In any marriage, even the most supportive and harmonious, there are times when there are disagreements, and the manner that couple resolves conflict determines the welfare, vibrancy and staying power of the marriage. Many couples mistakenly believe their marriage has no chance of success if they experience disputes, which could be due to the common belief that conflict is best avoided to ensure family harmony. The result of conflict avoidance is often barely controlled anger and deep-seated resentment about unresolved issues.
Ironically, voicing differences may actually foster growth and closeness in a relationship if the conflict is resolved constructively. Conflict is normal and inevitable, and in blended families, issues of transitioning kids, ex-spouses, financial problems and parenting differences can increase the scope of disagreements with negative outcomes.
Although one of many experts in the field of relationships and conflict resolution, Dr Scott Haltzman offers unique insight and practical advice in his best-selling book,
The Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wifes Heart Forever. Dr Haltzman has distilled current research from thousands of married men into a useful guide that highlights 8 useful strategies that make marriages thrive.
Strategy # 4, "Expect Conflict and Deal with It," helps couples better comprehend conflict by illustrating the way men and women are biologically equipped to deal with it, the moods and motives that drive disagreements, the patterns of conflicts and how to allay them. Everyone wants to feel listened to, cared for and validated, and understanding this goes a long way to helping couples resolve conflict and smooth things over before they explode.
This is what Dr Haltzman wants us to know about conflict:
1. Happy and unhappy couples argue about the same amount of time and about the same basic issues: money, sex and housework being the three most common.
2. 69 % of disputes in a marriage are never resolved, and thats an acceptable level.
3. Both men and women can learn constructive ways to debate issues, and to agree to disagree.
4. Conflict often surfaces due to the inherent differences in how the sexes perceive conflict and how they deal with it.
Dr Haltzman describes the 4 common ways that arguments accelerate. See if you recognize yourself or your partner in any of these descriptions:
Feeding the Fire: We all know the situation where a criticism or complaint is thrown out, the response being more hostility, and so it goes, until its a free-for-all that includes ancient history from arguments past. An escalating, major altercation cannot simply be shut down like an out-of-control video game, but keeps going at an ever-increasing pace. Strategies for calming out-of-control "fires" include softening your tone, looking for areas of agreement, staying positive and "holding that emotion," which basically entails refraining from escalating into a higher gear with hateful comments.
Withdrawal and Avoidance: Men are more likely to withdraw from and not deal with a grievance than women are, and this sends a dismissive message to women that makes them very irritated. Women dislike avoidance because discussing an issue makes them feel better, even when the issue may not be resolved. Men avoid and withdraw for understandable biological reasons but this will fuel the fire of conflict with the women in their lives.
Negative Interpretation: Assigning unintended negative meaning to things a spouse does or doesnt say can incite major conflict that can ramp up easily, since each person is responding to something that was neither said nor meant. Clarifying one's meaning and active listening will help cut this out.
Finger Pointing: This is the classic criticizing that requires a response, which turns into defensiveness and more blame. The effective technique is to use I statements that point the finger at yourself rather than your spouse. The most important element of a conflict is how its resolved or "patched up" when a quarrel is concluded. Both men and women must choose whether being right is more important than having a happy marriage. Among newly wed couples that could not patch things up after a fight, the divorce rate was 90 %, versus an 84% successful marriage rate of those who could make up.
Couples can enjoy experimenting with all different strategies to restore harmony after a fight; this puts the conflict behind them so they can move forward and focus on the aim of enjoying a happy marriage.
Sheena Berg enjoys writing articles for the StepHeroes
stepparenting advicenewsletter. To learn more about happily married men, there's no substitute for reading "
The Secrets of Happily Married Men" by Scott Haltzman, M.D.
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