Fight Together, Stay Together

One of the myths of the American family is the Placid Marriage: nice cou ples don't fight. Psychologists and marriage counselors know that this ste reotype is not really true, and would probably not be healthy if it were. A sprightly new book called The Intimate Enemy (William Morrow; $7.50), by California Psychologist George R. Bach and Peter Wyden, a Ladies' Home Jour nal editor, strikes a blow for the positive virtues of the Pugnacious Marriage.

"they"Couples who insist. fight "A fight a together, day stay keeps togeth the doctor away." The only catch is that couples must fight fairly.

Unfortunately, many couples bury their battles, and the ones who do not often fight dirty. Bach, who has a thriving group therapy practice in Beverly Hills, knows "fight-phobic" the games partners they live in play. a shell Many of boring, ritualized "pseudo-intimacy."

The husband comes home from work and yawns, "How was your day, dear?" Wife (pleasantly): "O.K. How was yours?" Husband: "Oh, you know, the usual." When disagreements loom, they take refuge in the newspaper, TV or "etiquette-upmanship," a self-righteous silent treatment rationalized by the thought that self-control is more virtuous than disagreement. Argue Authors Bach and Wyden: "A marriage that operates on the after-you-my-dear-Al-phonse principle may last a lifetime--a lifetime of fake accommodation, monotony, self-deception and contempt."

Dirty and Clean. By his own estimate, Bach has survived a few thousand fights with his own wife of 28 years and observed at least 20,000 more between his patients. The experience has made him wary of what he calls "Virginia Woolf" fighters. At their worst, they specialize in the delights of "carom-fighting" (jabbing at a spouse by mocking his religion or his child by a former marriage), "hit and run" (saying "You made me lose my appetite" in the middle of dinner), and "psychoanalysis" ("Your childhood was more pathogenic than mine, you poor thing!"). Though less neurotic, "round-robin" fighters share a too pessimistic view that they cannot change either themselves or their relationship. Insensitive to possible compromises, they are trapped in the stalemate of "God, how many times have we been through all this before?" and the tune-out of "Here we go again."

Except when partners are "severely alienated" or "deeply convinced that the other is mentally sick," Bach is certain that such passive and active hostilities provide man's rarest opportunities for forging real intimacy. "Authentic anger brings out truth," the authors write. "The pain of conflict is the price of true and enduring love. People simply cannot release all their love feelings unless they have learned to manage their hate." In group therapy with 250 pairs of pugilists, who paid $492.50 per couple for 13 "fight-training sessions" during the past six years, Bach has evolved a set of common-sense rules for fighting clean in marriage. By applying some or all of them, he reports, couples can channel the energies of nuptial nastiness into continuous self-renewal. Among Bach's injunctions:

sbWARM UP. The partner who feels a fight coming on should ask himself, "Am I merely annoyed or really angry? Do I have real evidence? Am I ready to follow up with a specific demand for change in the status quo? What am I willing to compromise?"

sbREQUEST A TIME AND PLACE with a phrase such as, "Hey, I've got a bone to pick with you." This avoids "Pearl Harbor" surprise attacks and makes the fight voluntary. To enforce persistence, Bach says, boats are ideal; they make it hard for either combatant to escape.

sbFIGHT PROMPTLY. This avoids "gunny-sacking"--that is, collecting grievances that "make a dreadful mess when the sack finally bursts" into a broadside "kitchen-sink fight," where everything but the household plumbing is thrown in as a weapon.

sbSCREEN OUT DISTRACTIONS. If in bed, adjourn to the living room. Ignore "Vesuviuses," which are adult temper tantrums such as, "If that s.o.b. Jones does it just once more, I'll punch him in the nose, and that goes for your Uncle Max too!"

sbDON'T DROP THE BOMB ON LUXEMBOURG. Use different tactics for fights over everyday annoyances and for those involving major grievances.

sbCRY "FOUL!" when a blow lands below the emotional "belt line," a taboo region that each partner should reflectively set for himself. Vague as this sounds, Bach says that well-motivated couples do not fake belt lines in order to duck issues; they know overuse will give them the fresh problem of a credibility gap.

sbMAKE SURE IT'S OVER with questions like, "Have you got it all off your chest?"

The maddening self-consciousness of Bach's techniques wears away, he and Wyden say, as couples master the art of intimate battle. "Our system is not a sport like boxing," the authors write. "It is more like a cooperative skill, such as dancing." But they warn that "with acquaintances, clients or 'dates,' a bad fight can be final." And although the technique is rooted in the footnotes of wide scholarship, Bach himself admits that some responsible critics worry that the method is too superficial and only skims the surface of deeper problems.

In reply, Bach says that follow-up studies of the couples he has "fight-trained" show 85% of them "living much more satisfying (if perhaps noisier) lives than before." Some 200 other therapists have come to watch and learn what they can from the Bachian brouhaha approach to honest marriage. Eventually, Bach asks buoyantly, why not teach fight training on television?

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