Yesterday’s New York Times had a article on “Marital Spats, Taken to Heart”.

It was about a study of nearly 4,000 men and women and whether they vented their feelings or kept quiet in arguments with their spouse. They found that 32 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women said they bottled up their feelings during a marital spat. They found that self-silencing had no health affect on men but women who did were four times as likely to die during the 10-year study period.  Crazy huh?

The study found that the way the couple interacted was as important a heart risk factor as smoking or high cholestrol to the woman’s health.  If the couple could stay warm to each other in their disagreement, the woman was found to have a lower risk of heart disease. 

I watched my parents do just about anything to avoid arguing.  It seemed like the understanding was that if you loved each other you agreed all the time. So arguing was plain ol’ bad, in my upbringing.  “Warm style of arguing” was an oxymoron. 

Thank goodness for Honeybunny who’s worked hard getting me trained over the decade we’ve been together.  Not that I’m an expert at communicating but he’s at least taught me a few options.  Like using humour.  Or referring to a “difficult” topic with gentleness rather than trampling it like a herd of elephants.  Or letting it be the elephant in the room. 

He’s also gotten good at saying, “ok don’t get freaked out when I tell you this”.  It works every time and yes, it’s a little painful to realize that a) I’m a freak and b) he knows how much.  Good thing he likes me.

But I get it now that you can love someone and lovingly disagree with them. Here’s hoping it keeps my heart  healthy and open to him for a long time yet.