Marriage Tips: A Healthy View of Conflict

Just as in our physical life, when we fall down, it’s because we lose our balance.

It’s not our sense of equilibrium that is lost – it may still be intact – but our physical bodies, the thing we use to communicate with the external world, has taken a spill.

It’s important to get back up, and to continue toward a path that leads to understanding.

Remember: It’s important to think about how you think.

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Marriage Tips

Gaining a Healthy View of Conflict

By Tim and Joy Downs

The very presence of conflict in marriage is a source of embarrassment and even shame for Christian people.

Here are three revolutionary ideas – thoroughly Biblical ideas – that can change the way you look at conflict in marriage.

1. Marriage will not always be enjoyable.

Marriage workshops are dangerous places, and marriage is no different. Marriage is the ultimate intimacy workshop, and the potential for hurt is very real. That’s why we have to learn to handle the tools of conflict properly. The marriage is no place to be careless.

2. We will sometimes resent the role our mate plays in this shaping process.

There is a strange paradox in marriage. We assume that growth is occurring only when everything is going well, and that conflict always represents a step backward.

In fact, it’s often just the opposite; we not only grow despite our conflicts, but because of them. We need to accept the role that our mate is sometimes called to play in our lives, and we need to embrace the process itself.

3. The presence of conflict in your marriage means nothing; the way you deal with conflict means everything.

Conflict itself is nothing to be ashamed of, but we do not mean to say that all conflict is a good and acceptable part of marriage! The worst thing we could do is to simply put a gloss over selfish, cruel, and even violent behavior.

Any tool sharp enough to smooth and shape can also rip and wound. Conflict – badly handled conflict – can be an extremely destructive force.

The presence of conflict in your marriage means nothing, but the way you conduct yourself in the conflict means everything- because the way you deal with conflict determines whether you will grow from it or be wounded by it.

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Content taken from “One of Us Must Be Crazy…and I’m Pretty Sure It’s You: Making Sense of the Differences That Divide Us” by Tim and Joy Downs, published by Moody Publishing.

"One of Us Must Be Crazy...and I'm Pretty Sure It's You: Making Sense of the Differences That Divide Us" by Tim & Joy Downs, published by Moody Publishing.

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Madison County Coalition for Healthy Marriage