A good fight always ends with improved understanding. The two angry lovers reach a turning point, a moment when they touch each others hearts, tenderly. A bad fight never gets to this moment. It drags on and on until the lovers give up in complete despair.
A bad fight is always ignited by feelings of self-loathing Each lover gets trapped in a swampland of shame and threatens the other; then they plunge into a black hole of insults and accusations.
Franki and Aaron had been born illegitimately and were never truly loved by their step-parents. In their bad fight, they hide the shame they’ve carried inside of them their whole lives. In their good fight, they’re finally able to speak their shame.
A Bad Fight between Franki and Aaron
Aaron
You think I didn’t know you were faking it!?
Franki
Right, you always know everything. There isn’t a fucking thing in the world you don’t know.
Aaron
I know goddamn well when you fake an orgasm! It’s what you do best, isn’t it. Get ‘em all hot and bothered, then hightail it out of town while your ass is still there in the sheets.
Franki
You know, you missed your calling. You should’ve been a court psychiatrist who analyzes criminal behavior and makes sentencing recommendations. Must be pretty hard for you, always analyzing and judging everybody.
Aaron
You’ve always been a no brainer. You get in there, do your little seductive thing, then bug out like a coward. Not just with sex but everything else. The only time you ever stick around is after you’ve fortified yourself with a half dozen Scotches.
Franki
That’s why you married me, isn’t it, to prove you could upgrade the poor little lush, show her a better life. You really get off on it, playing Professor Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle.
Aaron
Higgins had a lot more to work with.
Franki
As always, the man’s absolutely right. Eliza was smart enough not to marry a constipated asshole like Higgins, a lot smarter than me.
Aaron
What you really mean is Higgins knew better than to get in any deeper with her.
Franki
You constipated shit! What I really mean is that I should never have gotten in any deeper with you and your obsessive need to upgrade every woman you get emotionally involved with because you see them as your deficient mother.
A Good Fight Between Franki and Aaron
Aaron
I’m not saying you actually were, but it felt like you were faking it. And something snapped inside me. I had to get the hell away from you. It was unbearable.
Franki
I guess if you’d stayed you’d have strangled me.
Aaron
Oh no, never that! I had to get away because I couldn’t bear the feeling of not being wanted, like it didn’t matter if it was me or somebody else inside you.
Franki
You know, when you first wanted to have sex, I got this feeling you just had to have it and it didn’t matter much whether it was with me or somebody else.
Aaron
No, with you it’s never just for the sex. I never told you this but I always watch you doing stuff around the apartment, like when you sit at the dining table grading your kids’ work books, preparing the next day’s lesson. I sneak looks at you from the sofa as you work the papers, Anastasia purring on your lap. In those moments my heart swells up. I feel this hunger for you. It scares the hell out of me.
Franki
If you could just take it slower when we make love, not move so fast. Then maybe I could really be there, make you feel welcome. It’s always been so hard for me to be there, with anyone.
For all of us, speaking shame feels like the worst thing to do when we’re feeling it. This is what Franki and Aaron were struggling with in their argument. Franki was ashamed to tell Aaron she felt like she was nothing more to him than a sex object. And Aaron was ashamed to tell Franki how much he hungered to feel wanted by her. Only after showing how afraid they felt deep down were they able to move to a better, safer emotional place and make love to each other.
Shame can only be spoken to people who’ve earned the right to hear it; people who love us despite our weaknesses. There aren’t many people in the world we can do this with. We’re lucky if we find just one or two of them.
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