Conflict Resolution Strategies to Improve Your Marriage
Navigating conflicts in your marriage can be overwhelming. However, if you can develop better conflict resolution skills, that can enable you to deal with these conflicts healthily.
Conflicts exist even in healthy marriages. Because we are all different, none of us are immune to disagreements. But unfortunately, for many couples, the debates are overbearing and stressful.
This article addresses six conflict resolution strategies to help you improve and handle disputes, which can greatly enhance your relationship.
Communication
Open and honest communication is a critical factor in maintaining a healthy marriage. You and your spouse must learn how to maturely share your thoughts, opinions, and feelings, facilitating productive communication. Resorting to angry shouting matches is not healthy or productive.
When the conversation begins to get tense, one of you must remember to take a step back before things escalate even further. Make things fun. Use a ‘safe word’ that you both can agree on. If a conversation starts to go off the rails, say the chosen word to halt the fiery discussion and perhaps bring on a good laugh.
Perspective
Understanding other people’s perspectives is a powerful tool in cultivating healthy relationships. Conflicts often erupt because a specific word or behavior triggers someone. You can help avoid conflicts in your marriage when you try to understand your spouse’s perspective. First, get to know their personality and why they behave the way they do. Then, find out what words or behaviors trigger them so you can avoid saying or doing those things.
For optimum results, it’s best if you and your spouse embark on this journey of discovery together. However, you can still help to resolve conflicts by learning these things about your spouse and understanding their perspective. And hopefully, your spouse will be willing to understand you and your perspective, resulting in even greater conflict resolution.
Self-Development
zCommitting to your self-development journey can help you improve your conflict resolution skills in your marriage.
One vital step in self-development is to become a more emotionally mature adult. Mature adults respond maturely to people, things, and situations. On the other hand, immature adults react immaturely to people, places, and problems. For example, it’s okay to experience feelings of anger. However, yelling, carrying on, and slamming doors is an immature way of expressing your feelings of anger.
Deadly Emotions, a book by Don Colbert, is an excellent read to help you learn the difference between healthy and unhealthy emotions. It will also help you respond maturely rather than react immaturely.
Journaling can be a great way to express yourself and track what you’re learning through this journey of self-discovery. The more you invest time and energy in personal development, the more you’ll be able to handle conflict resolution in your marriage effectively.
Mindfulness
Practicing mindfulness can cultivate the positive habit of embracing the moment while fully acknowledging your feelings and remaining calm. Maintaining a mindful attitude throughout the day can help improve your interactions with people. As you practice mindfulness more each day, you’ll likely be better prepared when tense situations arise in your marriage.
Instead of reacting immaturely, you can take a breath and respond more productively. It’s also best if your spouse learns to practice mindfulness so they can interact more productively throughout your communication.
Action Plan
Each marriage is unique. You are a unique individual, and so is your spouse. When you come together in marriage, you bring emotional baggage that can positively or negatively impact your relationship. Talk to your spouse about the steps you can take to enhance your conflict resolution skills.
Create an action plan for how and when you’ll work on implementing these steps into your daily journey together. You can implement these steps in whichever order works best for you. For example, you may want to begin working on your communication skills first. However, your spouse might not be ready to embark on this learning process, so you’ll start working on your personal development first. The main point is to communicate openly with your spouse and create the ideal action plan for your specific relationship.
Be More Effective in Enhancing Your Marriage
You can make a difference in your marriage today. You and your spouse can experience a more positive and productive relationship by implementing these five basic steps into your daily journey.
First, commit to becoming a better communicator. Second, try to see things from your spouse’s perspective. And third, decide to embark on a daily journey of self-discovery and improvement. Embrace mindfulness to help you focus on the crucial things in life, like working on your marriage. Work with your spouse to review these steps and create the specific action plan that will work best for your relationship.
Family Law Firm Help
If you find a resolution cannot be achieved and would like to speak with a Family Law Firm, please contact Dalena & Bosh. Our firm of highly dedicated and experienced attorneys is here to lend a hand, discuss, and help you with your next action plan in the best way for you.