Everyone has heard the expression, "fighting words."

Fighting words are those expressions that cause hurt and sting and confusion, sometimes depression and despair if let loose over an extended period of time.

Fighting words are those that stab to the heart or needle beneath the skin.

Fighting words are flung carelessly and selfishly. At first they appear brash but then over time can become a dark style of speech.

Fighting words may become a habit, a way of conversation, a means of attacking the partner without even calculating. They may become so much a part of everyday converse that they are taken as a course of exchange.

One husband, finally fed up with the verbal combat, told his wife that he decided he was going to live henceforth in peace. If she wanted to live in a combat zone the rest of her life, that could be her decision. But he was not going to have any part in it from that moment onward.

She was stunned. She defended herself as a peace-loving person. She went on and on about how she had so many friends, was kind to their children, was a believer, and had been reared in a gracious, loving home.

What she did not see was the truth that her husband had spoken to her. She was combative, barbed in speech, given to put-downs when referring to her husband, and constantly interrupting him, correcting him, particularly in front of others.

Because her husband was basically a very courteous person, he did not realize when they were first married what was going on in their converse with one another. He constantly overlooked his wife’s verbal undercutting. As time wore one, he got used to it and simply put up with it.

But over the years, he realized that what had been transpiring was picked up by too many others. And it was getting progressively worse. Besides, overlooking the attacks were wearing on him. He was simply tired of it. Though he was a material success, he was quite lonely in his own marriage because a mean tongue had driven a gaping wedge between him and his wife.

One day he told his wife that he was not going to live with the war any longer. He was not going to leave her, not exiting from the home, but was no longer a part of the marriage in his heart, his soul. With that, he stuck to his stance.

She did not believe him at first. But her husband had thought through his resolve. He was simply tired of fighting words. Life had to be more than that. Though the two of them had become accustomed to a fighting lifestyle, he was not going to grow older with that lifestyle eating away at him. He would not be left with nothing but bare bones to his existence.

After awhile, his wife got the clear message that fighting words were no longer tolerated in the marriage. She then was forced to recognize a man living in her home who was no longer playing out his role as a husband. He was no longer making small talk, not companionable. At the same time he was not cruel. He was purposefully minimally courteous, yet aloof.

The days wore on. He did not change his position. She became more and more enclosed in her own lonely capsule. Then it dawned upon her that her power plays of fighting words had run their course. She could either talk to herself and grow older alone or mend her conversations with her husband so as to retrieve a marriage.

Slowly they started to talk all over again—slowly and deliberately. They carefully filtered out any fighting words. They talked more calmly, more slowly and more thoughtfully. Sometimes there were silences, at first awkward but later more relaxing.

In time the marriage was saved because fighting words were no longer a part of the day. It was truly zero tolerance. Further, fighting words were no longer considered a joke, a favorite mean past time nor something minor to put up with. They were now labeled to be the destructive force they truly are and therefore were consciously cancelled out of conversational exchange.

Others noted this change, particularly their grown children. The offspring were quite thankful that they could visit their parents without having to live through fighting words. Real, practical peace had finally come to their homestead, to their parents’ marriage.

Friends noted the remarkable change and likewise were thankful.

Christians above all persons must be watchful over their tongues. They must put a guard on their attitudes toward conversation. Above all, the Spirit of Jesus must control the inner spirit in order to keep out the destructive spirits of meanness and selfishness and power plays to undercut.

With prayer and cautious attention to one’s speech, fighting words can be put to flight.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.