Communication In MarriageSýnishorn

Communication During Conflict

Along with a healthy, romantic love, married couples should also make an effort to learn how to properly communicate during conflict. Every relationship of ongoing contact will experience conflict of some kind. That’s a given. How we handle that conflict greatly affects the intimacy, or vulnerability, we offer each other following it. Thus, inept conflict skills can distance relationships creating more friction and resentment.

No one comes out of the womb ready and able to handle conflict perfectly. Communicating well during conflict is a learned trait. Why? We are naturally selfish. 

A healthy style of conflict management comes when we learn to elevate the other person to a higher level than our own, and vice versa. It takes practice and a willingness to concede. 

It also takes an emotional maturity level that filters actions through a grid of grace. Far too often, spouses function in the formal operational mode and, as a result, act out of the concrete judgment determinations. In that mode, thoughts and emotions remain on immediate and visual stimuli. When a married couple hasn't matured beyond this level of interaction, it can lead to conflict. 

For example, when the wife sees that the dishes are still on the table hours after her husband’s breakfast, she may become angry. She sees dirty dishes and immediately equates them with laziness and apathy on his part. Afterall, she notices that he has plenty of energy to wash his car for the second time that week. She might even begin to feel offended that her husband would expect her to clear them. 

What she does not see is the depth of her own expectations clashing with those of her husband. Expectations come from a variety of sources: family, peers, television, etc. Nor does she recognize this as an opportunity to develop spiritual maturity by cultivating the virtues of service and grace. It is also an opportunity for her to practice communication skills with him in a way that is rooted in love.

Yet if she chooses instead to leave the dishes on the table while complaining instead, this will give occasion for his frustrations  to rise with her as well. He may later erupt in anger. Or she may clear them all the while grumbling, or perhaps simply noting his apparent offense and saving it for ammunition later.

No one enjoys feeling like a servant, particularly to a spouse. But Christ reminds us in the book of Matthew that, "The greatest among you will be your servant." Cultivating a spiritual mindset about conflict is the first step to communicating rightly in scenarios of marital conflict. It removes the emotional attachment to unhealthy desires and leaves space for the couple to talk about the root that may be causing the conflict, rather than the fruit.