I confess, dear reader, that I have picked fights with my beloved husband. I have picked fights over a few empty beer cans lined up like sentries on our kitchen counter, steps from the recycling container.
I have picked fights over his trail of sandwich makings left out in the kitchen for the flies to feast upon.
I have picked fights when our dinner, timed to perfection, is thrown off-kilter because he didn't ignite the gas grill when I asked the first time. You get the idea.
It's usually the small stuff that incites a quibble, some niggling detail of life that gets thoroughly under the skin, or so it seems to the person instigating the tiff. But picking a fight over something inconsequential has its purpose in the world of couplehood.
Indeed, picking a fight often acts to obfuscate a more serious underlying issue in a relationship, said Michele Baldwin, a Chicago-based marriage and family therapist who teaches couples classes with her psychiatrist husband.
"People don't know how to talk about the big issues, like their feelings about a partner working too much or a partner not feeling valued enough ... so people pick on something that is a minor thing to discharge tension," said Baldwin, who recalls that early in her marriage she used to get "hysterical" to get her husband's attention.
Ironically, a partner who picks a fight is often motivated by good intentions, said clinical psychologist Blaine Fowers, author of "Beyond the Myth of Marital Happiness" (Jossey-Bass, 2000).
Picking a fight may be an attempt to communicate a dislike or resolve a conflict, to get an emotional reaction from an emotionally distant mate or to get a partner to pay attention.
"I would say that 99% of the time there is a good reason that we pick a fight," said Fowers, an associate professor of counseling psychology at the University of Miami.
"It isn't that it is good to pick a fight with your partner, but the underlying question is, 'What do I really want that is leading me to pick this fight?' Most of the time what we want is a good thing. We just go about it the wrong way."
Jody and Kevin Rudy of West Los Angeles have been married for 11 years. Jody, 38, said that she picks fights with her husband to resolve a conflict or in an attempt to get him to pay attention to her or their children, Willy, 8, and Emma, 5.
