Islamic marriage seeks to take two completely separate individuals with different upbringings, thoughts, and experiences and meld them into a single spiritual and social unit.
Even though marriage unites two people, you still maintain your individual identity.
As such, you bring all that you have to offer into this beautiful relationship.
What many people fail to realize prior to marriage is that the intimate nature of marriage truly places a magnifying glass on what makes you who you are.
Due to this magnification, your negative qualities can be highlighted often.
The vulnerability marriage brings heightens the emotional impact of even the smallest actions.
If you are unwilling to recognize this emotional heightening, you risk frequent conflict.
Conflict Management in a Marriage
Frequent marital conflicts are not “bad” in and of itself. But frequent conflict can bring out frequent ways of avoiding conflict.
If these ways are unhealthy, such as yelling, insulting the other, or shutting down, the mercy in the relationship has dwindled.
When these failed conflict resolutions become the norm, research finds that people contemplate the end of their relationship.
Nobody wishes to be in a relationship where they feel disrespected, unheard, and overwhelmed during every conflict.
Love cannot withstand poor conflict management.
If poor conflict resolution is the single-biggest predictor of failed marriages, then what is the most proactive thing we can do? Learn how to resolve conflict effectively.
However, while many conflict resolution methods are effective between friends and even coworkers, they may be difficult to implement between spouses. Why?
It is because, in a marriage, poor conflict resolution isn’t simply the result of not knowing how to communicate.
It is a result of unmanaged and misunderstood emotions.
You may learn the ins and outs of actively listening when your spouse voices a concern.
But if you get so angry that you can’t listen anymore, then your problem isn’t “listening.”
Your problem is that you don’t understand why you are getting so angry or how to manage your anger.
Until your emotions and their connection to the past are understood, you will constantly feel like you are failing to implement good conflict management.
When you find things that bother you (even repeatedly), it may be that the thing that bothers you is not objectively “wrong” or haram. And yet, you find it hard to deal with.
Whether it’s a messy spouse, not knowing when they will arrive home, or something they said to you in a sarcastic tone, their action 1) invokes an emotional response such as feeling angry or disappointed, followed by 2) a decision to bury your emotion or confront it.
If you bury the emotion, it may lead to resentment and disconnection from your partner.
If you confront them, it may lead to a fiery conflict if you both are not skilled at defining your emotions.
In the second part of the article, we will provide you with reflections and questions to help you with your conflict management.
To continue...