Tag: relationships

5 Things Happy Couples Never Do When Facing Conflict

This morning at Restoration Church the message focused on conflict in marriage. If you have been married for more than five minutes you are going to face conflict. It is a fact of life. While every couple has to find their own way in this area and overcome the natural tendency to fight it out, ignore it, or run from it, there are some commond denominators happy couples seek to never resort to when facing conflict. I share these bullet points with you along with some of my own thoughts.

1. Never call names – this should be self explanatory, but when disagreements come, it is easy to shift into name calling. This does nothing to help the situation and only escalates and divides us into separate teams.

2. Never raise your voice – unless your spouse has an actual hearing problem, somehow it becomes easy to think if we get louder he or she will see things our way. In fact the opposite is most likely the case. Raising our voice while having a marital “discussion” only escalates the conflict and pushes our spouse further away. I’ll be honest, of the five “nevers,” this is the one I struggle with the most.

3. Never get historical – Happy couples know don’t keep score and keep the past in the past. If there is an issue from the past that has been discussed and dealt with then it is time to move on and not bring it up.

4. Never say “Never” or “Always” – now this was beaten into my head during my brief academic career, but unless you have complete 100% omniscience that your spouse categorically “never” or “always” does/says/thinks something it’s smart to stay away from generalizations. Since I’m pretty sure no one on earth currently possesses that superpower it’s better to steer clear from “always” or “never.”

5. Never Threaten Divorce – this is a big one. For happy couples divorce is never an option. Even by saying divorce is an option you are making the breaking of a covenant before God something that you would even consider. This breaks down the bonds of trust and sows an insecurity that can become self-fulfilling. Instead of even mentioning divorce, happy couples instead focus on reminding each other they are on the same team.

Which “nevers” have you been guilty of? Which of these do you want to banish from your conflict toolkit?

Conference Notes: Four Keys To Effectively Listen

At Restoration Church’s marriage conference this past weekend we were led through a session on effective listening. While these are great application points for a healthy marriage, the principles work for any relationship.

1.Remember You Are On The Same Team – this was shared as not just an internal reminder but something that was expressed to be verbalized. Especially when faced with a situation where you are communicating in conflict try looking at your spouse and say, “We are on the same team!” There are so many forces at work that want to divide and conquer the marriage relationship, we must remind ourselves and our spouses that we are on the same team, no matter what. Within an hour after leaving the conference, Amy and I found ourselves in conflict and tested on this principle. One of the ways we worked through the conflict was taking a step back and saying “We are on the same team!”

2.Seek First to Understand and Then Be Understood – oftentimes we are so busy formulating our response, we fail to adequately understand what our spouse is trying to communicate. When we don’t give time and space to understand each other we can often jump to conclusions that aren’t based in reality. I know I can come up with all kinds of solutions to Amy’s problems when I think I know what they are-except many times I try to fix things that aren’t broken, or miss what the problem really is about.

3.Ask Clarifying Questions – asking good questions helps slow things down and also helps us to really understand the need. On getting through this point I need to admit a personal growth area. I can sometimes (ok, so a lot of the time!) get defensive when Amy asks clarifying questions. For whatever reason inside of me, I see the questions as not just a quest for understanding, but as a kind of attack. As a growth point for me, I have to be reminded of #1 (we are on the same team!), and use clarifying questions to bring us together.

4.Come up with a win-win – If you are truly a team there is a way you can work together to find a best path forward together. We live in a fallen world, so sometimes it may not be that at the end of a “discussion” everyone is shooting off confetti cannons in celebration. We should be able to follow Scriptures teaching, not letting the sun go down on our anger (Ephesians 4:26) and getting to an acceptable resolution.

Again, I felt this session was immensely helpful. Amy and I literally put this into practice upon getting home, and guess what-it worked!

Questions for Discussion:

How can you put these listening skills to good use in your relationship?

How might these skills help you in other situations at work, school, etc.?

Conference Notes: Marriage Conflict Mistakes To Avoid

This past weekend Amy and I participated in a marriage conference with Restoration Church. The morning session was led by Dr. Allen and Tina Holmes from Daystar Church in Greensboro, NC. In that session Dr. Holmes shared ten marriage conflict mistakes to avoid:

1. Avoiding Conflict Altogether – Ken Sande would call this “peace-faking.” This doesn’t resolve the underlying reason for the conflict, it merely postpones it.

2. Being Defensive – Defensiveness is a sign there is not enough grace. Personally, I want to try to grow more in this area. I find myself tending to quickly run to a defensive posture even when it is not warranted.

3. Overgeneralizing – using phrases like “you always” and “you never.” I have to give credit to all many of my professors over the years who drilled all most of this language out of my vocabulary!

4. Always Being Right – this is a tough one when you are always right, right?

5. Poor Listening (usually caused by in formulating the rebuttal)

6. Mind Reading – I may think I know what my spouse is thinking but what she is thinking may not be what I think she is thinking. I can then get into conflict with something that is completely imaginary and all in my mind.

7. Playing the Blame Game – “But God, the woman you gave me gave me this fruit-its her fault and really your fault”

8. Trying to Win the Argument

9. Character Attacks – This is like throwing an emotional grenade into the conflict. All it does it cause damage and does nothing toward resolving the conflict or working toward a resolution.

10. Stonewalling – using silence as a passive aggressive way of attacking the issue. This is a trap I fall into-often I will just shut down.

Question for discussion: Which conflict mistakes do you tend to make? What are you going to do to correct those mistakes?

This is part three. You can read part one here and part two here.