The lights lower in the audience as the spotlight focuses on center stage. While the microphone descends into the hand of the ring announcer the crowd erupts into a thunderous roar. The pandemonium is interrupted only for a moment by a deep melodic tone of the ring announcer’s voice resonating throughout the arena. “In this corner, the challenger ‘You did me wrong’ weighing in at ‘How could you’?” Continuing to work the crowd up into a frenzy, the announcer punctuates the already emotion saturated atmosphere with “And in this corner, the returning heavy weight champion “Insensitive”, weighing in at “How thoughtless can I be?

The opponents are drawn instinctively to center stage by the lure of a good conflict. The referee establishes his authority by laying down the ground rules. “I want a good clean fight. No low blows, no rabbit punches, no head butts and no hitting below the belt. When I tell you to go to your corner, go to your corner for the standing eight count”.

Okay, okay stop the fight! 

Lets think about the referee’s directions for a moment. Why does the referee take such pains to do lay the ground rules? Certainly the competitors know the rules after years of intense training. Still the referee brings them back to the basics at the beginning of a fight. Why? Because this is a new meeting, a new contest and if the ground rules are not kept in prominence, then the engagement can easily fall into a no holds barred, free-for-all.

So rather than deteriorate into such nonproductive mayhems as a free for all, lets look at some basics about “fighting fair” in personal relationships. These ground rules are always true. They serve as an independent referee enabling us to concentrate on the specific offense at hand, learn from it and not degenerate into name calling, meaningless off topic issues or other unprofitable outcomes.

First recognize that regardless of what we call them whether they are spats, disagreements or even if they go south with a war of words, having a clean fight carries the possibility of a positive outcome and can even prove to be beneficial to the relationship if the ground rules are honored. 

Rule # 1 – no hitting below the belt. It is not appropriate to say words that you know are going to set them off. For example, even if you feel like it, it is a below the belt blow to say that they are “Just like their mother or father”. These are definitely fighting and taunting words because they may bring up unfavorable images of their parents that they hoped to model differently as they grew up. Your reminder may be a dismantling of that hope. But your words could also mean that you are attacking family bloodlines such as in that infamous reference “I may pick on my brother, but you better not or you will get me”! 

Leave family references and examples out of the mix, if you want to have a fair fight and not get lost in a war of words. Keep your guard up and do not intentionally use words that you know will embroil your partner. Remember this is not anything goes. The object in this match is not to win singly, but to win together by coming to an understanding and a new appreciation of critical values that are important to each other.  (next)