The Marriage365 Podcast

Can fighting with your spouse actually bring you closer? In this episode, Casey and Meygan breakdown why having a productive and healthy fight is better than not having one at all. They teach you how to bring up conflict, what signs to look for when things may be heading south, and how to repair when things get out of hand.

Resources in this episode:
Book a coaching session with Casey, Meygan, or one of the Marriage365 coaches here.
Get access to videos, worksheets, challenges, and more free resources in Marriage365 membership.
Learn more about marriage intensives here.
Want more practical tools for your marriage? Follow Marriage365 on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Creators and Guests

Host
Casey Caston
Host
Meygan Caston

What is The Marriage365 Podcast?

The Marriage365 Podcast is hosted by marriage coaches Casey and Meygan Caston, who share honest conversations and practical tools you can use in your relationship today. Each episode is designed to help you communicate better, work through conflict, rebuild trust, deepen intimacy, and feel connected again.

Whether your marriage is thriving, struggling, or stuck in the roommate phase, you’ll walk away with clear, practical steps toward a healthier, stronger marriage.

Because a great marriage doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built one choice, one conversation, and one day at a time.

Meygan:

The way you're fighting with your spouse might be the reason you're growing apart, not the thing you're fighting about. Listen, every couple argues, and that's not what predicts whether your marriage lasts. What predicts it is how you argue. And today in this episode, we're teaching you the difference between a fight that damages your marriage and a fight that actually builds it.

Casey:

Well, welcome to the Marriage365 Podcast. We are your hosts, Casey and Meygan Caston. In a world that is very, very confused about love, relationships and marriage, we're going to give you clarity and practical next steps so you can experience the warmth, the joy of connection, and the confidence needed to have a great marriage.

Meygan:

Every couple fights. And I think Casey and I wanna start off by saying, including us. Nobody is above this. And how many fights, babe, have we gotten to? Well, too many to count.

Casey:

Okay. Well, we've been together for about twenty five years. Married twenty three. And, man We're stubborn. We're competitive.

Meygan:

Mhmm. We've we've got married young, so there's a lot of immaturity there. But here's the thing. So if we know that every couple fights, that's actually not the problem. The problem is most of us were never taught how to fight.

Casey:

Oh, did you grow up learning how to fight?

Meygan:

Well, not in a healthy way. Oh, I definitely grew up knowing how to fight. Or some parents, they avoid fighting altogether. And then you get married and you're like, wait, this isn't normal. People that are married don't fight.

Meygan:

We just kind of absorb whatever pattern was modeled for us. Good, bad, and ugly. And nobody really sits down with a couple before they get married and says, hey, listen, here's how to disagree with the person you love without tearing each other apart. And I wish someone did that

Casey:

for My dad never said, hey, I want you know how to handle conflict in a healthy way. And it's normal, by the way. No one taught us that.

Meygan:

So here's the truth. We want you to hold closely. Conflict isn't a sign your marriage is broken. Right, Casey? Yep.

Meygan:

You had to learn this one.

Casey:

I

Meygan:

did. We both did, but you really had to learn this one. This is a big one for men because they believe conflict. Uh-oh, something's wrong. We're not soulmates.

Casey:

I just I always thought conflict meant something was very wrong with our relationship. I held that. That was a core belief of mine.

Meygan:

Yeah. So conflict really is one of the places your marriage gets built. You get to learn about each other. And so couples who fight fair don't necessarily fight less. Casey and I still argue.

Meygan:

Mhmm. I would say, though, that our arguments don't get out of control, and they're way better and they're way healthier. It's the fighting though, it brings us closer instead of actually pushing us apart. We've learned so much more about each other through our arguments.

Casey:

I feel like I say this all the time in coaching to help other I'm gonna say husbands because husbands are typically the avoiders and you ladies are the ones that wanna deal with stuff and and resolve stuff. But I feel like I says all the time that great marriages are not conflict free, they're repair rich. So I think there's this mythical marriage that's roaming the hills of fantasy land that we could have a marriage that doesn't have conflict.

Meygan:

I mean, it sounds wonderful.

Casey:

It sounds like fairy tales. And I what what happens is we actually think that we can get there and in pursuit of that mythical creature, couples can get really frustrated because that that when they have conflict in their relationship, they think again something is wrong and they even get frustrated that they even have it, that it even exists in their pursuit of this mythical creature. So their goal is really to avoid fighting And then they think that they're creating some sort of peace, but what they've created is this delayed resentment. We haven't dealt with the issue. We've only just kind of stacked it on the shelf somewhere.

Meygan:

Mhmm.

Casey:

Then that gets pulled out in their next conflict, making it only bigger and bigger and bigger. And that's during those conflicts where all of those things are coming out, frustration is peak and that's where we break all the rules of fighting fair. We we lash out, we get angry, we get bitter and then conflict becomes this battleground rather than like you were saying, a place for us to build, for a place for us to learn and to grow and discover more about us, a place that we can improve and actually become more efficient in our relationship. And that's where, you know, conflict is not the enemy. The disconnection that we are creating becomes the enemy.

Meygan:

But we make conflict the enemy. We think it's, oh, well, it's our conflict. So then of course, that's only gonna make you wanna avoid it more because you don't know how to fight fair.

Casey:

Because we're now not fighting yeah. Like you said, fair. We're now breaking all the rules of conflict. And now we're turning it into conflict and that's conflict. And that's actually what I wanna say is, conflict is okay in relationships, combat some of our don'ts, that's that's the culprit here.

Casey:

Okay? So today we're gonna just be breaking down kind of some do's and don'ts of fighting well, where sometimes when we do these mistakes, small little disagreements become full on world war three style fighting.

Meygan:

And they shouldn't be. No. They really shouldn't be. And so get ready because we're not really teaching you how to fight more. We're teaching you how to fight better.

Casey:

Oh, I like that. Alright. The first one we're gonna be talking about is to not stack the deck. I feel like this one is where you are bringing up multiple issues, multiple stories, hurts into one conversation. So you may start arguing about money and the budget and spending habits, but then all of a sudden, it turns into and the fact that you know, you really don't show up for parenting and you're always on your phone and I can never get you to pay attention to what I'm talking about and and there's like seven more issues and it may happen all at once or it may happen in the midst of the fight where now we're all of a sudden changing subjects into a new fight and what you're doing is you're actually overwhelming your partner.

Casey:

So the idea of stacking the deck, I I think is like this world war two tactic of where we overwhelm the enemy with overwhelming force until they give up. So you're you're attacking them from all these different angles from the land, the sea, and from the air. And you are overwhelming their thought process because now we're we're not talking about one topic.

Meygan:

Well, yeah. If we started arguing about finances, and now you're talking about parenting, well, one should I give my energy to? Also for the person receiving this, you're just gonna feel like a piece of crap.

Casey:

Yeah.

Meygan:

Wow. So I'm not a great parent. I'm horrible at money. I'm on my phone. What else do you have against me?

Meygan:

It's gonna really start to hurt as it layers on.

Casey:

Yeah. And and, you know, part of conflict is there's a bit of, like, debating that happens, right? But now you've just completely changed the topic. So like you said, like, I I don't know which one to tackle right now because you've gotten you've brought up 10 topics. So our do for this one is stay focused on the current issue, stay with one topic at a time, one conversation, okay?

Casey:

Don't turn, you know, you forgot to take out the trash into this twenty minute presentation on everything that they've done wrong over the past five years. Right? I think that if you're the one receiving this stacking the deck, you know, it's okay, you can be able to say in love, hey, let's stay on topic please.

Meygan:

Yeah, I think if your spouse starts to bring up another topic, you can kindly and lovingly redirect. That's a big word we like to use a lot here. Redirect the conversation and just say something like, hey, listen, I wanna make sure we talk about that too. But right now, we're talking about finances. Let's try to stick to one topic at a time.

Meygan:

You don't have to be like, stop talking about all the other things, because then that's just sounding defensive. You can do it in a very loving way. All right. The second thing we don't want you to do is we don't want to make assumptions. I think when we're hurting, we make a lot of assumptions and most of those are extremely negative assumptions.

Meygan:

You don't care about me. You obviously wanted to hurt me. Well, of course you don't respect me. Right? And we may not even say these assumptions out loud.

Meygan:

We just kind of think them internally. Or if you're like me, I'm thinking them and I'm saying them out loud, but they also just come out in our attitude. And listen, you know how you feel. You don't necessarily know what your spouse intended or how they're feeling or what their perspective was. And so the do of this is get curious, ask questions.

Meygan:

Don't assume, you know, what your spouse thinks, feels, and needs. You need to get curious. You need to stop and try to enter into their world, right? So, Hey, what was going on for you in that moment? Help me understand what you were thinking.

Meygan:

Tell me more, tell me more, tell me more. That is such a wonderful phrase. If you ever do coaching with me or any of our coaches, you will hear us say, tell me more. We are getting curious. We want to know your heart, your head, your thoughts, your fears, your desires, your spouse has those in there.

Meygan:

You need to get curious. And so when you're fighting and the argument starting to turn, if you actually stopped and got curious and leaned in, that shows curiosity, that that should help prevent it from going to combat And just check-in. How are they doing emotionally? It shows that you care.

Casey:

It reminds me of the seven habits of highly effective people seek first to understand then to be understood. Because I think if you stay open minded and curious in conflict, you'd actually learn more than you would judge them more.

Meygan:

I remember a conversation we had several months ago where I got curious because I couldn't figure out what you were really feeling. And then you, you said something to me like, well, I kind of felt insecure about it. And that was a moment for me, a light bulb moment to go, oh, okay. He's feeling insecure. Well, then why am I going to harp on him right now?

Meygan:

He just admitted he's feeling insecure. I know how it feels to insecure. I know how it feels to feel insecure. It doesn't feel great. No.

Meygan:

So then there was some compassion. Oh, my husband's feeling insecure. I'm not gonna poke the bear. I'm gonna continue to get curious. Oh my gosh.

Meygan:

Well, I'm so sorry you feel insecure. Is there anything I can do to help? It changed the dynamic of our argument and it didn't go into a full blown And

Casey:

it makes conflict more like a team building exercise than than actually a one v one winner takes all kind of experience, which kinda leads us into our third don't, which is don't attack the character of your spouse. Okay? Again, if we are jumping to assumptions and assuming like, you know what, they had very selfish and hurtful intentions, then of course, we're gonna go straight for you're a bad person instead of the issue is the bad per bad thing. Right?

Meygan:

So

Casey:

there's a huge difference between saying, you know what, you're so selfish versus, hey, when you made that decision without talking to me, I felt like my thoughts and my opinions weren't considered.

Meygan:

Well, that is a massive difference. Yeah. Because it's an it is an attack. It you're so selfish is such an attack attack way. So then the response of the spouse, of course, is gonna have to defend themselves.

Meygan:

You're telling me I'm selfish.

Casey:

Yeah. I mean, because we're we're doing is we're labeling our spouse as a bad person. And you're saying that they're the problem. And again, when really the problem is the problem. And I think that's needs repeating.

Casey:

You're saying, when you attack them, you're the problem Mhmm. With a finger pointed at them. When the real issue is the problem at hand. So what what we want you to do is we want you just to address the behavior in kindness. You know, we can ask our partner, we can request for them to change behavior and keep it focused on the actions and not the character.

Casey:

For example, you know, the one that we hear often in coaching is phone usage.

Meygan:

Yeah. And It's just this little thing that sits with us all the time and it's just always available.

Casey:

And if if I'm gonna be honest, I mean, it creeps into our relationship as well too. But there's a very way different way of bringing it up to walk in the room and go, you are on your phone all the time and you are addicted.

Meygan:

Yeah. You're obsessed with your phone. You're you care more about your phone than you do me. Worse.

Casey:

There's a request to be able to say, hey, can we have tech free nights so that make sure we spend time connecting throughout the week or that we can prioritize our relationship.

Meygan:

Yeah, if you go right to something's wrong with your spouse, you make them feel less than you make them feel stupid, make them feel, just any kind of negative feeling. They're gonna feel like they have to defend their characters. This is such an important one. I love that you brought that one up. All right.

Meygan:

The fourth thing that we would say don't do in a fight is don't threaten the relationship. When we get so angry, we say really hurtful and damaging things. And it just feels so overwhelming in the moment. You know, maybe we should just get divorced or I'm done. I'm leaving.

Meygan:

You're not worth it. I'm so over you. I don't even know why I married you. Right? You're never gonna change.

Meygan:

And I am going to fully admit I used to make all of these statements and then some, in the first few years we were married and the damage that it caused ran so deep. And I just, I'm not defending myself because Casey and I have healed from this. But I know for me, when I first started saying these things, what I was trying to do is actually get a response and a reaction from Casey because he was the avoider.

Casey:

Which way if I heard that kind of response, I'd be like, well, what's the point? If you're walking away, why should I even put any time and attention towards this?

Meygan:

Yeah. I didn't even mean that I wanted to get divorced. I was hoping that he would fall to his knees, start crying, go, I'll do whatever it takes to fix our marriage. And so I just wanna point that out because a lot of us that have said that and threatened the relationship are wanting our spouse to fight for the relationship, but it's a horrible tactic. I I'm telling you don't do this.

Meygan:

This breaks so much trust. I mean, all of these things break trust. This one's up there though. This is a big hurt for a lot of people. But it becomes such a habit that you throw out every fight.

Meygan:

Yep. I'm done. I'm leaving. And some husbands and wives will respond with, oh, they just kind of throw that out, whatever. I've become numb to it.

Meygan:

That's scary when you almost become indifferent to it because it's been said so much. And then some spouses just have this really deep seated resentment because it said, it's been said so much. Okay. So the do is lead with security. Your spouse needs to know, Hey, listen, we can still be angry and argue and we're going to be okay.

Casey:

I love this one.

Meygan:

And I think that every time you bring up a difficult or heated topic or you know things are turning to the bad side and you're like, ah, a really positive phrase to say is, listen, I just want to remind you that I am on your team and we are not the enemies. Or, Hey, listen, I'm bringing this up because I love you and I want us to be better. We have a great episode. If you haven't listened to it, that's that's about the first ten seconds of the conversation. It's gonna make or break the rest of your day.

Meygan:

So no pressure, but I think we need to remind our spouses and ourselves. Listen, there is security and there is a strong foundation that we are in this together. Remind your spouse that there's trust and security.

Casey:

What it does is it keeps your partner in the fight. Mhmm. Right? Because if you just say, I I think we're done. There's no amount of yeah.

Casey:

Mean, you could really have to convince me then why are we gonna even continue talking?

Meygan:

Correct.

Casey:

Whereas if you're like, hey, this is a this is a difficult topic. We are a team. I love that.

Meygan:

We're a team no matter what. I'm not your enemy. You're not my enemy. Hey, listen, I'm for you. I'm not against you.

Meygan:

Now, I do just want to say one thing. We understand that sometimes and some of you listening, there is real consideration for separation divorce. And that is a serious decision. You definitely need to meet with one of our coaches before making that decision. But what we're saying here is don't use the security of your relationship as a weapon during a fight.

Meygan:

That's the key. This should not be brought up during a fight. Okay.

Casey:

All right. And our last point we're gonna talk about today is a don't. Don't force resolution when you're flooded. Meaning, you know, when you are flooded and you are triggered, you're in a very much so emotionally and physiologically heightened state. Your body is preparing to either fight or flight which means blood has evacuated the brain.

Casey:

Some of the parts that we need like the prefrontal cortex needed for creative problem solving, empathy. Listening. Yeah. Like this this idea like togetherness, it's all gone. So if you are, you know, kinda thinking, well, don't let the sun go down in your anger or we need to go and resolve this before going to bed.

Casey:

I don't think that's necessarily the healthiest thing and I will say, this was something that Meygan and I did early on in our marriage where we would literally fight until 2AM screaming matches and at that point, we are so exhausted and I don't even remember what the issue is about but then we start fighting about the way we're fighting.

Meygan:

And then And then I feel like more weapons were used. Oh. Okay. Another thing that I did was I was flooded and you were flooded and I, as the fighter and you're the fighter, I would chase you around the house. So so you would like try to like, hey, I need a minute.

Meygan:

And I would chase you. I'm forcing a resolution that's never gonna happen because I'm still pissed and mad at you.

Casey:

Then I would lash out when that in an unhealthy way because now I'm pissed off.

Meygan:

So if you're following your spouse around the house because they're trying to take a break, you are forcing a resolution and one of you or both of you are flooded, you are asking for more damage and that now is gone into conflict to combat and that's not good.

Casey:

So our do is that we would ask you to take a structured pause. We call this the code word. The code word is a word that's thrown out simple sometimes it's something supposed to be like a good memory like, hey, the place where we went to to a honeymoon or something like that. Where we're actually saying a word or a phrase, ours is Chaz needs a walk. And when we say that, what we're saying is either one of us is now past the point of having a healthy dialogue at this point and what we don't wanna do is say anything that's going to further harm and damage our relationships.

Casey:

It's actually a loving thing to say, look at we're this is we need we need a break. And we need about at least minimum of about twenty to thirty minutes. Mhmm. So if this is happening in the middle of the day, you need twenty to thirty minutes. This is take a walk, really calm the mind, do some breath work, this is not watch a show or play a video game and then you can come back to it and it's saying without saying this is I love you, I don't wanna say anything more damaging.

Meygan:

Wouldn't you agree that it's a sign of maturity? Yeah. Emotional maturity that if you can actually regulate your emotions and say, listen, I'm not at a good place and I'm gonna regret this. The key to this is that you have to return. If you say the code word, you can't just use it as an avoidant tactic.

Meygan:

Like, oh, great. We got out of the conversation. Pause, take a break, but then come back. Send send your text. It's send a text to your spouse saying, listen, hey, I've calmed down.

Meygan:

I'm ready to talk in a respectful way when you are. Right? Yep. But this is beautiful when you can do this. It takes practice.

Casey:

Yeah. There's well, maybe we'll do an episode all about the code word and Yeah. The Okay. We have a bonus bonus tip. Right?

Meygan:

Yeah. Bonus tip. So we just wanna make sure that you end the argument or the fight with a plan. When we coach couples, we ask a lot of questions just to kind of understand their dynamic. And about 90% of the time when we ask, you know, well, how did things end or how did things get resolved?

Meygan:

They reply with, well, they don't. We just kind of go back to the things the way they were. And you're like, oh shoot. So don't just talk until you're exhausted. Don't just talk for the sake of talking things out.

Meygan:

We really need to make sure that something changes or you are going to continue to fight in the same ways that you do. And so a great thing to ask your spouse is, Hey, listen, this went sideways on us. What are we going to do differently next time? Or may, you know, obviously have this conversation when things are calm, not when you're flooded. Okay.

Meygan:

Definitely. This is where the conflict becomes productive. This is why all of us marriage experts will say conflict is actually good, healthy, normal. You learn from it. Let's, what are we going to do next time?

Meygan:

So bringing up the phones. For example, hey, listen. We both agreed. Our phones have been a distraction. So let's make sure we have tech free nights on Tuesdays and Thursdays this week from six to 8PM, and let's see how it goes.

Meygan:

That is a plan. That is a clear specific plan. Okay. Another one. Oh, listen.

Meygan:

You know, we've been really mean and negative with our words and we're admitting it. And so let's commit to doing the sixty second blessing three times this week. Sound good, babe? All right. Right.

Meygan:

Oh, okay. Or Hey, listen, we can't even come up with a solution. So I'm going to make an appointment with a Marriage365 coach. We need a third party involved. Sound good, babe?

Meygan:

Right? Or here's another example. Let's say, you know, we're never finding time for connection. I know I haven't felt like a priority. I haven't made you a priority.

Meygan:

So we're going to ask a question of the day from Casey and Meygan's book. Like now you've turned your fight into a habit, a new behavior because doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results is literally the definition of insanity.

Casey:

Oh my gosh. How many fights have we walked away from? It was like, nothing changed. Nothing came of it.

Meygan:

You go crazy. Yeah. It's like you have to. So, you know, you pick one of these things and you start to implement them and you should see changes. I mean, I would say try to do all of these dues that we gave you but if you're feeling overwhelmed, pick one.

Casey:

Yeah. Well, and the key behind this to me, I think is not just what are we going to agree to change and then just walk away. This would be where I've I really enforced this in my coaching is you gotta take notes, write it down, put it in the calendar, create a reminder and then even put a date in the calendar when you're gonna go come back and check on this issue that we discussed. Because if I left it to my memory, nothing would have ever gotten resolved.

Meygan:

I think that's most people.

Casey:

Yeah.

Meygan:

For sure. We talked about it. And then there's a reason why in our membership, if you don't have our membership, definitely recommend it. One of the most popular videos is called when talking isn't enough. We talk about it.

Meygan:

We agree. We we have some kind of, you know, okay, moment and then nothing changes.

Casey:

Yeah. Well, and just to put a finer tone note on this as we close out, I just wanted to say a quick disclaimer. There is certainly bad behaviors during fighting, but when they cross a line into abuse, I just wanna make sure that we're just really clear to say, if there's intimidations, threats, physical violence, coercion or any level of emotional abuse, the answer to to this, your problems may not just be, well, you just need to fight better. What you probably need to do is start figuring out how do I create a support system and safety for myself and that's the number one priority. Okay?

Meygan:

At Marriage365, we've got resources for every season of your marriage. If you were doing good and looking to take your marriage to the next level, we have a membership with over a 100,000 members giving you access to all of our videos, courses, worksheets, and even group coaching. If you're in a season where you need repair, a lack of trust, we have marriage coaches waiting on standby to help you out. And when weekly hour long sessions just can't get to the root of what's really going on, our two day intensives create the space to finally break through. Find all of these resources at marriage365.com.

Casey:

Well, that's it for today's episode of the Marriage365 Podcast. You know, if you have a friend that needs to hear this message of hope or healing or just some of the practical tools, would you mind sharing this or leaving a review that will help other couples find our podcast? Thanks, guys.