Reducing Marital Conflict
In any marriage, even the most loving and agreeable, there are times when there are disagreements, and the way the couple resolves conflict affects the health, quality and longevity of the marriage. Some couples mistakenly believe their marriage has no chance of success if they experience disputes, which may be due to the common belief that conflict is best avoided to ensure family unity. The result of conflict avoidance is often barely controlled anger and deep-seated resentment about unresolved issues.
Ironically, voicing disagreements can actually create growth and intimacy in a relationship if the conflict is handled constructively. Conflict is normal and expected, and in blended families, issues of transitioning kids, ex-spouses, financial problems and parenting differences can increase the scope of disagreements with negative results.
Although one of many experts in relationships and conflict resolution, Dr Scott Haltzman offers unique perspective and practical advice in his best-selling book, The Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wifes Heart Forever. Dr Haltzman has distilled current research from countless married men into a helpful guide that highlights 8 effective strategies that help marriages work.
Strategy # 4, "Expect Conflict and Deal with It," helps couples gain a better understanding of conflict by illustrating the way men and women are biologically equipped to deal with it, the moods and motives that cultivate disagreements, the patterns of conflicts and how to allay them. Everyone wants to feel listened to, cared for and respected, and being aware of this goes a long way to helping couples resolve conflict and smooth things over before they explode.
This is what Dr Haltzman wants us to know about conflict:
1. Happy and unhappy couples argue about the same amount of time and about the same basic issues: money, sex and housework being the three most popular.
2. 69 % of conflicts in a marriage are never resolved, and thats an acceptable level.
3. Both men and women can learn constructive ways to debate issues, and to agree to disagree.
4. Conflict many times arises due to the inherent differences in how the sexes perceive conflict and how they deal with it.
Dr Haltzman describes the 4 common ways that fights accelerate. See if you can spot yourself or your partner in any of these descriptions:
Feeding the Fire: We all know the scenario where a criticism or complaint is voiced, the response being more hostility, and so it goes, until its a free-for-all that includes ancient history from arguments past. An escalating, major altercation cannot simply be shut down like an out-of-control video game, but keeps going at an ever-increasing pace. Strategies for calming out-of-control "fires" include softening your tone, becoming aware of areas of agreement, staying positive and "holding that emotion," which essentially entails refraining from escalating the tension with hateful comments.
Withdrawal and Avoidance: Men are more likely to withdraw from and not deal with a grievance than women are, and this sends a discounting message to women that makes them very angry. Women object to avoidance because the act of engagement makes them feel better, even though the issue may not be resolved. Men avoid and withdraw for understandable biological reasons but these behaviors fuel the fire of conflict with the women in their lives.
Negative Interpretation: Assigning unintended negative meaning to things a spouse does or doesnt say can incite major conflict that can escalate easily, since each person is responding to something that was neither voiced nor intended. Spelling out one's meaning and active listening will help reduce this.
Finger Pointing: This is the classic blaming that demands a response, which turns into defensiveness and more blame. The effective technique is to use I statements that point the finger at yourself rather than your spouse. The most important element of a conflict is how its resolved or "patched up" when a quarrel is over. Both men and women must decide whether being right is more important than having a happy marriage. Among newly wed couples that could not patch things up after a fight, the divorce rate was 90 %, versus an 84% successful marriage rate of those who could make up.
Couples can have fun experimenting with many different strategies to get back on track after a fight; this puts the fight behind them so they can move past that and focus on the aim of enjoying a successful marriage.
Sheena Berg lovingly writes articles for the StepHeroes step parenting advice newsletter. To find out more about happily married men, there's no substitute for reading "The Secrets of Happily Married Men" by Scott Haltzman,
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/
Added: September 10, 2008
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