Is Your Relationship Worth Fighting For (Literally)?

Do you find yourself arguing with your significant other, fiancé, or spouse?

It’s no fun to fight. And sometimes it can indicate there’s a deep problem in the relationship. Sometimes you need to recognize warning signs and do hard work on—or end—a relationship. People are always going to disagree on some things, and we shouldn’t be fighting all the time.

And yet…

There are some couples who have given up on fighting. And this can be a bad thing.

If you are arguing, this means that at least you are still engaged.

It suggests you care about maintaining the relationship.

Think about those couples who don’t engage anymore. Good or bad, they sit quietly, at home or in public restaurants, just refusing to engage. They have passed the point of caring. It’s easier to zone out and not deal with problems in the relationship.

But is this healthy?

Nobody likes confrontation, but at least confrontation means you are still in the game. If you have checked out, maybe the relationship is already dead, maybe beyond resuscitating.

I have seen couples sitting in restaurants or at church who have a world between them, unspoken resentments and wounds they have refused to deal with. They have silently chosen to live the rest of their lives, and to die, in this silence. Going about their daily lives, enjoying the small pleasures they can find, but not tackling the big problems that could set them free into a new dimension of a happy relationship.

Is it ever too late? 

Some seem to have surrendered to the sad reality that nothing else can ever be done. The issues are too insurmountable. The distance is too great. Life must be lived out in misery until the moment of death.

But is that the life that God calls us to?

Maybe sometimes it’s better to fight. At least fighting means you are still alive. You are still feeling something. You are still engaged. 

And I believe that God calls us all to be engaged, not just comfortable. 

Jacob wrestled with the Angel in Genesis 32:22-32. If Jacob—or God—did not care about their mutual relationship, either one could have just thrown in the towel and called it quits. It would have been easier. No uncomfortable or awkward struggling. No conflict. Just… stop fighting with me. Goodbye.

But true love does not say goodbye. Love fights.

1 Corinthians 13:5-7 says that love “is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Giving up the fight is the opposite of endurance. Endurance means you keep going, even when it is hard. Enduring is an act of love. It is what God calls us to. Not the easy way out. But the hard way in. In to real love.

I recently spoke with a friend who’s an American man married to a foreign woman. He said they clash sometimes, often because of cultural differences. Both are emotional people, which makes it difficult. 

It would be the easy path for each of them to bow out, to say it’s too hard to find harmony. It would be easy for them to divorce. 

Saint Paul says, “But I shall show you a still more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31). That way is love. 

Thankfully, my friends have chosen the more excellent way. 

They have chosen to push through their uncomfortable cultural differences. To try to understand each other, even when they think the other is bigoted, ignorant, or wrong. To find the common ground. Despite how hard it is, that is the more excellent way.

God never said love would be easy. He did say it would be possible. 

So let’s strive for the possible, not avoid the difficulties. 

Often, real love comes only through hard work and struggle. But it is worth it.

Sometimes, arguments don’t mean your relationship is necessarily toxic or doomed. It might mean the relationship is worth fighting for. Fighting is never fun. But sometimes it is required. Push through the discomfort and pain. So often, real love and happiness are waiting on the other side.