Everybody fights. Perhaps you and your accomplice bicker about cash, family chores, or parenting kinds. Maybe you may’t stand their tone of voice whereas discussing logistics or your pores and skin crawls while you discuss politics.

Whereas it could really feel, at instances, like you could have a shared identification, you and your important different are two totally different folks. “Despite the fact that you’re collectively, fell in love, and perhaps constructed a household, that doesn’t imply you’re the identical individual or have the entire similar views and opinions,” Lisa Brateman, LCSW, a New York Metropolis-based therapist and the creator of What Are We Actually Preventing About?, tells SELF. That’s not a foul factor: With distinct persona traits, you may study from one another and probably have a neater time dealing with annoying occasions and fixing issues (as they are saying, two heads are higher than one). Nonetheless, it does imply that you’ll, inevitably, butt heads.

If you happen to combat the proper approach—you’re open to your accomplice’s perspective and actually hearken to their issues—your disagreements might help you perceive one another higher and develop as a pair. However we people are sophisticated, messy creatures, which implies we don’t at all times behave rationally. Because of this, relationship fights can shortly get combative and merciless (and I believe it’s secure to say no person ever resolved one by giving their beloved one the chilly shoulder.)

Sparring together with your SO doesn’t need to be a lose-lose scenario, although, so if you happen to really feel like your arguments are extra harmful than constructive, it may be time to vary up your model. In any case, as Brateman places it: “It’s not that you combat, it’s how you combat.” Listed below are 5 obtrusive clues that your phrase wars are doing extra hurt than good—and a few easy-to-implement suggestions for combating honest.

1. You blame one another.

Let’s fake you requested your accomplice to be prepared to go away at 7 p.m. to get to your dinner reservation on time. It’s 6:55 and so they’re nonetheless within the bathe and you’re…fuming. Ten minutes later, they hop out of the lavatory and, with a tone, you say, “Why aren’t you prepared but? You knew we had been supposed to go away 10 minutes in the past!”

Ought to they’ve managed their time higher? Maybe, however Brateman says blaming is among the extra widespread poisonous behaviors she sees in sad {couples}. “Blame is: It’s not me, it’s you,” she says, and no matter whether or not or not your accomplice tousled, while you come at them with that angle, they’ll seemingly really feel attacked and go on the protection. The consequence: As an alternative of checking out your battle, you in all probability gained’t resolve something and can proceed to spat.

Folks throw blame at family members over all types of points: Perhaps you are feeling like your individual sucks at scheduling high quality time with you, they by no means choose up your telephone calls, or they’re god-awful at planning forward (see bathe instance above)—and you may’t assist however say, “Why on earth did (or didn’t) you do this!?”