# How to have healthy marital conflicts

Conflicts are normal, and increase as the relationship grows:

- Work or other family members can cause stress.
- People *constantly* miscommunicate their thoughts and expectations.
- While venting or complaining, people may feel anger at the listener's lack of sympathy.

## Have the right attitude

Marital conflicts are also a necessary foundation to strengthen us.

- While arguments are less healthy than [crucial conversations](people-conflicts-crucial.md), they're far healthier than silence.
  - Silence, in particular, is emotionally starving the other person.
- They build toward the playfulness of romance and give skills for raising and enjoying [children](parenting-children.md).

As stupid as you may feel they are, respect them and their views:

- Love requires respect to even exist.
- Respect they understand and know things you don't, and vice versa.
- No degrading language, swearing, or yelling.
- Avoid sarcasm at all costs, since they will feel like you're betraying them.

Try to be correct, and ignore whether you're right.

- If you're wrong, very quickly admit it and try to understand how.
- You're likely both using different definitions for the same words.
- Closely watch their body language and responses as you both speak.

Be quick to apologize when you hurt them.

- If you can't own that you've done something wrong, you may be at risk of even greater [sin](morality-sins.md) you're not aware of.
- Protect your intimacy with them.
- Speak kindly with them, even when angry.

[Forgive them](hardship-forgiveness.md) when they hurt you.

- When they don't openly apologize and change, you will have to lower how much you can [trust](trust.md) them, but that doesn't mean the marriage has to end.
- If the other person has some form of [Cluster B](mind-neurodivergence-clusterb.md) (which is *very* common), they may not be able to apologize.

## How to approach a conflict

A. Raise your issues early:

- Ask yourself openly why you feel upset.
- Don't overthink it, since they probably see the problem from their point of view as well.
  - Gently approaching issues is difficult if you've spent lots of time thinking about it without feedback.
  - Resentment grows when you stay silent.
- Expect they want to resolve the [conflict](people-conflicts.md) as much as you.
  - If you have a grudge with them, they're entitled to one with you as well.
  - [Release your resentment](hardship-forgiveness.md) with them, and openly express if you have any.
- Watch for signs that you're expecting your spouse to read your mind:
  - You're arguing with your spouse in your thoughts, but not saying anything.
    - Express your expectations clearly and [with love](people-love.md).
  - You're trying to get their attention with nonverbal communication (e.g., eye rolls, pursed lips, sighing, shrugging, huffing, stomping).
    - No matter how long you've been married, your spouse will *not* infer you're upset.
    - Use words more than nonverbal signals with your spouse.
  - You're telling them that you're upset because you "shouldn't have to tell them" or "they should know".
    - Assume the best of them, and ask them clarifying questions if you're not sure.

B. Approach at the right time:

- It should be privately, away from others.
- Leave everyone else out of it.
- Make sure you're both calm, undistracted, and focused on each other.
- Handle and mitigate all emergencies, then discuss *after* the emergency is over.
- Unless something is urgent within the next day, always postpone a conflict until you've both rested and recovered.

C. The first time, only bring the problem (and *not* [the solution](https://adequate.life/fix/)) with the Speaker-Listener Technique:

1. The person who feels the most severe pain at the moment is the Speaker and has the floor.
   - The Speaker must speak honestly.
   - To respect time and attention span, they only get 1-2 minutes to speak.
2. The other person is the Listener, who must paraphrase whatever the speaker said after listening.
   - The Listener must edit out all responses or disagreements to the Speaker.
   - The Listener is simply trying to understand the Speaker, not solve a problem.
3. The Speaker corrects the Listener on anything they got wrong.
4. If the Speaker finds the Listener's summary acceptable, they switch roles.
   - Stay on only one topic at a time, and do *not* move to another topic.
5. Repeat back and forth until both sides feel fully understood.
6. Plan a time the next day when it's worth discussing the solutions to the issue.

The next time you speak, make a plan to resolve the issue:

- Try to come to a shared compromise or understanding.
- The plan should have sensible, attainable [goals](success-3_goals.md) for both them and you.
- Keep track of what they've done right and improved on, not what they've done wrong.
  - If you only track what they've failed at, they'll lose the motivation to change.
- The relationship will be held back by the person who cares the least about their partner.

F. Clarify what they mean to you:

- Affirm a few things:
  1. You love them
  2. The conflict isn't the end of the relationship
  3. Respect and repeat their hopes, aspirations, and desires back to them
  4. Why the agreed change is good for both of you

## Learn to be vulnerable

In most marital conflicts, you're safer when you *lower* your defenses (not raise them) because it converts your partner from an enemy to an ally.

- Since you've married them, every single part of your life is shared with them.
  - [Privacy](security-privacy.md) and secrets don't exist for spouses unless they're planning to leave the marriage.
- [Conflicts](people-conflicts.md) are a shared battle against an issue, *not* between you and your partner.

Honestly share your thoughts and feelings.

- Expect them to not understand the first time.
- If it may hurt them, apologize in advance.
- Staying distant or closed off will motivate them to respond in kind.
- If you're melodramatic about your feelings, they won't take you seriously.

Own all your feelings, especially when you're frustrated or angry.

- When walking out or putting up mental distance, clearly indicate when you'll revisit it.
- If you're overwhelmed or it becomes too severe, ask for time to calm down or reschedule the discussion.

Keep envelopes for them to open the next time you have difficult feelings (e.g., sad, angry, need a hug).

Continue valuing them.

- Celebrate anniversaries to remind both of you why you began the relationship.

## Issues that may arise

Practice [healthy boundaries](people-boundaries.md).

- If they say hurtful or abusive things, leave the conversation and specify when you'll revisit it.
- If they demand you stay in the [conflict](people-conflicts.md), reschedule a specific time when you'll discuss the issue again.
- If they press the matter and don't honor your boundaries when you've indicated when you're revisiting it, leave immediately.

Learn gratitude.

- A date night laughing at web content is a far better thing than being entirely alone.
- Sometimes, they really are giving you all they have.
  - Life can be [difficult](hardship.md), and being married to you can sometimes be part of that difficulty.

Expect your spouse to teach you more about yourself than you wanted to know.

- If you're not patient, they'll step on your last nerve.
- If you're lazy, they'll show you what you're not doing.
- If you're unkind, they'll demonstrate how much more likeable they are.
- If you're emotionally distant, they'll express your coldness.
- If you're selfish, they'll show you how much.

Barring mental illness, avoid involving outsiders into your arguments.

- Including other people into the marriage complicates the issue.
  - Never insult them in front of others.
  - Protect their dignity when they're absent.
- Expect trust issues between your partner and your parents, as well as you and theirs.
  - In-laws need boundaries, or they will define a marriage.
  - Conflicts become extremely complicated when someone values their parents' views over their partner's.

You might get stuck in a conflict loop:

- Marital conflict loops are reproducing [old childhood patterns](hardship-ptsd.md), and tend to happen whenever one of the partners has [unresolved childhood trauma](hardship-ptsd.md).
  - Conflict loops only resolve when *both* partners desire a resolution.
  - A hurting marriage only succeeds when *both* spouses apologize and accept they both have unmet needs and might be behaving wrongly about them.
- Breaking conflict cycles are challenging, especially when you're [unaware](awareness.md) they're happening.
- Look at your spouse as part of your team, which is difficult when your spouse is repeating a pattern from your childhood.
- Don't even *think* of divorce as an option.
- Counter-intuitively, a relationship starts recovering when a spouse *receives* the first apology, not from giving one.

Don't let other people take priority over the relationship.

- [Children](parenting-children.md) can easily take over the role, meaning you're not working with each other anymore.
- Your [career](jobs-1_why.md), hobbies, and [church](church.md) can also take too much time from them.
- However, since you're around them all the time, needing space is perfectly health.
  - If you're insecure enough to fear they're cheating on you, that's *your* emotional issue, not theirs.

Many marital conflicts come from past psychological issues:

1. At least one spouse feels continually rejected or hurt by the other, usually from expectations they set from their past relationships or how their parents treated them.
2. That person's issue keeps arising in conversation but never resolves.
3. The spouse with the worst psychological projection holds fast to their views and won't move or compromise at all.
4. The conflict loses any humor, amusement or affection.
5. Over time, both spouses treat the other one as an enemy, often once the other spouse reacts inappropriately to the first spouse.
6. Both spouses hold progressively more extreme views and become unwilling to compromise.
7. Eventually, they'll both completely sever emotional ties with each other.

Watch for 4 unhealthy defensive behaviors:

- Criticism: attacking their partner's personality or character
  - Usually intended to make someone right and someone wrong
  - Diagnoses others' failures, but not oneself
  - Uses generalizations:
    - "You always..."
    - "You never..."
    - "You're the type of person who..."
    - "Why are you so..."
- Contempt: attacking their partner's sense of self
  - Intended to insult or psychologically abuse
  - Communicating from perceived superiority:
    - Insults and name-calling
    - Correcting their grammar
    - Hostile humor, sarcasm or mockery
    - Body language and tone of voice involve sneering, rolling eyes, and curled upper lip
- Defensiveness: seeing oneself as a victim
  - Can include any method that wards off a perceived attack
  - Makes excuses for behaviors
  - Meets complaints or criticisms by disregarding theirs and striking with an unrelated charge of their own:
    - "That's not true, you're the one who..."
    - "I did this because you..."
    - "Well, I was doing it because..."
- Stonewalling: withdrawing to avoid conflict
  - While they often think they're staying neutral, they legitimately want to be uninvolved.
    - Stonewalling elevates heart rate even without any outward expression.
  - Stonewalling conveys disapproval, distance, separation, disconnection, and smugness:
    - Stony silence
    - Monosyllabic mutterings
    - Changing the subject
    - Removing oneself physically
    - Silent treatment