Resolving Conflict in MarriageSample

Your Secret Weapon

I don’t normally enjoy theme parks. Overpriced tickets and food, large crowds, long lines, and the blazing sun all conspire to turn what should be a magical time into an exercise in endurance. I understand why so many kids have meltdowns.

But it was my wife’s birthday, and she wanted to spend the day at a theme park. So we planned to wake up extra early, beat the morning traffic, arrive before the park opened, make it through security, and make a beeline straight to our first ride. If we timed it right, we might even be able to get through two rides before the crowd caught up to us.

As we walked toward the security line after parking, I asked, “You locked the car, right?”

“I don’t know,” she said as she kept her brisk pace forward.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t remember that bothered me. It wasn’t even the fact that I specifically reminded her we were leaving valuables in the car and it needed to be locked that annoyed me. It was that she didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

After a moment, she handed me the keys as if to say, “Well, if it bothers you so much, you take care of it.” The only problem was we had already made it a quarter mile away from the car! There was no way we’d make it to the front of the crowd with this added delay.

As I turned to go back, I was mad. Each step I took further from the entrance made me madder. When I caught back up with her on the other side of security, I was so upset I could barely look at her.

Have you been there? Marriage is filled with moments like these. And the choices of how to respond are endless. You could choose to:

• Defend. “It’s not my fault. I didn’t hear you.”
• Minimize. “It’s not a big deal. No one is going to break into the car.”
• Attack. “What about the time you forgot_____!”

How we respond when tensions rise can be the difference between an issue spiraling out of control or completely fizzling out.

When I finally made eye contact, my wife said, “Thanks for going back and checking the car. I know it was far.”

Her soft answer stopped me in my tracks. I wanted to be upset, but all I could see was my wife filled with so much childlike excitement that she could barely think about anything else. And that was a much better way to spend her birthday.

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In every conflict, we have a choice between escalation and de-escalation. Which do you typically choose? What would it look like for you to give a “soft answer?"