Whether you’ve been married for a few months or a few years, the truth is you will face conflict in your marriage. When this occurs, who wins and who loses?
The more you love, the more you hurt. This means that the closer you get to your spouse, the more power they have to hurt you. As the years go on in your marriage, you will have small arguments and massive blow-ups. It doesn’t matter who you are, we all face this in our marriages. Most of us know how to handle small arguments or annoyances. But how to do handle massive conflict?
Protect yourself
Most of the time, our initial reaction is to protect ourselves. We can lash out at our spouse to make ourselves feel better. Or perhaps we put distance between us and stick our spouse on the couch for the night? The other way of protecting ourselves is to shut down, becoming cold and distant.
Although we may think we are protecting ourselves, the truth is we are not. You see in marriage, there is no such thing me versus you. Me becomes we as the two of us have become one. In fact, the Bible talks quite a bit about marriage and explains that when a husband is joined to his wife at their wedding, the two of them become one entity.
This means that emotional pain and anguish that you inflict on your spouse will actually hurt you as well.
That is why I propose that when it comes to conflict in marriage, there are no winners and no losers. If one wins, both win. And if one loses, both lose.
Think about that the next time your spouse makes you angry. For practical tips on how to survive your next fight, look out for my next post on how to deal with conflict in marriage.
If you are facing a tough time in your marriage, prayer is very powerful. If you would like to know more about knowing Jesus for yourself, we would love to chat to you. Click on the pop up or banner below.