Choose Your Battles -- and Refrain from Ridiculous Newlywed Fights

My husband-to-be Antonio and I have gotten into some pretty silly fights. Once we argued about ironing a shirt. I felt I was doing him a favor by ironing his shirt, and he felt I wasn't doing a good enough job ironing it. I think fire might have come out of my ears that day. The fight ended when my sister intervened, used a lovely four-letter word, and told Antonio other women would have already told him to do it himself. He recently purchased an iron and learned how to use it. Still, I can't believe we actually wasted time worrying about ironing one stinking shirt. In the grand scheme of things, ironing is a pretty ridiculous cause for an argument.

We're not alone. Silly arguments seem to be an epidemic among the married couples in my family. My grandparents are notorious for fighting over the messes my grandpa makes when he cooks in the kitchen. One of my cousins forbids his wife to drink more than one cup of coffee because he thinks it turns her into a more argumentative person, so then they fight about how many cups she should be allowed to drink. And the placement of dirty clothes, how one chews, and whether Jean-Claude Van Damm is actually a good actor have set off arguments between real married couples that I know. People are still talking about the Van Damm Debate, as it is now known, and it happened more than a decade ago.

Learn from my people. The next time, you're ready to pounce on your husband or wife because he or she left dirty towels on the bathroom floor, think about the significance of those dirty towels in the grand scheme of your life together. Is it really all that big a deal? Is it worth the time and energy of being angry? Wouldn't you rather be snuggling than arguing about the inane?