Someone observed that getting married is like buying a record. To get what you want you have to take what is on the other side. Translated into marital language, this means that the most ideal mate has some real faults. Illustration: I read that a Baptist deacon asked his pastor, “how is your wife?” The pastor replied, “Just wonderful, perfect.” Then the pastor asked the deacon, “how is your wife?” The deacon replied, “ Well, she is pretty good, but not perfect like yours.” The pastor asked, “What do you mean?” The deacon replied, “My wife will curse when she gets drunk.” After celebrating 54 years of blissful marriage, I was once asked, “Did you and Doris ever have a fuss?” To which I replied, “I would not say we have ever fussed, but I would have to say we have had some intense moments of fellowship.”
Because there are no perfect husbands or perfect wives, conflicts are inevitable in marriage. A happy marriage is not one that has no conflicts, but one that can resolve those conflicts and move beyond in building the relationship. Psychologists tell us that “no two people love each other continuously; they may even hate each other occasionally.” Thus my topic today, “Using Your Conflicts to Build a Fabulous Marriage.”
- FIVE WRONG WAYS TO RESOLVE CONFLICT IN YOUR MARRIAGE:
- The first wrong way is
- The second wrong way is
- The third wrong way is
- The fourth wrong way is
- The fifth wrong way is FIGHT.
- TWELVE RIGHT WAYS TO RESOLVE CONFLICT IN YOUR MARRIAGE:
- Attack the problem – Never the person. Try to understand the other person. Ask the question, “What’s eating him?” Is he tired or hungry, ill, living under tension, overweight, is his “outgo exceeding his income,” etc.
- Try to understand yourself. As we understand ourselves, we can go a long way toward helping others to understand us too.
- Talk it out. The average couple talks thirty-seven minutes a week out of a total of over 10,000 minutes. Illustration: Plan a weekly tryst with your mate. Practice 3 D’s with your wife:
- Dialogue daily
- Date weekly
- Depart the city monthly
- Learn to forgive and forget. One husband said to the psychologist, “When we start arguing, my wife gets historical.” The doctor replied, “You mean hysterical, don’t you?” “No, I mean historical – she brings up everything that I have ever done wrong in my life.” A good memory is to be cultivated, but sometimes a good “forgettery” is an even greater asset. Genesis 41:51 says, “God made Joseph to forget the ungodly deeds of his brothers.” God will enable you to do the same. “Thou shalt forgive thy mate 490 times- and more.”
- If things are really bad, schedule a “Fuss Day.” One couple found they were harassed daily by minor conflicts. They finally agreed to designate one day a week as “fuss day.” Whenever a conflict arose, they agreed to postpone fighting until “fuss day” which was Thursday. Time gave them more prospective, and many trivial matters postponed were forgotten.
- Be patient – Don’t give up. God is not through with you and your mate. Illustration: Biggest Room in the World.
- Don’t drop the bomb.
- Seek godly counsel.
- Let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Ephesians 4:6). Before you close your eyes in sleep, cleanse your heart of all hostility toward your mate. Confess and express your love toward one another, even as God has expressed His love toward you (Ephesians 4:32).
- Inject some humor in your situation. Illus.: “You scrambled the wrong egg.”
- Always use the channel of prayer to give the Spirit of God a chance to do His healing. “The best think you can do to insure a happy marriage is to pray with your spouse daily.” (Denise Rainey)
- Throw away your parachute.
CONCLUSION: WHERE DO WE GET THE POWER TO RESOLVE OUR MARITAL CONFLICTS?
Dr. Menninger in his book LOVE AGAINST HATE asserts that “love is more powerful than hate. It cancels out hate as water puts out fire.” Therefore, an enduring marital relationship is achieved as a husband and wife experience genuine love. “This is why marriage needs the saving power of the Christian gospel. For, unless transformed by the Spirit of God, each person loves himself more than the other person. Natural human love, even in marriage, can never get away completely from this self-centeredness. Human love, like a rubber band, may at times be stretched to include another person, but always it snaps back to its original position because of this basic self-love. We must look to the cross and to the redeeming power of Jesus Christ to transform our love as well as our lives, and give to us the power to overcome our self-love and to experience and express unselfish love, acceptance, and forgiveness. If Christian redemption means anything, it means that two people in the structure of the marital relationship may come through the personal experience of prayer, confession, forgiveness, and divine love into a mutual experience of reconciliation, reunion, and a new life together, no matter how marred that relationship may be by conflict and selfishness.”[1]
Illustration: Dolly and James Madison were totally different. Dolly was fat, talkative, and gaudy in her dress. James was slender, an introvert, and dressed like an undertaker at his own funeral. But in their marriage, they never tried to change the other. James let Dolly be her natural self and always loved her for it. And Dolly said many times, “My husband, may he ever be right, but my husband, right or wrong.” With this attitude not only did she make a success of marriage but also a grand success of her husband, James Madison, the fourth President of the United States.
[1] Wayne Dehoney, Homemade Happiness, p. 103.