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We Have Fights
by Norman and Ann Bales
All About Families


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If you have a picture of our marriage floating along like a sailboat on a calm lake, you have no idea what things are like at our house. We have fights. We don't have kitchen sink fights (the kind where you throw everything in the kitchen sink at each other). We don't usually verbally attack each other, but we do sometimes see things differently and neither one of us is reluctant to express feelings.

We've worked through the big issues like which way the toilet paper goes and how to roll up the toothpaste. We've resolved most of the "what-I'll-take-and-what-I-won't-take-issues." Somewhere along the line we came to the realization that disagreements are not usually about toilet paper, toothpaste and how the socks are supposed to be folded. Those disagreements often make the power issues. It's really about who's going to win. Once we realized that, we came to the conclusion that a lot of things just don't matter.

We don't fight nearly as frequently as we once did. Sometimes our fights really aren't fights at all. Oh, if any passing stranger were to walk in on one of our "discussions" that stranger might think, "Those two really have problems getting along." Several years ago, we came to the agreement that we would make ourselves accountable to each other. Some days, it seems one of the other has a problem with a discharged conscience battery. When that happens the other person agrees perform a conscience "jump start". We nearly always resist the intrusion at first, but we both understand what's happening. It may sound like an explosion to an outsider, but it's really just a part of process of making the conscience engine run again.

In the process, we've learned some things that work and some things that don't. Our list is not complete, but here's a short list.

Things That Don't Work:

• blaming
  
• pouting
  
• attacking
  
• manipulating
  
• dumping
  
• labeling
  
• mind reading

Things That Work

• listening
  
• giving feedback
  
• searching for solutions we can both live with
  
• humility
  
• apologies
  
• "I feel" statements
  
• a "cooling off" period
  
• prefacing your concern with the question, "Have you ever thought about . . . ?"
  
• frequent affirmations and statements of praise
  
• making and effort to practice what you agree to do

It is unlikely that we will pass through this life without experiencing conflict with others, even those whom we love. The apostles walked with Jesus every day for three years. They had opportunity to observe his life, his compassion and his attitudes. Even so they sometimes behaved rather poorly in their communication with each other. At Capernaum, they allowed themselves to get caught up in a power struggle. They actually argued over who was the greatest among them. Jesus "jump-started" their conscience batteries when he said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all" (Mark 9:35). Sometimes marriage conflicts can lead to profitable solutions to certain problems, but it should become clear to us that we have to put power issues in the background if we expect to have productive marriages.

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