5 Reasons Why You Should Never Fight Over Text with Your Partner

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At some point or another in our relationships, we’ve all resorted to fighting via text with our partners.

It may have started out as a harmless conversation initially, but one inflammatory response soon lead to another, and before we knew it, we were in a full-blown text fight.

It’s hard to back down during a texting war. After all, shouldn’t we defend ourselves and let them know how badly we feel right now? 

Fighting via text with our significant others may seem like the only option when we’re not together with them, but we forget some of the disastrous consequences that are likely to occur when we resort to text fighting.

The next time you’re tempted to fight via text with your partner, slow down, and remember these 5 reasons why you should wait and talk in person.

5 Reasons Why You Should Never Fight Over Text with Your Partner

1. It avoids necessary confrontation. When you resort to texting to fight something out in a relationship, you’re really just playing the avoidance game. You’re letting your fear of confrontation take the wheel, so that you can ultimately avoid having to deal with the reality of the situation. When you fight via text, not only will this exacerbate any negative emotions in the fight, it’s also going to draw the fight out, making the damage that much greater and harder to overcome. 

2. ‘Keyboard courage’ takes over. There’s no denying that there’s a certain type of empowerment we feel when it comes to demonstrating our emotions online. Just scroll through the comments of any video on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean! When it comes to our expressing ourselves in the digital space, whether it’s in an email, writing an online review, leaving a comment, or texting our partners, we tend to get unnecessarily worked up and drawn into the fray, and we often say things that we don’t mean. We become emotionally invested in the words, rather than in the real situation at hand, and forget what it’s like to be on the receiving end of those words. This is why it’s crucial to not use texting as a communication device when it comes to fighting. Let your partner know that you want to talk in person, and skip the texting.

3. It won’t lead to any solutions. No problems have ever been solved in the digital space over text, no matter how hard you might try with your partner. Without having that face-to-face interaction and display of emotions, you’re not going to be able to address any issues or find any solutions to the real underlying problems.

4. It removes any authenticity. Sure, you might have meant it when you typed ‘Sorry,’ and hit send, but how authentic is any message when there’s no voice expressing it, and no heartfelt explanation? This is why it’s crucial that you not only talk through problems in person, but also apologize face-to-face.

5. Once it’s been sent, you can’t hit the ‘undo’ button.  As with any expressed sentiments, whether verbal or online, there’s no way to take it back once it’s been said. However, when you say something hurtful over text, it’s even worse because there’s a sense of permanence with having written out those emotions and sending it to your partner. So the next time you feel yourself resorting to fighting via text, pause for a moment and reflect on the potential outcome of your actions. Is expressing yourself to your partner via text, rather than in person, really worth the possible damage you might inflict?