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Working Through Conflict

Posted by AGroup in Faith on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 3:40 PM

Q: My husband and I disagree about child discipline. I grew up in a very strict home and don’t ever want to be that way with our kids. I think my husband is too severe sometimes, but when I suggest he ease up a bit, he gets very angry with me. He thinks I let the kids get away with too much. How should we handle this disagreement?

A: Why does God allow spouses to disagree, even strongly, about such an important thing?  Why doesn’t he simply grace faithful marriages with perfect harmony? We can never comprehend fully the mind of God (he wouldn’t be much of a God if we could), but we can certainly understand at least part of his perspective, and that’s where you will find the light you are looking for.

God’s Perspective on Conflicts
On a natural level, a spousal disagreement is a pain, sometimes a royal pain. On a supernatural level, it is an opportunity. That’s why God allows disagreements and conflicts between spouses. By constructively working through conflict, two things happen.

First, spouses are forced to exercise virtue (patience, humility, compassion, prudence …) outside of their comfort zone. When we do that, virtue grows, and when our virtue grows, we grow, as Christians and as human beings. We become more like Christ, which is the whole point of everything. If we never exercise beyond what is comfortable, we don’t grow – as every good coach knows.

Second, resolving conflict fruitfully yields (almost always) a better decision than either spouse could have made alone. You have limitations. Your husband has limitations. When conflict arises, each of you tends to focus on the other’s limitations. But each of you also has positive qualities, like wisdom, love, and creativity. 

Working through conflict constructively allows your positive qualities to help offset his limitations, and vice versa. If you don’t work to resolve the conflict, you may come up with a compromise that maintains a certain level of peace, but you won’t come up with a “two heads are better than one” type of solution.

So the key thing for you to keep in mind is that although disagreements are painful, God permits them because they are also opportunities. That’s the attitude without which disagreements can’t be fruitful. The next obvious question is, how can spouses constructively work through conflict?

Making Conflicts Constructive
The great danger in disagreements is that spouses start attacking each other instead of staying focused on the real issue at hand.

In the situation you describe, you actually bring up three different issues: what’s best for your children (the core issue), your sensitivity from growing up in a super-strict home, and your husband’s tendency to get angry (and whatever root cause is at work there – e.g., maybe he feels emasculated when you contradict his efforts to be a leader in the home …). 

The emotion and the anger inhibit real communication about what is best for your children; they steer you away from seeing the disagreement as an opportunity, and they exacerbate the pain.

I can’t give you a perfect formula for balancing discipline and spontaneity while raising your children. But I can say that your children will benefit most from the creative solution that comes out of you humbly taking the time to come up with parameters that you are both comfortable with.

Most likely, your personal fears of over-strictness are making you a little bit oversensitive. Probably, your husband takes your contradictions as an insult to his capacity to be a father (even though you don’t mean them that way!).

To exit the impasse, you need to sit down calmly (i.e., not when you have just had a spat) and humbly, putting aside fears and perceived offenses, and answer together the all-important question: What parameters of discipline will best help our children learn to exercise their freedom joyfully and productively?

Together, your wisdom and your husband’s wisdom will find the right answer for your home. Don’t be afraid to seize the opportunity!

(Do you have a question for Fr. John? Leave it in the comments here or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)!)

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