Why Fight?

Everyone fights. As babies, we fight to get our parents' attention--we're hungry, wet, cranky, we cry. In the best of all possible worlds, a loving, patient person is there to care for us pretty quickly when we're uncomfortable. Toddlers fight to get what they want, and because it's hard to be little and we want so much and RIGHT NOW!--and oftentimes can't (or shouldn't get it), meltdowns and tantrums are common. Learning the power of No! is also part of being a toddler, and what to do when our No meets a bigger person's Yes. 
School is a constant battle--with classmates, teachers and parents. With the fact of being educated, which involves so much of what we don't want and so little of what we do. With facts and thinking styles that don't fit naturally into our schemas of what the world is, or should be.
So, is it any wonder that, as adults, we fight with our partners?
The sad thing is, so many fights don't have to be fights. People fight when they don't get what they want, when they expect or want something from another and when that other doesn't come through with the goods. And what they don't teach us in school is how to fight. The buddhists say that if you know how to suffer, you suffer less. Same with fighting: better fighting means less damage, fewer leftover bad feelings and less chance of fighting later.
The rules are simple--putting them into practice is hard, hard, hard. But, if you know the rules, you're partway there--at least, if you choose to fight badly after knowing the rules, you go into the mess with your eyes wide open. And if both people in a couple know how to fight, there's always a chance that one of the pair will help pull you both out of the mire and turn things around. 
So, assuming that fighting is based on wanting something from another person and not getting it, let's proceed.
In a nutshell, here's what to do to have a "good" fight.
1. Identify the problem in yourself, first, and get clear about what it is you want. Next, tell them what you feel. "When you stay out with your friends on Friday night instead of coming out to dinner with me, I feel unloved and unwanted and lonely. I'd like to reconnect with you at the end of the week, because I miss you."
2. Ask for what you want. Be specific, be clear and don't let sarcasm or resentment muddy up the message.
"I'd like it if we had a standing dinner date on Fridays."
3. Offer something that your partner wants in return. Ideally, it's something of equal weight.
"If you'll have dinner with me on Fridays, I'll go to your bowling match on Saturdays, and cheer you on."
4. Now--this is the hard part--let go. You've asked for what you want, you've done what you can do--and now it's up to the other person to agree, bargain, or demur. 
5. If the answer is No, there might be something else your partner wants that you can strike a bargain with. Ask about it.  But if not, if it's just no, then the next thing is, you decide, "Can I live with this? Or is this a deal-breaker?"
6. Big problems may be deal-breakers. Sometimes people fight when they know what they want, know they're not going to get it, but aren't ready to acknowledge the importance of the problem--and that it will inevitably impact the relationship. Fighting, oddly, is a way of maintaining the relationship rather than facing problems honestly and losing the relationship. It may be a way of being stuck forever--or of biding one's time because it's not yet time to go.