Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack

How to Reduce Conflict in Marriage and Enjoy it More

• Jack Ito PhD, Psychologist, Author, and Relationship Coach • Season 3 • Episode 49

Share episode

On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.

On today's episode, Coach Jack teaches how to keep the inevitable relationship differences from becoming inevitable relationship damage.

After listening to today's episode, you may want to:

How to Reduce Conflict in Marriage and Enjoy it More

(Podcast Transcript)

(0:00)

[Introduction to the podcast]

Announcer: On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.

(0:29)

Coach Jack: By using good skills that prevent, reduce, or end conflict, you can have a more enjoyable marriage, starting today.

All conflict is caused by differences. While no two people are identical, if we are similar in important ways, we will have very little conflict. 

Preventing conflict is a matter of choosing to be with people who are similar to us.

(0:50)

The most important thing we can do before we get married is to shop around, looking for the best match. Just like clothing from the store, we return the ones that won’t fit comfortably. Forcing your size 8 foot into a size 7 shoe is possible, but just is not a good long term solution. No matter how nice the shoes seem, if they don’t fit, they don’t fit. The same is true for potential spouses.

So, what kinds of matching are the most important for a good marriage?

Matching that matters

Areas that have been found to be important in terms of maintaining a marital relationship include attitudes toward:

  • Money, 
  • sex, 
  • children, 
  • politics, 
  • religion, 
  • social values, 
  • desire for socializing with others, and 
  • use of free time.

Before getting married, some of these might not seem like a big deal, because they might not be relevant to the the pre-marital relationship. If people are only dating, they don’t need to manage finances together, can see other friends on their own, are not likely to have issues regarding parenting, and so forth. They may assume they are similar simply because they haven’t run into these differences yet.

(2:01)

Because of the lack of problems around these issues, many people think that they’re well matched for marriage, when in actuality, they may be a poor match. Being a great match in one or two areas will not prevent the damage caused by differences in other areas. Each major difference is like having a pebble in your shoe. I think you know how irritating that can be.

The more similar people are on these dimensions before marriage, the more they will enjoy talking, spending time together, and making and achieving life goals together. 

What about people who have major differences in marriage?

Conflict does not make differences go away

What do you do if you are already married and you and your spouse are having conflict over one or more of these life areas? Well, you can do what many people do and argue in an attempt to convince each other to be different. Although some people think that arguing is a healthy part of marriage, it is not.

(2:57)I

Arguing causes emotional distancing, damages loving feelings, and reduces commitment.

Just as accidents are common, so is arguing. That may make it normal, but it doesn’t make it healthy or desirable. Christians should never strive to be normal. We should strive toward love and humility, and the strength that comes from our faith in God.

As God tells us in His Word:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7).

The problem is lack of acceptance and practical solutions

Arguing and criticism result from the failure to either accept differences, motivate changes in a positive way, or to use good boundaries.

(3:58)

Being right, being logical, and being factual are poor substitutes for being loving, validating, and having good boundaries. 

Damage is reduced when we can agree and empathize with at least some aspects of the other person’s thoughts feelings and behaviors. Sometimes we get so caught up in what we want that we forget to do that and end up getting little or nothing we want as a result.

There is always something that we can agree or empathize with. Love requires no less.

In addition to arguing, conflict can be expressed in silence. Whether noisy or quiet, conflict causes our loving feelings towards our partner to decrease or disappear altogether if the conflict goes on too long. If that has already started happening with your feelings, then it has with your spouse as well. 

You need to realize that if you don’t take the responsibility to end the conflict, your marriage will not last. The most effective way to change the way you and your spouse do the marriage dance is for you to start dancing in another way.

(5:06)

Make sure you don’t take your spouse’s differences personally

Part of being a secure person is to recognize that everybody differs in some way from everybody else. We have different genetics, different life experiences, and different parents who raised us. We need to have an expectation that everyone we meet and everyone we know is going to be different from us in many ways.

We also need to realize that even the people who are closest to us such as our spouses or children are going to differ from us. They will do, think, and feel some things that we don’t like. There are no perfect matches.

If you feel that your spouse’s differences are somehow an attack on you, then you are adding a problem where it doesn’t need to be. While your spouse being different does not validate you, it does not mean that your spouse is different in order to attack you or in order to invalidate you. That is highly unlikely.

(6:07)

Your spouse is not being different in order to get you.

If you are exhibiting any of the following defensive behaviors, then most likely you are feeling attacked at some level because of your spouse’s differences:

  • apologizing, 
  • explaining, or 
  • telling your spouse that if he or she loves you, then he or she would believe or do as you desire.

All of these are indicators that you are feeling attacked, although at a rational level you may realize that you are not.

Whether or not you need to take action because of a difference comes down to whether the difference is relevant to maintaining your relationship or not–not how much you dislike the difference.

Just when are differences relevant? It’s not just because you feel they are.

(6:55)

Let’s take a workplace example. Suppose that you are part of a construction crew. If your coworkers like sports and you don’t, that would not be relevant to getting the construction work done. You could function well as coworkers. Come lunchtime though, you may be left out of the conversation. The difference in use of free time would cause problems in relating. 

The solution to that problem would not be to criticize your coworkers for how they spend their free time, as that would just alienate you more from them. 

On the other hand, learning to enjoy sports would boost your relationship with them. This is the same kind of work we need to do with spouses, kids, and friends, when they don’t already share our interests. 

If your spouse likes sports, but you don’t, and you have other interests in common, then the difference would not be relevant and no changing would need to be made. It is okay for people to have some different interests they do in their own time. Everyone needs their own time as much as they need being together. 

(7:59)

Let’s consider a personality difference. If your spouse is an extrovert and you are an introvert, the difference would be irrelevant unless it somehow interfered with your being able to have quality time together. Your spouse might go out with friends a lot more than you, but as long as your spouse was also spending daily time with you, going out on dates with you, sharing household responsibilities, and having a good sexual relationship with you, the difference would be irrelevant.

The solution would be for you to develop more interests of your own rather than being jealous of your spouses activities without you. 

Alternatively, becoming more social like your spouse would help you to have more in common and make you more enjoyable, just as with the work example. However, trying to get your spouse to give up being social would be the same as trying to get coworkers to give up sports. It would make your relationship worse.

Unhealthy beliefs and values also cause conflict

(8:59)

Healthy people make decisions according to what is most important. They live according to a useful set of values that promote relationships. Unhealthy people prioritize the wrong things or make everything a priority. Healthy people realize that many differences are unimportant and are flexible.

Other people have difficulty balancing their individuality with being part of a couple. They are over-involved with their spouse or children. They see their spouse and children as extensions of themselves and try to do everything perfectly through them, as if they were puppets. Healthy people have their own identity apart from being a spouse or parent.

Many things that people care about become irrelevant to them once their spouse is having an affair, separating, divorcing, or dying. Eventually all of our relationships will end. Let’s treat our spouses well and focus on what matters in the meantime.

(9:57)

Whenever we say I don’t like your behavior, your thinking, or the way you feel, we are coming across as though we don’t like the other person. Explaining your intentions won’t make it better. 

We must strive to make our spouses feel loved, accepted, and valuable. When we do, we will get more of what we want from our relationship. 

Relationships work they way they do–not the way we want them to. To be successful, we have to do what works–not what we think should work.

Focus on what matters instead of fighting over what doesn’t

If your spouse has a difference which is not relevant and does not violate your marriage vows, then you need to stop focusing on that difference. Instead, you need to focus on the things that actually maintain your marriage.

(10:50)

For example, suppose your spouse goes out often with her friends and uses social media a lot at home and you don’t. Many people have a tendency to complain about those things. The actual issues however, are whether your spouse is having regular quality time with you and also fulfilling other responsibilities.

What if your spouse is not otherwise a good spouse?

Criticism, conflict, and complaining will only make things worse

Let’s suppose again that your spouse spends a lot of time on social media and going out with friends and does not spend quality time with you, or not enough. Do you think that having a conflict about your spouse going out or being on social media is going to make your spouse spend more quality time with you? It will actually make your spouse want to be with you even less.

It is not so curious of a thing that people prefer to be with those who agree with them than those who criticize them.

The more you complain and criticize your spouse, the more he or she will want to be apart from you rather than with you. Even when you are together, you will still feel your spouse emotionally distancing.

(12:00)

We can’t get more affection, love, or sex, through criticism, complaining, or conflict. Many people try to do that and fail to learn from the results.

If you can work around the differences, then the differences don’t matter.

Whether I say potato and you say pototo really doesn’t matter if we both get to eat what we like.

If you both don’t get what you like, then you can…

Motivate your spouse in good ways

Taking more of an interest in your spouse’s activities, being a good listener and being agreeable, will help your spouse to enjoy you. Then, in addition to your spouse’s other interests, your spouse will spend time with you. This is because your spouse will actually want to spend more time with you.

Add to that doing some things with your spouse that he or she enjoys, and you will be able to re-balance your relationship in a win-win way. The more you help your spouse to get what makes him or her happy, the more happy your spouse will be with you.

(13:02)

Let’s take a money example.

Does your spouse like to spend more money on frivolous things, while you like to put all of your money into savings for someday? Through conflict, you might be able to get your spouse to spend less, but at the cost of your relationship. When your spouse leaves you someday to go enjoy spending money with somebody else, you will wish that you had somehow accommodated your spouse better, and you may just lose half of your savings that you would not have otherwise.

Instead of complaining, you can deal with this difference by accommodating the difference rather than changing it. Just like most differences in marriage, this can be handled practically.

The solution in this case is to create a budget which takes into account not only your expenses and savings, but also a regular individual allowance for you and your spouse. You each get to use your allowance in the way that you like, without having to ask the other for permission.

(14:02)

This solution allows one of you to save and the other to spend, if those are your differences. If you have a situation where you both have to check with each other every time you spend money, then that is going to cause problems.

Every spouse needs time and money of his or her own to not feel controlled and to be able to accommodate irrelevant differences.

Let’s consider a religious example:

Suppose you go to church while your spouse doesn’t. Fighting about that will not make your spouse more religious, nor will it make you give up church (hopefully!). Instead, learning to enjoy the worship time on your own and then being happy to see your spouse after is going to satisfy both of you.

Time apart doesn’t need to be a problem as long as you are getting enough time together.

Some differences are relevant and can’t be solved practically. What then? I have done a separate podcast on what to do when you have deal breaker differences.

(15:01)

Hopefully, you’ve learned from today’s podcast to manage the differences and not your spouse.

As you’ve learned today, any differences that pre-existed your marriage, and which you were aware of, are not the blame of your spouse. You chose your spouse despite those differences. Now, you need to make sure that you are loving your spouse anyhow. Doing that first, often will make the other differences less important and easier to manage with practical solutions. 

Don’t criticize, complain, or argue about the differences or they will multiply. Be your own person and give yourself permission to be different in ways that don’t impact your marriage. Embracing each other’s differences is part of what makes marriage interesting.

And…

If you’ve already driven your spouse away with conflict, let me help you to re-connect and have a second chance.

(15:55)

[Podcast wrap-up]

Announcer: Thank you for listening to Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack. Visit coachjackito.com to learn more skills for reconnecting with your spouse and restoring your marriage.