The ‘Celebration of Life’ gathering in Seattle has gone fairly smoothly thus far. When you organize an event where 24 family members will be hanging out together in a residential home for three days, you can imagine that some cross words might make an appearance, and some feeling might be hurt, and some tears might be shed.
But so far — halfway through the three-day event — everyone has been respectful and kind. Even among the grandchildren, with ages ranging from 6 months to 11 years, the gathering has remained surprisingly peaceful so far.
So far, no fighting.
My late mother would no doubt approve, this being a ‘Celebration of Life’ in her honor. Mom didn’t like to see or hear fighting, and rarely engaged in arguments or fights — with her husband, or anyone else — in the presence of her two children.
Nevertheless, I am thinking this morning about fighting, because of a letter I found — a letter I’d written to my mother back in 1993 and which she’d saved in her collection of family documents.
My handwritten letter (11 stationery-sized pages) was composed a few weeks before moving to Pagosa Springs from Juneau, Alaska, and focused mainly on answering one question that my mom had asked in a previous letter to me. What value did I give to my (admittedly difficult) relationship with my wife Clarissa, (then known by her nickname, ‘Seya.’)
“What value do I give to my relationship with Seya?” I wrote to my mom. “I consider her my best friend, and also my ‘best enemy.’ In many areas, we are helpful and consoling of one another. In many areas we have been, and still are, adversaries.
“But I have come to a very different understanding of our relationship over the past few months. And much of that understanding came from our agreement we made just before she left for Colorado.
“We had gone to marriage counseling with our friend David La Chappelle, and he suggested that we needed to establish new rules for our relationship, so that we could communicate without feeling afraid of one another.”
My 36-year relationship with Clarissa was, in so many ways, totally unlike the relationship between my own mother and father. One of the chief differences lay in the amount of arguing that took place in the marriage. I could count on one hand the number of serious arguments I witnessed as a child, between Mom and Dad. My own children watched an argument take place maybe once a day, and many of them were heated.
We were two very headstrong individuals, locked into a life-long relationship.
By the time Clarissa and I agreed, in 1993, to try and start a new life in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, the constant arguing had taken its toll. We were still, in some ways, each other’s best friend — but we were best friends who had beaten each other up, emotionally, for way too long.
Our counselor had suggested we set some new rules for our marriage, and we took his advice. One afternoon, we sat down to rewrite The Rules.
I suggested that the first new rule should define:
1. How we make rules.
Clarissa agreed, and together, we wrote the following rules.
A. When we agree on something, we don’t need to make a rule.
B. When we disagree about something, we have two possible ways to make a rule about it.
1. We can compromise, with Clarissa coming halfway and me coming halfway, so we get a rule that is somewhat satisfying to each party.
…or…
2. We cannot compromise, for whatever reasons, we have to fight about the rule.
Suddenly, as we made that last rule about making rules, it was like the sun had come up over the horizon. Of course, I realized, we must fight about the rule, because that’s the only way we can be true to our beliefs while working our way through the conflict.
The alternative to fighting — when compromise is not possible, for whatever reason — is to avoid making any rule about the problem. But that leaves the problem to fester and grow, irritating everyone, constantly.
From my 1993 letter to my mom:
“By agreeing to fight, we at least have some hope of a future resolution. But even more importantly, we have validated ‘fighting’ as a necessary tool of conflict resolution.
“This probably sounds absolutely crazy to you, but to me it has felt like a sort of salvation. Because Seya and I have been fighting for nearly 20 years (not all the time, of course, but fairly regularly…) and all these years, I thought that fighting was wrong!
“I was upset with Seya for fighting, I was upset with myself for fighting. So of course I was too upset about the fact that we were fighting to deal with the real problem, which was the thing we were fighting about.
“By agreeing to fight, we have agreed that we have some incredibly difficult problems to solve between us, and that fighting may be the only way to make ourselves heard and understood. I no longer see the fighting itself as a wrong thing… so for the first time, I can concentrate on better and more useful ways of fighting, for both of us.
“I have now agreed that Seya has a right to be angry and as right to declare a fight. So we can right to the heart of the matter, and I can actually listen to her and understand what she is angry about.
“We’ve had only one fight since coming up with this rule, and it came to a very clear conclusion, with each of us understanding much more about how we were pushing certain buttons during the fight. And I saw how I had actually started the fight with an underhanded comment, in reaction to what Seya thought was an innocent statement.
“I would like to come to an agreement with everybody — that we can fight, when we must. It’s a truly liberating feeling. I don’t know if you can understand what I mean. If you don’t, just try the same thing with Dad. I don’t think you will regret it…”