Hey everybody hope you're doing well, Stephen from Free Domain, and I had a question from a

live stream the other day which I will attempt to do some reasonable justice to here, and the

question was, what are your rules for fighting in a marriage? What are your rules for fighting in a marriage?

What are your rules for conflict in a marriage?

Well, the first thing to understand about conflict in a marriage, and this is really conflict in any

reasonable relationship, is that you have to play by the rules.

Conflict is a game and there are rules.

Clearly you wouldn't play chess with someone who just made up whatever rules they want,

who threw the chess pieces at you, who put mercury in your drink or roof with you, you would not sit down and play chess.

So a conflict is again, a sport. You try to win, of course, but you have to play by the rules. So there are two kinds of conflicts in a relationship.

The first kind is when you know you're right and you have to win.

And the second is you're not sure if you're right or not and you're open to some sort of win-win situation. So a conflict for instance

where you know that you're right and you have to win is your girlfriend wants to go to some grungy party where there's

going to be a bunch of low lives in a really bad section of town, right?

So that would be an example of that is a win-lose and you have to win.

And what I mean by that is if you don't win then the relationship probably won't continue.

To take a more extreme example, if your wife comes to you and says, hey, I want an open marriage.

Well, that is a debate or a conversation or an argument or a fight or a conflict that you have to win and there is no compromise.

You can look for a win-win situation if she's feeling lonely,

spend more time with her, if she's feeling isolated,

spend more time socially with people

if she is feeling a staff of affection

...