Resolving Conflict: Part 4

It isn't realistic to eliminate conflict from our lives. Instead, the goal ought to be to minimize and manage it. Since it's always better to resolve the conflict than dissolve the relationship I'll be giving six practical steps you can take to resolve conflict. In this post I'll share step four.

4. Consider their perspective 

Everybody has their own “normal” and if you act in a way contrary to someone’s “normal”, it can cause conflict. For example, in my family it’s always been normal to have quick phone conversations. We don’t get on the phone and have 10 minutes of chit chat (How are you doing? How’s your health? How’s your life, How’s the kids, etc). We get on the phone, we ask what we need to ask, then we get off the phone. A thirty second phone call in my family is no big deal. When I met and married Kristin I learned that not everyone has thirty second phone conversations. “Normal” for her growing up was to chit chat for 15 minutes before getting around to what you called for. I was always amazed when Kristin took 30 minutes to ask a family member what time we were meeting for breakfast. But for her that was normal.

So conflict ensued in the early years of our marriage. But things got better as we learned to consider the other person’s perspective. I came to learn that if I was talking with her family a thirty second phone call was considered rude. She learned that if she was calling my family a fifteen minute call just to ask for someone’s phone number was unnecessary. Now I still can’t do a fifteen minute call  just to ask a simple question and Kristin's still uncomfortable with a thirty second phone call. But we’ve both adjusted our natural approach to keep in mind the other person’s “normal” so we can have peace in our relationship. And we just celebrated ten years of marriage last month so I’m pretty sure things have gotten better!

When you have a conflict, try to understand the perspective of the other person. You might be violating their “normal” without even realizing it. Philippians 2:4-5 says “Do not be interested only in your own life, but be interested in the lives of others.” This is God's step four to resolving conflict. 

Identify Your Spouse's Positive Characteristics

God's Word gives us five steps to cultivating a winning attitude in marriage (and in life). Here's step two:

2. Identify your spouse’s positive characteristics 

Take a look with me at 2 Peter 3:1, “Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.” You see, it goes totally against our sinful nature to be positive and focus on the good - which is why the apostle Peter wrote to stimulate wholesome thinking. This blog post is my attempt to stimulate wholesome thinking about your spouse. It doesn’t come natural so we’ve got to work on it. How do we do that?

The answer is found in Philippians 4:8 which says “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”  

Below is a link to a worksheet based off Philippians 4:8 that will help you identify your spouse's positive character qualities. Regardless of whether your marriage is in a good or bad season,  go ahead and fill this out. Ask God to bring to your mind all the positive things about your spouse, and then write them down. If you can’t think of anything, then enlist the help of your children (if you have any). Say to them: Would you tell me the things you like about your father/mother, the things you appreciate and admire? This will help you to identify your spouse’s positive character qualities AND will help stimulate wholesome thinking about your spouse (instead of negative thinking).

Click here to view/download the worksheet.

Acknowledge My Negative Thinking

God's Word gives us five steps to cultivating a winning attitude in marriage (and in life). Here's step one:

1. Acknowledge my negative thinking

If we want our marriage to be healthy, we must recognize that our negative thinking must change. You see, our thinking guides our behavior. If we think negatively, we’ll behave in destructive ways. But if we think positively, our actions will be positive as well. As Proverbs 23:7 says “...for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he...”

We are never more negative than when we complain. But Philippians 2:14 says “Do everything without complaining...” And notice the context. Philippians 2:5 says “You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.” Then a couple verses later it says “Do everything without complaining.” That is, Jesus wasn’t a complainer so neither should we be!

How do you know if you’re a complainer? Well, when you get arrive home from work and your spouse says "How was work?" what does that sound like? When you and your spouse leave a friends house, what does it sound like in the car on the way home? When you report on how the day went with the kids, what does that sound like? 

I had a friend growing up that was always complaining about something. We crossed paths once or twice a week and I’d ask “How’s it going?” but I quickly learned that was the wrong question to be asking. The response was always a complaint about how bad things were. It was so depressing. So when I saw this person I started just saying “Hey” to avoid the flood of complaining that would come if I asked “How’s it going?” (So if you’re spouse says “Hey” instead of “How’s it going?” watch out! You might be a complainer! ;)

Isn’t it true that no one wants to be around a complainer? Well this is true in marriage too. This is why Solomon wrote in Proverbs 21:19, “It’s better to live alone in the desert than with a quarrelsome, complaining wife.” This is true of a complaining husband as well. So if your spouse seems to prefer solitude over your company, it might be because you’re a negative person who is always complaining.

You know - the truth is that there’s good and bad in just about every situation. And as a discipline we’ve got to train ourselves to focus on the good. Let me illustrate how I do this with my staff...

Each Monday morning the staff at New Day meet to evaluate Sunday. We ask four questions: What went right? What went wrong? What was missing? What was confusing? And the reason I set the meeting up to begin with “What went right?” is because I want my staff to learn to focus on the good.

And this is what we need to discipline ourselves to do in marriage. We’ve got to learn to look first to what’s right in our spouse, not what’s wrong. Isn't that what we want our spouse to do for us?