We asked LGBTQ women in same-se*x
relationships to take our Lesbian Fight Club survey about the role
fighting plays in your relationships, and over 3,500 of you answered the
call! We’ve already released two hilarious listlings of some of your
stupidest fights (The Gay*est, Silly Household Things), and we’re ready
to get into the rest of the data. The results were, honestly, fascinating. First, an infographic:
In the above infographic, the
percentages indicated in the list of things you’re most likely to fight
about come from your answer to “How often do you fight about the
following topics?”. The answer options were Constantly, Often,
Sometimes, Rarely, Never, and the percentages above represent those who
chose Constantly, Often or Sometimes for that topic.
In the ensuing discussion, when I say “frequently” I am referring to the combined numbers of “constantly” and “often” only.
This Is What You Fight About
1. Relationship Expectations
What does this consist of, exactly?
Well, a whole lot of things: how much time you spend together (an
especially volatile topic for those in long-distance relationships or
those with exhausting time-consuming jobs), the level of emotional
support required by each partner, whether long-term goals and life plans
line up, and who is putting more [time, energy, trust, care-taking]
into the relationship. Sometimes you want such different things in the
long-term that you’re not even sure if it’ll ever work. 71% of those who
fought “constantly” about relationship expectations worried that their
relationship might not last — a significantly larger percentage than
those who fought constantly about other topics.
2. Pet Peeves or Annoying Habits
Although many picked this category, very few elaborated on it: but, interestingly enough, the
overwhelming majority of people who picked this as something they
fought about Often or Constantly used the comment boxes to explain that
they don’t really “fight” so much as “bicker,” “disagree,” or have
“briefly heated conversations.” This category for many people
might just be serving as a stand-in for the various five-minute
squabbles we have about the little things the other person does that
annoy us: leaving drawers partially open on a dresser, exhibiting road
rage, leaving the light on in the kitchen, talking too loudly, showing
up late for things, losing their keys, checking e-mail too often, and so
forth.
3. Se x
S ex is a huge issue in relationships and
the most common conflict related to se x is frequency: mis-matched s ex
drives came up with almost every commenter who indicated fighting about
se x constantly/often. Sub-complications of this genre included one
partner’s sex drive being impacted by anti-depressants or
stress/exhaustion, dealing with past sexu al trauma, and feelings about
who initiates more. As we learned in our Ultimate Lesbian Se x Survey,
couples having more se x were more likely to report being “ecsta tic”
— the highest option offered on the relationship satisfaction matrix —
in their relationship, but there wasn’t a huge correlation between
couples who were “happy” (the second-highest option) and couples who had
more s ex. We’ve done a lot of work on this topic: on Moving Beyond
Lesb ian Bed Death and Bridging The Libido Gap, Surviving Lesbi an Bed
Death, what to do when Your Girlfriend Never Ever Ever Wants To Have
Se x. We’ve talked about (Having More) S ex, when You Can’t Always Get
What You Want(In Bed) and when a particular se x act gives you PTSD — and
also, Here Is A Worksheet To Help You Talk To Partners About Se x.
Unsurprisingly, those who fought about
s ex constantly or often were the least likely to report always having
makeup s ex – only 4.3% do, compared to 38% of the whole.
4. Housework
Seriously if somehow none of us ever had
to do the dishes, we’d all get along way better — and the household
things we find to fight about are really truly special. Although
housework doesn’t crack the top ten most contentious topics for
relationships who’ve been together for a year or less, it debuts at #6
for relationships who’ve been together 1-2 years, and continues climbing
the charts — by the 5+ year mark, it hits #3 and settles at #2 for 10+
year relationships. So, basically, as soon as you start living together, you start fighting about how to live together! Most of these arguments are of the “who does more” variety and are further complicated by couples with messy pets.
5. Friends or Socializing
So here’s how this goes: you don’t hang
out with each other’s friends, or you don’t like each other’s friends,
or you wish their friends didn’t include their exes. Maybe they’re an
introvert and you’re an extrovert. Or there’s jealousy there —
she doesn’t trust you to go out without her, or seems to have more fun
with her friends than with you. Of those who fought frequently about
friends/socializing, 48% also fought frequently about jealousy/other
people and 28% about exes, compared to 13.8% and 8.6% of the entire
group.
6. Other People/Jealousy
Not trusting your partner and worrying
about them cheating on you or being suspicious of her friendships can
really put a lot of stress on a relationship, which’s perhaps why 42% of
people who frequently fought about this think the way they fight is
unhealthy, compared to 17% of the entire group. This was a source of
contention much more prevalent in newer relationships than older ones,
though, and it seems to be a somewhat larger issue for bis exual women:
41-42% of lesbians dating bisexu als fought about this, compared to 39%
of bisexuals dating bisexuals, 31%-35% of queers dating lesb ians, 33.5%
of lesbians dating lesbians and 29% of queers dating queers.
Non-monogamous/open relationships struggled with this more than
monogamous ones — 42% of folks in non-monogamous or open relationships
fought about this, compared to 34% of the whole group.
7. Money
45% of married folks fight about money,
compared to 30% of the unmarried —combining finances isn’t easy! Money
fights seem to fall into three main categories: one person makes more
money than the other (or one is unemployed), there are disagreements
about spending habits and saving, or tight finances overall cause
general stress and tension. This issue is really stressful for lesbian
relationships especially because women’s earning power is so much less
than men’s — moreso for LGBTQ women — and we’re more likely to be cut
off from family or social safety nets.
8. Work or School
A lot of you fight about work and school
schedules — one partner working/studying too much or not enough,
prioritizing work over the relationship or residual stress from
work/school. And, of course, a lot of you are doing that super
complicated thing where we work with each other (I’m
guilty of this too — I co-own this website with an ex-girlfriend and
run A-Campwith another ex-girlfriend!), which offers so many more
opportunities for high-charged disagreements. Whereas only 26% of the
entire group said they currently fight more than usual due to a
temporary situation, 43% of those who fight frequently about work/school
do. School, of course, is temporary, and all of us tend to imagine a
time in our lives when we’ll be working less.
9. Relatives
This is another category highly impacted by length of relationship — it barely comes up for newbies and climbs the charts the longer a couple is together.
In fact, by the time we reach the 10-year mark, you’re fighting more
often about relatives than about sex! Heterosexual couples certainly
deal with a lot of family-related conflicts, but queer couples are more
prone to them: a lot of y’all are dealing with family who are
homophobic, unsupportive or otherwise insufferable to be around due to
their feelings about your sexual orientation. There were a lot of
unrelated-to-being-gay family conflicts, too: disagreements on how to
handle toxic family members, cultural conflicts, “her mom/dad hates me,”
living with relatives and different attitudes towards family in
general.
10. Health
LGBTQ women are more likely than
straight people to have mental and physical health issues — something I
recently dug into in depth using results from our Grown-Ups survey. On
this survey, mental health issues came up a lot amongst people who
fought frequently about health, as well as disagreements over how one
partner is handling their physical or mental health — how often they
exercise, what they eat, how often they drink or use drugs or smoke or
how they manage a physical or mental health problem. Speaking from
personal experience on all sides, relationships in which one or both
partners have depression, anxiety, BPD, PTSD or any number of
psychiatric diagnoses require a lot of understanding, patience and
communication, and mental health is something we talk about a lot around
here.
11. Exes
Exes, along with the next two items on
this list, are a topic that only makes the top nine for couples who’ve
been together for less than a year — and of those who fight frequently
about exes, 96% also fight frequently about other people/jealousy.
“Exes” is probably seen more as a sub-topic of “other people/jealousy”
than its own thing and perhaps should’ve been treated as such on the
survey.
The most cited conflict for this category was discomfort with somebody still being friends with their ex,
but difficulties with ex-husbands came up, too. Another interesting
tidbit: only 17% of queer/queer couples fight about exes, but between
21% and 26% of lesbi an/lesbia n, lesbian/bisexual and bisex ual/bise xual
couples do.
Also, one of you wrote: “She’s convinced I’m secretly sleeping with a man. I’m not. But she is.” YOU
GUYS!! Y’all need to break up. Speaking of breaking up, those who fight
frequently about exes were the most likely to agree with the statement
“the amount of fighting we do makes me worry that our relationship won’t
last.” This might be why longer-term couples fight less often about
exes — although it’s also due to the fact that exes are farther in the
past the longer you’re together, it’s also possible that couples who
fought a lot about exes didn’t last as long as those who didn’t.
12. Drinking, Smoking or Drugs
This is our second topic that made the
top ten most-fought-about topics for brand new couples but not for any
couples together for one year or more — however, it’s not that more lengthy relationships fought about it way less
often than newer ones, simply that topics that weren’t issues for new
relationships overtook it (e.g., housework, relatives, health.) However,
radically different substance habits be an insurmountable issue for
many couples, especially for queer women who may socialize in all-female
groups containing mostly mutual friends — as opposed to a
boyfriend/husband who might go out “with the guys” to get hammered.
What’s happening with the couples who
fight about this a lot? Well, they smoke and you hate it. They like to
party and you don’t. You think she drinks too much or she thinks you
drink too much or you think she smokes too much pot. Addiction issues,
relapses or even scarier stuff — like she steals your prescription drugs
or has ended up hospitalized for drinking.
Those who fight about drinking/smoking/drugs frequently were also the most likely to report fights that always, often or sometimes involved physical abuse —
6%-12.9% of them did, compared to 1.6-2.6% of the entire group. This
topic was the third most likely, after “exes” and “other
people/jealousy,” to report fights that always, often or sometimes
involved emotional abuse.
13. Politics and Social Justice Issues
Sometimes these arguments deeply
reflected that “the personal is political” — a white partner not
understanding a non-white partner‘s experiences of racism or differences
in background (red state vs. blue state) leading to present-tense
conflicts. Those who fought frequently about politics/social issues were
the least likely to worry that their relationship won’t last because of
fighting, despite also being the second-most-likely to fight every day.
They were also the most likely to agree that fighting can be productive
(56%) and the least likely to agree that the way they fight is
unhealthy (27%). This ranked higher for new couples, perhaps because
politics/social justice issues are often deeply tied to personality
moreso than relationship dynamics, and it makes sense that they’re
controversial mostly during the first year, when you’re still evaluating
the compatibility of your partnership.
14. Children
The reason “children” fall so low on
this list is probably because most of the survey-takers don’t have any —
although quite a few people did report fighting about whether or not to
have kids or tension around trying to get pregnant. Of those who had
kids, many seem to have come into the relationship with kids from prior
relationships. “Children” comes in at 14 out of 14 issues for all
relationship lengths until we hit the 5+ year mark, at which point it
crawls to #13, and then leaps to #9 at the 10+ year mark. The main thing
worth mentioning about couples with children is that y’all are tired.
Y’ALL ARE SO TIRED. You have fights about parenting styles but also a
lot of you are just so incredibly tired and so you bicker every now and
then but it’s usually fine. This is likely why those who fought
frequently about children were the most likely to fight every day.
Source: AutoStraddle
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