Life

8 Types Of Fights Couples Have In Their Late 20s

by Kaitlyn Wylde
Siriporn Tassaniyom / EyeEm/EyeEm/Getty Images

Dating in your late 20s is a lot different than it is in your early 20s. It's no longer about being spontaneous and seeing where things go. Suddenly it's about compatibility and aligned morals and ethics. As the people around you start to settle down and get more serious about their relationships, you can't help but look at yours with a similar intensity that you might have never been burdened with before.

In your early 20s, the types of fights that you have with your partner tend to hold less weight. You blow up at each other, spend a day ignoring each other, and then pretend it never happened. You make each other jealous to get a rise out of each other. You do things to spite each other when you're angry. You don't always bother to spend time talking through your issues because it's easier to just slide them under the rug.

But when you're in your late 20s, fights are meatier. They need to be talked through and both parties need to really think about whether or not the disagreements are indicative of any irreconcilable differences. Even the smallest disagreements tend to be linked to heavier concepts like marriage, family, co-habitation and future planning. Neither of you are keen on sweeping issues under the rug because you're both actively trying to figure something out: is this the real deal? Is this forever?

Habits

Once you start to consider the fact that your partner might be your partner for a long time, you start to become more invested in their habits. Maybe if you were younger, you wouldn't care that your partner forgets to flush or drinks too much when they go out with their work friends. But because you're older, you know that those un-flushed toilet bowls will be your problem too if you move in together. And because you're older, you know that you're the one who will have to deal with your partner being worthless and hungover the next day or embarrassed about what they said or did in front of their co-workers. Their bad habits become your messes to clean up and vice versa.

Health

If you're in your late 20s, you're investing in your partner. You want them to take good care of themselves because you want them to be healthy so they can stick around. Not to mention, you rely on their health — it's a partnership, after all. You and your partner will argue with each other regarding health issues all the time. You'll fight over going to the doctor, over going out, over smoking, over drinking — anything that can have a negative affect on one's health will be a topic of conversation or contention.

Friends

Sometimes you'll fight about spending too much time with friends, other times you'll fight about how much you hate each other's friends. The longer you're with someone, the more you understand what roles their friends play in your life. When you start to think that you might be with your partner long-term, you start to become more invested in their friendships and develop all sorts of opinions that never tend to be shared peacefully.

Family

When you're young and in a relationship, your partner's family is not that important to you — that is, unless they get in the way of your relationship. But in your late 20s, you start to get pretty invested in each other's families. You'll fight over which family to spend the holidays with. You'll fight over how passive aggressive your partner's mother can be to you or how perverted your partner's little brother is. You'll fight when you take your partner's family's side. Because your partner's family might be your family one day, too.

Communication

Poor communication is not an option for a mature adult relationship. You and your partner will shout and scream and cry and talk through the night a few times before you figure out the best way to communicate. If your partner comes home from work in a bad mood and takes it out on you, you're more likely to have a serious conversation about it rather than a heated blow out. You're trying to fix the problem for the future, not for the present.

Sex

Sex drives change depending on your age and stress rate. While in your early 20s you might have both wanted to have sex all the time, by your late 20s you might be the one always initiating and your partner might be too tired or too stressed. Once you've been having sex with the same person for a few years, you'll probably fight about switching it up, too. Changes in sex drives can lead to hurt feelings and confusion — it's best to talk about it, but it tends to become a heated conversation.

Plans

When you and your partner are both invited to 12 weddings over the summer each, you're going to start to have fights over who's plans are more important. And when you need a date to your work holiday party but it's on the same night as your partner's best friend's birthday, you're going to fight about it. Suddenly you two become a "we," and while it can be great and lovely, it also can make things complicated, particularly plans.

Work

Whether or not your job is fulfilling or conducive to a healthy lifestyle for you will be come not only your concern, but your partner's concern, too. Your attitude and behavior affects your partner, so your job does, too. You'll fight over working too much, working too late, working on weekends. Work parties, work stresses, work friends. You'll fight over putting work in front of the relationship, you'll fight about not respecting each other's jobs. Your jobs will become uninvited third wheels in the relationship.

Images: Siriporn Tassaniyom / EyeEm/EyeEm/Getty Images, Giphy