Great post.  And yes, it's bad to give others the impression that arguments aren't necessary in order for a marriage to grow.  My husband and I don't shout, either, but we certainly argue.  And we seek the knowledge of what's worth fighting about versus what is simply petty selfishness.  

Great post - thanks for sharing.  I believe it was in the first year of the marriage when we both learned how selfish we are and it is only through God's grace that we are continually learning to forgive each other.  When we are "wronged" we have to remind ourselves that we are not perfect - we will continue to hurt each other but learning to emulate Christ in our relationship becomes our primary goal.  

my hubby and I have had our share of arguments, but we don't yell.
Ok well we had one really nasty yell fight a couple of years back but that was started by my dear MIL.
If I am really upset I walk away, usually up to our room, and let myself cool down because I know I have a hot temper. My hubby usually gives me about an hour, then will come up and we talk. We have never, and will never, go to bed angry with eachother.
I think its healthy to have disagreements. I think if two people agree on everything all the time, someone is hiding something. It is HOW you fight that is important. I know a lot of women, (tho I do not do this myself) have tendencies to bring up things from the past during fights, could be from months ago, which i am sure confuses the daylights out of men. And name calling is something that I cannot stand either.

This is a rather humorous yet serious story I heard many years ago. Just so you know, I'm a Buddhist and this story involves a man who started practicing Buddhism. He started practicing after a friend of his assured him he could pray for anything he wanted. He was married and things in the marriage were dismal. This man said to himself, "They say I can pray for anything. I'm going to pray for my wife to die", and so he did. He put a lot of time into this and lo and behold his wife became sick. He thought to himself wow this is actually working and kept at it. Periodically he would stick his head in the bedroom where his wife was resting to ask how she was feeling in the hope that she was getting worse. This went on for some time but something else started to occur. As he was praying for her to die he started remembering better times and the woman who in the past he had loved. He started to feel sympathy for her and started to feel a little badly about his desire. She had to die, no doubt about that but he started bringing her things to make her feel more comfortable in what he hoped were her final days on earth and more importantly, in his life. Simultaneously something else started to happen. Whenever he brought her something or peaked his head in to see how she was doing, his wife had no idea that his hope was she was doing worse. She felt like this was the first in a long time that her husband had showed any concern for her. His voice sounded concerned even if only because he didn't want to let on to her his real intention behind the question. As a result she started speaking more sweetly to him, something that surprised him. In spite of the man's determination their marriage was taking its first step toward healing. His feelings of sympathy turned to concern and he realized that he still loved the woman he had married. She realized the same about him. Of course her illness was nothing more than a common flu and she recovered within days. Their marriage healed in leaps and bounds. What are the words? "You can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need".

My first marriage was amazing in a lot of ways because of who she was. We had great times together but also had some angry arguments and there were times within the first year I thought of just leaving, as did she, but I was determined to make things work and she apparently was also. At the time I had no idea how arrogant I was but I was indeed very arrogant. I had a brilliant wife with a
PhD who had also been a runway model. I lived in a luxury high rise on the east side of Manhattan. We entertained as many as 40 guests on the balcony of one of our apartments. I was a talented and successful musician. Because of my wife I was a guest of diplomats, ambassadors, and world leaders, some of whom lived in our building as did Ford and Elite models some of whom were quite flirtatious with me. I wasn’t arrogant because I thought I had it all. I was arrogant because I
thought I deserved these things, being more special than others. For me the change that was to occur in my life was to come in the form of a Buddhist practice. A friend from high school with whom I'd stayed intermittently in touch called me one day to invite me to a Buddhist meeting. I had read as much as I could absorb about Buddhism in college and felt an affinity but never found a way to practice. I was working two jobs at the time and couldn't attend any of the meetings to which my friend kept inviting me. One day he called and said that if I wanted, there was an opportunity that night for me to go to the Temple and become a Buddhist  It was on my one night off. He said there would be a ceremony and all I had to do was bring myself. I knew really nothing about this practice but had wanted to practice Buddhism for a long time so I decided to trust my friend and bite the bullet. As I sat in the Temple waiting for the ceremony to begin I couldn’t help noticing there were a number of African American members among others. I prided myself in not being a prejudiced person
but even though there were also a lot of whites there I felt a little uneasy. Over the next few days my friend came over and taught me the basics of the practice but I was still unable to attend a meeting due to my schedule so he told me to pray to be able to attend meetings. I thought it was a stupid idea. Wasn’t I supposed to be using the practice to pray for things I needed, not use the practice to be able to practice? It seemed like Rube Goldberg Buddhism to me, you know…those mechanical devices that do nothing but perpetuate themselves. I had been praying for wisdom but I took his advice and added a prayer to be able to attend meetings. Out of the blue I lost one of my steady night gigs. That pissed me off. Simultaneously someone my friend told me would call invited me to a
meeting. The guy sounded mildly retarded and I was beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into but the meeting he was inviting me to took place on the same night of which I had just lost the gig. This pissed me off even more because it seemed like an answer to my prayer and if this was so part of that answer was that I'd lost a gig and now I was going to a meeting to which a mildly retarded sounding guy had invited me. I went to the meeting and didn't know anyone there. Like NYC, the 20 or so people at this meeting held in someone's apartment were all Americans with a mixture of ethnicities. The practice was followed by a planned discussion and these people seemed far too
happy to me. I started challenging them and became argumentative. I became the central figure of a heated debate meaning they remained calm but I was heated and to make things worse, there was the mildly retarded sounding guy sitting there smiling at me as if we were all having a nice little chat over tea and biscuits. As I left I was still arguing with them but as I stepped into the hallway and turned to close the door they were all standing there looking at me with the most sincere and warm eyes I had ever seen and one of them asked me to please come back and to not give up. The expression in those eyes was something I couldn’t shake. My friend called me later. I told him my experience and he told me I’d be better off going to his meeting place because I’d at least know
someone. 

I lived in Manhattan and his meeting was about an hour away from me in Brooklyn and on a different
evening of the week. Suddenly I lost that night's gig. Now I was really pissed. I started practicing this Buddhism which I was told would bring benefit into my life and now I’d lost two nights of work. I made the trip to my friend’s meeting and guess what?. Different apartment, same result....arguing with a different group of people that were again just too happy for my taste. I told my friend I couldn't attend any more of his meetings because they were too far away and I was still working two jobs, albeit now minus two nights at one of them. Someone else called and told me there was a meeting close to my neighborhood that I could attend. Luckily for me it was on one of the nights that I'd already lost a gig. I had continued doing the basics of the practice on my own at home and had read a few books that I'd picked up at the Buddhist community center. I felt there was something to this practice. I felt it inside and also intellectually from the books. Two hours before going to this third meeting I prayed about my longtime desire to practice Buddhism and to somehow get something out of *this* meeting other than being pissed off and arguing with the “happy people”. I arrived on the block early and as I approached the apartment building I saw three gorgeous girls sitting on the building's steps….you know, legs up to their hips and a mouthful of teeth kind of gorgeous. As I excused myself to walk between the three beauties one of them said to me, "Here for the meeting? The person's not home yet. It's early still. Hang out with us." Well no argument from me there. I knew right away that I wasn't going to bring myself to argue with these three in the room either. I quietly enjoyed the meeting, the warm smiles coming from the three beauties keeping my temper in check. When the meeting finished one of the beauties introduced me to two very nice guys. One was a musician and the other, a biologist. I told them about the first two meetings and the arguments. They didn't blink. They said don't worry about it. "The practice is for you". Eventually I lost most of my night gigs but the compensation in my day gig got a big boost with a promotion and raise and more than made up for it. I was subsequently able to attend different types of meetings several nights a week.

@Shy___Away@xanga - Yeaaah, it wasn't fun at first. I don't blame you. I wouldn't have except for the fact that I felt sure it was some kind of requirement for "good" fighting. lol. I don't think it is but it seemed to help that time I guess.

Thanks so all the comments everyone! 

Loved It.