Daily Tiffs and spats of a couple - Each home has a story!

 Have you seen a couple with all love and no arguments?!

                                                                    Photo by Alex Green

Hardly would be a couple on earth without a difference of opinion over trivial matters. Individualism is all about opinions. Mums n dads, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, mothers and kids, best friends, girl friend and boy friends, fiancés and married; never do two people think n feel absolutely alike. 

I have been witnessing the daily tiffs since my childhood within the 4 walls, just the parties kept shifting and I have many a times been an active participant trying to favor one and settle the other and a quiet audience at other times doing my own things while it all resolves or spurs to the level of them entering a hot war and then a cold war for days altogether. 

So, today like any other normal day, my in laws had their session that began on the breakfast table as fun and teasing not taking long to turn into a ruck. And lately having visited my parents, me and my best half has been wondering how do the very few words that rise out of concern or past events take such sharp turns. I have been assimilating, counting, reminiscing couples in my personal life and that what are the matters that I have witnessed between them for a usually upcoming tiff at the breakfast table.

Not specifically mentioning which couple I am talking about, lest some of them be reading my post, I'd just talk of a few.

A couple been together for almost most of their life and are over concerned about each other, for their health and social involvements. One is a social animal and the other is a fearful deer and both have been trying to justify oneself and tell the other what's wrong in them and how it makes situations tense. But none accepts or tries to bring a change in themselves. I would try to use a plural for the single partner 'they' 'them' rather than a 'he or she'. 

 Their daily bickers revolve around one being over conscious about the discipline and cleanliness in the house and the other being too easy on it. About the difference in  their social involvement, the fearful one feels the active partner would land in some trouble. The  socially active partner is active on the screen - phone calls and chats but otherwise leads a sedentary lifestyle deteriorating their health and the introvert partner works a little too much in the house again deteriorating their health. Endless discussions, nips and snips, settling down my kids sessions, heated arguments and emotional melt downs but nothing has changed over four decades. 

 

 Another couple, again by each other since four decades, their tiffs are more of letting each other down and finding faults with each other that made their life a mess but they watch movies together, they move out together, they do eat together and they get heated every other day.  Their daily bickers revolve around how one did or said something in the past that was hurtful or led to a change in one's life and change in one's attitude and happiness quotient. Again endless discussions, nips and snips, settling down my kids sessions, heated arguments and emotional melt downs but nothing has changed over four decades. 

 

 None of the above has made an effort to change themselves to make this better, its just circumstantial changes over time BUT they are sticking together. They look out for each other in times of need. 

 

 Is this love or they have just grown habitual of being together and fear the possibility of being alone some day. I wonder!

 

 Another relatively young couple , been together for over two decades are smoother on each other, peace lovers, cheesy as they are known but have their own set of opinions. They do taunt jokingly, one of them is impatient and short tempered than the other. They are concerned about hurting each other unconsciously. They have hurt each other but have pulled back together, tried to talk over, expressed with a fear of being misunderstood and tried to change the bit to avoid the same topic again, but still they have their part of sweets n sours with no particular topics, just situational.

 

 Another relatively younger couple, not to skip, sticking together, doing well in life. Taking care of their family bicker over finances, parenting styles. Both are short tempered and strong beings and have worked some bit on themselves making things a little better as their kids have been watching. But they are Different. They don't really seem to be meeting each others expectations either and have their part of cold zones . Yes they have made effort more of it for the kids, for the peace, is it also for each other? I really hope so!

 

“The partner truly best suited to us is not the one who miraculously happens to share every taste but the one who can negotiate differences in taste with intelligence and good grace.”—Alain de Botton

 I have seen couples who haven't shared a room in decades but live under one roof for their kids to have both parents, for societal peace. They never speak of each other in gatherings but they are seen together.

 

 I have seen couple who chose to get separated in live their own lives, both being a part of their kids lives and supporting each other in that matter. Couples who separate and have nothing to do with each other and their kids don't know where is life taking them. Couples who fight for custodies, sometimes one parent being clearly a better parent and sometimes just an ego battle with nothing good for the child.

 

 I wonder, how complicated can this life become when we all start with simple motives of learning, thriving, surviving, growing, being happy. How capable a single person in your life be to make it happy and worth living or make it a living hell.

 

In the end, love or habit, peace or spats, it all boils down to what keeps two people tied together despite it all. Relationships are indeed complex, but perhaps it’s the very complexity that makes them human and real