How to Have A Good Fight

 

Marriage 25

 

          Every union of two people will come to inevitable disagreements over time. Each gender has different strengths, and each individual has different personalities. Conflict happens, even in the best of marriages. Last week, we looked at the philosophy of a good fight. In a marital disagreement, our intent ought to be to understand what the other person is thinking and feeling so that we may minister grace to them. This week, I want to give you seven practical ideas to help you do so.

First, choose your fight time wisely.

Do not fight when the discussion must be hurried by the rush of time or

events. This will entirely shortcut understanding. Do not fight in public. More than just bad form, it defeats one of the cardinal purposes of marriage: publicly representing the love Christ has for His church. Do not fight in the heat of emotion. As a rule, the more emotion you experience, the less thinking you do. Logic may lead to emotion, but the reverse rarely happens. As well, do not fight upon first coming together i.e. waking up in the morning, returning from work in the evening. Let your (re) unions be peaceful and happy.

          Second, do not interrupt each other.

It is natural to want to defend yourself when you feel you are being misrepresented or even misunderstood. But your whole approach in this fight is not to make yourself understood; it is to understand your partner. The more they talk, the more chance you will have of getting to the root of their real thoughts and feelings. So let them talk.

          One particular book I read on marriage spoke of a couple that had trouble in this precise area. They could not keep from interrupting each other. So, they devised the spoon rule. When it was time for a fight, one of them brought a spoon. Whoever was holding the spoon got to talk. And only one person could hold the spoon at a time. Maybe you should bring a spoon to your next fight.

          Three, use soft words to reveal your hurt.   

          Words mean things. The things those words mean are amplified when they are spoken in emotion by someone for whom you care deeply. “You are a _________________ son of a ____________ for …” lands entirely differently than, “I don’t think you meant to come across this way when you did… but this is how I felt when you did it.” I know grown men and women who still struggle with something their parents voiced to them decades ago, voiced in a harsh manner. Words are tools that reveal what we think and feel, and no tool should be used as a weapon.

          Fourth, boomerang their comments.   

          When it is your turn to speak, you ought to begin by reiterating what you understood them to say. "What I heard you say was… Did I get that right?" Often, the one most hurt is the one not communicating clearly. As such, clarifying statements like this reveal that lack of communication and allow it to be resolved before the hurt metastasizes.

          Fifth, resist the temptation to bring up past issues.

          In a trial, a judge must rule carefully on what past events a prosecutor is allowed to bring up for precisely this reason. Past hurled forward is prejudice. I agree that context is often helpful in resolving issues; I disagree that context needs to be developed in granular detail. When you bring up the past, you make the current argument too big and too complicated to deal with in one conversation. Additionally, your memory and interpretation of those events are often one-sided, if not downright unfair. Deal with the problem at hand, not ten years' worth of complaints. If you keep short accounts with each other, you will find it most helpful here.

          Six, make what is important to them important to you.

          At the risk of being too transparent, let me tell you about the only time Mandy almost left me. We had not been married more than a year or two when I returned from work to find her suitcase packed and sitting in the hall. We had had an argument that morning, and in the course of the argument, I had uttered an entirely forgettable throwaway phrase, "You're an idiot." It was a phrase I had said a thousand times to a thousand people in my life. What I did not know was that this phrase was deeply painful to her and always had been. It was not to me. To me, it was just the way people talked when they were venting. To her, it was highly offensive, provoking enough to cause her to pack her bags to go home to Momma for a night or two.

          When I discovered this, I was flabbergasted. If anything was idiotic, overreacting to being called an idiot seemed to be a perfect example. But as I processed it, I realized it did not matter how it felt to me; it mattered how it felt to her. It was important to her that I not call her an idiot. Since that day, I never have.

          Seventh, above all, remember your goal is to know and understand the other person. If you will pursue that knowledge and understanding, you will almost always find wisdom arrives with it. In other words, once you know how and why they did what they did and feel how they feel, you will know how best to respond. And your response will be edifying.

          “Pastor Brennan, you keep talking about a good fight. I thought fights were never good.”

          If you will do these seven things it will be a good fight. Because good will come out of it.