Why Do Engaged Couples Fight?

Furious Fiancés: Why Engaged Couples Fight (and Five Tips To Avoid It!)

Your partner finally popped the question, and you accept, thrilled to spend the rest of your life together. You spend a week encased in a bubble of premarital bliss until suddenly your sea of love becomes a rocky road. Your partner becomes scrappy, and you retaliate of course. You ask yourself, ‘how did we get here?’ A marriage proposal is supposed to be one of the happiest moments of your life. So why do engaged couples fight?

While this may come as a shock, it’s quite natural to go from engaged to enraged. Scarier still, as many as 20% of engaged couples break up, ending their relationship altogether. But before you go breaking things off, consider these five tips on how to avoid fighting with your fiancé. 

1. Embrace the process instead of aiming for perfection.  First, you need to accept that organizing a wedding will be stressful. There will be plenty of things to fret about, and emotions will run high. But before you blame every glitch on your boo, remember that planning an occasion is a process. Marriage is about a partnership, so team up and work as a cohesive couple.
   
2. Family Feuds Need Not Apply.  Conflict among relatives is common, but arguments can be exacerbated when combining two families. Sure, you wish that everyone would just get along, but the reality is that sometimes, that won’t happen. Don’t let a family skirmish come between you and your fiancé. You both share important goals, so maintain the focus on your future together.
   
3. Make Love, Not War.  When things get tense, try some sexual healing and remember why you fell in love with your fiancé in the first place. Make romance a priority and treat one another to special (and sensual!) touches that will keep the passion burning. Turn ‘date night’ into a late night!
   
4. Set (and revisit) Your Expectations.  While your partner is just as invested in planning the big day, you may be on different pages with what you expect from each other. Maybe they prefer to focus on the food while they forget about the flowers. Decide on how involved you both want to be and on which areas. If you delegate ahead of time, you can avoid future misunderstandings.
   
5. Consider Pre-Marital Counseling. An otherwise exciting engagement could trigger new concerns that you never considered, such as deep-seated trust issues. If you and your fiancé keep bumping heads over seemingly insurmountable problems, try seeking the objective perspective from a premarital counselor.

One things for sure. Planning weddings is super stressful and it takes an army of effort to navigate the emotional and the logistical chaos. With all of the stress around planning a future together, it’s no wonder why engaged couples fight. You want an elegant banquet wedding, your partner longs for a rustic barn theme. Your mom was clear about including all 12 of your cousins in the wedding party; your sweetie refuses these strangers and gives a max of five of your closest friends ultimatum. “Budget’s way too low!” you scream to save your stunning florals. “Budget’s way too high!” your partner looks at you in a panic over a spreadsheet.

If we can give just one more piece of advice… please, hire a wedding planner. Yes, you CAN afford the expertise and organized calm that your planner will bring to your lives. All those pain points you can’t agree on disappear overnight. Your wedding planner will transform the fighting back into flirting easily and fairly. All may be fair in love and war, but why battle your fiancé when you can live blissfully together instead?