"Man Up" - Dealing with Conflict in your relationship

Just because you don't deal with a source of tension or conflict doesn't mean that it disappears! It "comes up" eventually so "Man Up" and have a discussion with your life long partner! He or she deserves your honesty. Little issues become enormous just because you don't deal with the root!

How many times have you walked away from a very heated conversation trying to figure out why and how you allowed yourself to explode in such anger and frustration? If you really think about it, the disagreement probably should not have caused that much rage, so where do you think the anger originated? 

Is it possible that you had buried unmet needs, hurt feelings, unexpressed expectations in a sea of neglect. Could it be possible that you neglected your sacred role as communicator with your spouse? Could you have taken it for granted that he or she knew or could read your mind, understanding exactly what would bring you pleasure or pain? This neglect could have created a wedge or barrier between you and your spouse.

And what if all it took was for some additional weight of misunderstanding to finally make the beam crack creating a rush of feelings that needed to be expressed right then, in urgency, manifested as ANGER! You see, often times what could take us 5 minutes to say eventually comes out in fits of anger taking a much longer time to release. It would have taken you five minutes to explain that you are tired of seeing the trash not being taken out or the kitchen counter not being cleared off, or even that you want to spend some quality time together tonight but instead it now took you several minutes of tongue lashing, and character bashing, and lip pouting because several behaviors have built up communicating the idea that he or she does not care about your feelings.

I would venture to say that 7 times out of 10, your spouse does care but they probably did not realize what they were communicating through their actions or lack thereof. Your lack of communication allowed them to be oblivious to the fact that you were hurting. They assumed that everything was ok because you did not clarify your position. You simply could have said “I don’t like that.” You could have decided to speak instead of remaining silent wondering if they even noticed your “silent treatment.” One of the beautiful values of covenant relationship is that, “ it takes two to tango.” It’s not just an agreement you have to be together, it’s an attitude of servanthood that you have become “One.” And oneness always demonstrates strength! I want a strong marriage, how about you?

TAGS: spouse, marriage, conflict, barriers, relationships, silent treatment, communicating, two to tango