What do you want?!

Conflicts are a natural part of relationships because everyone approaches life a little differently. In a lifelong relationship like marriage, it is crucial for both partners to learn to understand each other and learn to work together to help each other make it through the ups and downs of life. Effective conflict resolution is a vital part of a successful marriage, yet this is an area that is seldom discussed with couples until there is a crisis in the marriage.

Most conflicts are started when one marriage partner expresses dissatisfaction with some aspect of the relationship to the other partner. It seems that this is usually filed as an accusation and often accompanied with a question about the love and commitment in the relationship. Normally, the exchange is filled with hurt that is expressed in anger. Too often, this initial expression is returned with more anger, accusations, and hurtful retaliations. Many times this exchange escalates to a place of frustration on the part of both and eventually one or both will simply stop talking and the issue is left to simmer in silence. This creates distance and coldness in the relationship where neither is giving or receiving the things needed in a healthy relationship. A downward cycle of withholding good and dishing out little "jabs" is now set in motion. A terrible undercurrent now overshadows a once happy marriage. Misery is eclipsing joy.

Here are some ideas to help resolve conflicts in a healthy manner:

1. Have a clear goal.                                             Before expressing  dissatisfaction in the relationship, think through the issues until you are clear on the main problem. Often, these conflicts are started without a clear goal to be addressed and the end result is a frustrating exchange of anger about a variety of subjects with no real solution being discussed. Know what you want before start!
2. Talk only to your mate (or the person involved if this is a non-marriage conflict) never talk to others about your disappointments in the relationship. Go to the person with whom you have the conflict.The Bible, Matthew 18:15-16 
3. Choose your words carefully. Remember that this is the most important person in your life and words have power to heal and reconcile as well as the power to hurt and divide.
4. Refuse to allow anger to overpower you. Control your anger, don't allow it to control you.
5. Be prepared to compromise. Somewhere between what you want and what your mate wants is what is best for your marriage. Be prepared to look for that and accept it when you find it.  
6. Treat your mate like a partner not an enemy. Be careful not to accuse your mate of evil intent. Most unmet needs are unintentional. 
7. Resist the temptation to a knee-jerk reaction to your mate's initial resistance to your expression. Lovingly lead your mate to a calm discussion without making him/her feel attacked. Try to talk about your needs rather than your mate's failure to meet those needs and his/her possible motives for  failing to meet your needs.
8. Choose the best time and place to create the best possibility for a good outcome. When you are angry and your mate is tired or busy or in the middle of something is not the best time. Consider scheduling an appointment to discuss it.
9. Plan ahead to be kind, patient, humble, and willing to forgive. After all, the goal is change and improvement not anger ventilation, mate bashing, and arguing.
10. Be willing to admit your own faults and shortcomings and be willing to do better yourself. Ask your mate how you could better meet his/her needs. 
11. Make sure that once the matter is discussed and a solution is agreed upon that you move forward together helping each other carry out the solution.

  "... Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires." The Bible(NIV version), James1:19,20  

A few questions to ponder: 

Are you locked in gridlock with your mate?

Do you know what to do to resolve this?

Will you do it?   When?

If you don't know what to do, will you ask and listen?

Will you work WITH your mate to find workable solutions?  

Remember, choosing to put the needs, wants, and preferences of your mate ahead of your own is not a loss, it is a great expression of love! 

Order your copy of I Still Do, A guide for the marriage journey.  

This 14 week daily devotional will help you focus on improving your marriage!

Click on the sidebar to order yours today! 

  

Also, "Like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/I Still Do. 

Tell a friend about the Marriage Coach!

Staying together when life is pulling you apart

I have found that most people,especially couples, are unprepared to deal with the changes and difficulties that come throughout life. Because they don't have a plan to help them stay together in rough waters, they often drift apart when the waters of life begin to crash over them. Some of the most common trials that face couples are pregnancy, the responsibilities of small children, the challenges of teenagers, financial stress, job loss, sickness, sickness of a child, aging, the empty nest, and the difficulties of caring for aging parents. These are events that are beyond our control. They require us to step up and face difficult realities and make significant adjustments in our plans and daily routines. Many times these circumstances bring long periods of stress, emotional ups and downs, and exhaustion. They also carry with them increased financial demands that frequently take away from time available to be together as one or both seek to earn more money to pay for this new challenge. It is in this environment that couples often begin to turn on each other, neglect each other, and begin to associate the stress with their mate. These are seasons in life that drive many couples to the divorce courts.
The reality is that divorce is not the best answer. Unless you are married to a habitual cheater or an abuser, divorce does not solve anything, it simply increases the pain.and adds new challenges. In our book, I Still Do, A Guide for the Marriage Journey, we devote a chapter to helping couples count the real cost of divorce. When couples get divorced, it has a negative effect on everyone in your circle of  friends and family. The children will spend the rest of their lives trying to get over it. Every special day will be saddened by the reality that the family is broken and now everyone must try to determine how to include and relate to step parents and step children. Someone or both will have to move which will involve new schools, new neighbors, new friends, less contact with former close friends and family, new church, and maybe a new job. If financial stress was the driving force behind the decision to divorce, the result will be even less money and even more bills since the divorce costs are high. Loneliness will now take a significant place in everyone's heart.
The best plan is to work to stay together. After all, marriage is about two people promising to help each other through life. Here are a few helpful hints to help you stay together when the waters of life get rough:

• Refuse to play the blame game. In most cases, determining blame does not solve problems, it simply hurts feelings and creates emotional distance.
• Be ready to forgive and look for solutions.
• Be gracious. Under stress, none of us is at our best so give your mate the slack that you hope he/she will give you.
• Stop insisting that your mate respond to the stressful events the way you respond. Listen and ask questions to better understand their thought process and concerns. This brings closeness whereas insisting that your mate respond as you do brings conflict and distance in the relationship.
• Learn to work together to help each other through life. "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work; If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up".The Bible NIV version Ecclesiastes 4:9-10.
• Revoke the permission you might have given yourself to vent your anger and frustration on your mate. Determine to exercise self control and treat your mate the way you would like to be treated.
• Make a point of saying kind, complimentary things to your mate regularly.
• Dream about how good life will be once this has all been worked out.
• Pray for each other.
• Make time to be together without talking about the trouble.
• Make some light-hearted moments.
• Enjoy the children in your life. There is nothing like a child's perspective to lift a troubled heart.
• Remember, God is with you and has a plan to help you through.
• Use this situation to examine your heart and look for opportunities to learn and grow.

My wife and I have been through many rough stretches of water and have learned the value of helping each other rather than turning on each other. I hope these things we have learned along the way will be helpful to you in your journey.

Avoid the straw that broke the camle's back

"The straw that broke the camel's back." This is a saying that has its roots in an ancient Arab proverb and many believe entered our world of idioms when Charles Dickens popularized the proverb in his book, Dombey and Son. This idiom simply means that even as a camel, though able to carry burdens up to one thousand pounds, has a limit on how much it can bear, we have limits also. We can endure a lot of stress and difficulty, but when loaded fully, it seems that one more small thing can make our load too much and break us.

This idea is also portrayed in the Bible in Song of Songs 2:15. "Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom" NIV.
In this ancient love song, the man is urging his beloved to guard the vineyard of their love for each other which is in full bloom from the little foxes that try to undermine and destroy the relationship like small foxes destroy grape vineyards. Small foxes destroy the grape harvest by eating the fruit and destroying the roots of the vines thus destroying the current harvest and future harvests.

I have found this to be true in marriages too. Many times couples will allow hurts, unresolved conflicts, and resentments to build up in their relationship. This accumulation begins to create a negative cycle of hurt, isolation, and pulling away in the relationship. Unfortunately, there comes a time when one partner will reach his/her capacity and when one more little hurt is placed on him/her it will cause a major blow up in the relationship that is often the death blow to the relationship.

The solution is quite simple, don't allow yourself to get loaded up with offenses in the first place. Everyone has opportunities to be upset with the person to whom they are married. Every marriage is made up of two people who are very different. There are the basic male/female differences. There are family background differences that effect our traditions of engaging life and our child rearing philosophy. There are differences that come from varying educational backgrounds. There are personality differences. There are temperament differences. The list of possibilities is great.

Our problem is not formed by the differences. To summarize a complex process, our problem occurs because of our response to the differences. Many times, we fail to understand our mate's point of view and rather than investing the effort to understand, we discount their point of view as inferior to ours and then try to find a way to appease while we are irritated under the surface. This is how irritations accumulate. Every time we take this route a new irritation is accrued. These seem small and harmless at the time, but with each addition the weight of hurt, irritation, and disrespect grows. When both partners respond this way back and forth, it creates a terrible, negative cycle.

A better way is to unload yourself by choosing to grow in the practice of the following:

•   forgive your mate and let it go 
•  choose to acknowledge that your mate is a wonderful person who has many positive things to contribute to you and to your marriage
•  stop focusing on being smarter or better  
• stop focusing on being right all the time  
• learn to cheer your mate on to victories  
• acknowledge the ways your mate has provided qualities that you lack that have benefited you
• finally learn to be thankful for your mate and express it daily
• remember, your mate has far more positive qualities than negative 

Growing in these practices will provide a fence that will keep even the smallest foxes out of your marriage!

Don't let the small things break your marriage!

 

  

Order your copy of I Still Do, A guide for the marriage journey.  

This 14 week daily devotional will help you focus on improving your marriage!

Click on the sidebar to order yours today! 

  

Also, "Like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/I Still Do. 

Tell a friend about the Marriage Coach!