Summary

Marriage conflict is a terrible thing. Or is it? Maybe the conflict is really about something entirely different than what you think it is! Find out what marriage conflict is all about and how it can change your marriage for the better.

How Does Conflict Change You?

Table Of Contents

Through Your Differences
Through Disagreements
Through Your Reconciling
Through Disappointments

Love sets off a series of events that alter the course of your life. Hopefully, it’s not a series of unfortunate events! Loving is about interpersonal exchanges with someone who knows you more intimately than anyone else in this world. And it’s those exchanges that can make or break your love.

“I didn’t plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created.”

— Nicholas Sparks, Dear John

I hate conflict. I just don’t want to deal with it at all. But as long as you can be calm, confronting that conflict head-on could be the best thing you can do in your marriage. One thing I love about the stories of Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) is the way he just unabashedly faced conflict with people. Whether it was with one of His disciples, the pharisees, lawyers, or government officials, He didn’t flinch. I think you can learn from that, how it’s better to deal with conflict than to not. Even if it doesn’t turn out the way you want it, at least things are made clear and put on the path to become better.

Some married people avoid conflict at all costs. And sometimes I think marriage resources lead us to think that any conflict is bad. That is just not true. Resolving that conflict quickly is the best way to keep your love and relationship on track. People go for years without talking about things that bother them in their marriage, then when they finally reach the breaking point, everything starts spewing out and they ruin their love. I am saying that most of the time it’s better to talk about things than to let them go on. Although there are some things you can let go of. Don’t let those things feaster and build up to something you can correct together.

But learning to resolve that conflict can produce a change in you and your relationship. So conflict is an important part of your love. Learning how to love is loving through the conflict. The Bible defines love in I Corinthians. The word Charity is a translation of the Greek word Agape which means love.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
I Corinthians 13:4-7

Through Your Differences

Gender Differences

God made two genders with different physical and emotional needs.

The big thing in American culture is to say that there are infinite genders and that gender is fluid.

Meaning, however you feel or think is your real gender, not necessarily biology. There are even some areas in the country where kids in public schools are being taught this and even given counseling about it without their parent’s consent. Some are even being fastracked to cross-sex hormones to attempt to change their biological sex. The sad thing is, these treatments have lifelong reproductive consequences. But happiness doesn’t come through gender identity contrary to what is being pushed on people today.

Is Gender Programed by Culture?

When I was in school there was this idea that you are born a biological male or female and gender roles are programmed by culture and experience. But God made male and female distinct in anatomical and emotional ways that are meant to match with each other. So it’s not just cultural influence that makes the genders different. And in reality, the whole transgender movement inadvertently reinforces those gender differences. If gender differences don’t really exist, then why would you need to take hormones or have an operation to change genders?

Gender differences will cause some conflict in marriage.

Your spouse is different from you. Those differences are probably what made you fall in love to start with. Once you have been married for a while you discover that those differences can cause you to have conflicts. You have to realize and accept those differences to reconcile the conflict.

Having said that, we also assign roles and expectations to gender that are not Biblical. For example, the idea that women are supposed to wash the dishes and fold the laundry while men are supposed to mow the lawn outside. So, it doesn’t make you less of a man to get off the recliner and help your spouse with the housework. And it doesn’t make you less of a woman to help with the yard work! In marriage, it’s best to communicate your expectation for each other. Sometimes when you say those expectations out loud, you realize how unrealistic they are!

The conflict of gender differences is a gift from God because learning to stay in love with someone different than you despite the challenges causes an internal change in you. So the conflicts of gender differences are not about your spouse at all, they are about you. And you becoming the person that God wants you to be.

Personality Differences

Opposites attract. I personally think that God made us that way. Those things that are different are what generate attraction and interest. Author Gary Chapman talks about this in some of his books, how as he says it, “a babbling brook will often marry a dead sea.” It may not always be the case but I know from experience that it often is. I know my wife is different from me; I am the dead sea while she is the babbling brook. I am always cool, I mean ALWAYS. She, on the other hand, is always emotional! I have always found her bubbly personality attractive and I think she finds my cool personality attractive to.

Those different personalities can cause conflict. The fact that I am ALWAYS cool can be extremely frustrating at times. While the fact that she is ALWAYS emotional can cause a cool person to lose their cool! But it’s ok that we are different and that those differences can cause conflict because learning to love through that conflict is a part of the change that God is creating in our lives.

Belief Differences

Here is what happens in marriage, one person is raised in a family with a unique belief system about gender roles, love, and marriage. While the other person is raised in a family with a different belief system about those same things. Not too different or you would not have been drawn together to begin with. Then those same people come together with their own set of expectations predicated on their belief systems. So each person brings their perspective into marriage.

Those perspectives can cause some of the biggest problems. So here is a person...