How to Support Your Spouse Through A Custody BattleSample

 

Be Sensitive to Your Spouse's Parenting Hesitancies

I had never thought of myself as a prideful person. I am one of the first to lend a helping hand in any area. I am willing to sacrifice and almost always ready to give to someone in need.

How could I possibly be prideful?

But as I read two amazing books that helped me to gain a better understanding of pride— I realized I actually had a problem with it in some areas.

This was made clear one day when my wife and I disciplined one of our seven children. One of our kids had made a poor choice, and I instantly responded by  yelling, taking several privileges away, including some after-school activities our child loved to do. Then I sent them to their room.

This just so happened to occur right after my wife and I had discussed not responding to our kids in anger but rather parenting them with a specific goal in mind: not to see poor actions repeated.

Clearly my response with our child showed that I hadn’t taken our discussion fully to heart.

To be honest, at Rachel’s request I had instantly became offended and upset. I had responded with a short answer: “Yeah, okay, whatever.” Why had I responded this way? The answer is simple: pride.

When we are walking through our spouse’s custody battle with them, we have to be willing not only to set aside our pride but also to make some compromises in our homes and our parenting. Healthy compromise on matters of parenting or other issues in the home is a great way to kill off pride and help us have greater sensitivity to what is going on with our spouse during this process.

If we view the situation from our spouse’s perspective and make his or her concerns our own, then we will be better able to accept some of these compromises. The question we need to ask ourselves is, what do we consider a win? Is it getting what we want or working with our spouse to find a balance that is best for both of us? 

Compromise can be an invaluable tool. It may mean coming to common ground on an issue with our spouse, even if we don’t fully agree, or that being right or being the winner in a situation is not worth our spouse feeling unhappy or unsupported by us.