Arguments happen all the fucking time, and they’re inevitable. And a lot of times, they can escalate to ridiculous heights and whole fights break out. And while it’s okay to argue sometimes, what tends to happen is one would initiate personal attacks on the other and things spiral way out of control. This is especially true with couples and often damages their stability. Having complaints about the other is normal, but criticisms hurt and should be controlled if not outright forbidden.

What’s the difference?

Generally, a complaint is a statement of dissatisfaction. For example, your girl laughs in a way that really annoys you, and you let her know that it does. Simple as that.  A criticism, on the other hand, is a full on personal attack, usually done with ill intent. Unfortunately, we lose control and we tend to accidentally criticize our others when all we want to do just vent our frustrations to them, and that leads to a lot of trouble.

Compare these two:

“You know the smell of curry chicken is really strong and it makes my clothes smell funny. You should make sure there’s proper ventilation when you’re cooking.”

VS.

“You know how much I hate the smell of curry chicken. Why can’t you ever properly ventilate when you’re cooking? I hate repeating myself. Why do you always have to be so careless and forgetful?

They both have the same idea, but which of these do you think is more hurtful? In general, a complaint turns to criticism when you start insulting and attacking them personally.

Why is criticizing so bad?

Criticisms are awful because in no instance should you insult somebody unless they really and truly deserve it (which most of the time is unlikely). When it comes to relationships, you must be very careful about what you say to your partner. A lot of girls are easily discouraged and don’t have as much thick skin and thus aren’t so susceptible to even the smallest of criticisms.

Criticisms KILL their self-esteem. It crushes them into little pieces and make them feel worthless and inadequate. Why the fuck would you wanna make a girl cry? She isn’t with you to hear you bitch about how she sucks at life. You’re supposed to make her happy.

By always telling her that she can’t do anything right, she will really start to believe you. This will affect not only your relationship but her life in general, and I fucking GUARANTEE a break-up will be on the horizon.

The criticisms go both ways. Do you ever want your girl to tell you you’re worthless or you can’t do anything right? Do you want them to associate you with every bad thing that happens?

How can you get around it?

Is there a way to vent your frustrations and making your point without making her feel like shit? Absolutely. There’s nothing that can’t be solved without civil conversations. Sit her down, let her know what’s bugging you. Even if you’re fuming, control yourself. Men shouldn’t lose control over their emotions–that’s a sign of weakness.

Talk to her, and let her know what’s going on. She can’t fix whatever she’s doing wrong if she doesn’t know that it even bothers you. Insulting and berating her won’t speed up the process either. Usually, girls will realize and acknowledge the fault when you bring it up and they will work to fixing it on their own.

Remember, she wants to keep you happy as well.

Arguments are necessary

As annoying as they are, arguments are necessary to have a long and lasting relationship. If you aren’t having arguments in your relationship, chances are you both are bottling things in which is EXTREMELY unhealthy. Couples have a hard time saying what they really feel, which ends up on huge scale feuds and hurt feelings.

Arguments also allow you guys to figure out what’s bugging you both and how you can reach a compromise. That being said, if you’re arguing too often, then you guys need to sort yourselves out and ask if you two should really be together.

Whenever you’re annoyed with somebody, it’s okay to express your feelings. However, that can be done civilly. Complaints will happen, but don’t ever tread into criticism territory. It’s hurtful and 90% of the time completely unwarranted. Talk things out with her and you’re likely to have better results than when you’re beating her self-esteem senseless.

“Learn from your mistakes!”

You’ve heard it all your life, but how many of you truly listened to that statement? How many times have you really fucked something up and actually learned from it? Rather, how many times have you done something wrong and blamed it on something else?  The difference between growing and staying stagnant is the ability to admit to your mistakes and learning from them.

Exercise personal responsibility.

It’s hard, really, to accept responsibility for anything. I know I’ve had a lot of trouble with this and still do to some degree. Thing is that, unless it was absolutely out of your control, you’ve played some part in what you screwed up on. This doesn’t mean you should put yourself on some endless guilt trip because that won’t solve anything. Instead, accept and admit that you did mess up.

I had a lot of trouble accepting a lot of things that I did wrong with my ex-girlfriend. I always pinned the blame on her for us breaking up but I never stopped to realize that I was fucking up as well. It’s easy to blame someone else but you get to the root of the problem once you objectively look at something.

Yes, she fucked up and made mistakes. A lot of them, in fact. And so did I. Had I stopped being stubborn and ate my pride a little, maybe we would still be together. Regardless, this was an extremely important and valuable life lesson that I needed to learn and it’s helped me grow.

Evaluate what you did wrong.

So now that you’ve admitted that you did something wrong, what exactly did you do wrong? This is when you should sit down and analyze. Playback the event and see what you could have done alternatively.

Many people would disagree about replaying bad events in your mind, and although I agree to a certain extent, I believe that replaying your mistakes helps you realize your wrongs. It’s painful, yes, but I believe that it’s necessary.

Once you’ve pinpointed the moment(s) where things went to hell, REMEMBER THEM. That purpose of you screwing up is so that you..

DON’T do it again

That is why we mess up. In fact, it’s okay to make mistakes, providing we learn from them. Growing up, we fuck up daily and we learn important things such as how to deal with girls and how to cope with making mistakes. The point, however, is to NOT do it again.

It’s very tempting to make the same mistakes over and over again. In fact, most things take us about a million times before we realize that we’re going in circles. I used to make the same mistakes with girls all the damn time as I was growing up, and it took me until I was in college to realize that I’m fucking up. I evaluated my mistakes and haven’t made (most of) them since. Can you guess how successful I’ve been after my realization?

DON’T beat yourself up

Earlier when I mentioned acceptance, I talked about really learning to admit that you screwed up. I do believe that we have control over a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean we realize it all the time. Remember, it’s totally okay to make mistakes. EVERYBODY makes mistakes. What you need to do is stop sulking about it. You can’t change the past and no matter how much you wish or pray, the past will be the past. Instead, focus on what you DO have control over and that’s THE FUTURE.

I used to beat myself up for every little fucking thing that went wrong. Break ups, financial problems, even when I failed my first road test. I soon began to realize that this does nothing but kill my self esteem and optimism and I opted to just deal with it. You shouldn’t be too apathetic about it but don’t let it bog you down either. Find a nice, happy medium. The mistakes that affect you somehow are usually the ones that get fixed first.

Remember, it’s ABSOLUTELY okay to make mistakes. However, in order to truly grow, you must evaluate your mistakes and LEARN FROM THEM. When you’re put into a similar situation and instead take an alternative action, you’ll know you’ve learned.

There are a couple of things that I’m extremely thankful for in my life. I’m thankful for my family and the wonderful friends that I have. My friends have had a strong impression on me and my character. Like any good group of friends, we’ve taught each other many things and in turn have learned many important things as well.

Your problems aren’t as serious as you make them out to be.

It’s an awful habit that we make mountains out of mole hills, but sometimes we just can’t help it. We just get so hurt and affected by something that it seems like the world is about to end. Truth is, it’s nowhere near as serious as we blow it up to be.

Growing up I used to bitch and moan about the simplest of things but every time, my buddies would tell me to shut the fuck up and grow some chest hair. The shutting up part was easy. I remember how I’d come complaining to my friends about something that I thought was HOLY SHIT OMG serious and my friends wouldn’t really pay much attention to it, and often times criticized me for being a bitch.

I hated how they would just ignore my problems and thought that they just didn’t give a shit. However, over time I began to realize why they did and how overreacting was so unnecessary. Some days, things were really bad in my life and my friends responded appropriately. Most often, however, they made me realize that flipping out at every small obstacle in life is a pointless waste of energy.

You’re not the only person going through the same thing.

“Nobody understands me! They don’t know what the hell I’m going through!”

How many times have you felt that way? It sounds childish (and it is) and immature (this as well) but sometimes things spiral out of control that we truly feel that we’re unique in our misery. This is common amongst adolescents but a surprisingly amount of adults exhibit these emotions. We are human after all and we lose control here and there.

Its common knowledge amongst anybody that knows me personally that I’m at odds with my father. We’ve never had a good relationship and I doubt well ever reach rapport. I always thought nobody understood the kind of home I was growing up in and that made me feel detached from everybody. I felt that I couldn’t open up to people because they just wouldn’t get it.

I was wrong.

I’m surprised at the amount of people that are at odds with their dads, down to scenarios just like mine. I kind of felt silly afterward.

Talking frequency isn’t indicative of how close you are with someone.

Most people think that in order to maintain a strong friendship, you need to talk often and as frequently as possible. Real life proves that this isn’t the case at all. One of my close buddies is away serving the Air Force and we talk about once every 2-3 months. Whenever we do get a chance to catch up, it never feels like we even have to catch up.

There aren’t any awkward moments when we’re trying to figure out something to talk about. We pick up like we left off, as if we were just talking the other day. Sure we fill in each other with things here and there but for the most part, it’s like he never left.

Good friendships are forged from how much you allow someone else in and vice versa. Talking to somebody all the damned time makes you annoyed if anything. I’ve made extremely close friends within a relatively short period of time, and inversely, I’ve known people for over 5-6 years that I talk to on a decent basis that I don’t really feel attached to at all.

It’s about the content, not the volume.

Youre not as lonely as you think.

How many times have you felt that you had nobody to talk to? Or even the fact that no matter how many people you talked to that nobody ever cared about you? Growing up I always felt like that. I would talk to many faces and at the end of the day, I would still feel alone for no real reason. However, I failed to acknowledge back then that whenever I needed to talk to somebody, there would always be someone that picked up on the other side.

You are not alone. The only way you’ll ever be truly alone is if you isolate yourself in some mountain or just avoid talking to every single human being in this planet. If you choose the latter, you need to get some help–it’s a serious problem.We all feel lonely time to time but thinking that way is an insult to those that consider themselves a good friend to you.

They will bitch at you for waking them up at 3 in the morning to talk, but nevertheless they will be there for you and make you feel better. After all, you would do the same in return.

What have you learned?