The Spiritual Fitness ManualSample

Good Marriages – Part 2

By Pastors Andrew and Elena Williams, Trinity Church, Greenwich, CT

Be kind to your parents and in-laws, but your spouse must always come first. When there are differences to be settled, don’t go to bed without first making peace. But that “peace,” in the first instance, may be that you agree to put some time aside to talk through this conflict. Heated arguments in the middle of the night very rarely resolve anything and can actually make the situation worse. There is no perfect time to have a disagreement but it is worth agreeing on the times to avoid!

Understand and learn to cherish each other’s differences. Ask questions about the other’s activities concerns, interests, worries, hopes and plans. It is all too easy, under the pressures of life, to be become preoccupied with just our own cares and concerns. Find some time with your spouse and deliberately make it all about them—tell them, “Tonight, is about you. I just want you to tell me all about how you are doing?”

Get good at talking about how you feel. Write down three or four things that have happened to concerns, interests, worries, hopes and plans over the course of your day—and write down what you feel about them. Take this list to dinner with your spouse and use it as a conversation guide.

Seek first to understand—then to be understood. Listening is vital—as we openly listen to each other’s perspective, we begin to see a way forward. “Even if our partner’s words have hurt us we need to resist the desire to retaliate. Restraint is part of the cost of true love.” (Nicky and Sila Lee, “The Marriage Course.”)

Don’t idolize your spouse. It is a wonderful thing to cherish and admire our husband or wife, but nobody is perfect and nobody can live up to a fantasy idol. True love is to be able to know each other with all our idiosyncrasies and strange habits—and still love them for who they truly are.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

• In trying to resolve conflict with your spouse, what patterns continue to come up in the discussion that serve as roadblocks?

• What practical steps can you take to avoid these patterns?