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Handling Conflict in Marriage

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Latter-Day Saints Perspective

Disagreements and arguments crop up in even the best marriages. It's how conflict is handled that is an important key to marital success or failure.

Current research confirms that poorly handled conflict between married couples can negatively influence mental, physical, and family health. Feelings of anger, bitterness, and unhappiness (sometimes leading to separation and divorce) often result.

But couples need not settle for these experiences. Partners can realize, as stated in The Family: A Proclamation to the World, that "marriage between a man and woman is ordained of God" (¶ 1) and that successful and happy marriages "are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities" (¶ 7). Such principles, coupled with an understanding of what conflict is, how to recognize it, and how best to manage it, can help spouses use marriage challenges to build rather than harm their relationship.

When people hear the word conflict, they often picture something very negative, such as fighting, arguing, bitterness, and anger. However, current research suggests that conflict by nature isn't negative at all. It is fundamentally the experience of difference between married couples.

For example, magnets work according to opposite forces. One side is positive, the other negative. In this instance, the terms "positive" and "negative" are not synonymous with "good" and "bad." They merely identify two different - but complementary - forces. In the same way, couples benefit when they learn to understand conflict as fundamentally difference. Just because couples experience conflict doesn't mean they don't love each other. Dealing with differences in opinions, goals, interests, desires, and so on, is a normal part of any marriage relationship. What matters is how couples handle these differences. In a successful relationship, couples work together to deal with their differences rather than walking away and seeking "greener pastures."

One of the best things you can do for your marriage is to learn to handle conflicts and disagreements constructively. Here are some ideas for helping you to do just that:

  • Check for Destructive Interaction Patterns. According to marriage and family professionals, there are many interaction patterns that can harm a marriage and make dealing with differences and disagreements very difficult. Look over the following list and ask yourself how often they occur when you are having a disagreement. Make your evaluation alone, and then share your notes with your spouse. Resolve together to eliminate that pattern from your relationship.
    • Harsh Start-ups Frequently getting started on the wrong foot
    • Criticism Complaints with the intent to attack another person's character
    • Contempt Criticism conveying disgust
    • Invalidation Being made to feel - or making another feel - devalued, not cared about, or put down
    • Defensiveness Counterattacking a partner's character, reflecting blame
    • Escalation Battling each other in a vicious cycle that spirals out of control
    • Stonewalling Withdrawing or "pulling out" with no intent to return, disengaging
    • Flooding Being overwhelmed by criticism, contempt, etc.
    • Negative Interpretations Viewing motives of a partner as "out to get you" or harmful
    • The Body's Language Overwhelming physical responses to "stress-full" interaction such as increased heart rate, tremors, anxiety, etc.
    • Failed Repair Attempts Missed attempts to put the brakes on or "head-off" harmful communication
    • Bad Memories Looking back on the relationship and seeing the "good gone bad" or good simply gone
  • Hold Regular Couple Councils. Few couples regularly talk about relationship concerns, so what began as small issues become larger problems that threaten to destroy a relationship. Couples can use councils to nip problems in the bud. Here's how.
    • First, plan a specific time and place each week when you and your spouse can talk alone together for at least 30-60 minutes without distractions or interruptions. No TV. No telephone. No kids. For one couple, the time that works best is 8:30 on Sunday evenings, after their children have gone to bed (or at least have gone to their rooms for the night!). Another time may be better for you. Carving out immutable time for the upkeep of your relationship is a tangible way to give your marriage high priority. Use the meeting to take stock of how the relationship is going and to discuss problems.
  • Discuss a Problem Fully Before Trying To Solve It. When focusing on a problem, couples should first have a full and open discussion about it and understand one another's point of view before trying to solve a problem.
    • During this time, define together what the problem is, your own part in the problem, and how earlier attempts at dealing with it have proved unsuccessful. Use "I-statements" to express concerns ("I was upset when you forgot our date last week") and make two or three statements before the listener paraphrases what they heard. When listening, focus on the speaker's message and paraphrase what you heard the speaker saying, without rebuttal ("It upset you that I spaced out our date"). Make sure you are both satisfied that you have been heard and understood.
  • Move On To Solving the Problem, If Necessary. Experts say that about seventy percent of couple issues don't need to be solved, just well discussed. You may find that simply airing a concern is all you need to do. But if your problem needs solving, here is an approach to follow: One couple decided they wanted to find a way to boost the family income. During brainstorming, they listed as many ideas as they could to address this need, from one or both partners getting a part-time job, to taking a budgeting class. They discussed and evaluated these possible solutions. They decided that one of them would get a part-time job and selected a date during a couple council to discuss how the solution was going.
    • Set the agenda. Identify the problem or portion of the problem that needs to be solved
    • Brainstorm. Think of as many strategies as you can (say, ten) for solving the problem. Write them down so you can review them together.
    • Discuss and evaluate. Look over the strategies and discuss the pros and cons of each one.
    • Choose a strategy. Select one of the strategies to try out, one you both feel good about.
    • Agreement. Agree on what each of you will do to help carry out the solution.
    • Follow-up. Set a time to follow up on how things are going.

When couples use techniques such as these, combined with a deep desire to love and nurture their partner, they are less likely to fall into destructive communication patterns that harm marriages. Important issues get discussed.

For more information on dealing with conflict in marriage, check out Fighting for Your Marriage by Howard Markman, Scott Stanley, and Susan Blumberg, and The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John Gottman.

Written by Trampas J. Rowden, Graduate Assistant, and edited by Stephen F. Duncan, Professor, School of Family Life, Brigham Young University.

References

  1. Gottman, J.M. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York: Crown.
  2. Markman, H. J., Stanley, S. M., & Blumberg, S. L. (2010). Fighting for your marriage (3rd edition). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

In an October 1996 conference address, Elder Bruce C. Hafen told the story of a young woman on her wedding day. Sighing blissfully, she said ''Mom, I'm at the end of all my troubles!'' "Yes," replied her mother, "but at which end?".2

Like this young woman, some newlyweds envision marriage as an Eden-like state where they will experience joy without trials. On the other hand, occasionally we hear marriage veterans claiming they have never had a difference of opinion. "If that is literally the case," according to Elder Joe J. Christiansen of the Seventy , "then one of the partners is overly dominated by the other or, as someone said, is a stranger to the truth. Any intelligent couple will have differences of opinion. Our challenge is to be sure that we know how to resolve them. That is part of the process of making a good marriage better".1

Differences and challenges are a normal, even essential part of married life and can be part of the process that enriches and blesses our marriages as the years go by. Father Lehi teaches in the Book of Mormon, "it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things" (2 Nephi 2:11). This opposition fundamental to our agency makes possible the opportunity for greater growth, intimacy, and understanding in marriage.

While disagreements are a normal, inevitable part of a healthy marriage, how we address such challenges is a matter of personal choice. Ultimately we choose whether to respond with love and patience or with frustration, intolerance, and anger. The Family: A Proclamation to the World pronounces personal obligations and accountability for these choices when it declares that "Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other" and "will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations" (¶ 6).

Partners who view their marriage as a sacred covenant between themselves and God are less likely to run away at the first sign of trouble. They don't assassinate the character of their partner when differences or conflicts arise. They remember their spouse's value as a child of God and work through troubles. They rely on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, and compassion. They don't simply "meet in the middle" by each giving 50 percent. Instead, they give their whole hearts away.

According to President Gordon B. Hinckley, "Marriage requires a high degree of tolerance, and some of us need to cultivate that attribute. I have enjoyed these words of Jenkins Lloyd Jones, which I clipped from the newspaper some years ago. Said he:

"There seems to be a superstition among many thousands of our young [men and women] who hold hands and smooch in the drive-ins that marriage is a cottage surrounded by perpetual hollyhocks to which a perpetually young and handsome husband comes home to a perpetually young and [beautiful] wife. When the hollyhocks wither and boredom and bills appear the divorce courts are jammed. . . .

"Anyone who imagines that bliss [in marriage] is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed.

'[The fact is] most putts don't drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. . . .

"Life is like an old-time rail journey-delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.

"'The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride'".3

References

  1. Christiansen, J. J. (1995, May). Marriage and the great plan of happiness. Ensign, 64.
  2. Hafen, B. C. (1996, November). Covenant marriage. Ensign, 26.
  3. Hinckley, G. B. (1997, March). A conversation with single adults. Ensign, 58.