The Sunday Mail
Apostle Langton Kanyati
Never use a conflict to attach, wound and degrade your partner.
Engaging in name-calling, ridiculing and belittling each other serves only to widen the gap.
If you want to handle your conflicts constructively, thus turning them into opportunities to develop a stronger marriage, try to follow these seven basic rules:
1. A total commitment to keeping your marriage relationship is rule number one in handling your marital conflicts successfully. Be determined not to let anything or anyone put asunder what God has put together. Do not allow any issue to divide you. As much as there are inherited or acquired characteristics which we cannot change, there are differences that by God’s grace we can overcome.
Ask God to make you willing to accept what you cannot change; give courage to change what needs to be changed; and give you wisdom to know the difference. Also ask God to give you the power to hold fast to your commitments.
2. Handle conflicts with honesty and fairness. When you commit yourselves to keeping your marriage covenants, you will not engage in any fighting. Remove falsehood and speak truthfully to one another when conflicts arise. It is important for you to commit yourselves to an honest relationship to avoid the trap of lying to each other in order to win the argument.
Marriage is not a competitive sport but a complementary endeavour.
Stephen Grunlam asserts that, “The attitude of partners should not be a win/lose approach; that is every solution involving a winner and a loser. Rather the attitude of partners should be a win/win approach. The couple faces the problem together and when a solution is found, they both win.”
3. Control your anger. Paul in Ephesians 4:26 refers to this principle when he says “be angry but do not sin”. This does not mean that as Christian you should never feel or express anger but it means that you will not allow your anger to become undisciplined and uncontrolled.
Anger can become sinful when it is expressed through temper tantrums, insulting language or physical violence. Your angry outbursts, offensive remarks wound your spouse who may also reveal their ugly nature by retaliating with similar rage.
Whatever negative you say, even unintentionally, when you are angry can wound or crush your partner permanently. Words spoken out of anger can slowly break the covenant bond that holds your marriage together.
To end a conflict you need to take the first step of refusing to hit back even when hurt.
4. Discuss your problem at an appropriate time. Timing is critical to constructive conflict resolution. Bacti and Wydenin, in “The Intimate Enemy: How to Fight Fair in Love and Marriage”, say, “Far too many fights become needlessly aggravated because the complaint opens fire when his partner really is in an inappropriate frame of mind or is trying to dash off to work or trying to concentrate on some long-delayed chore that he or she finally buckled down to. Indeed there are times when failure or delay to advance the timing of a fighting can have serious consequences.”
Yes, there may be times when an issue has to be dealt with immediately. Raise the problems when you know there is adequate time to deal with them satisfactorily.
You may choose to discuss unpleasant disagreement especially when you are both well-rested, wide awake and feeling at ease.
Such conflicts cannot be dealt with just before a meal, just before going to bed, just before making love, or just before going to work or church.
When you get to understand the proper timing to discuss serious and contentious issues learn to say: “I do not think this is the best time to discuss this matter. Why don’t we deal with it later on when the children are in bed or after we have rested?”
Set a time and keep the appointment.
5. Adhere to the Issue at hand. After choosing a suitable time to discuss some problems, you need to ensure that as you discuss adhere or stick to those issues you planned to discuss and be careful not to deviate to past problems.
People become historical whenever there is an argument. They make sure that every related problem is brought up.
Bringing up previous issues into the one under discussion will make it impossible to solve the conflict. Avoid generalisation and accusations. Remember you are not trying to nail the culprit but to amicably end conflict.
Acknowledge responsibility and apologise. Commitment to your marriage will empower you to desire to end the conflict and not the marriage.
6. Be attentive and speak skilfully. The aim in your discussions should be to give your marriage victory. Allow the conflict to improve communication between the two of you. Give your spouse the chance to speak as you listen carefully. Do not interject, allow them to finish.
Learning to listen well to the words of your partner is essential in handling a conflict. Be calm and avoid shouting. Be sincere and open and at the same time showing respect for your spouse’s feelings.
7. Forgive and forget: The only way you can bring a conflict that has gotten out of control to a happy ending is for one partner to break the retaliation cycle by forgiving the other partner.
There are circumstances when pride, selfishness, fatigue or anxiety break out in angry outbursts, cutting remarks, abusive language or accusations. This behaviour arouses to the same degree the ugly side in our partners who may hit back similarly with angry and abusive language.
In a covenant marriage, we realistically recognise that we have suffered wrong, but we do not allow such wrongs to weaken our common commitment.
Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:32 says, “And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
He forgave us “while we were yet sinners”, and not when we promise to reform. Forget the wrongs your spouse has committed and choose not to recount them later.
Genuine forgiveness will restore the fading fire of love in our marriage and we will be able to trust our mates again. Enjoy your marriage as God intended.
Apostle Kanyati is the founder of Zoe Life Changing Ministries and Grace Unlimited Interdenominational Ministries. Email feedback at [email protected] and WhatsApp mumber 0772 987 844.
