How to fight your spouse
We all know how to START an argument, but how do we STOP arguing in a healthy manner that still promotes unity and oneness in marriage??
Conflict is bound to happen because marriage is made up of 2 people - and often very different people! We have definitely had our fair share of fights in the last 7 1/2 years of marriage. In a recent argument we decided we needed to talk about HOW to argue - as in, "I'm in the middle of a conflict, what do I need to remind myself so I can come out of this better and still happily married?!?"
Here are our top 5 strategies for fighting toward unity instead of against each other:
Get off crazy cycle
What's the crazy cycle? "Marital craziness is when we do the same thing — over and over — with the same negative results" - Dr. Emerson Eggerichs https://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/the-crazy-cycle
Dr. Eggerichs wrote a book called "Love and Respect" which we read early on in our marriage and this concept is one we often refer back to in order to explain a cycle we keep going around on. "When hurt and frustrated, we continue reacting in negative ways to motivate our spouse to be positive. Can you believe it? That’s like flipping broken light switches for 30 minutes."
This happens to good willed people and often causes married people to think they have a horrible marriage because of these cycles of craziness. "The key is to see underneath this “craziness,” to the heart of a spouse. " "Based on Ephesians 5:33, I discovered why a husband and wife react the way they do. We read, “each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (NIV)." "Because a wife needs love, a husband would be wise to assume his wife’s negative reaction is rooted in her feeling unloved. On the other hand, because a husband needs respect, a wife would be prudent to assume her husband’s negative reaction is rooted in his feeling disrespected." This leads into point #2…
See their perspective
Because a man and a woman primarily need different things (men respect; women love), in an argument we must step outside of our own thoughts and see how the other might be feeling. When we can see things through their eyes we can start to understand why they reacted a certain way and this will lead us to change how we can lovingly respond.
Hug the cactus!
We talked about this in a previous video 7 Tips for a successful marriage https://youtu.be/pu0ykSC8xjc It's a term we coined to refer to hugging your spouse when they are prickly and not particularly affectionate or loving at the moment. Literally hugging your spouse when you are in an argument is hard! Because the last thing you want to do is let your defenses down and let them "win!." But when we do this we stop the firing squad and we start making peace. By hugging your spouse you say, "we are on the same team and we need to fight together, not against each other." The fourth thing you need to do in an argument is….
LAUGH!
In an argument, just like hugging seems unnatural and hard, laughing can feel the same way! When we get into the "fight" mindset we just want to one up the other and "win" and when we stay in this space, we'll only promote discord and disunity and that will not lead anywhere good. Instead, watch a funny video, try to make the other person laugh by doing something funny! Tell a joke, something that distracts and is lighthearted to take away the heaviness and pride of the fight and takes you off the train to crazy -town. The fifth thing you need to do in an argument is…
REMEMBER WHY.
Remember WHY you married this person! Remind yourself, write down all the good qualities they possess; the things you admire about them, the things they do right, the past instances where they loved you and make you feel special or respected. Philippians 4 encourages us to dwell on those things that are good and worthy of praise. In the partnership of marriage this is especially important as what we dwell on skews our perception and our perception is, to us, our reality. Everyone has issues and is broken. If you watnt to fail, dwell on the junk. If you want to succeed - remember the good things and dwell on those!
BONUS: Don't forget that INTIMACY matters!
Sex does not fix everything. In many ways though, if it follows the previous 5 things we talked about, it helps to solidify unity in marriage. Having sex doesn’t mean that you can avoid talking with your spouse about the problem. If you each don't internally solve the issue at hand it will surface again and the crazy cycle will start all over. But sex, because of the way God designed it, brings us close to our spouse in a way that nothing else can. It takes us off the crazy cycle, it makes us hug the cactus, it can lead to laughter and it reminds us that we are in this together... #teamwhateveryourlastnameis
