There is no way that a marriage is free in conflicts. On one hand, conflict is actually good for your marriage as psychologist Rini Hapsari Santosa from Enlightmind explained. "It is impossible that two different individuals can be 100% compatible with one another. In this way, conflict becomes essential to give them a chance to get to know him/herself, his/her partner and to reflect their relationship better."
On the other hand, couples generally wish for a harmonious zero-conflict relationship. Even though it is a normal thing, conflict is also possible to be minimized.In order to have a full positive circle inside your marriage, Rini suggested considering to avoid these attitudes to prevent long-drawn conflicts with your spouse.
Not capable of controlling emotion
A skill to control your emotion is possible to be learned and mastered. Before negative emotions burn you out every time you are debating with your partner, learn to get to know yourself better by feeling and expressing your emotions in a precise way.
Violence act
When there is violence in a marriage, both you and your partner have been hurting each other which can even inflict a trauma. In most cases, one of you needs an in-depth healing process.
Underestimate or disrespectful to your partner
An imbalanced relationship can be caused by a different social and cultural context from the husband and the wife. For example, a husband who was forced to do hard works to fulfill the wife's personal needs or a wife who often receives impolite speech by her husband. The inequality in roles can be an underground conflict that triggers a polemic.
Unrealistic expectations
The vast spread of digital information nowadays is able to brainstorm people with a pseudo-ideal image. Not only that, certain myths and beliefs which are different from the real things can also make expectation and reality distant. It can cause a disappointment that leads to ineffective conflicts management. When conflict arises, we sometimes wish to change our partner's characters. This is surely unrealistic. Rini also agreed. "Therefore, it is important for couples to maturely know their own and their couple's personality before committing on a marriage. A character, which has become someone's basic personality, has been settled, and it cannot be changed. However, it can be expressed in a different way depending on the current contexts and situation."
Character differences is not a dead end, according to Rini, because there is always a space for a couple to learn to each other and change their attitudes. When one feels that his/her partner is "difficult", consider these recommendations:
- Delivering feedbacks/opinions at the right time and the concrete way. Focus on expected attitudes and explain comprehensively so your partner can understand well.
- Spare a particular time to talk about important things. A rush or unfocused communication is mostly ineffective. You can conclude the discussion with new improvements both of you should do in the future.
- Show an example of the expected attitudes, so that your partner can see, experience and feel the effects.
