Coping With Marital Conflict

In any marriage, even the most supportive and harmonious, there are disagreements, and the way the couple resolves conflict affects the welfare, quality and longevity of the marriage. Many couples mistakenly believe their marriage has no chance of success if they experience disputes, which could be due to the old-school belief that conflict is best avoided to ensure family unity. The result of conflict avoidance is often simmering anger and deep-seated resentment about unresolved issues.

Ironically, voicing disagreements may actually create growth and intimacy in a relationship if the conflict is handled constructively. Conflict is normal and inevitable, and in blended families, issues of transitioning kids, ex-spouses, financial problems and parenting differences can increase the range of disagreements with negative results.

Among the many experts in the field of 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 thousands of married men into a helpful guide that highlights 8 useful strategies that help marriages work.

Strategy # 4, "Expect Conflict and Deal with It," helps couples gain a better understanding of conflict by illustrating how men and women are inherently equipped to deal with it, the moods and motives that drive disagreements, the patterns of conflicts and how to allay them. Everyone wants to feel listened to, cared for and validated, and understanding this goes a long way to helping couples put the brakes on 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 OK.

3. Both men and women can learn constructive ways to argue, and to agree to disagree.

4. Conflict often arises due to the biological 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 thrown out, the response being more hostility, and so on, until its a free-for-all that includes ancient history from arguments past. An escalating, major argument cannot simply be shut off like an out-of-control video game, but keeps going at an ever-increasing pace. Strategies for putting the brakes on out-of-control "fires" include softening your tone, looking for areas of agreement, focusing on the positive and "holding that emotion," which basically entails stopping yourself from escalating the tension with hateful comments.

Withdrawal and Avoidance: Men are more likely to withdraw from and not deal with a complaint than women are, and this sends a dismissive message to women that makes them very angry. Women dislike avoidance because discussing an issue makes them feel better, even though the issue may not be resolved. Men avoid and withdraw for understandable biological reasons but this will 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 partner is responding to something that was neither voiced nor meant. Clarifying one's meaning and active listening will help cut this out.

Finger Pointing: This is the classic blaming that demands a response, which turns into defensiveness and more criticism. The effective technique is to use I statements that refer to personal perception rather than blaming the other person. The most important element of a conflict is how its resolved or "patched up" when a quarrel is concluded. Both men and women must decide whether being right is more important than preserving a happy marriage. Among recently 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 come to an understanding.

Couples can enjoy experimenting with many different strategies to get back on track after a disagreement; this puts the fight behind them so they can move past that and focus on the goal of enjoying a happy marriage.