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46 Harmful Mistakes You Make In Relationship Fights (Even If You 'Won')

Read why women tend to 'win' verbal battles, but not the relationship fight, or war.

You may be great at getting your way, but that doesn’t mean your conversations are healthy, productive, or helpful for achieving your hopes in dreams, in relationships or life. Knowing 46 landmines to avoid may help your relationship fights go much smoother.

Pink "Relationship Fights" Boxing Gloves

Disclaimer: This is meant to help you communicate more effectively. It’s not a statement on gender.

You're probably commiting 'speech sins.'

Especially if you're feminine-leaning.

Pink and white boxing gloves on a concrete floor, symbolizing relationship fights.

Masculine-leaning and feminine-leaning folk approach speech, language, discussion, and communication differently.

In general, they behave quite differently in relationship fights.

But I’m not saying one is better than the other.

I’m just pointing out that they use different communication approaches.

For example, if you want to accomplish productive understanding, mutual harmony, and healthy conclusions… the masculine mode of communication is more effective.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking to feel ‘right’, spark action, and ‘move’ people to a certain feeling or emotion, the feminine mode of communication is more effective.

  • Sometimes you can find a guy who communicates using very feminine techniques.
  • Other times you can find a girl who communicates using very masculine techniques.

So of course, exceptions exist.

But the vast majority communicate in their default way, without ever trying an alternate method.

And the vast majority use the wrong communication mode for their goals quite often.

This likely includes you.

(Ask yourself, am I masterful at communication? Am I really the exception to this article? Or is there likely much here that’s going to help me in conversations I have for the rest of my life?)

We all tend to use the wrong mode of speech sometimes, and it leads to a lot of frustration for all involved.

This clash of communication styles shows up especially in debates about things that matter to people.

Wealth, body autonomy, politics, religion… even small things, such as ‘taking out the trash.’

Often, feminine folk (including ‘simps’ who display minimal masculinity) can ‘win’ discussions using a variety of speech tools, but most of them are toxic, harmful, and hinder any real progress towards actionable solutions or sincere understanding.

This is because those femme-style speech patterns aren’t really designed to create mutual understanding.

They’re designed to alter people’s feelings.

Debates between men and women on any TV show or podcast tends to make this abundantly clear.

But don’t get triggered.

This isn’t a bad thing. Nor is it feminine folk’s fault.

It happens because feminine-leaning people are biologically wired and socially conditioned to use words in the following ways:

  • as emotional levers,
  • as dramatic tools,
  • as ways to soothe their personal feelings

And they’ve not been taught to us words as tools to evolve humanity, create harmony, or reach reasonable conclusions.

Most people haven’t been taught how to engage in a healthy relationship fight.

But feminine-leaning folks have less natural talent for civil debate.

They tend to argue to ‘win’ the verbal exchange, rather than debate to get at the root of the issue.

It’s common for feminine-folk to ‘talk in circles’, rarely addressing the point at the heart of the discussion, and rarely reaching a shared, logical conclusion between both communication partners.

They’ll use verbal tricks to keep the argument going in circles, never making any progress, until their partner gives up, exhausted.

Then they’ll think “Hah, I showed him!”

These things may ‘feel good’, but don’t lead to a productive or value-filled discussion. They won’t create better relationships. They won’t make someone ‘see the light.’

And feminine folk often can’t help it, because it’s basically all they know, since it’s been ‘making them feel better’ for them for decades.

Most have batted their eyes, shed crocodile tears, or gossiped for years, and it usually got them what they wanted from parents, peers, teachers, etc.

They’ve been taught to use words as emotional weapons, rather than to argue productively in ways that create positive change.

Productive debate for the ‘clearest truth’ of things is a man’s game.

Or at least, it’s most easily achieved through masculine-leaning speech patterns.

Healthy relationship fights require methodical logic, attentive listening, patient understanding, rigorous thought, and critical thinking.

They need to abandon irrationality, fallacy, and self-serving tendencies.

(Sidenote: This is a big reason, though not the only reason, why most philosophers, comedians, scientists, and stock-brokers are men.)

Masculine-leaning folk are biologically wired and socially conditioned that ‘word is bond.’

They’re wired to ‘debate logically’, get their facts straight, be reasonable / rational, and to make strong cases.

(This often makes them terrible at romancing others and poetic license to ‘move’ people, but it helps them in productive debate.)

It’s common for masculine-folk to use precise, efficient words to make their point, and to concede a point when a communication-partner has solid, irrefutable logic.

It’s common for masculine folk to ‘get to the point’ that matters, to reach a healthy conclusion, and then make whatever adjustments are required to incorporate the new understanding into a healthier, more logically consistent life.

(Again, of course there are  exceptions, such as immature, self-serving guys.)

If you treat a conversation like a battle or a war where ‘one person is right’ and the ‘other is wrong’, you’re destined for pain and suffering.

If you treat a conversation like a collaborative deep dive to find the truth and to create mutual agreement of some kind, you’ll thrive.

If you’re tired of:

  • being misunderstood…
  • failing to make your point…
  • being unable to change someone’s mind…
  • wasting time in unproductive discussions…
  • creating unnecessary fights…
  • winning verbal battles but losing wars…

Then you’ll love exploring the 46 conversational land-mines to avoid below.

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46 Mistakes To Avoid In Relationship Fights:

Doing these 46 things may 'feel right' to you, but they harm relationships.

The following can drag arguments out for a rush of drama, or they can give you the ‘last word’, but only in ways that will harm your relationship.

If you can avoid these, you can have a healthy, fulfilling discussion that gets to the truth and creates productive change.h maturity and skill.

Profile of a man and a woman holding a basketball and staring at each other.

If you can’t, you’ll get to ‘feel good’ but your life or relationship will remain stuck and unchanging.

Real change comes from stepping up and conducting your discussions with maturity and skill.

This list will focus purely on verbal communication issues, as there are plenty of articles out there covering things such as:

Arguing about sex

Read more about sex-based arguments on Fatherly.com.

Arguing over chores

NBC news has written fairly in-depth about arguing over chores.

Acting like nothing happened

Teal Swan nails this topic.

Fights over small things

LifeHack.org proposes that this is actually a good thing?

Value mismatches

I covered this in absolutely bonkers depth in my medium.com article: The Surprising Secret Of Why “My Kid Hates Me” (& How To Fix It!)

and so on.

Personally, I believe the tips in those articles, while wonderful, are useless if you don’t understand how to communicate your points in a healthy way.

That’s why I outline 46 conversational mistakes below.

Here we go.

  1. Bringing up individual stories when it’s time to discuss stats, facts, and data.
  2. Avoiding questions, or answering questions with tangents.
  3. Citing exceptions with no relevance to an overall trend.
  4. “Moving the goalpost” to avoid admitting that you ‘lost’ the initial point or argument.
  5. Refusing to concede a point or admit being wrong in any way.
  6. Refusing to change your mind when given new insights.
  7. Mislabeling or mis-assessing one’s position.
  8. Claiming we “can’t generalize” when the entire point is to discuss a “general trend.”
  9. Citing generalities when questioned about a particular individual case.
  10. Switching topics or failing to stay on point.
  11. Personal attacks. If you’re attacking someone instead of engaging with their points, you’ve already ruined the entire discussion.
  12. Using loaded terms that are unprovable or silly, such as ‘always’ and ‘never.’
  13. Putting words in someone’s mouth. (Claiming you know what they ‘really mean.’)
  14. Using flowery, poetic, exaggerated language to distract from, rather than emphasize, the facts.
  15. Refusing to ask ‘why,’ dig deeper, or understand the other’s perspective.
  16. Refusing to affirm or repeat the other’s perspective before continuing.
  17. Refusing to define terms or double-check definitions when discussion becomes difficult.
  18. Being logically inconsistent.
  19. Continually restating one’s beliefs or one’s points despite it already being accepted / conceded.
  20. Taking sincere assessments, stats, and observations personally.
  21. Taking discussion points or questions as criticism.
  22. Cherry-picking arguments.
  23. Gaslighting. No discussion benefits from hiding, repressing, or modifying the truth in order to serve our personal agenda.
  24. Guilt-tripping, blame, shame, melodrama, triggering, etc. Hopefully it’s obvious these have no place in a productive discussion.
  25. Ignoring logic, sense, or reason, because you need to ‘feel better’, ‘feel right’, or ‘feel heard.’
  26. Bringing up past behaviors to distract from a well-made, reasonable, relevant point by your communication partner.
  27. Claiming your communication partner is being ‘hostile’, ‘aggressive’, or ‘mean’ when they’re simply passionately and firmly clarifying their position, or elevating their voice when being continually ignored or unheard.
  28. Drawing out an argument longer than necessary, intentionally or not.
  29. Using entire paragraphs of speech to explain a point that could be made in a sentence.
  30. Holding grudges. The attitude, energy, and emotional baggage that comes with grudges will derail any discussion you’re trying to have.
  31. Avoid confronting the actual arguments your partner is making.
  32. Refusing to give concrete answers, especially to ‘yes or no’ questions.
  33. Using false dichotomies. Rarely are things black and white, choice A, or choice B, so if you’re proposing such things, make sure they’re healthy, true dichotomies.
  34. Acting as if any disagreement is someone trying to oppress, fight, or censor you.
  35. Using general terms when specifics are required (“We can’t allow ‘catastrophic global warming’, guys!!! <— what does that even mean? What is it exactly that we can’t allow? What level of CO2 emissions is acceptable, specifically?)
  36. Clinging to ignorance, (or sewing doubt,) rather than actually addressing points and arguments made. (Well maybe it’s X tho, or maybe it’s Y tho, or maybe maybe maybe…)
  37. Refusing to ask ‘why’ or explore what someone’s beliefs are from their own mouth during the discussion, and instead assuming they believe something they actually don’t believe.
  38. Making points that SOUND related to the issue at hand, but actually aren’t. “You can’t just call everyone a Nazi.” (What? Why would you even say that? No one is doing that in this discussion.)
  39. Playing the victim card or over-emphasizing victimhood during a chat where no one is actually victimizing you.
  40. Condescension. You’re best served by either engaging someone in discussion both as equals, both with ideas worth exploring. Condescending to others creates disharmony and suffering.
  41. Disrespect. See above.
  42. Hand-waving. See above also.
  43. Excessive interruption. There’s many circumstances where an interruption can be healthy: interrupting to clarify a key point, interrupting to lighten the mood of a heated debate, interrupting because ones partner isn’t arguing in good faith… but most people interrupt excessively, for none of those reason.
  44. Refusing to apologize when conversational crossing lines or boundaries.
  45. Making assumptions without checking your partner agrees and holds the same assumption.
  46. Assuming that just because your partner got a single fact wrong or made a single incorrect word choice, that their entire point is invalid.

The average feminine-leaning person does most of these things.

They do it because of biological leanings, and because of societal conditioning.

They do it habitually, without even thinking.

And it often helps them ‘win’ an argument.

But they’re all unhealthy, toxic, and counterproductive to creating a wonderful life or reaching any sort of fulfilling solution.

Interestingly, most of the above are used by politicians to move the public to action, ‘feel right’, look good, and win votes.

This is because politicians know that healthy, logical discussions have little place in the popularity contest that politics is.

Don’t turn your relationship into a politically-charged popularity battleground of who ‘looks best’ or who ‘seems right.’

Instead, make your relationship a place of truth, harmony, and personal growth.

I may write a sequel to this that explains each mistake on a deeper level, or a companion piece that explains what we ‘should’ do for healthy relationship fights, especially if anyone reaches out to me with questions, but for now I’ll end it here.

I truly hope you found some value in this, and I wish you fulfilling, enjoyable, smooth interactions with your partner or anyone else you’re relating to in life.

Much love, keep ryzing. 🙂

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