea I knew I wanted to discuss was the concept of how to resolve a conflict -- or, how to "fight fair." Though I'd spent years teaching this to elementary school students, it's a concept that's much easier to figure out logically than to do in reality. But, as it turns out, a little bit of conflict is good for a relationship, provided it's handled respectfully.

Need a refresher (or just curious)? Check out Fighting Happily Ever After. Someone you love may thank you.