45. The Ultimate Guide to Conflict Resolution in Your Marriage | Road of Life Podcast

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Episode Transcription

Welcome back to another episode of the Road to Life podcast with Meredith and Craig. What do we got this week? This week, we're going to talk about conflict resolution. We've been getting a lot of questions about conflict resolution and how to actually resolve conflict and not just sweep it under the rug this time and then have it pop out like a ghost. Actually resolve it. Yeah. So that it doesn't keep coming up. Correct. We've been hearing from a lot of people who are arguing about the same things over and over and over again And that's just a recipe for disaster in your marriage. So we're gonna talk about a few things this episode We're gonna talk about the rules.

Mm hmm. When you're in conflict and arguing. We're gonna talk about some steps to resolve the conflict Then we're going to come back to resolving it without rehashing it. Also the importance of apologizing. Yes. And maybe we'll even talk a little bit about what a really good apology requires.

Mm hmm. And Once an apology happens, the importance of forgiveness. I think that one's a little overlooked actually. It's a little underrated. We'll get back to that. And then the last thing we'll talk about is the mindset of acting from your commitments and not your emotions.

The mindset of acting in the best interest of the long-term marriage versus being right. Yes. In the moment. Yeah. Let's start with that mindset. I think that's a good thread to pull through the whole thing. I heard you say two things there. One is acting in a way that serves your commitment to the marriage serves the longterm benefits of the marriage, as opposed to the tempting easier route, which is to be right, to be right and to act in accordance with your emotions in the moment, whether you're angry or upset, whatever your, whatever your emotion is in the moment, it's, it's a lot easier and more tempting to act in accordance with that than it is to act in accordance with your commitment to your marriage, and trying to keep that frame of mind throughout this whole conflict resolution process, whether you're in the conflict, whether you're working on the resolution piece, the apology, the forgiveness, that long term gain versus that short term temptation is the key.

How important is it for me to be right? Is being right going to make me feel better than the long term effect of Putting my marriage first. Is being right worth Risking the stability of the marriage? Is being right that important or is The main focus the long term happy marriage.

What's what's your primary focus? The hardest time to have that Mindset to keep that in mind in the moment in the moment when the conflict is just Emotions are high. It's definitely something you want to think about beforehand so that you can be very intentional about it. Yeah. In the moment, you can default back to that, that thought process of, okay, am I trying to be right or am I trying to put my marriage first here?

Because you can be right, you might be arguing a point that's very valid and very right on the surface. And what's right and what's wrong depends on your perspective, obviously. But you could make a very valid argument for you being right in this situation, but at what cost? Correct. And is it worth it to you?

When you're in the moment, some of the ways to exemplify that commitment to the marriage versus the commitment to you being right. We've got some rules for prioritizing the marriage, for keeping your mind on the commitment versus the being right and reacting based on your emotions as opposed to reacting based on your commitments. The first one is no name calling. Never, ever, ever, ever, never, absolutely no time, ever, is it appropriate to call a name?

Sweetie? Dear? Honey? Acceptable. Correct. Other names outside of their own personal name. Never acceptable. Out of bounds. And generally when we're in the conflict zone, when we're in those emotions are high, sweetie is probably not what's coming out. No. So let's just stick to names when we're in the conflict.

Fair. Given names. nothing else. Yep. First or last. Right. Right macKay? Correct bennett. I just, I don't know how to say it more plainly or more directly, but just never, ever, ever, ever, ever call a name. Right. Rule number one.

Rule number two, no winning. If I win, you lose. If you win, I lose.

And what does that do? That puts us against each other. Right. Adversaries, not teammates. And technically when we get married, we have put ourselves on the same team for the rest of our lives. And that means when you win, I win. And when you lose, I lose. So if I'm trying to win at your expense so that you lose, it blows up the whole system because I can't win if you lose.

If you're trying to win the argument, ultimately, not only is your partner losing, but your marriage is losing and it puts you in a deficit.

Rule number three, no yelling, no yelling. Things can get heated. They can. And voices tend to get raised. And we'll talk about it a bit more during the resolution steps.

But usually voices get raised when you feel like you're not being heard. It takes a conscious effort to notice when the emotions are getting high that the decibel level of your voice is going with it. And to bring that back down. Yelling doesn't get you anywhere. In fact, it has the exact opposite effect.

The more you yell, the less people hear you. Yeah. Well it triggers, it feels threatening. It just, it can be triggering. It shuts people down. Yeah. It shuts people down. And then you're nowhere like they've shut down. They're not even willing to engage in resolving this conflict now. So it's, it's done no good.

Rule number four, vulnerabilities are off limits, correct? We're in a marriage, you know, a lot of stuff about, I have a lot of ammo, you have a lot of ammo and it does you no service to use that ammo in future arguments. It goes back to the no name calling. Like I don't know any other way to say it that when you know something, that is a vulnerability for your spouse when you know something that if you know it'll hurt them Yeah, and and and what does that do for them future? Would they ever be willing to share another vulnerability with you and what builds connection intimacy more than being vulnerable? Absolutely nothing. So what you've done now by using that vulnerability shut down the vulnerability pipeline You have shut off the intimacy to your relationship Forevermore.

They're never going to want to share the, they will remember that feeling forever that you, you cut them down and made them feel less than with something that they shared with you in confidence. Right. Now the next time that they want to share something with you, they will not. No, they won't want to. They built a moat around. There's a wall going up. We hear all the time, the intimacy has gone, the intimacy gone. A lot of times it's because we fought dirty and we've used vulnerabilities in the past against them and they no longer want to share.

Correct. They don't feel less than they don't feel safe to share.

Rule number five, resolve it. Yeah. When you're in the heat of a conflict and you just want it to be over, sometimes it feels easier to just Push past it. I'm done. I'm done here. And I'm not arguing about it anymore. And you storm off and you go your separate ways and it never gets resolved.

And when you, by the time you come back, you pretend like nothing's ever happened. And that might feel okay for a few days or a few weeks, even a few months. Yeah. That's the short term comfort for longterm discomfort because that will rear its ugly head again at some point. But if you deal with it in the moment, It's, it's more uncomfortable in the moment, short term discomfort, but it's long term gain in the end. None of us want to be fighting about the same things over and over and over and over again. You never know when the next argument is going to boil over because you didn't resolve the last one. So it's always just simmering below the surface. So you almost can't predict when the next blow up is going to happen.

You're living on eggshells and nobody wants to be living like that. Yeah. Resolve it, resolve it, apologize and forgive and move on. Hold yourself accountable to the action that the part you played in it. Apologize sincerely and be forgiven and move on.

So let's talk about what resolving it actually looks like because if you've not grown up with having that role model, which most of us have not, how do you actually resolve a conflict? Cause it's tough. You're in the heat of battle. Motions are high. It feels like a lot. And resolving it means moving past it and not rehashing the same thing over and over again, which we hear a lot is like, we argue about the same thing over and over again.

And the reason is because we didn't resolve it. Right. We didn't deal with it in the moment and get past it. Right. So these are some ways to resolving those conflicts so that you're not arguing with the same thing over and over again. The steps to actually resolving it. And the first step is basically what we just talked about.

It's, it's respect. It's always having respect. And the five rules we just went through on what to do when you're in the heat of that moment is how to maintain respect. It's hurling the vulnerabilities back at them, doing all of that stuff that's disrespectful. It's really just to put it simply, the golden rule, treat others how you want to be treated.

If, would you want to be called out of your name? Would you want to have your vulnerabilities attacked in an argument? You want to be yelled and screamed at, right? No, obviously you would not. No, right. So it's just having respect for the other person and treating them exactly how you would want to be treated.

And that just that by itself, just following those first five rules, just keeping the respect is going to make the resolution process so much easier. If you've been name calling and you've been yelling, This gets harder. It's not impossible. It's still possible. You can still do it. It just it's harder So the first step in resolving the conflict is keeping the respect in the conflict.

Yeah second step. Listen. Listen to understand right not to respond because when we're in the heat of an argument I want you to understand my point of view so bad. I want you to see things my way I feel like I'm in the right and I want you to finally acknowledge that I'm over to my side of the fence and say yes, you're right.

Do you ever so when you're explaining your side? Yeah, my brain is going Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's not right. So just finish what you're saying. He's not listening to me. Finish what you're saying so I can explain my side so that you'll finally agree with me. And when I do that, I'm not listening to you. And you're never going to get me to your side because it comes across that way.

A hundred percent. So I'm digging my trench real deep. And you're on the other side of the fence doing the exact same thing. So we're both digging our heels in harder and harder and harder because we're just listening to respond so that you'll get on my side and I'll get on your side. And when we do that, we're actually pushing each other further and further away.

Yeah. The key is that by doing that, they're never coming to your side. They will know you're not listening to their side. They will understand that that's what's happening here. Subconsciously at a subconscious level, though, like, I'm not being heard. I'm not being listened to. I'm not being understood. I'm digging in, she's digging in and we go nowhere.

Correct. Yep.

So step three, find agreement. That only happens if you're actually listening. No matter what you're arguing about, you can find something to agree on. Right. And you will only find that seed of agreement. If you're actually listening. So if I'm just in my head formulating my response so that you can see it exactly the way I do, and then when you stop talking, I start talking, and I talk right over what you just said, I did not pick up anything from you.

I have nothing to start that seat of agreement with. If I'm actually listening to what you say, Then there might be one tiny, tiny grain of sand that I can say, okay, I agree with you on that part, but yeah, well, and that's a good start. Just start there. Find the place where you can agree and align and build from there.

Yeah. And it can be small. It can be very, very small.

Step four, find the solution. again, you have to have listened. You have to have heard their side. You have to understand where they're coming from so that once you do that, you can now start to look towards solutions to the problem that they are bringing forward.

Right. And that you're bringing forward and meeting in the middle and fine. Okay. So you're saying this, I'm saying this, these are slightly different, but what's a solution that can solve this issue that we're both having? Right. And the key to this beyond the listening is the mindset. I'm not trying to win this argument.

I'm not trying to be right. I'm trying to do what's in the best interest of our marriage. The team. The third entity. Team first. It's you, it's me, it's the marriage. The third entity, the team. What's best for the team. So I can only find the seat of agreement to start this resolution from. If I've been listening to you and you can only find out when you've been listening to me.

Once we have that seed and we understand where each other are coming from, we don't agree necessarily, but we understand where the other is coming from. We can see the problem from both sides. Only then can we start to brainstorm what possible solutions could there be. Because that's where you're going to ultimately find success is in focusing on the solution.

You want to hear the problem just to understand the problem, but then you don't focus on the problem because when you focus on problems, you just get more problems. When you, when you just focus on you said this and that that's not true and that that's a problem. Stop focusing on the problem.

You said this. Okay, I get it. That's where your perspective is. Now let's see how we can change that and let's focus on a solution. When you focus on the solution, you'll start to get more creative and figuring out how to get past this problem.

Shout out to the Russian cab episode where we get into this in a little more detail. I'll put whatever episode that I don't remember what number that was, but I'll put it in the show notes. Cause we do talk about that using that story of me leaving my phone in a Russian cab. Fun times. Very fun times.

So those are the steps to resolving conflict. And we also talked about at the beginning that we were going to talk about coming back to resolve without rehashing. Right. Because sometimes when we're in the heat of the conflict, we're not always going to be able to bring it to resolution in that moment.

This is not the time for this. Sometimes we need to take a break. Yeah. And I think one of the rules about taking a break is that we say, I need some time. You don't just storm off and slam a door because again, that leaves your spouse feeling abandoned, unsafe, triggered.

So it's, it's a agreement. I can't continue in this conversation right now. I'm feeling like it's unproductive. I'm feeling hurt. I'm feeling whatever. I'm feeling time to process my emotions. I need time to think about this. Just can we come back? Look, give me a couple hours to sit with this. And then let's come back after dinner and we'll continue this conversation and try to bring it to resolution.

And When you do that, it gives you both an opportunity to process and re hear in your own head what you heard your spouse saying, and it actually lets some solutions come to the surface that maybe wouldn't have come in the heat of the moment. And then it gives you both the chance to prepare for that conversation.

It also removes you from the emotional side. It gives you some time to come down from that emotional high that you were on and that you might now see it from a different perspective so that when you come back to the conversation, you can more clearly see where the other person was coming from and you might be more willing to Get to a place where you're ready to apologize for the part you played in it.

Whereas if you had continued in this high emotional state, you're not ready to see anything. You're, you're angry, you're frustrated, you're whatever it is. You're not ready to see past that that it just escalates from there and goes to a worse place. So it's actually a really, it can be really helpful.

Yeah, exactly. And when you do come back together, there's no need to restart the argument from the beginning. You pick up where you left it off. Okay, so we left with I was upset because of this and you were upset because of that. Did I miss anything? Now let's focus on the solutions. So you, you, you get agreement on the problem you're trying to solve, but you don't rehash the problem.

You don't start the argument from the beginning. It's just, yep, this is where we left it. Now, how are we going to bring this to resolution? What is the solution? How do we figure this out together? Yeah. And then once you've gotten to that place where you're okay, we've gotten to a solution, we're good.

There was still this disagreement. There was still this conflict, the importance of apologizing for the part that you've played in that disagreement, that conflict. And I think, again, we have to refer back to the mindset of It's not about being right. It's about what's in the best interest of the marriage of the team.

There's always enough accountability to go around and your apology for your accountability for the part you played, big or small is not contingent on your spouse's apology. Part of taking accountability is taking accountability no matter what. Yeah, I might think you owe me an apology too, because there's enough accountability to go around.

So there's for sure something you can apologize for, but because there's enough accountability to go around, there's for sure something I can apologize for. What's in the best interest of my marriage is me apologizing, whether you do or not. You just own your part. It's owning my part. Can't do anything about the other person.

Nope. I have zero control over whether or how you apologize, I can only control me. And I know apologizing is in the best interest of our marriage. So I'm going to take that step and apologize. And I'm hopeful that you're going to do the same, but some days you will and some days you might not.

Yeah. But that, that part is irrelevant. It's the, I'm taking accountability for my part regardless of your part. Shout out to our episode on apologizing. Okay. We've done a whole episode on the, on the important episode on its own for sure. We do have a whole episode on what makes a good apology because there are some key elements.

One obviously is taking accountability, but there are some really important elements like not attaching conditions, like expressing remorse, like changing your behavior. There's some really important pieces to an apology and shout out to our episode that we've already done on apologizing and I'll link that in the show notes.

Yeah, yeah, we're not going to go into each one in detail, but those are, those are basically the steps. Yeah, there's, there's five or six, you components to a sincere apology. And if you want your apology to be accepted, a sincere apology is what's required, not like, Oh, I'm sorry if, or I'm sorry but.

Yeah. Those don't count. So a sincere apology is how you're going to be able to be forgiven for your part. And that's the other half of a sincere apology is the forgiveness side. If we want to get past the conflict and someone sincerely apologizes for the part they played or hurting you or whatever, and you've apologized.

Now we need to forgive each other and forgiveness means we're not bringing it up in future arguments, future disagreements, future conflicts. Yeah. But you remember the time you did this and I'm still upset about that. Yeah. But I apologized for that and you forgave me or at least I thought you did. So when you don't, it just brings that back up.

It rehashes an old wound. It picks out a scab and it's just going to do more harm than good. Right. When you've been apologized to. Work really hard to forgive. Yeah, it may not be your knee jerk reaction. Your default step may not be forgiveness and you might need a minute Yeah, depending on how deep that wound is and how how that might take time Yeah, it might and so that that time is time that for you to do the work. Forgiveness is work that you do for you for me to forgive you is Work I do for me and if you're not in a place to forgive Then discuss that in the moment.

Then it's like, I appreciate your apology. I'm not there yet Don't tell them you forgive them and then don't forgive them Just so that you can put it to bed If you can't forgive them in the moment be honest about that discuss that and let them know I'm gonna try really hard to get There but right now it hurts and I'm not there yet. Yeah And that'll do more harm than If you just say, okay, I forgive you for the sake of moving forward from the argument, then you're right back where you were and rehashing things the next time it boils over because you've not actually forgiven. So if you can't forgive in the moment that you receive the apology, that's okay.

That's, that's common. Mm hmm. That just means you have some work to do to work on forgiveness. And that work is yours. If I've apologized sincerely to you, the ball is now in your court to forgive me. That is your work to do to work past whatever it is to then be able to forgive because forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself.

It's not a gift that you give me by forgiving me. I would appreciate it, but it's something that you do for you so that you can move forward and not feel held back by the feelings of resentment, frustration, anger, whatever it is that's, that's wrapped up into this situation. You break the ties on those feelings for you so you can leave that in the past.

A hundred percent.

There's a lot to unpack there. So if you need to listen to this episode a couple of times and go back and, Urge you to do that because we there was a lot of information in here, but we do hear a lot from clients that we keep arguing about the same thing over and over and over again.

So we felt it necessary to do an episode on conflict resolution. So go back, listen to everything you need to. Share this episode with a friend, because everyone deals with conflict, whether it's in their marriage or any other relationship. It's very pronounced in your marriage, obviously. But you deal with it at work, you deal with it everywhere.

Everyone needs help with conflict resolution. So, share this episode with all of your people, because everyone needs the help. Yeah. And if you want to join our Facebook group, it's free. It's yeah, it's a free Facebook group. It's called marriage connection for empty nesters.

Our main focus is helping empty nesters going into the second half of their lives. Make sure that they have the marriage of their dreams so that they can get there. So if you, 45 plus in that general age range and you're going through a marriage that's leaving you less than happy, then join us facebook.

com forward slash groups forward slash Meredith and Craig. And we'd be happy to have you. We share lots of content like this in our group and you'd be surrounded by other people in a similar situation working on the same stuff. Yeah, exactly. That's it for this week. We will catch you next week.

Bye for now. Bye.