After my trip about love being “reconciliation” and learnijng about it through asking myself what loves looks like, i went on a search for some video of it. I didn’t have to look far, as i found it in the first 10 minutes of the classically heart-rendering “P.S. I love you”. which is a chick-flick about a guy leaving his widow 10 letters to help her get over her grief and start a new life.

And i bet that every single man who watches this will be able to sympathise with this guy. But what it’s about is what making up looks like. I was amazed at the amount of people who know how to argue but don’t know how to make up. In my mind its about your feelings for the other person being bigger than your squabbles and the relationship and being with each other being more important than silly things like pride and victim-itis.

So of course now when Peter asks me what it looks like, i can point him over here and be a real smartass.

I did a little reading and arguments ARE a healthy part of any relationship. In fact *not* arguing is indicative that something is wrong and there is not equality in the relationship. When there is equality there will inevitably be disagreement. So if you were brought up with the silly idea that no arguments = good relationship, or you developed the idea that a good relationship meant you would never argue (e.g. your parents argued all the time and you decided you wouldn’t ever), you would be very wrong.

The idea that a relationship can be judged to be good and healthy on the basis there are no arguments is unhealthy in itself, as well as unrealistic and naive.

Equality = inevitable disagreement = resolution = intimacy/growth.

Or as it wisely put on Salon.com: “Having disagreements, or arguments, is not indicative of a bad match or an unhealthy relationship. It’s how you handle the argument that counts.”

MSNBC says: “Disagreeing well, which often takes the form of an argument, is an important part of a good relationship. Arguing well can even result in further intimacy because it shows both of you that you can disagree yet find a way to compromise and still love each other.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4740052/
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061213094839AAA5POK

And ironically, the biggest conflict resolution mistake you can apparently make is to try to avoid conflict in the first place:
http://stress.about.com/od/relationships/tp/conflictres.htm

If you liked that, you’ll love this:

“Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About”
http://www.mil-millington.com/