Fighting Right vs Right Fighting - Strengthen Your Relationship the Right Way

In the foundation of any relationship, learning to respect each other and “fight right” is of paramount importance. One thing that Rori Raye points out in her have the Relationship You Want eBook is that many fights are not about the issue at hand – they are about control.

Learning to manage your disagreements in a mature and loving fashion will strengthen your relationship exponentially and is one of the best pieces of relationship advice you can heed.

So let’s take a look at the anatomy of a fight. The first kind of fighting is called “right fighting”. This is exactly the opposite of fighting right. In right fighting, one or both of the partners is only concerned with being right, getting his or her way, and controlling the situation. You know you are right-fighting when you are doing any of the following …

• Planning only what you are going to say next when he is talking
• Trying to force him to agree with you or do what it is you want
• When you care only about being right and getting justice for what you believe to be an injustice
• Denying his feelings as valid

Looking at these things, perhaps both of you are fighting this way, or only one of you, but when fighting is based on controlling the outcome, it’s not ever going to be a productive, positive experience for your relationship.
Rori Raye has a mantra in her Have the Relationship You Want eBook (p 138) that gives a lot of insight to the reader about how to handle MANY situations as a positive, energetic and mature woman. Her mantra goes like this…

I trust my boundaries – I trust myself: I know I will not knowingly toss my pearls before swine, throw myself into the path of destruction, hide from the truth, go along with or tolerate something that is damaging to me. Now I can move to my feelings.

I follow my feelings – I follow my emotions around my body and into my heart because they are my compass in the world. I love my feelings and know that I must go where I am, be where I am, feel what I feel, and go through the feeling if I want to feel better. Now I can speak.

I choose my words – I am committed to clear, direct, feeling based communication. I honor my feelings by expressing them from my heart without trying to influence or attack my man. If I choose, now I can let go of the result.

I allow every moment to be a surprise – I don’t have to know every outcome, I don’t have to manage every situation, I don’t have to make sure everything goes the way I want, and I absolutely don’t have to know what my man is going to say or do next.
Because I know what I will not tolerate, because I can feel what I feel, because I’ve stated clearly what I feel and don’t want, I can let go of control.

How does the Rori Raye Mantra help a woman know HOW to fight? It helps us to direct our feelings into the proper energy – in other words, expressing your FEELINGS, your WANTS and NEEDS as positive and appropriate words, and not as demands or aggressive instructions. It helps you to let go of the need to control the outcome and step into the need to direct your own feelings into expression, where your man can come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of you because you have SHARED yourself with him. Its relationship help at its best.

Doing this can be a little scary, especially the “letting go of the control” part. But think of this as not letting go of yourself or relinquishing anything, instead, think of it as Rori Raye says, like opening yourself and giving yourself to the relationship, to love, to the man you want to be with.

Rori writes, “Taking the leap to speaking about our feelings when we've spent our whole lives working very hard to do just the opposite – whether we're afraid of what someone will think or do, or whether we simply want to be more highly conscious people and have more refined emotions – takes courage and commitment to the process.” (Have the Relationship You Want, p 145).

What do you do, then, if you are doing all this RIGHT, and yet your partner is still “right fighting”? Be consistent. Use your “I feel” words. Express what YOU feel and ask him what he feels in the heat of the moment. Try using Rori Raye’s expressions like “ I don’t want to go there, listen to this, be there, be here, stand here, tolerate this, have this, worry about this, think about this, take charge of this, plan this –what do you think? “ – using the “what do you think?” at the end of your expression lets him know that you are showing your feelings and also concerned about his and that you value his opinion.