As a marriage coach, I have a confession: I sometimes experience conflict in my own marriage. Shocking, I know. Dealing with conflict in marriage is a universal challenge, even for those who guide others through it. Recently, my husband Scott and I found ourselves in a disagreement, ironically just before our weekly training session with clients. This experience reminded me of the importance of addressing marital conflict effectively.
I honestly can’t remember the specifics of that argument, and it really doesn’t matter. The more I tried to “get my point across,” the more Scott seemed to misunderstand me. Before we knew it, we were in the middle of an argument. He felt I had chosen the worst possible time to address the issue, while I believed we needed to handle it before the call to get on the same page.
Neither of us was right or wrong.
The Pressure of Timing
As the clock ticked closer to 9 PM, when our training was set to start, our stress levels rose. We knew we needed to present ourselves as a strong team for our clients. Years ago, a disagreement like this would have spiraled into a full-blown fight, with Scott retreating and me chasing him around the house, frustrated and desperate to resolve things.
This is one of the old vicious cycles we had adopted, and we had gotten really good at it.
Thankfully, we have developed the skillset, mindset, and heart set to be able to recalibrate rather quickly, stay calm and not let anger, frustration, misunderstanding, or hurt feelings, and get back on the same team quickly, even if we disagree.
Understanding Conflict in Marriage
For every married couple, conflict is a part of living in a fallen world, where sin and selfishness, and corruption have marred our hearts and minds. But whether the conflict is the mainstay of your marriage or an occasional challenge to overcome, it is in direct proportion to your ability to communicate well with your spouse, regulate your own emotional state, and apply the gospel in practical ways to your situation.
The Dread of Marital Conflict
It comes down to how we think about conflict. For most folks, the thought of conflict brings a feeling of dread, a pit in the stomach that makes you sick.
For many, conflict is something to avoid because it’s just so uncomfortable.
But sweeping things under the rug to “avoid conflict” (as “Christian” as that sounds) is NEVER a good idea, in any relationship, but especially the marriage relationship. Those are the marriages that we see every day that seem fine for years, and one thing happens in the relationship that blows up, and what seems to be instantly the relationship is in crisis.
It’s like ignoring the pain in your side for years, pretending it’s not there until you find that you have cancer that not only has grown in your abdomen but has spread to other parts of your body, and you have only months to live. If only you had someone look under the hood to help you figure out what’s causing that pain EARLY ON and deal with it before it’s too late.
Breaking the Cycle of Conflict in Marriage
There’s this niggling belief that sometimes creeps into our marriage that because we sometimes have conflict in our marriage, we are frauds, we are imposters, and we are not really living our dream marriage.
Funny how these types of thoughts are just the ones that will send us down a tailspin of getting our eyes off of the prize of serving more couples out of marriages wrought with disconnection and conflict and focused on licking our own wounds in our marriage.
And funny how these are just the types of thoughts that keep so many couples stuck, not knowing how to handle the conflict that is inevitable, feeling like failures because there is conflict, or avoiding certain topics because you don’t want to hurt your spouse.
The Enemy is really tricky like that.
He’s a liar and a deceiver. He wants you to feel like a failure if you have conflict. He whispers his lies to you, that you shouldn’t disagree, that if your spouse really cared, they wouldn’t argue with you, that you should always get along great with amazing communication.
But the amazing thing is that we have learned to spot those lies NOW and get out of the funk before our own conflict escalates and we get off point of our God-given mission.
Finding Solutions for Marital Conflict
How about you? Are you sick and tired of living every day or week with massive conflict in your marriage, and you just wish you could learn the skill set to handle it?
Or have you and your spouse been sweeping things under the rug for so long, both of you honorable people not wanting to hurt the other person, but not knowing how to bring up difficult topics? If so, I’m sure you’re feeling disconnected from each other because although there may be a lack of conflict, there’s also no true intimacy or connection because you cannot be honest with each other.
If you’re sick and tired of having conflict in your marriage where things never feel resolved, and often the conflict escalates, we have something for you.
Or, if you’re sick and tired of sweeping things under the rug and having many topics which are taboo, which leaves you feeling lonely, isolated, and lacking true intimacy in your marriage, we have something for you as well.
Overcoming conflict in marriage is a skill that can be learned. Whether you’re dealing with frequent arguments or struggling with unaddressed issues, there are strategies to improve your relationship. Learning to navigate conflict effectively can transform your marriage from a battleground to a place of growth and intimacy.
We offer a free breakthrough call, where we dive deep into what’s not working in your marriage, what you dream and pray your marriage can be, and help you create a strategy to get you from where you are to where you want to go.
Helping our clients learn the secret to turning conflict into closeness is our specialty.
This could be the best 45 minutes you spend on your marriage.
Book that Breakthrough Call by going to www.turnaroundmarriage.com/call/
Talk Soon,
Rachel
