In the book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by Dr. John Gottman there is a chapter, he discusses two types of marriage problems, perpetual and solvable. Perpetual problems are issues that will be a part of our lives forever in one form or another. Things that you and your spouse seem to revisit time and time again. According to Gottman “69% of all problems in marriage are perpetual.” I think that is pretty accurate in marriages throughout the world. I know I believe it for my marriage. I know that there are problems for us that we go back to, and it seems like they never go away no matter how often we talk about them. Sometimes it makes me just shut down. I don’t want to talk about them and I don’t want to keep bringing them up, but sometimes they are issues that I really want to solve. I realize though that sometimes I am not the most tactful the way I go about talking to my husband about them. I typically use a harsh start-up, which then leads to him being defensive. Once either of those things happens we never get anywhere, and the problem stays the same as it was before, unresolved. In fact after a conversation like that sometimes our situation is worse because now we have negative feelings attached to the problem.
In the book, it shares different keys to help resolve conflicts. The first key it mentions is that “No one is right.” The next key is that “acceptance is crucial” and the last key is “focus on fondness, and admiration.” I think that these are so important to remember in a relationship. If we can learn to use these keys then I don’t believe there will be fewer issues in the marriage but I think that with time it will make it easy to approach issues happening in a marriage. I know that I am grateful for challenges we face in our marriage as it helps us become closer when we are willing to work through them.
No comments:
Post a Comment