Conflict Will Come In Your Marriage
Managing conflict in your marriage begins by understanding that ll marriages will have conflict. If you don’t, either you live on a tropical island with the earnings from your lottery winnings, or you are dead. Either way, it is not possible. Living with another person or persons (children) 24/7 is going to create friction in the form of disagreements, expressed tensions and downright in-your-face arguments without the fisticuffs.
If there is physical or emotional abuse involved, there needs to be an intervention. Don’t let disagreements escalate to the point where there will be physical and emotional scarring.
What we are talking about in this article is the everyday preventative friction caused by having differences of opinion in raising kids, vacations, money, sex life, car maintenance, church, chores, Netflix time, babysitting, sports, cooking, cleaning, mowing the lawn, medicine, or personal hygiene. Issues will occur in spending money on clothes, tools, golf clubs, seeing the in-laws, mortgage, utilities, furniture, tithing, eating out, and health.
Managing Conflict in Your Marriage | 5 Tips
You will have conflict in your marriage. And how you deal with each conflict will determine whether you love your wife for your lifetime, you live miserably for a lifetime, or you end it. Again, don’t let little disagreements become a wedge between you and your wife.
Here are some tips. Conflicts in marriage cannot be solved by ignoring them. Not only will the battle continue under the surface, but emotionally, you have just created a fence that will remain in other areas of your life.
You cannot resolve most conflicts via email, text messages, or twitter comments. Granted, if you forgot to transfer money into the checking account, you can text your wife and tell her with an appropriate apology. But face to face is much better and more complete followed by a meaningful hug and a kiss. A kiss will tell you everything. You cannot kiss your wife if there is still a conflict. Either of you will see through the mandatory peck on the lips.
Apologize for what you did wrong. No matter what the issue or how small your part, be ashamed for that part, which was your fault. Perhaps this will be the first step towards meaningful dialogue.
Initiate the discussion, as this is the man’s responsibility. In my marriage, most conflicts have been resolved by my first beginning the reconciliation process. Man up!
Be relaxed and take each episode seriously. Humor is good provided your wife laughs and thinks it is funny. Humor can cover up emotions, or it can release tension so that thoughts are communicated. Don’t cover up and use good judgment. Humor works for us most of the time.
Pray! Pray first for your arrogance. Don’t let smugness bring you down. Pray for Godly intervention. Pray for wisdom and clarity of thought. Pray for knowing the next steps. Pray for humility. Pray for reconciliation. And, no matter how small the disagreement, pray that your relationship will be restored.
Ephesians 4:15 – “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”
About the Author: Paul
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Thank you for this. I will definitely be putting this into my bag of conflict resolution tips.
Definitely needed to read this today. And now to listen to the Father….
Needed this right now myself. It’s easy to feel like why is it nothing but drama… but it’s helpful to know it’s kind of normal.
Definitely a positive word to place in to action
This is soooo great! I thank our Heavenly Father for putting this in your heart!
I don’t know how to…….my wife has lost all trust in me because I have messed up in so many ways.I am trying but the rejection is taking it’s toll on me.I just don’t have the will power to go for a divorce.But e everything seems futile.Everything fell apart when I discovered ….
………., my guilt in causing this made me tell her how dishonest I had been with her right from the beginning of us going steady my ego was to big for me to tell her that I had never been sexually intimate with any other woman but her this deception has cost me.
PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEE pray for my husband (Les) he is motivated by Satan. Always bitter, angry, immature, extremely selfish, and does NOT love me. I go church, read Bible,prays, he go play golf. and loves to gossip about me to his sister who try to break us apart. My husband is NOT a believer. I want to help him, I am so hurt the way he treats me. All my friends, my son are so hurt and concern for me. My husband threaten to divorce me so many times. I told him God hates divorce. Very much appreciate from the bottom of my heart for your prays. God bless you, and bless every one in your family. Very sincere grateful, from Kat at Norh Carolina.
Kat, thank you for reaching out to us. First we are going to start praying for you and your husband. Being unequally yoked (as the Bible says) is always difficult in a marriage when it comes to salvation. As along as it doesn’t become abusive (physically, verbally, emotionally etc.) I would suggest trying to get some help for your church or someone he would find neutral.
– Marriage counseling (even if only you attended it would be helpful)
– Be real with him and yourself as with most stories, they have two sides. Be sure you are seeing this through objective eyes.
– Ask if you can sit down with him and discuss your marriage. Don’t ask him to church, don’t ask for him to change, just sit and talk about your marriage. What is working and what is not. Try not to get defensive. This is why we are suggesting counseling as a third party may help.
– This sounds like it’s being going on for a while. Maybe trying to pin point where things went wrong and discuss how you can fix that.
There are some people who are open to reconciliation and some are not.
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My wife uses alcohol on occasion but when she does she becomes so intoxicated that she becomes aggressive, verbally abusive, accusses me of infedelity, and at times she has physically abused me. She will often hide things like her wallet or purse when she’s drunk and that forgets where she puts them and then accuses me of taking them which then escalates into physical aggression. She has said some of the most hurtful things when she’s intoxicated like how she would rather be with a person from a previous relationship and how I don’t measure up it’s so many different ways. She often accuses me I’m still be in love with my ex-wife I will accuse me of contacting her speaking to her. She can be so abusive sometimes that I lose my head and I return her words with hurtful words of my own. She has promised me so many times to get help and she finally is. She was recently in very serious trouble and the help she is getting is addressing PTSD which is a result of the trouble she was in. The therapist is pointing to things that have gone on in her childhood however I’m not sure if she’s being honest with her therapist about the drinking issues. I have exhausted all my financial assets to help her when she was in trouble that she has gotten into and sometimes I feel that she is very selfish and blind to what I’ve done for her as she continues to act out aggressively when intoxicated. I have wanted to leave so many times however I feel that she is sick and I cannot longer leave her when she is sick mentally just like I wouldn’t if she was sick physically. When she is not drinking we will have arguments and sometimes I believe she’s being very childish and selfish in her argument with me. I am trying to concentrate on how I respond towards her and leave her behavior to God but it is very exhausting and trying at times. I would appreciate any and all feedback about how to handle this thing in the matter that God would have me
M, Thank you for sharing your situation. It sounds like you both may need some therapy to help work through this issue. Sounds like your wife may not realize what she is doing or saying when she is drunk. Video her and wait until she is sober and you have time to sit down and communicate. Show her the video and discuss.
I would also suggest reading God’s word together or if she is not on board with that, maybe do a marriage study together.
Either way, it sounds like focusing on God would be a great place to point your marriage toward.
Are both of you believers?