Life at Work

Life at Work
“Give him a fair fight!” Most of us remember those words or words like them from our elementary school days. One of the funny things about that cry that usually had to do with making sure it was one against one is that we knew what a fair fight was. We forget what a fair fight is when we become adults. That’s why when you are reading books about relationships there is likely to be a chapter or two to educate us about how to fight fair. In Becoming a Couple of Promise (NavPress, 1999), Dr. Kevin Leman tells about unfair fighting.

It is not a fair fight when:

We generalize the behavior of another by using words like “you always” and “you never.”
We change the issue during an argument in order to make a personal attack.
We make a vague accusation instead of being clear about a complaint.
We respond to a complaint by citing a case where something worse has been done to us.
We flood the other by throwing out the multitude of things they have done wrong.
We bring out an old grievance that we’ve been saving in our minds to drop at just the right time.
We use passive-aggressive comments to lay guilt on the other.

The tendency of many will be to read that list to see when others have fought unfairly. Don’t do that. Read each one and ask yourself, “When have I used this tactic to fight unfairly.” Give him/her a fair fight! That’s Life at Work!