Five Arguments All Couples (Need To) Have: And Why the Washing-Up Matters

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As one parent told me: “There have been so many different emotions and phases since separating. The immediate phase after separation felt unbearable, and isolating. In the next stage, I started to learn about and set (and keep resetting) boundaries. This set the foundation for moving forward and regaining agency in my life. The current phase I’m in has an underlying sense of confidence and tenacity.” Some of these arguments, Harrison says, have a “playfulness”; they become more about expressing our individuality than the apparent subject. I can see how that might be, when you’ve lived with someone so long that your mind meld is total and you can look at a passing cat, both be reminded of the same minor incident in 2003, and then by some circuitous thought process say out loud, simultaneously: “We need more plasters.” We exert our independent existences by disagreeing about the correct place to store ketchup (the bin).

So to up my effectiveness, I have been reading The Five Arguments All Couples (Need to) Have by therapist Joanna Harrison. Harrison identifies categories of surface argument (“you never listen”, “your mother drives me crazy”, “you haven’t taken the bin out”, “stop looking at your phone”, “we never have sex”) through which we express deeper, fundamental issues around sharing a physical and emotional space with someone. Approached with curiosity and compassion, they can provide “rich opportunities to learn about each other and develop”. For 30 years my wife and I have been arguing about the bins. The argument is not about whose job it is to put out the bins – it’s mine. It’s about how I always need to be reminded to do my job, and how inappropriately resentful I become at having been reminded. I invariably cite this allegation as proof that I remain a tragically misunderstood figure, and then go on to handle the bins roughly. Every Tuesday, at 10pm. FALSE The important thing isn’t whether you share a bed – it’s talking about why if you don’t, says Harrison. “Whether it’s down to snoring or young kids, sleeping in separate beds reduces the intimate time you get together. So you need to discuss how you can compensate.” Make love on the sofa in the evening when the kids have gone to sleep. If snoring has driven you to separate rooms, at least have your morning tea in bed together. Never go to bed on an argument Be aware that your way of doing things may be very different from your partner’s, even on the small stuff. An open mind helps, rather than an idea that one of you is right. See arguments about each other’s family as a joint problem, not something that your partner has to deal with on their own. Both people’s feelings are important, even if hard to hear.Obviously, this argument isn’t about whether or not I will go to the party (I will). It’s not even about who is right (I am right). It’s clearly about the resentment that builds around the chore of organising a social life on behalf of someone who is both graceless and ungrateful. Your feelings, and those of your ex and children, will be confusing for a while! You might have huge mixed emotions. Imagine that you are riding them, like a surfer on waves, rather than try and resolve and understand all of them at once. The waters will calm and things will feel smoother over time. Utilise those around you to help you surf them. Jo believes there are five distinct issues that all couples have to work through if they are going to have a healthy, functioning relationship – inspiring her to write her new book Five Arguments All Couples (Need To) Have and Why The Washing Up Matters. Using sound advice and relatable case studies, Five Arguments All Couples (Need To) Have and Why The Washing Up Matters offers practical ideas and imaginative ways of putting ourselves and our partners first. It has been described as the ‘indispensable guide to re-thinking our relationships’ while Susie Orbach calls it ‘Marvellous first aid for couples’. Either it’s: My relationship partner loves me, and I can trust them because the things they do and say are constantly reinforcing that I’m seen, heard, respected, and cared for. My partner’s actions add up to the experience of feeling loved.

But even the most ordinary arguments often mask feelings of greater significance. “Our deeper fears and frustrations, and the things we may find it difficult to express openly with each other can often express themselves in the domestic world,” writes Harrison. A row can be about the washing up, and also serve as part of an ongoing negotiation of the whole relationship. A parent I know via the Village Parenting Community told me about their experience as an adult child of separated parents: “I’m convinced that if my parents had forced their marriage to ‘work’ for the sake of keeping our family unit together that this would have been an unhealthy environment for my siblings and I to grow up in. I’m glad that I’ve watched my parents find happiness separately and think that I’m a better person for that life experience, although it was hard at the time.” Jo Harrison is FLiP’s in house therapist. She is extremely experienced in working with individuals and couples, including partners who are separating. Jo previously practiced as a lawyer, before becoming a couple therapist. Jo has featured in The Times and The Saturday Times talking about the value of couple therapy and she has made appearances on ITV’s This Morning (the Relationship Clinic) and Marina Fogle’s The Parent Hood. Most fights are horrible, but these entry-level spats, if you will, feel manageable. Buoyed by Harrison’s encouragement, I currently have five of my own, in various stages of their life cycle, on the go. I’m not sure what deeper truths they express, but they are: Bread goes in, not on, the bread bin. I have basically lost this. The bread bin is now a mere bread display unit (much as the biscuit tin is now just a hiding place for stuff I’m keeping to myself).

On the surface, many of the rows dramatised in the book might seem petty – they’re about moving house, working hours or different approaches to parenting – but they are all typical of the disputes Harrison encounters in her work. And petty squabbles are important – not for nothing is the book subtitled And Why the Washing-Up Matters. “Couples need to argue to sort of define themselves a bit,” says Harrison. “I’m still arguing with my husband about the washing up.”