Marriage 101 session 3

As I begin to write this third session I pray that you are finding them helpful in your own marriage.  Or maybe you feel led to share them with someone else.

Today I want to talk to you about confrontation.  In some marriages this is a true dirty word!!  Confrontation is inevitable in a marriage, it is how you handle it that can strengthen or tear down a family.

In most relationships there is an aggressive and a passive spouse.  In mine I am the aggressive one.  I am the one who is willing to forge forward in an argument while my husband just sets there and tries to make me laugh.  As frustrating as that is I usually end up laughing and argument adverted.  In a lot of relationships it may be harder to avoid an argument though.

One of the things that I have found very helpful is for the upset spouse to write down how he/she feels.  This gets out the frustration and sometimes they can see that what they thought was a problem really isn’t or it allows them time to calmly approach their spouse and rationally discuss the issue.  Make sure you get rid of what you have written though, keeping it just causes you to go back and re-read the problem and get upset again.

Sometimes just walking out of the room to think things over and gather your thoughts before talking with your spouse will ease tension.  You may just need to call a time-out in the middle of an argument!

Learning how your spouse communicates compared to how you communicate is invaluable!  A wife may feel like her husband did not appreciate the fine meal she cooked because he did not comment on it, while the husband feels that by eating all his food and having seconds he let her know how great it was.  These are things that as a couple you need to sit down and discuss.  How do we communicate?  Will you understand if I call a time- out or walk away for a moment? Can we discuss issues that we disagree on?

One of the things I try to ask myself before getting upset is “will this really matter a week from now? a month from now? or even a year from now?”   So your spouse doesn’t take their glass to the kitchen tonight, will it matter a week from now?  Probably not, but if they do it every night then will it matter a week from now? Probably so because the frustration will build from night to night.

And lastly make sure what you are upset about is the only topic you bring up!!  Dredging up past problems will not solve them or the one you have now.  The past is over and does not belong in the present situation!

Remember that the Bible speaks several scriptures to us regarding what we say!  1 Peter 3:10  ” For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile.”   James 3 spends several verses expounding on the blessings and curses of the tongue!!

I pray that you take the time to talk to your spouse about ways to handle confrontation so that in a moment of anger an argument will not rear its ugly head.

Much Blessings,

Aundie