Conflict in Marriage

If you believe that a happy marriage is conflict free, you have another thing coming. As imperfect beings, nothing is ever conflict free. It’s not if but when you will disagree with your spouse. People can remain happily married for twenty, thirty, or even fifty years or more not because their marriages are without conflict but because they have learned how to deal with the conflicts in their lives. In his extensive research of married couples, John Gottman has learned that there are two kinds of conflicts in marriage and five steps to successfully work through them.

There are two types of conflict that occur in every marriage: perpetual and solvable conflicts. Gottman found that most conflict, 69% to be exact, falls into the first category, perpetual. These are the arguments that often occur over and over again. These are the arguments that are not really about whatever you are arguing about. These conflicts are often filled with emotions and flooding is common.

For my late husband and I, this was our fight about how much time he spent on the computer. He would spend hours on the computer at a time. I would fight with him about his time on the computer and he would brush me off. For us, this fight was not really about computer time. I felt like he was ignoring me and didn’t care about me or us. He was an introvert and saw his time on the computer as much deserved leisure time. Our fight happened over and over and eventually became about more than computer time; it became about emotions, feelings, and love. This is a perpetual fight.

For perpetual conflicts, the only way to work through them is to accept them. Learn that the behavior is part of who your spouse is. Gottman quotes Psychologist Dan Wile in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work saying, “When choosing a long-term partner…you will inevitably be choosing a particular set of unsolvable problems that you will be grappling with for the next ten, twenty, or fifty years.” If the root of our perpetual conflict is unchangeable personality flaws, then the solution should be loving acceptance of who our spouse is.

If we are not careful, our perpetual problems can work into gridlock, fighting that occurs over and over again where nothing is solved and both parties leave the argument more hurt than they entered it. This sort of perpetual problem can kill a marriage. Gottman suggests that if you find yourself in this sort of argument to remember that you can still work your way out of it. Gridlocked problems are a sign of differing basic beliefs. To figure out how to cope with the problem, these basic beliefs and dreams must be addressed and understood.

The second type of conflict that Gottman has found in marriage is the solvable conflict. The good news about these arguments is that there is something that you can do about them! Hey do not have to stick around forever. (In fact letting them stick around may give them the power to turn into perpetual conflicts.)

To illustrate this type of conflict I will discuss an argument that my sister and I had recently. I was visiting my parents, who live close to my sister. While I was visiting, my sister and I wanted to go and do something together. Whenever she called me to set something up, my dad had already made plans. She felt that I was trying to avoid her and responded by getting angry at me. I in return got angry at her for blaming me for things beyond my control. For us, this was a solvable problem. We solved out problem and came to a solution using Gottman’s five steps for resolving conflict.

If you go to a marriage counselor, chances are you will be told that to solve your problems you need to use more active listening with your spouse. Active listening, hearing what your spouse is saying and repeating it back to them in different words, is a great tactic and will definitely help to solve your problems but is difficult to use in practice, especially in high emotion situations. By watching couples that successfully remain married for the long-term and handle conflict well, Gottman was able to find five steps that these couples use to work through their conflicts. These five steps are:

1.       Soften your startup. This refers to the manner in which the conflict causing topic is brought up. The main characteristic of a soft startup is that it is devoid of criticism and contempt. This means saying something like “I was really hurt when you walked past the overflowing trash last night” instead of “You never help me with the housework anymore. I don’t know why I even think you will!” To execute a soft startup try some of the following techniques:

·         Complain but don’t blame.

·         Make statements that start with “I” instead of you.

·         Describe what is happening

·         Be clear

·         Be polite

·         Be appreciative

·         Don’t Store things up.

Gottman says that a conversation tends to end on in the tone that it began. Stating your conversation softly will give you a greater chance of making progress with your problem.

2.       Learn to make and receive repair attempts. These are equivalent to putting the brakes on during the argument. A repair attempt stops the conversation from continuing on in the current unhelpful direction. This can be done by acknowledging you spouse’s feelings and contributions, apologizing, using humor or even saying “let’s take a break and come back to this once we have cooled down.”

3.       Soothe yourself and each other. Flooding is the most unhelpful response to conflict resolution. If either you or your spouse becomes flooded, your emotions will get in the way of effective communication and repair attempts. To successfully work through a conflict both parties must remain calm.

4.       Compromise. The only way to successfully end a marital conflict is with compromise. There will often not be a winner or a loser. Constantly having a winner and loser would create too much inequality in a marriage. Both of you must remain open minded and remember that you each have opinions of value. Both of you are in charge of where your marriage is heading. Put effort into compromising.

5.       Be tolerant of each other’s faults. No one is perfect. No one ever will be. These are facts of life. It is unreasonable for us to expect such from our spouse. If we love our spouse it will be required of us to accept some of the things that we find annoying. Accepting these things will free up time previously given to endless, fruitless conflict.

Using these steps will help spouses to find productive ways to work through their conflicts. These steps are not hard and they don’t require much “training”, just effort. Dealing with the conflicts in your marriage is the only way to make it a happy marriage. The conflicts will never be gone from your marriage, but together you can work through them to build a stronger relationship