Wifey Wednesday - Fighting In Marriage

Today on Wifey Wednesday Sheila asks - Have you ever had a fight because your husband wanted to fix something? Do you have a special way of resolving conflict?

My hubby and I resolve our conflicts by doing what we call keeping short accounts. Usually when one of us angers or upsets the other we express how we feel as soon as possible. Right at the moment may not be the most appropriate time to say it so we wait until a better time but we do not let it go for weeks on end. Chances are that it will be forgotten and left undealt with might cause a root of bitterness to spring up. When we are expressing our feelings we try to avoid accusing tones and instead focus on how the behavior made us feel. We try to avoid making each other feel belittled or less than a person. After we express our feelings we apologize for the hurt caused. Sometimes we are right in what we said but the way we said it caused hurt. So we apologize for the hurt caused instead of what we said.

My hubby is the calmer one in the marriage and I've had many times to apologize for the wrong way I said something. I admire his control and pray and strive to be more controlled. I remember early on in our marriage when the Lord convicted me about my way of responding to things he said or did. I cried out to God to change me and you know what happened? Every day there was an opportunity to exercise that fruit of the Spirit called self-control. More times than I care to remember, several times a day even I had to apologize to him. Let me tell you, that was a humbling experience for sure. I had to shape up if I did not want to be apologizing so often. During this growing experience my hubby was so forgiving, so calm. I praise God for his steady nature.

Today I am much better but being human we do things that hurt each other unintentionally so we remind ourselves that we would not intentionally hurt each other. We also give each other the benefit of the doubt. We look at possible reasons like tiredness, monthly cycles(for me), busy schedules and so forth and take those into consideration. Then we keep short accounts and discuss how the behaviour made us feel. We apologize and move on from there.

Marriage is wonderful. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world but I must tell you that God has used it to really shape me. So we don't really fight per say and I love that. Now it's your turn. Have you ever had a fight because your husband wanted to fix something? Do you have a special way of resolving conflict? Let me know in the comments or why not write your own blog post, and then go on over to Sheila's blog and enter them in the Linky feature.

For More Wifey Wednesday articles go to Sheila Gregoire's blog by clicking HERE.