Conflict is an opportunity, especially in marriage

We speak in these times in generalisations, and there are always exceptions to every rule.  One rule we can stick to, however, is the concept that in every conflict there is an opportunity — the key one, to refuse the temptation to go down the slippery slope of attacking our partner or escaping whatever ails us or them and thereby never addressing anything.

The imperative with all this is at the extremes — attack at the extremities is assault, violence, murder, and at the other extremity of escape we have the equivalencies of violence that harm the self, and thereby harm others.

Mishandled conflict always has tragic consequences.

There is no place in the concept of the whole of our lives where this has more relevance than in the home and in marriage and in family life.  So much that happens in the home is hidden, and only those in the family know the struggles that are borne, the shames that are withheld, and the guilt to which some feel entrapped within — and there are those, too, who feel entitled to do as they damn well please who wreak devastation.

Anyone who has the capacity to see the opportunity benefit in conflict is a safer person to partner with.  If only they can visualise how conflict can strengthen the marriage and family and the individuals that make the family unit up — when it is worked through — there is indeed hope for life within the home.

But if a person cannot see the opportunity benefit in conflict, being that they can only foresee what they stand to lose and what they need to win, it’s hopeless for the rest of the family.  Each adult has an individual responsibility and each person has the capacity to influence the culture of the family unit as a whole — in every single conflict interaction.

If a person stands convinced that the opportunity benefit outweighs the cost of them sacrificing all their own way, the case for them is compelling, in that, selfish responses to conflict spell the death knell to hope for everyone.  But if one partner does this, they need the other to follow suit.

But if a person cannot see that there really is only one choice for hope, they insist upon journeying the collision course of divorce.

Every marriage partner can hope for cooperation in conflict.

It’s the central idea of love beyond differences in marriage.  Only love gets us beyond our differences.

If conflict is not seen as an opportunity — if a person or people do not have faith that there MUST be opportunity within conflict — then anarchy must surely arise, and chaos is their domain.

A marriage arrangement comes with these ideals, and marriage cannot survive let alone thrive where one party (or both) insist on their own way.  That’s not marriage.  That’s an island of selfdom.

It is for each of us in our conflicts to look up, to cry out to God first and foremost, and say, “God, help us, we’re making a mess of this, and we cannot sort it out without you.”

If both people in the partnership can do that — they can get the log out of their own eye — they can say their sincere apologies — they can agree to start over, to forgive and repent and make things right — the partnership is definitely made stronger.

The doorway through conflict to reconciliation is the passage to peace and the hope of life.

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash