BY BARBARA RAINEY
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust.
PSALM 56:3-4
Perhaps you’ve played the Whack a Mole game—it’s found at many kids’ pizza parlors. The machine pops up plastic moles, and your mission is to beat them back down as fast as they come up. You will learn that conflicts in marriage are like that game; they keep popping up in new places, no matter how hard you work to get rid of them.
Recently, Dennis and I were in another unwanted skirmish over an old issue in our marriage. Same topic, same emotions, round gazillion! I once thought that we should be able to resolve cleanly and permanently all our issues, but I’ve learned that’s not the case. Some issues are not black and white, so they repeatedly pop up.
Over the years of our marriage, our repeated disagreements fit into several categories: parenting values, decision making, money, sex and travel. Our most recent conflict was the old “we’re traveling too much” issue.
Before we were married, Dennis’s mother affectionately called her son a roadrunner, after the cute cartoon character that is always getting away from the coyote. I thought it was sweet. However, I should have paid attention to what she was really implying by that name! It wouldn’t have changed my decision to marry him. But his roadrunner-like enthusiasm for travel, adventure, discovery, and conquering enemy territory has caused more ongoing stress and conflict in our marriage than any other issue.
The “we’re traveling too much” conflict began when I realized we were over-committed. Again. Somehow the schedule monster had eaten up more days than we realized, and we suddenly found ourselves facing the enemy of miscommunication with no escape. I prefer to spend more time at home than Dennis does; Dennis needs me to go with him, support him and do life with him. Neither of us is wrong. Our perspectives are just different. It’s what we do with the clash of those colossal differences that matters.
At the core of this recurring conflict is my fear that I am not really valued for what is important to me. If I perceive that Dennis is constantly scheduling us to the brink, pushing me to my limits, then I conclude he hasn’t heard me, doesn’t get it and, therefore, doesn’t love me. At the same time, if I refuse to adapt, to grow, to risk the stress of following him, then he perceives that I haven’t heard what he needs, I don’t get it and, therefore, I don’t really care about him as a person.
Each time we clash over this issue, we peel away another layer of the “onion.” Each conversation strips off our individual coverings so that we can see ourselves and each other more clearly than we did before. In this conversation, for example, we realized that I need margins in my schedule for different reasons than I did 20 years ago when I was parenting full time, and Dennis now needs my partnership for different reasons, too.
Each time this issue pops up in our relationship, we learn more about each other, and we also return to two critical keys of resolving conflict:
1. We need to discuss our differences with teachable hearts, willingness to change and openness to admit wrong thinking, attitudes and behavior.
2. We need to pray together and trust God through every circumstance and every problem in our relationship.
Our perceptions of ourselves and each other are vastly flawed. We often forget how our selfishness affects how we view our conflicts. In this latest disagreement I saw more clearly than ever before that I need to work on my attitude about following my husband, that I need to rejoice that my husband wants me with him and that I should trust God with this situation that He has given me for my good.
During a recent snowstorm, our office building closed. Dennis and I decided to enjoy every minute of the glittering snow-covered day, so we donned our winter gear and went hiking in the woods. On the way back I paused to catch my breath from an uphill climb. As we stood there panting, he said to me, “I’m not going to push you anymore.” He was talking about the hike, not the travel issue, but I realized in that promise that he had heard me. He allowed me to be who I was in that moment—needing a pause in the action when he didn’t.
Discuss